In that black place on the river where even the full moon does not penetrate, Jacob stood knee deep in the current near the bank. He gripped the backpack with his thumb between his shoulder and the strap. The administration would be calling the authorities soon. He had to start moving but reflection heaped on him the importance of this moment. This act could never be undone. A new and inescapable beginning lay before him and he stopped for a brief respite, not hesitation but recognition. Reverence. Dr. Scott had shown him the scripture and explained the flaw in the theology, the thousands of years of misinterpreted text. Hell did not exist. Not for humanity, at least. It was a fabrication run amok and the result opened for Jacob the clearest picture of reality he had ever known. If the result of sin was oblivion then he would gladly let his lust for revenge hurl him there. Destruction struck him as a weak and toothless punishment. Destruction meant rest. A satin riot of hot color shimmered on the young eastern horizon as he kicked water from his pants and wormed deeper into the ribbons of fog marbling the floodplain. A two lane highway lay some three miles ahead. If his navigation held, a gas station and bus stop wouldn’t be much farther. The mixture of coins and cash he stole from the lockbox under the auditorium stage would get him close enough to his final destination. By the time his eventual pursuers found him, it would be too late. Too late for everyone. Faces on the bus, their profiles needled into the muggy void beyond the glass, struck him as alien. In his waddle down the aisle, he realized why. Their ages spanned the gulf between the ancient members of school faculty and the smooth infancy of his peers. The only person from this vaster demographic he could remember in any detail was a man from some unknown government agency whose visits to the school prompted harried preliminary action among the staff, roaches racing from the light.
The light. The way. Jesus. Jacob had hammered down any intrusions from Christ since he made the decision to slide down the drain pipe outside the kitchen window. No more talk of forgiveness. No more do unto others, etcetera. Justice. Revenge. Oblivion. If there is a cosmic structure, it doesn’t include justice, not the retributive kind that all the other faculty preached. Until now the only justice Jacob had known was petty and small. Demerits, detentions, cleaning toilets. According to the radio, Nixon would never see justice. Stalin never looked justice in her clouded eyes. Now with the veil drawn back by Dr. Scott, the responsibility fell to Jacob. Only the corporeal realm contained chains of consequence. Jacob felt unique in his acceptance of his place within it. He doubted any other person riding that bus fully understood their position in the universe. Not like he did. Not the man with the floppy hat bent against the window, his locks spiraling in greasy akimbo over the crest of his seat. Not the fat guy reading Life Magazine behind him. Not the couple huddled so close they appeared as a single pathetic creature. The only individual who gave Jacob hope sat shoulders to the glass, her face suspended in study of the fully realized morning in the windows across the aisle. He could not estimate her age. He only knew she wasn’t old and yet not as young as himself. Her long neck gave him pause. Her long smooth neck. It travelled deep into her shirt where Jacob could not fathom. Her lips pursed above her perfect chin, below her slow blinking eyes. Just as a deep vibration began in his crotch, she glanced back at him. A fishhook of instinct jolted him away. Hot blood flooded his cheeks. If it had been his choice, he wouldn’t have looked back. When he did, he saw her golden hair. A type of gold written about in verses of the Old Testament. Holy gold. The gold of sacred objects. The gold of divine paths. A gold that propagates light. Jacob had recently become aware of his tendency to flip through memories only seconds old and for incomprehensible reasons this moment provided hundreds of knife edged reflections. Her eyes surveying, her face concealing emotion. Was she looking for something specific? Something lost in the spin of the planet? The memories transmuted to haze. He yearned for her to continue her search of the speeding mural outside. He had lost the taste of her face. Somewhere behind him a window slid down with a clack and an energetic gust raced past his face. Petrichor and the sound of speed flooded the compartment. She rose from her seat and in a single stretch of her dungarees arrived across the isle where she leveled her eyes again into the passing trees and hills. Jacob sat fixated. He contemplated the travel of the swirling air and how the same air that touched her hair also touched his face. This contact felt important. Significant. Or even symptomatic. It was then Jacob became aware of the change in the texture of their ride. A rumble