Caphar
01-19-2008, 12:03 AM
The hotel was the last straw.
The day had been one long, seemingly unending series of bad choices and worse luck. The hotel manager stood in front of Jake Braswell, head lowered and shaking.
“I apologize for the inconvenience Mr. Braswell, but your reservation was not confirmed.”
Jake took a deep breath and tried to compose himself. “I’ve already showed you the reservation from the net. You’ve talk to the travel agent from said company. So what’s your problem?"
He didn’t really mean to yell at her but the agitation was overwhelming. Clouds were forming outside. The car was parked away from the front door and there was no valet service.
“Mr. Braswell, I have told you about the hotel policy -”
“I don’t care about policy I care about the room. I paid for it, I want it!” Jake paced as he railed. “You don’t understand lady. I -”
“No you don’t understand,” the attendant snapped. “You’re not getting a room. You booked it for yesterday. You weren’t here yesterday. So you won’t get it today.”
Her turning on her heels and leaving the front desk punctuated the finality of her statement. Jake stood in silence for a moment not sure how to respond. Outside the wind began to pick up, blowing through the mimosa trees that lined the walkway to the door. The first drops of water had not fallen. He still had time.
Jake walked toward the front door, evenly paced at first then faster. By the time he reached the final mimosa tree he was at a dead run. Instinct screamed for him to stop. He pulled up abruptly and a large splash of water splattered on the ground at his feet. It missed him but only by fractions of an inch. Jake sidestepped and nearly tripped avoiding the minute puddle. He reached the door of his pickup, fumbled with the keys and dove head first into the seat as the first layer of drizzle raked across the windshield. Using a claw hammer under the seat he pulled the door closed.
Jake gave himself the once over. So far as he could tell there no dark patches on his clothes. The examination was thorough as that of a leper doing a visual extremities check. No thread was left unexamined; no stitch was overlooked. Jake could feel the irrational paranoia settle over him. He knew it was absurd, knew his thinking was flawed, but could do nothing about it.
The gathering storm had arrived in earnest. Night came earlier this day as the thunderstorm forecast for evening arrived. A wall of liquid slammed into the front glass. Jake started involuntarily. It was reflex by now, even if it was just Mr. Lansdale washing off the front of his apartment building. The water from a hose wouldn’t have bothered him, but the sound of rain did. Everything about the rain did. It was irrational, ridiculous even marginally insane. But Jake could no more allow rainwater to touch his skin than battery acid.
Onibrophobia.
Jake had lived with the word since he was eleven. He remembered waking in a hospital, tubes and wires running away from his body. He had gone to sleep in the living room watching television. His mom was making him a peanut butter sandwich. Dad was putting boards on the windows. Then Jake heard the train noise. It got louder and louder until it sounded like it was in the house with them.
Then darkness.
Jake opened his eyes to a world where he was homeless and without family. Doctors shuffled in and out of his room for days in the aftermath of the storm, talking about the miracle boy who beat the odds. Jake would not find out until his teenage years what they meant.
§
Now it was raining sideways. Jake was stuck in his truck in a thunderstorm, in a strange town. Tuscaloosa was not exactly a metropolis, covered with massive skyscrapers, but a sprawling college town along the Black Warrior River. There were other hotels possibly one with a valet and a covered entry. Though he didn’t want to get too far away from the hotel and the college area in general, he knew there were no other places to stay in the immediate area. Without a map of the city, Jake decided to wing it.
After two turns that led him down old mill villages, Jake found himself crossing the Black Warrior River into Northport. The rain was unrelenting, sheets of it pouring over the windshield, frantic wiper blades trying to keep pace. As he reached the opposite side of the bridge, Jake found a barbeque restaurant just off Wallace Parkway. The storm looked to be continuing unabated. It was as good a place as any to wait it out. The sign along the roadway read “Open 11:00 AM - 9:00 PM.” Jake looked down at his watch, which blinked 7:36 in digital characters, and stared up at the sky. The clouds were moving away and a lighter shade of blue ran over the treetops to the west. He could wait until the rain ended, go in and get something to eat and ask about a hotel in the area.
