Children of the Program (29 page)

chapter 42

the hunt

Into the void of night, the devil would roam —
again
!  Dez's overused van sputtered to find a reason, just as his heart played tug-of-war with his mind.  His grip was slipping.  He coped by fueling his weakened ego with convenient store heists and mainlined shots of heroin.  Losing his stronghold over the Cadence
of the Sun made him detest mankind.  He was determined to punish humanity for his shortcomings.  With each passing mile, his energy weakened.  The Council agitated his rest with visions of how things could have been.  Rummaging through his darkest days, a moment of clarity showed him the canyon of unbridgeable guilt he'd dug.  Being betrayed by the ones he trusted most was the only justification he needed for swiftly annihilating everything and everyone in his vicinity. 

              “I'm going off the rails on a crazy train,” he barked, like a crazed madman.

              Staring down the sonic highway, metal music blared through his quivering rubber speakers.  Dodging cars with hesitant swerves, he tempted fate.  His blurred vision was triple distilled with single malt scotch whiskey.  His sanity obscured.  He knew the Cadence still had the power to put him in the front seat of world domination, but their fire needed to be stoked.  At times, he saw the unguarded desert cliffs as a misfired synapse between him and a Program reset.  Haunted, his memories of the underworld sobered his crippled thinking — neither jail nor the afterlife were options worth entertaining.  He needed to be the last man standing.

              Dez spent hours contemplating his tragic final days with Crystal.  Whether it was love or food poisoning, unacknowledged feelings erupted from his stomach like a volcano and manifested upon his sweaty brow.  Though thoughts of beating his child from her stomach delighted his cry for retribution, somewhere, lurking deep within his twisted cavity, just below his ribcage, lived a forgotten soul.  Grinding his teeth, his hard fought feelings were proof he still loved her.  After hours on the highway, sickness brought his vengeful journey to a hurried pause.  Pounding headaches and nausea won the hormonal grudge match that had plagued his drive with dizziness and uncomfortable tears.  Lying, with his lazy eyes fixed upon a dirty area rug, he succumbed.  Though alcohol, brownstone or a flu virus were all possible culprits, his instincts sensed his misery was coming from something
beyond
his control. 

              His derailment was Joe and Crystal's lifeline.

+++

              After two days of slumber, he awoke, like a vagrant.  He was delirious.  Shoving aside the old rags he had rested upon, he crawled into the driver's seat, and finished the last leg of his trek to Joe's Texan home.  The tired engine struggled, as a weakened battery sparked its final charge.  It seemed poetic.  He pulled from a truck station and adjusted his mirror.  The sands of time were slipping through his calloused hands.

              “Max, I'm here,” said Dez.

              “We're here, too.  We arrived, yesterday.  We're in a hotel – just a few miles up the road!”

              “Page me at dusk!  I'll survey the scene.  I don't want to risk her slipping by our radar.”

              Dez pulled up to the mailbox at the end of Joe's long driveway and stared toward the empty lot.  The house was dark.  It agitated the boiling pit in his stomach.  He knew he'd missed her.  His heart, trampled under foot, longed to see her silhouette glide by the soft-lit cream curtains.  Her spirit and perfume still seemed to linger in the dense air.  The swaying trees above reminded him that life moves on, even when the mind is stuck in a moment.  He slowly drove into the night and plotted his entrance. 

              A few hours later, Max and his clan arrived and waited.  Dez returned.  With their headlights dimmed and their engines cut, they drifted toward the driveway.  The lot remained vacant, but a tiny kitchen lamp penetrated their doubt and called them to action.  Surrounding the house, they awaited in the foliage for Dez's orders.  With ominous sways, the trees continued to run surveillance.  Tiny woodland creatures scurried from the camouflaged visitors.  With eye contact and militant hand gestures, they confirmed their positions.  Dez's cigarette lighter signaled Max, who signaled the troops.  Split, two teams swiftly penetrated the home.  One team entered through the front door and the other through the back.  Their guns were drawn.  With wide eyes and a sigh of relief, they intersected in the living room and lowered their weapons.