ensued beneath the bus. He looked at the back of the driver’s head and saw an increased gyration and sway about the links between his shoulders, neck, and head. Jacob pressed his temple against the window and peered with difficulty at the shoulder of the road. In a velvet explosion of uncertain origin, the voice filled his head, This must be a poor county. Jacob froze. He could not turn his head but his eyes obeyed his need to see whomever spoke and they found her as a towering albeit flabbergasting reality staring at him from the next seat. The road changed the moment we passed that county sign back there, she said. Must be where the poor people live. Jacob wanted more than anything in the world to simply breathe. No breath came. Roads are a sure fire way to spot poor places, she explained. The memories of her first words showered him with unseen dread, their echo circling him like a whip of shadow. Potentialities drowned any response he might muster. Where I grew up, there were only two roads that even had curbs. I don’t remember how many paved streets we had but it wasn’t a lot. She brought her face about, as if she had just finished explaining some step in some process and now watched him for signs of comprehension. The weight of her green eyes rested on him and he exhaled the bit of air still trapped in his chest. Where are you from? she asked. Even if a coherent answer to the question formed in his mind, he couldn’t have vocalized it. You don’t look like most folks I’ve met around here, she continued, almost as if the preceding inquiry rhetorical. He could smell her now. The dusty fragrance of a flower he had never seen. Is this dirt on your shirt? She flicked a thick chunk of dried mud from his elbow and it made the sound of a pebble when hit the floor. Keeping your clothes clean can be a challenge on the road, she said. It’s important though because when people know you’re a traveler, they immediately judge you by how clean they are. My brother, he said, the words burst from his lips and untethered him from the initial bondage of her presence. I’m sorry? I’m going to see my brother in San Fransisco. It wasn’t a lie per se. Cool, man, the words mirrored her sudden smile. We’ll ride the whole way together. I’m catching a ride on a cargo ship to Hawaii. Are you from there? No, he said. The fact that Jacob didn’t know where he was from never failed to grate on him when people who did have a place of origin inquired about his. What’s your brother doing in San Fran? A future burst into his mind, black and hot, stinking of death. He felt the tears rising in his eyes. He turned his face to the window. Is he working there? she prodded again. He’s dead, he said and the brute fact of it eased the pressure of tears and they receded to wherever tears hide when they don’t come gushing from one’s eyes. Oh shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-- It’s okay. He died about a month ago. I’m just gonna go see where they buried him. Man, that’s sad. Are you okay? The genuine concern in her voice pulled his eyes to see her. Her beauty struck him as inestimable. Its monumental size and volume impossible in the world he inhabited. Nothing could be this glorious. Not here. Not now. I’m okay, the first words he spoke directly into her face. They echoed into the vastness of her gorgeous presence. I didn’t mean to bring anything up that would… She bit her lip. You like candy? She lifted a military green bag from the aisle and began rummaging. I have some butterscotch in here I think. He couldn’t remember that last time he had candy of any kind. Then he considered the origin of this spontaneous offer. He was a kid. His frustration with this realization puzzled him. She handed him the tiny gold puck wrapped in cellophane and watched him as if the candy were somehow pharmaceutical. He took it without opening it. He gripped it in his fist. Clinched it. Your parents? No parents. I never knew them. I see. I don’t think they were good people. What makes you think that? They told me so at the home. They told me they abandoned me and my brother, told me we were better off without them. That sounds terrible. Wonder how they justified that garbage. God. Excuse me? They told me they weren’t right with Jesus so… Hmh. And you believe in all that? God? He felt the smooth goo of guilt squeezing through the gaps. I do, he said. I have to. But I don’t believe in all of it. Not like most people do. I don’t believe in all of it. It is a pretty outlandish thing to believe. You don’t? No. She stared at him staring at her. I mean not in the god you believe in. He raised his eyebrows at her. He had heard of other religions but he certainly didn’t know anything about them. Wow. She smiled. I haven’t had to think this hard about this sort of thing in a long time. Ah. Tell me, she said, what part of it do you not believe? Hell. Ooh. Yeah, that’s one of the shitty parts, right? You worry about Hell? I used to. Not