Thoughts of dinner were seared from Jake’s mind as a bolt of lightning struck the trestle bridge across the road.
§
A series of images flashed in front of his eyes. He was no longer outside a barbeque joint in Alabama. Debris flew through the air. Winds howled maniacally. Screams echoed against the onslaught of nature’s fury. Jake was huddled in a ball, pinned to the floor by sheet rock and plywood. He held his eyes tightly closed and prayed. God save me, God save us all. A hand crashed through the pile of rubble. Broken nails scratched at the soaked carpet Bleeding and gnarled, it looked alien. Jake shied away crying and begging for the thing to leave him alone.
Then he recognized the ring, a pink and purple butterfly on a silver band. He had won it at the local fair the year before and had given it to his ‘best girl’.
Momma. The word sounded choked and hoarse, coming through his cracked and bleeding lips. He braved the torrent and raised his head. Next to him, crushed beneath a section of the roof lay his mother. Tears stung his eyes as relief settled over him. Momma was here. Everything would be okay now. He moved to cuddle up in her arms like when was a baby. He reached out to her, expecting her to take him in her arms.
But she didn’t.
She could not. Pinning her to the floor was a splintered two by four running through her left side, holding her in place. Jake froze. His eyes locked wide open in the face of the screaming wind, his body shaking with shock. He stared into his mother’s eyes, gray like his own. A faint smile crept over her lips. For a moment, the hurricane vanished. An instant recognition passed between mother and son. The words were not spoken but the meaning was there.
I love you.
Jake’s existence seem to hang on those words. The universe was held still in that few seconds.
Pain bore into his head as a piece of wood slammed Jake to the ground. His vision blurred, eyes desperate to focus. He lay flat on his stomach, facing his mother. A peaceful, blank expression was on her face, eyes vacant. No! The word came half hearted as the world around Jake spun into oblivion.
The winds died down, and the rains came
§
Jake awakened to the sound of a slamming door. Muscles ached as he unwound himself from the fetal position. He looked up through the glass to see a steady rain falling. Lights flicked and went dim as an engine came to life. Jake rose up just in time to see the taillights of a late model SUV pull out of the parking lot. One other vehicle, a dark sedan, was parked nearby. Since the lights inside the restaurant were still on Jake assumed it to be the owner’s car. Jake looked down at his watch. It was a quarter to ten.
With no possibility of getting a barbeque plate, Jake settled in his mind on fast food. He stretched, wiped the sleep from his eyes and started the pickup. An eerie echo carried the low, growling sound of the Chevy V-8 into the night. Jake slid the shifter into reverse, backed out of the space, and pulled to the edge of parking lot. Rain intensified, sheets slicing through the night air.
Which way, Jake wondered to himself. The night’s events and his present state of mind left Jake confused. For a moment, he forgot he was in Tuscaloosa. That established, Jake still wasn’t certain where in Tuscaloosa he was. The weather confused him; the flashback terrified him. He was having a hard time separating history from the here and now. Images of palm trees danced in the lightning with native hardwoods. The ironwork trestle swayed, flying apart for a moment, shifting with intermittent flashes.
Jake laid his head on the steering wheel. His breathing was staccato, heavy and labored. Pulses of light flashed, orbs floating before his eyes. A dizzying sensation buried itself within his gut, trying to wrench a hole inside him. He felt close to tears, suddenly suffering an overwhelming need to sob. Once again the child in him wanted curl up on the front seat and wait out the storm.
Jake lowered his head to the steering wheel and closed his eyes. Through the darkness a pair of gray eyes stared back at him. Their softness was tinged with a deep sadness. He knew them as well as if he were staring into a mirror. A single tear formed on one. A voice echoed through the Cimmerian void.
Help me.
Jake wasn’t certain if he was still dreaming or not. He wished he were. The pain would be diminished on waking. As it were he simply felt the hole inside his soul expand yet again.