              “Dammit!  Where is she?” Dez screamed.

              In a tirade, he began throwing couch cushions and tearing framed pictures from the pine wood paneling.  Like Jesus in the temple, Dez toppled the homemade coffee table, made of cinder blocks and plywood, and smashed Joe's rabbit ear television set upon the thin and rigid industrial carpet flooring.  Without orders, the anxious Cadence followed suit.  No one dared to make a blip on the devil's sensitive radar.

              “Tear this motherfucker apart.  Go through the bedrooms, the dresser drawers, the bathrooms – all of it!  I don't care if you have to reach down the goddamn toilet and pull her unappreciative ass out of the sewage drain,” said Dez.  He flipped the switch in Joe's makeshift office, fired up the computer and restlessly awaited the monitor to offer him a dial-up gateway to a Netscape browser.  After a brief investigation of the search history, his heart raced to a stop.  “She's
was
here!”

              “What do you want us to do?” asked Max.

              “Max, my dear, check to see if the water's been turned off.  Look for clues,” said Dez.

              They tore the house to shreds. 

“Dez, I've found this guy's old work schedule,” said Max, pulling it from its weak magnetic hold on Joe's old lima bean green refrigerator.  “They're not here!  Judging by the dates, his last day of work was a little over a week ago.”

              Petey rustled from behind a black sheet.  Alarmed, Max slowly pulled the cover from the free standing cage and unveiled the large white parrot to a demon possessed room.  Innocently, it cawed and swayed on its wooden balance beam.  Anxious for its visitors' attention, it batted his snow-driven faux hawk against the tiny prison bars. 

              “Petey play, Petey play.”

              “Petey, eh?” said Dez.  “Does Petey want a cracker?” he sneered, making a fist.

              Max began carelessly shaking the cage, unsure of how to free the feathered creature within.

              “Take it easy,” said Dez. “The bird isn't why we came!”

              “Do you have any ideas where she might have gone?” asked Max.

              “For all we know, she's back in New Mexico.  Where are you hiding, Crystal?” he muttered.

              “New York City!  You're so pretty,” chirped Petey.

              “That's it.” paused Dez.  “She's heading to New York City to locate Grayson.”

              Determined to impress Dez, Max kicked over the birdcage.  Agitated, Dez pushed Max aside, reached down, picked up Petey, stormed though the unhinged front door and beelined to his van.   Confident they'd follow, Dez never looked back.  Max and his lemmings never second guessed his motives or connection to the Big Apple.  Dez's wishes had a way of trumping reason, while his unapproachable demeanor handled the rest.  Whistling and howling through the dead night, the hapless ghosts of combat settled into their black motorcade and paused for the procession to begin.

                “There's a bar called The Monkey Bar, up ahead.  Meet me there!  Max, you owe us all a round o' Parrot Bay shots,” he shouted.  “Why, you’ll ask?  Because you've got zero class.  If it wasn't for that harmless bird, we'd have nothing —
nothing
!” 

Max's arrogant gesture had fallen flat.  Dez was sure to maintain his dominance in the Cadence of the Sun with curt and frequent emasculation.  Though they were sworn to his ideals and masqueraded as a unified front, he controlled the dogma of each day.  His humiliating tone could rattle the core of even his most confident follower.  Once housebroken, he knew his dogs of war would continue to seek the praise chorus of their master. 

“First rounds on you!” repeated Dez.

              “OK, first rounds on me,” said Max.

              “Three cheers for the bird,” mocked Dez.

              “To the bird,” they shouted back.

+++

              They arrived at an old log cabin.  It was the local watering hole of a notorious biker gang.  A small crowd of rough and tumblers lunged and leered by the front door.  They analyzed the merits of their traveling guests.  Steering away any doubt that the club would be mistaken for a Hollywood movie set, the gang’s authentic posture and bikes established an unmistakable cred.  Assuming ownership of his sect, Dez approached the door with an alpha's pride and was quickly set loose — they were free to guzzle with the hogs!  The energy in the room reminded the Cadence of their New Mexican compound. 