anymore? No. Dr. Scott. He teaches History at the school. He showed me that Hell was a mistake. A mistake? Yeah. Hell isn’t real. He told me that when the people who translated the Bible, they got it wrong, it just stuck. There is no Hell for people. When people die and don’t go to Heaven, they just die. Yeah, I’ve heard that. Annihilationism. I met a Jehovah’s Witness once. He told me all about it. Jehovah’s Witness? Yeah. Never heard of a Jehovah’s Witness? Weirdos. He turned back to the window. You’re all weirdos if you ask me, she said. What do you believe? he asked, lost in the streak of motion outside. I believe in what I see, I guess. I believe in solid touchable things. I try to, anyway. It can be difficult to figure all that out. You seem to be having a lot of trouble figuring out what you believe too. Yeah. He caught her scent again. The gravity around him eased slightly. I worry that God will hate me forever. Yikes. He’s always there. He’s everywhere. All the time. I don’t know if I can—. It doesn’t matter. There’s a word for it. Omniscient. Yeah, that’s the word that Dr. Scott said. It means he’s aware of everything that’s happening, all the time. It’s a funny word. It’s one of those words that sounds all official and correct but what it means—what it describes—doesn’t make sense, ya know. What? Well, if you sit down and really think about it, how could it be real? There are some real problems with the idea of it. Like Buddhists think the Buddha is kind of omniscient. What’s a Buddha? Oh brother, she rolled her eyes and smiled. That sense that she saw him as a helpless child returned and he felt his shoulders shrink in on him. I’m sorry, she said. It’s just that you asking me who’s the Buddha feels the same as someone asking who Jesus is. Oh. So here’s the thing. The notion that a single person—not a person, right—a single mind, let’s say, could actually be a mind as we know it and still be able to see things the way people say God sees them, all of everything, all the time, is kind of stupid. I mean part of having a mind means having to tend to things as they come. It’s like saying you can read a book in a split second. Maybe you could consume all the words, maybe you could get them all in the right order. But could you know what the book was really about, as a mind, as an understanding, contemplating individual? I don’t know. Yeah, me neither. Anyway, Buddhists think—Buddhists are like Christians are to Jesus—everything that Buddha needed to know for any question or problem was available to him whenever he needed it. This ray shoots out of his third eye in his brain and he looks across the universe in a single moment and then the real work begins. He has to work out what he just saw. Now they say it doesn’t take very long but he works it out. That’s how they think you can have a god that can be omniscient and still be like a person, a person with a normal type of relatable character. The Buddha has a third eye that shoots out a ray? Jacob asked her with sincere curiosity. Well, that’s what I was told when I asked a Buddhist about it but I also read somewhere that the Buddha didn’t want his followers to ever think of him as a god at all. Wild. Very wild. So this guy could shoot some beam out of his mind to find answers to questions but he didn’t want anyone to think he was a god? Yeah. I’ve never thought about there being other gods. I mean, we read some Greek myths and stuff but it never seemed like people would have ever believed any of it. Right. The Olympians were crazy. Zeus was always raping chicks and dudes were flying around with wings made of wax. Weird shit. He raped women? Sure. Lightning bolts and rape were his whole groove, man. Trip out. What do you think other people think about Mary and her virgin birth? She made facetious little hooks with her fingers when she said the word virgin. What do you mean? I mean, what do you think other people think when they hear that stuff for the first time? I bet some people think that ol’ Yahweh had to get that seed in there somehow. She winked at him. Hot blood filled his cheeks again. Am I offending you when I say stuff like that? No, it’s just… I know, she said with a jaunty bounce in the seat. It’s kind of a jolt when someone gives you a different look. A new angle. Yeah. I never thought about it not just being the way things are. Things are all kinds of different ways, man. Hindus think of a god that is pure ultimate consciousness and whoa—like that opens all kinds of trouble. A thing that is nothing but consciousness could not think—she made the little hooks again—of anything else but thought itself, right? What good is that? His breath had slowed. As if he were floating in saltwater as warm as his body, he floated next to her yet was unaware of how open reality had become as she revealed these things. He was oblivious to the great chasms of uncertainty and possibility that lay before him. How did he die? And he returned to