A bolt of lightning lit up the inky depths that surrounded the trestle. Jake was not sure but for a moment it looked as if a man lay beneath the railway. Rain, still slashing, made him strain to see clearly. He flipped a switch and set the lights to high beam. He was rewarded with a view of a panhandler lying on his face in the mud. While it was not an unusual sight for Jake to see a derelict, the three men around the vagrant were. They stood in a semicircle, their menacing presence bearing down. The panhandler tried to rise to his knees only to be kicked down. On the ground the other two men rained booted kicks as well.
Jake sat up straighter. The abuse intensified, matching the vicious onslaught of the deluge. The old man splashed face first to the ground, held there by the largest of the trio.
No.
J
ake screamed the warning, not hearing the sound himself. In the lights, the vagrant thrashed desperately. Jake pulled on the door handle and leaned hard against the window. It opened a fraction allowing the tempest entry. A spray of mist blew into his face. He screamed, reeling and falling back on the seat. Frantically, he wiped at the water on his face.
Not rain. No rain. Bad, bad. Rain, rain go away.
The madness spinning around his head gripped him, images of his parents cast glances at his from beyond the grave.
Help me.
Help us.
Help me.
Help us.
Help.
Help.
The voices drifted in and out, male and female. Finally, they coalesced into a single sound, a sound coming from a drowning man.
Jake felt the tug of conscience take hold. His mind raced over the cacophony of reasons for and against aiding the dying man. Only one reason made sense. Only one reason rose above the din of his mind to rule over the others.
It’s the right thing.
Jake knew what he would do. Almost standing outside of himself, Jake took the doorknob again. Twisting and pushing at the same time, he charged into storm, screaming along the way. He kept his head down, a loud roar heralding his approach. He didn’t know if he could help the man, but he could divert the attention of the muggers away and to himself. Wet sheets smacked into Jake, burning him with a fire that lived only in his mind. He struggled, hesitated for a moment and continued. Slipping on the pavement, Jake fell onto his right shoulder, rolling off the street to the grass opposite. Rain fell into his face.
High above him a smiling face offered encouragement. No voice, no sound but the eyes urged him. Jake rose up to his hands and feet and crawled to the vagrant. No assailant remained as he turned to man over to face the sky. The old man drew a great breath, sucking water into his lungs. Hacking and coughing, the vagrant tried to sit up.
“Where’d they go?” Jake asked.
The vagrant stared wide-eyed and quizzically.
“Where’d who go?”
§
The consistent pulsing rhythm of the telemetry left Jake drowsy. He had been waiting in the hospital room for better than an hour, hoping the old man would wake up. His version of the evening’s events were told in triplicate, first to a paramedic, then an ER attending and finally a detective with the Northport Police. No sign was ever found of the three men Jake described. The vagrant, whose name was Charles Landley, knew nothing of the attackers, had not seen them. Charles only remembered suffering the pain of an ulcer, exacerbated by dumpster diving for dinner.
“Still here.”
The gravely voice startled Jake at first. “Yep. Needed a place to stay for the night.”
Charles smiled and waved a negligent hand, “Mi casa, su casa.”
“Are you sure you didn’t see those guys beating on you?”
“Nope,” Charles raised the bed to sit up. “Are you sure you saw them?”
“Yeah, they were there.”
“And maybe they were there in your mind, young man.”
Jake offered a suspicious glance. “What do you mean?”
“Sometimes we see what we need to do what we must.” The old man coughed a moment and Jake handed him a box of tissues. “My mother told me once that God gives us the way and expects us to walk it. You saw what you He wanted you to see.”
Jake thought about it a moment, locked eye to eye with Charles. He thought of what had led him to where he ended up and why he did what he did. It had been years that a drop of rain had not fallen on him. For the first time since his childhood he had put the fear aside. Someone else’s needs had outweighed his fear. Now, the weight of fear was gone. Replaced with a peace he had never known.
“I think your mom was onto something Charles. I think I might want to find out what it is.”
Jake stood up and shook the old man’s hand. “Take care of yourself, Charles.”
“You too son.” Charles looked to the window at the drizzle beyond. “Need an umbrella?”
