Circuit Of Heaven (36 page)

NEMO
RAN
UP
THE
STAIRS
OUT
OF
NORTHSIDE
STATION
, ran down the middle of the street through the moonlit grass. He didn’t remember getting to the
VIM
. He didn’t remember much of the train ride from D.C., moving from car to car, never seeing a soul. All he could think about was Justine in his arms, and Angelina. He ran faster, dodging the shadows of rocks and chunks of broken asphalt.

Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed low shadows moving between the dark houses. Stupid, he told himself. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You never run unless something’s already after you. Now he’d picked up a pack of dogs, closing in on both sides. All he had to do was fall down, and they’d be on him. Even if he slowed or stumbled, they might make their move. He was three blocks from home. He could never keep up this pace.

He could hear their breathing as they effortlessly matched his stride. He considered breaking for one of the abandoned houses on either side of him, scrambling up a drainpipe, but even if he could outrun them, he’d have to climb high and fast, or they’d drag him down. All they needed was a boot heel or a pants leg. Even if he was fast enough, these old drainpipes wouldn’t hold, or he’d spend the night waiting to fall.

He could see one of them about a dozen yards to his right, a lab mix, his tongue lolling out of the corner of his mouth. He seemed to be enjoying himself. Then Nemo remembered—he’d been twelve or thirteen—Lawrence telling him what to do if a pack of dogs ever tried to run him down. It was a last resort, he said. It might work, or it might not. Nemo stopped dead and whirled around, flinging his arms wide and screaming like a banshee.

The dogs stopped, circling around, but they didn’t back off. Two of them loped up the street to cut him off. Nemo stood as tall as he could, threw his shoulders back, and turned around, walking down the middle of the street with steady, purposeful strides, turning his head slowly from side to side, trying to keep an eye on all of them at once. He counted five. The one he had to watch out for was a big shepherd mix directly behind him, about ten yards back, and closing.

He searched the ground for anything he might use as a weapon, and spotted what looked like a fallen limb off to his left. He veered toward it, and scooped it up as he passed. The shepherd broke into a run when he bent over, and Nemo waited in a crouch. The limb was wet and rotten, practically crumbling in his hands. The dog sprang, and Nemo swung the limb hard, putting his whole body into it. The limb thudded against the dog’s ribcage, and disintegrated. The dog hit the ground and rolled, the wind knocked out of him. All that was left of the limb was a handful of wet powder he threw at the rest of them, screaming again, waving his arms and pounding his chest for good measure. The other dogs widened their circle, and he moved on. He heard the shepherd rising to his feet and shaking himself off. The others circled back, giving Nemo a wide berth. They didn’t follow him.

HE
FINALLY
MADE
IT
HOME
,
CLOSING
AND
LOCKING
THE
door behind him. He lit a lamp and hunted through the pantry. There was about an inch left in a half-pint bottle of
Early Times
he and Lawrence had found hidden in the door panel of an old mail truck. He drank it off in two swallows and smashed the bottle against the wall. While he was at it, he hurled a couple of jars of okra.

He saw her there, sitting at the table, drinking her coffee, talking about her nuns. In her diaries, he realized now, they were ‘the harpies’.
Room check today. The harpies busted S & A
. He looked up as if he could see through the ceiling into his room where her diaries sat inside the refrigerator. Phrases from them ran through his mind. He heard her singing.
Everything I could’ve said I felt somehow you already knew
.

Holding the lamp aloft, he slowly climbed the stairs and went into his room, setting the lamp on the bedside table. He pulled a sheet off the bed and laid it on the floor in front of the refrigerator, opening it up and raking its contents onto the sheet, rocking it back and forth to make sure he got every last scrap. He ripped the earth poster off the wall and wadded it up, the photographs inside. Took the stack of Aimee Mann CDs still sitting on the workbench and tossed them on the pile. Popped the disc out of the CD player, snapped it in half, and flung the pieces down. He grabbed the corners of the sheet and wound them around his wrists, hoisted the bundle onto his back, walked down the hall to his old room, and kicked open the door.