the fuselage of the bus, the nuts and bolts of it rattling in his ears. The war? I don’t know. You don’t know how he died? Drugs. Oh. But he was over there. Yeah. That’s been happening all over. I met a dude in Chicago who had been back from ‘Nam for almost a year who finally jumped off a building. Sad. He told me he couldn’t sleep without seeing it all over again. Loud noises or even certain words would make him think he was back in it. Very sad. Was he on drugs? Sure. He tried to cope with drugs and booze. It just screwed him up more. Oh. Was he hurt? Hm? You mean like was he wounded? Yeah, he lost an arm. Had plastic one. It worked pretty good as far as I could tell. Was yer brother wounded? He was in a wheelchair. Oh wow. I think he got shot in the back or something. He couldn’t move his legs. I only saw him a couple of times before he died. He came to the school to see you? Yeah. He looked different. He didn’t look like my brother. That happens. I’m really mad about it. I imagine you are. It’s okay to be angry. That’s not what Jesus says. Uh-huh. They told us that Jesus wants us to forgive people. That’s important. But there’s some folks I can’t seem to forgive. Like your parents? No. Who then? Not your brother, I hope. I can’t hate my brother. The man who talked my brother into joining the army. I hate that guy. What? Like a recruiter? Yeah. A real sleaze. Your brother wasn’t drafted? No, that sleaze talked him into it. He came all the way from San Fransisco to talk the older boys into joining up. The home probably has him in a Rolodex. None of the other guys even thought about it. They all made jokes about it. Sounds like your brother was looking for an escape. I begged him not to do it. We had always talked about him getting out and finding us a real place where we could be a family. Then that bastard promised him all kinds of stuff. Told him the war was different now. People like that should be punished. I really hate that guy. I mean I really, really hate him. A sudden ignition swelled within him. Fire. His fists clenched and those tears that had retreated now seeped into freedom. An origami of anger formed in his gut and he felt heavy and uncomfortable under her now constant eyes. He wanted to bolt from the seat and run but there was no escape from the bus, no escape from her. Visions of his destination stalked him. No more fire. No more cold. No more hatred or regret or struggle. In his vast future all dimensions came to a single point, both an end and unfathomable beginning on a plain so void of features that the mirror reflection of itself spanned eternity. Infinity so blank it destroyed itself. Oblivion. Annihilation. This home is an orphanage? The one where you’re from? I guess. You’ve been there a while? Almost as long as I can remember. And you’re going to the big city to see your brother’s grave. Maybe talk to whatever stone they put up? Jacob wiped his face. Yeah, probably. I miss him so much. This orphanage, pretty rough place, I guess. It’s the pits. I bet it’s difficult not having anything of your own. Like money. I’m guessing your brother didn’t have much he could spare. Nothing. I knew a guy who was in prison. He had to find all kinds of ways to get what he needed. What was he in prison for? He called himself a hustler. But that just meant he was a con-man. He was a smart guy. Taught me a few things. She leaned into the seat in front of her and looked at Jacob in such a way that he felt compelled to look her in the eyes. It must be hard to get what you need in an orphanage. It seems like some place like that needs an economy like they need in the prison. Jacob had heard one of the teachers at the home use the word economy a few times but he only had his own presumptions about its meaning. You gotta have ways to exchange and get stuff, right? she said. Yeah, there’s all kinds of borrowing and trading going on. I figured. But none of that works out here. Gotta have the real stuff. Gotta have coin. She made friction with her finger and thumb. Out here you need this to get by and in there you need this or that, there’s always a connection to switch one to the other—if it’s anything like I was told about jail. It’s all about value. What someone holds valuable can be exchanged for something you think is valuable. But then I suppose that home had to use money—real money—somehow. Yeah there was money some places, he said. The fact of his breakout sobered him and he realized it was time to limit his responses lest he reveal too much. But she had stopped talking. She seemed lost in the space above them, the gap between their heads and the strange color of the ceiling of the vehicle. It was a dingy silver, the gloom of evening clouds. He even saw the shapes of clouds in it and he felt sure she saw them too. She sat there spying them without a sound, without a breath. Then, as if a statistically impossible ray of warm found him, he felt her hand on his shoulder. A liquid