Soul Mates (34 page)

Chapter 19

Jim awoke at 6:16am on the nose every single morning. He had an internal alarm clock that one could describe as eerily accurate. His store-bought alarm cloc
k–
the one he used when he was still working as a school teache
r–
was not a necessity, but rather a rarely needed fail-safe for his internal alarm clock.

Jim stood at the counter as he brewed the Black Satin coffee his friend picked up for him while in Sumatra. He thought about how the aroma of the gourmet coffee would rouse his house guest, his brother Nelson, who came to stop over for a visit for a couple of days as he had made his way through New England. There were more unpleasant ways to wake up, and as far as letting his brother sleep in, Nelson informed Jim the night before that he would want to be on the Mass Pike before eight so he could avoid a heavy portion of the morning rush-hour traffic.

Light swooshing footsteps invaded the foyer which connected to the kitchen.

“Hey Nelly, you’re up earlier than I thought you’d be. You know, the
real
bitch part of rush-hour is earlier than eight because most people have jobs that start before nine.”

Silence. The swooshing footfalls stopped and were replaced by the hypnotic breathing rhythm of someone who was clearly asleep. “Nelly?” Jim turned away from his kitchen counter and saw his brother standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “Nelson?” Still, his brother did not answer him, but only stood in the doorway with his eyes glazed and at half-mast with a string of drool hanging from his lip that threatened to break free like an overburdened bungee-chord. “Nelson, you alright?” Jim asked, his voice not completely free of uneasiness. Nelson only stared, seemingly at his brother, as he swayed slightly, keeping his balance so far. “Nelson, quit fucking around. I’
m–
” Jim began to walk towards Nelson just as he spoke…in a sense.

“Bada-natzia, Jim.” Nelson started, still swaying slightly on his feet, but never teetering too close to the angle of repose.

“What? What are you talking about?” Jim asked his brother.

“Lubuz soobie grencho natzia, Jim.” Jim reached the obvious conclusion that his brother was sleepwalking. Somewhat relieved, he let out a quick snort of laughter and approached his brother. Jim began carefully guiding him back to the bedroom in which Nelson was staying, remaining mindful of the myths he grew up with about not waking a sleepwalker, lest you don’t care about being held responsible for that person going insane. Nelson spoke again, and Jim dismissed almost all of it as sleep-talk gibberish.
Almost
all of it.

“Treslock grencho natzia, apoyo-jee.” Jim couldn’t tell what had hit his ear a certain way, but there was
something
there. He mulled it over in his head as he lead his brother back into his bed, Nelson still mumbling, although now incoherently. “
Apoyo-jee
.” Jim questioned to himself.

“Apology?” Jim reasoned as he walked back to the kitchen to fetch a cup of coffee. He poured himself a cup and sipped at the Black Satin as he looked out his window and admired the view of his lakefront backyard; especially the Apollo moon tree.

…

“Apoyo-jee?” Jim asked an empty kitchen. “Not ‘
apology
’, you moron…
Apollo tree
!”

Chapter 20

The year of the grand opening of the Super Chasm, 2029, the state of Nevada laid to rest 167 combatants who took their shots at becoming instant millionaires and fell catastrophically short. Not every fight ended in a fatality, but most did. The
Chutma
, who had a strong presence in the Chasm, saw to it. They had such a reasonable way of explaining things. They even came up with the idea of constructing a garden on east side of the venue which held in its center a monument that spectators and fans of the Chasm inappropriately dubbed the Wailing Wall. The monument was an ongoing project which held the names of the fallen warriors who came to do battle in the Super Chasm and had paid the ultimate price that attached itself to a loss in the decagon.

It was here that Tyler would come to walk at night when the venue was closed to contemplate and to reassess. To
constantly
reassess. To reassess what? Everything, of course

Tyler, now in the public eye, was now a beneficiary of the perks which came with that status. Unfortunately, he was also the recipient of the negative attention the public eye attracted, and in this controversial business of his, there was plenty. Tyler was truly the Yin and the Yang. He craved symmetry. Call it a quirk, idiosyncrasy, OCD, whatever you prefer, but Tyler needed it. So when it came to reading his fan mail, of which there was an abundance, he also read his hate mail, of which there was also no shortage. Tyler had heard the praise and had also heard the vilest venom the human mind could concoct. The receipt of death threats shifted from sporadic to frequently, and one of the things Tyler laughed foolhardily and dejected at was how he had received so many death threats that he no longer feared them. It merely became the cost of doing business…of doing lucrative business. Tyler and Lilith stopped checking the prices of things before they purchased them at the end of the first year of business for the Super Chasm.

A routine that seemed to bring Tyler some comfort was finding the vilest and most venomous piece of hate mail he could and taking out with him on his walk through the garden to incinerate it in one of the metallic ash trays that were built into the garbage cans that sporadically lined the garden pathway. But the routine had not provided the veil of comfort on one particular day. Three years and eight months after the Chasm doors welcomed its first combatants, 403 of them were now deceased and immortalized on the garden monument.