              Fatigued, Dez's unit sucked back whiskey shots, while the jukebox spun the distorted anthems of their youth.  Their empowered bravado forced the locals to take notice.  It wasn't long before the club sensed the aroma of the gang’s territorial pissings.  The surge of a coming bar fight was quickly quashed by the taratantara of a bartender's trumpet.  Once the shotgun blast simmered the commotion and scattered the hangers-on, Dez shared his crazed reasoning for wanting to tackle New York City. 

              The further they slipped down the rabbit hole, the more Dez revealed about his weakening condition.  In the bar lights, he paled.  His graying skin and absent eyes seemed to apologize for his recent tantrums and issued Crystal's last rites.  His stoic presence was noticeably shaken by his candor and the frequent coughing and wheezing between his stumbling sentences.  An uncomfortable reality crept up Max's spine.

              The Cadence of the Sun conferred until the wee hours of a cool Texan morning.  The warm new day's sun caressed the skyline and awoke them.  In the skunked wake of their poor decision making, they found themselves littered across the barren Monkey Bar parking lot.  With a heave and ho, Dez mustered the remnants of his physical strength, rose and made concessions for their dire need for a clear direction.  From his tattered jean pants pocket, his shaky hands pulled a crinkled piece of paper with the Children of the Program website information scribbled upon it.  From another pocked he pulled a tiny Budweiser beverage napkin and added Grayson's email and telephone number, before handing them over to Max.

              “You're going to have to carry the torch, m'boy,” revealed Dez, barely able to speak.  “I've got to get back to the bunker, before this sun murders me.  I've got the symptoms of some type of bacterial infection or cancer.  You should have everything you need.  Just find Crystal, before it's too late to carry on.”

              “What happens if we don't find her?” asked Max.

              “It's all I'm asking.  Find her, or we're finished!” he said cryptically.  “Shoot her.”

              “Dez?”

              “Do you have a problem with that?” asked Dez, mustering the strength to stare directly into Max's trembling eye sockets.  “She's carrying another man's baby.  She's been in touch with a lunatic who protects these birthers.  Even if she's not carrying an alien — please, do it for me!  It's not my child.  I'm begging you.”  His rant exuded his last drop of his mortal energy.  Speechless and slow to turn, he walked toward the truck, and charted his course back to the compound.

chapter 43

Like a dog

Getting back east was important.  It wasn't that I was avoiding my father's voice, I just didn't know how to bridge the gap.  Our series of ups and downs had been exasperated by my lack of effort.  With a universe of lost time to cross, I wasn't sure if he'd even accept my collect call or recognize my hoarse voice.  Fearing his rejection made the weight of picking up a Los Angeles payphone receiver a Herculean feat.   With my tail firmly tucked between my awkwardly tight denim, Michelle yanked the number from my hands, dialed and forced me to reach out and touch someone.  Absorbing my nerves, she paced about the Santa Monica Pier, projected confidence and awaited a verdict.

              “Dad.”

              “Neco!”

              “I need to come home.” I said, relieved by the grace in his tone.

              Before I could even finish my awkward stammer, he offered a swift resolve.  He locked his judgment in the reserves, only to resurface as a conversational piece, a joke or reason to leverage a future disagreement.  With the few dollars he had to his name, he purchased Michelle and I two one way plane tickets to Baltimore-Washington International airport.  In that moment, my hopes and his prayers had been answered.  His only dream was that I'd return and be ready to lay a solid foundation in Maryland.  With The Council's chaos unraveling, I knew it wouldn't be long before the word 'disappointed' reared its ugly head —
again
! 

              “You've got a ton of mail here.  Have you been paying your car insurance and eating well?” he asked.

              “We've been on the run.  It's a long story, but it wasn't safe to salvage the car,” I said.

              “You can tell me about it at the airport.”