Jake smiled. “Nah. It’s only rain.”
The day had been one long, seemingly unending series of bad choices and worse luck. The hotel manager stood in front of Jake Braswell, head lowered and shaking.
“I apologize for the inconvenience Mr. Braswell, but your reservation was not confirmed.”
Jake took a deep breath and tried to compose himself. “I’ve already showed you the reservation from the net. You’ve talk to the travel agent from said company. So what’s your problem?"
He didn’t really mean to yell at her but the agitation was overwhelming. Clouds were forming outside. The car was parked away from the front door and there was no valet service.
“Mr. Braswell, I have told you about the hotel policy -”
“I don’t care about policy I care about the room. I paid for it, I want it!” Jake paced as he railed. “You don’t understand lady. I -”
“No you don’t understand,” the attendant snapped. “You’re not getting a room. You booked it for yesterday. You weren’t here yesterday. So you won’t get it today.”
Her turning on her heels and leaving the front desk punctuated the finality of her statement. Jake stood in silence for a moment not sure how to respond. Outside the wind began to pick up, blowing through the mimosa trees that lined the walkway to the door. The first drops of water had not fallen. He still had time.
Jake walked toward the front door, evenly paced at first then faster. By the time he reached the final mimosa tree he was at a dead run. Instinct screamed for him to stop. He pulled up abruptly and a large splash of water splattered on the ground at his feet. It missed him but only by fractions of an inch. Jake sidestepped and nearly tripped avoiding the minute puddle. He reached the door of his pickup, fumbled with the keys and dove head first into the seat as the first layer of drizzle raked across the windshield. Using a claw hammer under the seat he pulled the door closed.
Jake gave himself the once over. So far as he could tell there no dark patches on his clothes. The examination was thorough as that of a leper doing a visual extremities check. No thread was left unexamined; no stitch was overlooked. Jake could feel the irrational paranoia settle over him. He knew it was absurd, knew his thinking was flawed, but could do nothing about it.
The gathering storm had arrived in earnest. Night came earlier this day as the thunderstorm forecast for evening arrived. A wall of liquid slammed into the front glass. Jake started involuntarily. It was reflex by now, even if it was just Mr. Lansdale washing off the front of his apartment building. The water from a hose wouldn’t have bothered him, but the sound of rain did. Everything about the rain did. It was irrational, ridiculous even marginally insane. But Jake could no more allow rainwater to touch his skin than battery acid.
Onibrophobia.
Jake had lived with the word since he was eleven. He remembered waking in a hospital, tubes and wires running away from his body. He had gone to sleep in the living room watching television. His mom was making him a peanut butter sandwich. Dad was putting boards on the windows. Then Jake heard the train noise. It got louder and louder until it sounded like it was in the house with them.
Then darkness.
Jake opened his eyes to a world where he was homeless and without family. Doctors shuffled in and out of his room for days in the aftermath of the storm, talking about the miracle boy who beat the odds. Jake would not find out until his teenage years what they meant.
§
Now it was raining sideways. Jake was stuck in his truck in a thunderstorm, in a strange town. Tuscaloosa was not exactly a metropolis, covered with massive skyscrapers, but a sprawling college town along the Black Warrior River. There were other hotels possibly one with a valet and a covered entry. Though he didn’t want to get too far away from the hotel and the college area in general, he knew there were no other places to stay in the immediate area. Without a map of the city, Jake decided to wing it.
After two turns that led him down old mill villages, Jake found himself crossing the Black Warrior River into Northport. The rain was unrelenting, sheets of it pouring over the windshield, frantic wiper blades trying to keep pace. As he reached the opposite side of the bridge, Jake found a barbeque restaurant just off Wallace Parkway. The storm looked to be continuing unabated. It was as good a place as any to wait it out. The sign along the roadway read “Open 11:00 AM - 9:00 PM.” Jake looked down at his watch, which blinked 7:36 in digital characters, and stared up at the sky. The clouds were moving away and a lighter shade of blue ran over the treetops to the west. He could wait until the rain ended, go in and get something to eat and ask about a hotel in the area.