The sanctity that the “Memorial Garden
”–
I refuse to blaspheme the actual wailing wal
l–
provided Tyler was shaken this particular night. Despite the black blood that coursed through the veins of the ever so prevalent
Chutma
, they
did
hold regular benefits to assist military veterans, the under privileged, and so forth. If I was prone to wagering, which I am not, I would say that these benefits were held for the purpose of quenching the fires that burned in the citizens who opposed the Super Chasm before their emotions bubbled over. I imagine that tax benefits claimed a significant portion of their reasoning as well.

On this particular night, the Super Chasm raised over $350,000 for the Fallen Soldier Foundation. Initially, Tyler was to give a speech at the gathering, but he had consumed three too many whiskey and sodas. Tyler, despite having notoriety and more money than he could ever know what to do with, entered his own pit of despair in his mind. Lilith said a few words in his stead to a captivated audience who hung on every syllable. Charming, poignant, and insightful was child’s play for Lilith. The bigger the audience, the better. The Chasm on that night was filled to the typical 15,000 person sold-out capacity.

After the checks were written, cash was exchanged, and the cleanup crew was out in full force, Tyler and Lilith took a late-night stroll through the Memorial Garden while Jayson took care of the event wrap-up and public relations.

“Hitting the hooch a little hard lately, huh?” Lilith accused. But Tyler said nothing. He just continued his stroll with her at a lazy pace, continuing to take mindless sips of a fresh cocktail as he stared straight ahead with lifeless eyes and his tie loosened sloppily. “You know, we probably raised a few hundred thousand dollars tonight. A few hundred thousand dollars will pay for a lot of treatment for these brave men and women. Least we could do for their sacrifice, don’t you think?”

“Lilith, you’re talking to
me
now, no audience to seduce. Look around you,” Tyler flailed and chuckled mildly as he spilled some of his fresh drink in his intoxicated gesticulation.

“What do you mean?” Lilith asked, the trace of a smile previously displayed on her countenance was now nowhere to be found.

“Ah, fuck it,” Tyler chuckled and took another sip of his drink.

“I asked you a question. What did you mean by that?” Lilith stepped closer.

Not being able to hold it in any longer, Tyler barked fire at his wife. “What do you
think
I mean!? You lied to me! You fucking
lied
to me!”

As cool as a commercial pilot she answered, “What did I lie to you about?”

“This! All of
this
!” Tyler half spun, arms extended, presenting the property they were currently surrounded by and spilling more of his drink on the walkway. He collected himself. “This was supposed to be a
fighting
arena, a
sport
! Not ancient fucking Rome! Don’t even try and tell me different. That’s what this is. I know the angles you’re going to try and play to convince me otherwise too,” he pointed at her accusingly with the hand that secured his beverage. “You’ll say, ‘but Ty, the contenders can give up any time they want to, they don’t
have
to fight to the death.’ Or, ‘but Ty, people have died while engaged in other contact sports. Save it!” Tyler stuck his finger in Lilith’s face.

“Are you done?” Lilith asked.

For the first time, Tyler looked as if he
really
wanted to hit her. He
was
done, but since she had asked him if he was done, he could not possibly be done.

“You and Jayson have made it so that these matches will almost always result in someone being killed. You recruit sub-human
savages
and fighters desperate for money to fight in our arena, knowing that they will go to the end. How could you do that? We pay our bills with blood money, and I’m going to start having a say in who gets a shot to contend in the Chasm.”

Lilith, previously only a few feet away from her husband exploded forward so fast that he thought she simply materialized before him. Alcohol slows motor function, and one’s eyes are no exception, so Tyler chalked it up to that. He was too stunned to think about it anyway. In one fluid motion, as she dashed forward towards her husband, she slapped the crystal rock glass out of Tyler’s hand with amazing precision, shattering it against the memorial wall behind him and stood less than an inch from him; what would have been nose to nose if Lilith matched Tyler’s height a little better.

“Next time you stick your finger in my face, I’m going to remove it from your hand. You will
not
be assisting Jayson with recruiting. You’ll be doing what you have been doing: running the day-to-day operations with me and smiling for the goddamn camera. I-
we
-have worked very fucking hard to make this work and now that it is, you think I’m going to let you fuck with our system? No way, Ty-my-guy, uh-uh, no fucking way.”

No sooner than Tyler began to utter a syllable, he was shut up again.

“The death threats, right? The death threats will come no matter what. There are a lot of maniacs out there. Authors, actors, athletes, your average joe, musicians, fucking doctors, they
all
receive death threats!” But it was not about the death threats themselves, per se. For Tyler, it was more about the fact that he had done something to stir up so much rage in someone that they would threaten him and his family at all. After all, this was the entertainment business, not the police work he had left behind. Lilith collected herself.

“Look, your opinion matters to me, it does, but we have established a brand and a precedent. We can’t change what we’re doing now. We’ve worked too hard, took
huge
risks to get here. We left promising careers, and that can’t be for nothing. I won’t allow it.”

Tyler looked down with a sigh and shook his head. He lost this battle and he knew it. He was stuck. What could he do?

“Hey,” Lilith started and lifted his chin so his eyes met her stony blue gaze. “Let’s kiss and make up.”

Poof! And just like that, everything would was fixed. Her kiss
always
provided temporary relief, like a well-placed cortisone shot. I’ve explained this to you before. Like any reliable form of transportation, Tyler just needed a tune-up every so often.