              “I'm looking forward to grabbing breakfast.  Like we used to.” 

My words were followed by an awkward silence.  Fond memories had a way of tearing open forgotten scars.  Though it was likely just the Pacific condensation, I could almost feel his heavy tears falling upon my earlobes.  He wasn't alone — the rivers forming in my eyes mirrored his longing for absolution.  Our battle to see the world through similar eyes had lasted a lifetime.  It wasn't that we didn't understand each other, it was that we were called to enlighten each other.  He was sent to be my
rock
and me, the
roll
. 

Had the circumstances been different, we'd have probably just thrown tiny verbal daggers, never taking a moment to notice the depths of our cutting sentiments.  Luckily, too much time had passed for theatrics or posturing.

              “There's a rather sizable package, here, from Ash of Scotland,” he said.

              “Oh my God!” I squawked.

              “It may give you a little incentive to board your flight,” he added.

              The universe had been resting in our reckless hands for too long.  I couldn't wait for the day I could explain my questionable logic and open his mind to the lunacy he had watched parading around the United States – like an acid tripping revolutionary from the 60's.  Soldiering on, I knew we had to save Crystal and Grayson from the eyes of madness, or I'd never see the sunrise on that far off moment. 

Ash's package was the piece of closure I needed to move on.  Watching her house fill with smoke on Dez's surveillance monitors had left me feeling helpless, heartbroken and frozen in time.  I could only hope she'd found her way
Beyond
it. 

              Michelle and I panhandled our fare, caught a cab to LAX and boarded the return flight.  The entire tone of the trip was somber.  Everything felt surreal.  Though we'd learned to depend upon each other, there was still an unconnected landscape of memories and reasons living between us.  Long hours on the plane reinforced our divide.  Exhaustion made the simplest of dialogs a burden. 

With my head in the clouds, I used my time to stare from my window seat and scribe song lyrics across the passing blue sky.  Michelle rested, allowing her soul to sort through loss, regret and flashbacks.  Though I was terrified of flying, my father's protective hands seemed to guide the wings and give me peace.  When we landed, he was waiting.  Despite the distance, our hearts shuffled off the emotional baggage and hugged.  Sensing her discomfort, he wrapped his arm around Michelle and forced her into the family.

                “Thank you, Dad.”

              “You're my son and my blood.”

              “Michelle and I plan on sticking around, but we do have to visit a friend in New York –
briefly.
”

              He wasn't surprised.  Michelle continued to absorb the culture shock, as we charted our way home.  Arriving at my old house for an all-too-familiar reunion, my instincts lead my itchy fingers directly to the bedroom telephone.

              “Grayson!  Has Crystal arrived?” I asked.

              “Not yet.  I expect them any day now,” said Grayson.

              “They?” I asked.

              “She's on the road with some hopeless romantic.  He offered to bring her here.”

              “Michelle and I are in Baltimore.  We're going to get some rest, and head out in a couple of days.  Dez doesn't know we are here, but I'm sure his wolves are sniffing around the door.  I don't want to jeopardize my father's safety, any more than it already is.  We've all been marked.  My paranoia is convinced that Cadence binoculars are following my every move.  Luckily, he has no reason to believe Crystal is saddled to your back, but you'd be wise to keep a healthy awareness,” I said.

              “I'm used to it.  This city is crawling with freaks,” added Grayson, before cutting the line.

              Destiny paved a way for Michelle and me to connect.  Fearing my father's house was being watched, we charted off course, and explored the tattered Baltimorean landscape.  By moonlight, we exchanged campfire stories and fueled our tired minds with bottomless cups of diner coffee.  We found our common thread was tied to a misdirected rebellion.  We both wanted to destroy the poisoned world we were forced to accept, and we both wanted to find something greater than what we'd been taught and sold.  Though the darkness seemed to shield us from societal expectations, it only perverted our hopes.  In a world glamorizing self-aggrandizing behavior and autonomy, we'd foolishly neglected our soul's interconnected nature.  The mere thought of building a new life together — on these revelations — made the tiny hairs on the back of our necks stand tall.  We were falling in love.