Thoughts of dinner were seared from Jake’s mind as a bolt of lightning struck the trestle bridge across the road.
§
A series of images flashed in front of his eyes. He was no longer outside a barbeque joint in Alabama. Debris flew through the air. Winds howled maniacally. Screams echoed against the onslaught of nature’s fury. Jake was huddled in a ball, pinned to the floor by sheet rock and plywood. He held his eyes tightly closed and prayed. God save me, God save us all. A hand crashed through the pile of rubble. Broken nails scratched at the soaked carpet Bleeding and gnarled, it looked alien. Jake shied away crying and begging for the thing to leave him alone.
Then he recognized the ring, a pink and purple butterfly on a silver band. He had won it at the local fair the year before and had given it to his ‘best girl’.
Momma. The word sounded choked and hoarse, coming through his cracked and bleeding lips. He braved the torrent and raised his head. Next to him, crushed beneath a section of the roof lay his mother. Tears stung his eyes as relief settled over him. Momma was here. Everything would be okay now. He moved to cuddle up in her arms like when was a baby. He reached out to her, expecting her to take him in her arms.
But she didn’t.
She could not. Pinning her to the floor was a splintered two by four running through her left side, holding her in place. Jake froze. His eyes locked wide open in the face of the screaming wind, his body shaking with shock. He stared into his mother’s eyes, gray like his own. A faint smile crept over her lips. For a moment, the hurricane vanished. An instant recognition passed between mother and son. The words were not spoken but the meaning was there.
I love you.
Jake’s existence seem to hang on those words. The universe was held still in that few seconds.
Pain bore into his head as a piece of wood slammed Jake to the ground. His vision blurred, eyes desperate to focus. He lay flat on his stomach, facing his mother. A peaceful, blank expression was on her face, eyes vacant. No! The word came half hearted as the world around Jake spun into oblivion.
The winds died down, and the rains came
§
Jake awakened to the sound of a slamming door. Muscles ached as he unwound himself from the fetal position. He looked up through the glass to see a steady rain falling. Lights flicked and went dim as an engine came to life. Jake rose up just in time to see the taillights of a late model SUV pull out of the parking lot. One other vehicle, a dark sedan, was parked nearby. Since the lights inside the restaurant were still on Jake assumed it to be the owner’s car. Jake looked down at his watch. It was a quarter to ten.
With no possibility of getting a barbeque plate, Jake settled in his mind on fast food. He stretched, wiped the sleep from his eyes and started the pickup. An eerie echo carried the low, growling sound of the Chevy V-8 into the night. Jake slid the shifter into reverse, backed out of the space, and pulled to the edge of parking lot. Rain intensified, sheets slicing through the night air.
Which way, Jake wondered to himself. The night’s events and his present state of mind left Jake confused. For a moment, he forgot he was in Tuscaloosa. That established, Jake still wasn’t certain where in Tuscaloosa he was. The weather confused him; the flashback terrified him. He was having a hard time separating history from the here and now. Images of palm trees danced in the lightning with native hardwoods. The ironwork trestle swayed, flying apart for a moment, shifting with intermittent flashes.
Jake laid his head on the steering wheel. His breathing was staccato, heavy and labored. Pulses of light flashed, orbs floating before his eyes. A dizzying sensation buried itself within his gut, trying to wrench a hole inside him. He felt close to tears, suddenly suffering an overwhelming need to sob. Once again the child in him wanted curl up on the front seat and wait out the storm.
Jake lowered his head to the steering wheel and closed his eyes. Through the darkness a pair of gray eyes stared back at him. Their softness was tinged with a deep sadness. He knew them as well as if he were staring into a mirror. A single tear formed on one. A voice echoed through the Cimmerian void.
Help me.
Jake wasn’t certain if he was still dreaming or not. He wished he were. The pain would be diminished on waking. As it were he simply felt the hole inside his soul expand yet again.
