six years I’d been trying to climb out of the dung pit and wash myself clean. I think it was just then, on that Tuesday morning, that I understood the metaphor of baptism—it’s funny how some truths hide away in a pocket or a forgotten drawer and show up when they hardly matter anymore.
Considering and then giving up on the notion of salvation, I turned my restless thought-pad to the last twenty-four hours. This had been my time to encounter powerful women: Katrina, who had the will to end her own life either by knife or just waiting in that sanatorium bed to expire; Mardi, who could face the greatest terror in her life and make something good out of it; Aura, who loved me, I knew that, but whose morality was more powerful than our needs. And then there was Marella Herzog, a woman with a dog whistle that could call out the beast in me. I felt that if I could spend a week in her company I might grow back a full head of hair.
These were people who faced their fears and created the world as they moved through it. For some reason this notion made me take out my telephone. I’d call Twill myself and ask what he was up to.
“Mr. McGill?” Mardi said over the intercom.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Captain Kitteridge.”
“On the phone?”
“At my desk.”
Had I heard the buzzer? I didn’t think so.
“Send him on,” I said.
I put the phone down and stared at it. I was experiencing one of those moments in life where I was not the central character but part of a small supporting cast that was there more for atmosphere than for pushing the story forward.
“LT,” he said from the doorway.
Captain Carson Kitteridge was my height but weighed little more than the featherweight Fat Fudge. His skin was carved from porcelain, his eyes the faded blue of a mostly cloudy sky. He always wore cheap suits and ties that had wallpaper designs stamped on them. Carson might have been small and off the rack but when it came to his job he was a like a Jack Russell terrier, willing to go up against a foe ten times his size.
“Come on in, Kit,” I said. “Have a seat.”
We were usually civil. Our paths had crossed many times over the years. It was at least in part due to me that he’d been promoted to captain but it was still his mission in life to get me locked away for the rest of mine.
He stepped in, stared at my new red chairs with something like disdain, and then sat in the same seat that Hiram Stent chose.
“How can I help you?” I asked.
“A confession would be nice.”
“You want a general admission of guilt for you to fill in the crime or is there something particular you had in mind?”
He reached into the side pocket of his sad brown suit jacket and came out with an electronic tablet device. He laid this flat on the table and slid it over to me.
“Just turn it on,” he said, “the rest is self-explanatory.”
I gave the little screen a sneer and then pressed a silver button on the lower left side. Immediately an image appeared; a familiar tableau from a different vantage point. It was the picture of a tall whitish man faced by a smaller, chubby black man with his bald head bowed so that the camera did not catch the features of his face.
I looked up and said, “So?”
Kit reached over and tapped the screen ever so lightly with his middle finger. The picture then turned into a video. The smaller black man squatted down and torqued to the left and a look of pain passed over the white man’s face. I could clearly see the knife falling from the taller man’s hand and then the shorter man coming up with a pretty-well-put-together uppercut.
Lucky for me the attacker’s body hid my face from the camera as I stood.
Then, with my back fully to the lens, I grabbed the back of the enemy’s head and slammed it against the metal wall of the chamber.
The rest of the film-short showed Marella’s face but not mine as I set the man in the corner, grabbed the fanciful suitcase, and walked out of there while
Considering and then giving up on the notion of salvation, I turned my restless thought-pad to the last twenty-four hours. This had been my time to encounter powerful women: Katrina, who had the will to end her own life either by knife or just waiting in that sanatorium bed to expire; Mardi, who could face the greatest terror in her life and make something good out of it; Aura, who loved me, I knew that, but whose morality was more powerful than our needs. And then there was Marella Herzog, a woman with a dog whistle that could call out the beast in me. I felt that if I could spend a week in her company I might grow back a full head of hair.
These were people who faced their fears and created the world as they moved through it. For some reason this notion made me take out my telephone. I’d call Twill myself and ask what he was up to.
“Mr. McGill?” Mardi said over the intercom.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Captain Kitteridge.”
“On the phone?”
“At my desk.”
Had I heard the buzzer? I didn’t think so.
“Send him on,” I said.
I put the phone down and stared at it. I was experiencing one of those moments in life where I was not the central character but part of a small supporting cast that was there more for atmosphere than for pushing the story forward.
“LT,” he said from the doorway.
Captain Carson Kitteridge was my height but weighed little more than the featherweight Fat Fudge. His skin was carved from porcelain, his eyes the faded blue of a mostly cloudy sky. He always wore cheap suits and ties that had wallpaper designs stamped on them. Carson might have been small and off the rack but when it came to his job he was a like a Jack Russell terrier, willing to go up against a foe ten times his size.
“Come on in, Kit,” I said. “Have a seat.”
We were usually civil. Our paths had crossed many times over the years. It was at least in part due to me that he’d been promoted to captain but it was still his mission in life to get me locked away for the rest of mine.
He stepped in, stared at my new red chairs with something like disdain, and then sat in the same seat that Hiram Stent chose.
“How can I help you?” I asked.
“A confession would be nice.”
“You want a general admission of guilt for you to fill in the crime or is there something particular you had in mind?”
He reached into the side pocket of his sad brown suit jacket and came out with an electronic tablet device. He laid this flat on the table and slid it over to me.
“Just turn it on,” he said, “the rest is self-explanatory.”
I gave the little screen a sneer and then pressed a silver button on the lower left side. Immediately an image appeared; a familiar tableau from a different vantage point. It was the picture of a tall whitish man faced by a smaller, chubby black man with his bald head bowed so that the camera did not catch the features of his face.
I looked up and said, “So?”
Kit reached over and tapped the screen ever so lightly with his middle finger. The picture then turned into a video. The smaller black man squatted down and torqued to the left and a look of pain passed over the white man’s face. I could clearly see the knife falling from the taller man’s hand and then the shorter man coming up with a pretty-well-put-together uppercut.
Lucky for me the attacker’s body hid my face from the camera as I stood.
Then, with my back fully to the lens, I grabbed the back of the enemy’s head and slammed it against the metal wall of the chamber.
The rest of the film-short showed Marella’s face but not mine as I set the man in the corner, grabbed the fanciful suitcase, and walked out of there while
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