+++

              Michelle had all but forgotten Max.  The truth could no longer be suppressed and the purity of my father's home lit a candle in her blackened heart.  She spent countless nights repairing what the Cadence had tried to suppress and destroy in her.  Using my ears as a soundboard proved to be the best remedy for her baggage.  Long talks healed her more than her childhood psychiatrist, antipsychotic medications, stripping and the drug cocktails Dez had been giving her, combined.  Injecting her heart with a positive faith, gave her a mainline to the Council of the Lords.

                 “We really shouldn't stay for too long,” said Michelle. 

Bundled in hoodies, while sitting under a tree in a nearby schoolyard, the blackbirds beckoned for notice.  On a wooden bench we perched, built a stable nest and weaved our lives together with trusting words and stale cigarettes.  Our names were carved into the tree.  A tiny promise necklace was tied into the weeping branches.  It was our very own museum, constructed with the purity of simplicity.  It was a living love letter – our place in time. 

“Neco, darling?” asked Michelle.

              “I wish we could just turn it off and forget about this crazy world!”

              “We can, and it'll quickly forget about us —
all of us
!

              “I suppose.”

              Birds chirped.  An orange sheen glimmered upon the dawning street.  Talking ourselves into an unexpected sleep, we awoke, energized by The Council's call and covered in a cool morning dew.  Saddling up our belongings, we soldiered up to my father's house, on top of the hill, and rehearsed our swan song.  Slithering across the threshold, the still home offered us a way from the psychological cage we'd built — we could leave before the first rooster crowed.  Parting the bedroom curtains, my tired father released a familiar sight of disapproval, and set us free, without ever uttering a damning word. 

              “I just couldn't,” I said.

              “Say, 'Goodbye?'” Michelle asked.

              “I feel like my entire life has been a burden on his soul,” I continued.

              “Did you ever think, he feels equally as burdensome?  Let's focus on Crystal.”

+++

              Before watchful eye of fall and the bustling traffic, we planned for the coming war.  On highway medians, we hitchhiked for rides, and arrived to the outskirts of New York City in record time.  A bus station in New Jersey gave us time to make our final preparations, to connect and beg for bus fares — it was a small price to pay for a one way trip into the belly of America's beast.

              “Grayson, we're here!” I said.

              “How are you feeling?” he asked.

              “Learning to survive is the closest a person will ever get to knowing God,” I added. 

              “Do you guys have a place to stay?  If want to
get to know
sardines, we can try to find room,” offered Grayson.

              “We're going to remain in obscurity.  If you're being watched, we'll need eyes on the outside,” I continued.

              As I slowly retired the dingy black payphone to its saddle, a homeless Jamaican fellow caught the corner of my eye — he was no stranger to survival.  Buried in an ocean of curly black dreadlocks and wiry gray facial hair, the vacant soul haplessly raised his 40 oz. brown bag of freedom, and delivered the bottomless bottle into his dry and quivering mouth.  He was society's truth.  A derelict.  A tired man crucified by unconquerable circumstances.  I was forced to wonder, 'What are we fighting for?”

              “You kids are almost out of time, aren't you?” he managed, cryptically.

              There was something about his tone that made time stop and my spirit jump.  My rational side made me think, 'Maybe he overheard the urgency in my call to Grayson?' or 'Maybe he witnessed us repeatedly looking at our watches.'  Regardless, the entire world and its inhabitants seemed to be watching our lives unfold on a dystopian stage.  Things like numerology, deja vu and synchronicity amplified our suspicions, but guided us.

              “The bus should be here any minute,” he laughed, mocking my wide-eyed paranoia.

              “That's what the ticket says!” I added.

              “The early bird catches the worm,” he grinned. 

              “They say,” I said.

              “Don't be modest, son, you know all about waking up with the birds – now, don't you?”

              Turning to acknowledge him, he was gone.

              “God?” I whispered.