The fireplace looked like a tiny cavern in the moonlight. The air was damp and musty and smelled like wet ashes. He dropped the bundle on the hearth and knelt beside it, stuffing the poster under the grate and dumping an armload of diaries on top. He struck a match and held it to the yellowed edges of the poster. It smoked and caught with a
poof
. The diaries’ cheap leatherette bindings blackened and bubbled and rolled back like waves. The pages swelled and caught. Flames roared up the chimney, and Nemo knelt before the blaze, feeding it every scrap of the woman who’d lived in his imagination all his life, until every trace was gone but a pile of glowing ashes and the twisted silver globs of melted CDs.

He lay back on the sheet, wrapping himself up in it. He wanted to burn with righteousness, but all he could feel was the aching numbness of loss. He couldn’t help himself. He longed for her even now. He tried, but he couldn’t smell her on the sheet. She’d never really been here, would never be. He shuddered. His sobs echoed through the empty house.

SOME
TIME
LATER
, LAWRENCE’S
SHADOW
FILLED
THE
DOOR-way. “What the hell you doing, boy? The whole damn place is full of smoke.”

“Leave me alone,” Nemo said quietly.

Lawrence disappeared and came back carrying a lamp. The floorboards shook as he walked over to the fireplace, prodded the smoldering ashes with his foot, and set the lamp on the mantel. “Don’t you know any better than to burn paper and plastic in this old fireplace? You’re lucky you didn’t burn the whole house down.”

“Not such a bad idea.”

Lawrence opened the window, fanned the smoke, and sat on the sill. “That girl took a big chance on you.”

“I told you to leave me alone.” Nemo turned his face to the floor.

“And we’re ignoring you. Lying up here in the dark feeling sorry for yourself. Shit. What do you think she’s going through right now? She didn’t
have
to tell you a damn thing, you know. You didn’t have a clue.”

Nemo rolled over on his back and watched Lawrence light up a cigarette and blow a perfect smoke ring as big as a basketball. Apparently,
his
smoke was okay. Nemo sat up and leaned his back against the wall. “She’s my grandmother, Lawrence.”

Lawrence shook his head. “You two
are
made for each other. Both obtuse as hell. Your grandmother died when you were five years old. Justine’s no more your grandmother than we’re a good-looking West Texas cowboy.”

“It’s her, Lawrence. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”

“Yeah, right. Smart boy like you.” He took another drag off his cigarette, consulting with himself. “Let’s just have it your way, then: She’s Angelina, born in 1985, had a couple of kids, a grandson, lost her husband, died of Alzheimer’s at eighty. You hate her now? Son, you never knew the woman, and she never knew you. You met Justine, fell in love with Justine. Hell, I bet you were even willing to go into the Bin for her, when you found out—perish the thought—that she’s a Construct. Now, you mind telling us how the hell it matters whether you’ve got Angelina’s blood in your veins—when you won’t have either blood or veins in there?”

Nemo pushed himself up the wall to his feet. “I told you to leave me alone. Why am I even talking to you? You knew all the time. Showing up with her at Mom and Dad’s. What were you doing, coaching her? ‘This is how us Constructs lie and scheme, little lady.’ You set me up, didn’t You? You knew from the beginning.”

Lawrence flipped the cigarette out the window and closed his eyes, his scales fanning out. It was as if he were listening to something, looking at something behind his eyes. “This isn’t just about you and Justine, Nemo. But yes, we knew.”

Nemo hadn’t wanted to believe it. Even as he accused him, he’d held onto the hope that he was wrong. “How could you do this to me, Lawrence?”

Lawrence couldn’t cry. There were no tear ducts in his eyes. But Nemo knew the look of his pain. “It was the hardest thing we’ve ever done, Nemo. When you know what’s going on, we hope you’ll forgive us.”