warmth, heavy yet comforting, solid yet soft. I want you to do something for me, she said. He had closed his eyes after she touched him and he sat lost in the glaze of it. First, she continued with a bit more insistence, I need you to look at me. He opened his eyes and found her unspeakable beauty bearing down on his entire being. What? I need you to put your finger in my mouth. The question made no sense. It barely sounded coherent. Almost another language. He began to say something but she stopped him. No, no. Don’t say anything. If you say anything, this won’t work. Just put your finger in my mouth. An electric vibration raged in his groin. Come on. Just lift it in here. And she pointed at her impossible lips. He wanted to cry again but the feeling left him immediately. Fighting through a terrible hesitation, he raised his hand to her mouth. Go on. He pointed. He checked her expression. She gave him a look of unwavering encouragement. He inserted the digit and she closed her lips around it and gently sucked it into her mouth, one knuckle then the next. The pain from his awkward erection riddled him as she closed her eyes. The sensuous caress of her tongue destroyed him and he moaned. As he did, she laughed a muffled laugh through her nose and looked at him as the world around him collapsed into meaningless geometry. She removed him from her mouth with a pinch of her thumb and middle finger. Her face had changed. The sadness there rose from within her expression, not merely the cause of the shapes in her cheeks or her eyes but an amplifier. A fire fueled by something unseen. This is a very sad story, Jacob. Had he told her his name? I’m very sorry for everything that has happened to you. A tear leaked from her eye. I’ve seen a lot of sad stories but this one is damn sad. Lordy. Somehow he understood her cognizance. She knew everything. One thing you should be sure of—which I don’t think you are really—is that your brother loves you very much. He loves you so very much. He is a beautiful person—you didn’t tell me how handsome he is. But when certain pieces of the puzzle—the puzzle of a person—are removed or get lost or torn up, they just can’t be who they were before. It’s impossible. He really wants you to know that he loves you more than anything. How do you know that? Jacob said. How do you know my name? Please don’t ask me any questions about it, how it works, or we’ll lose it. I’ll lose it. Like trying to remember a dream, ya know? She shook her head as if to sling the powder of his doubt from her. You can’t do this thing, Jacob. You can’t go through with it. Her eyes bore through him into meat of his mind. And I don’t mean you shouldn’t do it. I mean you can’t. You’ll get caught. You’ll fail and then it all goes to shit. Your story will turn even sadder. You don’t know that. I do though. I see it plain as day. People don’t understand how fate works. I do and unfortunately—or fortunately, funny how there’s a fine line between the two—it’s circumstance that makes all the difference. What do you mean? I mean the smallest detail can change not just the mechanical part of something but the course of something. The incredible nature of this conversation boiled in his mind and he sunk into his seat. Listen, she told him then leaned to whisper as if others on the bus were eavesdropping, your plan only works if you succeed in killing this guy. When you fail—and you will fail—you end up in a place way shittier than that other place. You end up in a place way more difficult to escape from. No cash boxes and convenient ways to shimmy down outside walls, if you know what I mean. He did know what she meant. He couldn’t fathom how he knew or, far more inconceivable, how she knew. He sat in shock of it all for long enough that the moment became a silence between them. He hadn’t realized but at some point she had reached out and held his hand. He realized the warmth of her again, understood that this connection had given him a respite from the anxiety. Soaking in it, he watched the trees and the roll of the land outside the bus. The rumble of the world kept going just as it had before this miraculous occurrence. The universe hadn’t changed at all as he thought it had moments before. In fact, nothing had changed except a minor convergence. What if I don’t let them put me in that shitty place? he said. I figure they’ll kill me. You’re not listening to me, Jacob. They won’t kill you. They’ll do much worse than that. What if I kill myself? After, I mean. We’re back on the annihilation thing again? No Hell. No Hell. It would be over. Forever. Can I tell you something? Yeah. You’re sixteen? No, Seventeen. How do you know all of this? Do you not realize how much love there is in this world? What? All that Jesus stuff they pumped into your brainpan and you don’t realize how much love there is? I don’t understand. You will not meet all the people in this world who will love you if you die now, Jacob. He looked at