A bolt of lightning lit up the inky depths that surrounded the trestle. Jake was not sure but for a moment it looked as if a man lay beneath the railway. Rain, still slashing, made him strain to see clearly. He flipped a switch and set the lights to high beam. He was rewarded with a view of a panhandler lying on his face in the mud. While it was not an unusual sight for Jake to see a derelict, the three men around the vagrant were. They stood in a semicircle, their menacing presence bearing down. The panhandler tried to rise to his knees only to be kicked down. On the ground the other two men rained booted kicks as well.
Jake sat up straighter. The abuse intensified, matching the vicious onslaught of the deluge. The old man splashed face first to the ground, held there by the largest of the trio.
No.
J
ake screamed the warning, not hearing the sound himself. In the lights, the vagrant thrashed desperately. Jake pulled on the door handle and leaned hard against the window. It opened a fraction allowing the tempest entry. A spray of mist blew into his face. He screamed, reeling and falling back on the seat. Frantically, he wiped at the water on his face.
Not rain. No rain. Bad, bad. Rain, rain go away.
The madness spinning around his head gripped him, images of his parents cast glances at his from beyond the grave.
Help me.
Help us.
Help me.
Help us.
Help.
Help.
The voices drifted in and out, male and female. Finally, they coalesced into a single sound, a sound coming from a drowning man.
Jake felt the tug of conscience take hold. His mind raced over the cacophony of reasons for and against aiding the dying man. Only one reason made sense. Only one reason rose above the din of his mind to rule over the others.
It’s the right thing.
Jake knew what he would do. Almost standing outside of himself, Jake took the doorknob again. Twisting and pushing at the same time, he charged into storm, screaming along the way. He kept his head down, a loud roar heralding his approach. He didn’t know if he could help the man, but he could divert the attention of the muggers away and to himself. Wet sheets smacked into Jake, burning him with a fire that lived only in his mind. He struggled, hesitated for a moment and continued. Slipping on the pavement, Jake fell onto his right shoulder, rolling off the street to the grass opposite. Rain fell into his face.
High above him a smiling face offered encouragement. No voice, no sound but the eyes urged him. Jake rose up to his hands and feet and crawled to the vagrant. No assailant remained as he turned to man over to face the sky. The old man drew a great breath, sucking water into his lungs. Hacking and coughing, the vagrant tried to sit up.
“Where’d they go?” Jake asked.
The vagrant stared wide-eyed and quizzically.
“Where’d who go?”
§
The consistent pulsing rhythm of the telemetry left Jake drowsy. He had been waiting in the hospital room for better than an hour, hoping the old man would wake up. His version of the evening’s events were told in triplicate, first to a paramedic, then an ER attending and finally a detective with the Northport Police. No sign was ever found of the three men Jake described. The vagrant, whose name was Charles Landley, knew nothing of the attackers, had not seen them. Charles only remembered suffering the pain of an ulcer, exacerbated by dumpster diving for dinner.
“Still here.”
The gravely voice startled Jake at first. “Yep. Needed a place to stay for the night.”
Charles smiled and waved a negligent hand, “Mi casa, su casa.”
“Are you sure you didn’t see those guys beating on you?”
“Nope,” Charles raised the bed to sit up. “Are you sure you saw them?”
“Yeah, they were there.”
“And maybe they were there in your mind, young man.”
Jake offered a suspicious glance. “What do you mean?”
“Sometimes we see what we need to do what we must.” The old man coughed a moment and Jake handed him a box of tissues. “My mother told me once that God gives us the way and expects us to walk it. You saw what you He wanted you to see.”
Jake thought about it a moment, locked eye to eye with Charles. He thought of what had led him to where he ended up and why he did what he did. It had been years that a drop of rain had not fallen on him. For the first time since his childhood he had put the fear aside. Someone else’s needs had outweighed his fear. Now, the weight of fear was gone. Replaced with a peace he had never known.
“I think your mom was onto something Charles. I think I might want to find out what it is.”
Jake stood up and shook the old man’s hand. “Take care of yourself, Charles.”
“You too son.” Charles looked to the window at the drizzle beyond. “Need an umbrella?”
Jake smiled. “Nah. It’s only rain.”