her perfect face. Her exquisite eyes. Her skin as pristine as anything that ever existed. If you die, all that love will be gone. You don’t know that anyone will ever love me. Jacob, I can without any doubt in my mind promise you that people will love you. She grabbed his jaw and straightened his gaze into her face. Jacob, I love you. I love you and I will not let you do this. Neither I nor any of the hundreds of people in your future are going to let you do this. Do you hear me? Do you understand me? Now that we have met, now that all the veins of history from the beginning of time have brought you and I together, not only will I not let you do this, there is nothing in the world that can prevent me from stopping you. He began to cry. Not just cry but bawl. He howled. She embraced him and squeezed him with an undefined strength, a strength without end or equal. A voice from the head of the bus called out, Hey back there! What’s going on back there? Mind your own business, skipper! she told the driver. We just got a little catharsis going on back here. Don’t mind us. Everything’s fine. So, in that seat, they traveled for many miles as the sun rendered and rerendered the outside world and he cried in her arms with his eyes closed. They rode entangled for so long that Jacob might have forgotten why or where or who might be the reason for his circumstances if not for the sudden halt of the bus. He raised his head and looked outside. For a moment he thought they had landed back at the same gas station where he boarded but the trees were different and the sign in the window was not the same. Here, she said just as he realized he was drenched in the smell of her, grab your bag. Let’s get you cleaned up. You stink like a river rat. She took his hand and towed him as a truck tows a trailer down the aisle and down the steps, past the pumps and around the corner of the cinder block structure into a small restroom where she started the water in the sink and told him to strip down. All the way, Jacob, she said as he stood in his sagging briefs. She produced a clean rag from her bag. She soaked it with water and applied a generous coating of the dirty bar soap from the sink. Apparently not phased by his unruly erection, she scrubbed him with aggression and purpose. Initially his wagging member horrified him and he tried to think of anything but her unbearable beauty or his persistent lapse into lust. See if you can fit that thing into these. She handed him some black jeans that proved a size too big but, as if part of the plan, she produced a canvas belt to hold them pleated at his waist. That incessant flood of proximate memories flashed their knife edges at him again. Her face, her voice. Her hurried directives. Her decisiveness. All of it infected him and began to move like her and for all he could tell, think like her. They needed speed. They could not dally. He took the lumberjack patterned shirt she handed him and it was on before he could think of anything else. He slipped his sneakers over his bare feet and he slung his bag over his shoulder as she opened the door. Is that bag full of other clothes from that orphanage? He didn’t answer. He opened it and flung the garments in the air and fastened the opening again, glancing back at them draped like molted skins over the toilet and paper dispenser. Then they were back on the bus. And he caught the edge of one of those knives, a reflection of the inside collar of one of those institutional blue shirts. He saw it scrawled in permanent ink, his name left there behind the door soon to be tossed in a dumpster or gathered up by some other traveler or some agent from some random institution taxed with finding runaways. I wanna change my name, he told her hours later as the bus pierced the charcoal void ahead of them. Her drowsy, adorable eyes turned to him. She smiled. Now you’re thinking, man. Good idea. I want you to do it. Oh no. Not gonna carry that weight. I don’t even know your name. Do I need one? Do you need one? He looked up at the darkened sky mimicked in the ceiling. The road rumbled under the brawn of the machine. Ever forward. Thrusting through the infinity. Impervious to the unknown just beyond. I wouldn’t know which one to tell you, she said. How about this, let’s trade. Trade? You come up with a new name for me and I’ll do the same for you. He sat for a very long time listening to the road. She had begun to snore quietly next to him, drenching him again with her scent. Soon he was dreaming of green places and warm water. Golden places. Stars. Fires at dawn.
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November 2024
![]() Chrysalis, a growing collection of very short fiction.
![]() That Night Filled Mountain
episodes post daily. Paperback editions are available. My newest novel River of Blood is available on Amazon or Apple Books. Unless noted, all pics credited to Skitz O'Fuel.
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