Nemo exploded. “
When I know what’s going on? When I know what’s going on
? Everybody keeps telling me this shit. Well, everybody’s wrong. I already know what’s going on—because I’m going to make it happen. Not you, not Mom, not Justine. Not God in his fucking heaven. But
me
. I’m pulling the plug on my problems, Lawrence. And after that, I’m finding another place to live. I don’t want to live in this house anymore.”

He started for the door, but Lawrence blocked his way. “Your mother wants to see you. It’s important. She has some things she wants to tell you.”

“Not interested. Get out of my way, Lawrence.”

“Son, she didn’t know who Justine is.”

Nemo slammed his fist into the wall. “
Goddamnit! Somebody
had to know. I didn’t know. Justine didn’t know. Now you’re telling me Mom didn’t know? Well, who the hell
did
know? And how is it you know so goddamn much?”

Lawrence stepped away from the door, shook another cigarette from his pack, and lit it. Finally, he said, “Your grandfather knew. He told us.”

“Wade Donley?”

“Wade Donley’s not your grandfather. Biologically speaking, anyway. Newman Rogers is your grandfather.”

“Newman Rogers is my
grandfather
?”

“That’s right.”

Nemo threw his hands up in the air. This was totally fucking insane. They were all trying to drive him crazy. He clamped his hands over his ears and screamed, “Enough bullshit!” He backed into the hallway, stabbing his finger in the air at Lawrence. “You think this is funny, Lawrence? I trusted you. I trusted Justine. You got any room in that lizard brain of yours for how
I feel
? You goddamn lying snake!”

AS
NEMO
CHARGED
DOWN
THE
STAIRS
,
LAWRENCE
CALLED
after him, but he didn’t answer. He didn’t want to hear any more. He went out back to the tool shed, took a crowbar down from the wall, and hooked it over his belt in case he ran into any more dogs. The rabbits stirred in their hutches, watching him. The moonlight shone on the high grass. No one had lain there. No one had made love. None of that had ever happened.

Peter said there was a meeting tonight. Nemo intended to find it. Gabriel said Nemo would want to see him when he learned the truth. Maybe Gabriel wasn’t so crazy after all. Maybe Nemo didn’t give a damn whether he was or not.

THERE
WAS
A
LIGHT
IN PETER’S
ROOM
, SO HE
WAS
STILL
there. Even Peter wouldn’t go off and leave a candle burning. Nemo crouched behind a hedge on the other side of the street, and concentrated on the light, on what he was going to do, pushing all other thoughts out of his mind. The last few days were all a mistake, but it wasn’t going to happen again. After about twenty minutes, Peter came out, looked cautiously up and down, and headed toward Northside Station. Nemo waited until Peter was a good half block away and followed him.

When Peter went down into the station, Nemo figured there was no chance of not being spotted. The guy was too paranoid. Nemo quickened his pace and hurried down to the platform. There was Peter, looking up and down the tracks, as if spies might be hiding between the rails. Nemo was almost on top of him when Peter thought to turn around.

Nemo gave him a little salute. “Where’re we going?”

Peter held up his hands, eyeing the crowbar with alarm. “Please, leave me alone.”

Nemo imagined his eyes looked as wild as Peter’s, but he tried to sound calm and reasonable. “I’m not going to hurt you, Peter. I want to help. But I need you to find Gabriel.”

Peter shook his head. “I can’t.”

Nemo shrugged. “Okay. I’ll just get on whatever train you get on, get off where you do. We can either ride trains all night, or you can take me to your meeting. I have some good news for Gabriel. You wouldn’t want to disappoint him, would you?”

The warning lights flashed, and the southbound local pulled into the station. Peter hesitated, then got on board, Nemo right behind him. Before he sat down, Nemo looked up and down the train. There were at least a dozen other passengers, three at the other end of the car they were in. Nemo’d never seen so many people out in the middle of the night. “All these folks going to this meeting”

Peter eyed him cautiously. “Maybe. You’re going to help us?”

“I’m going to help myself. You guys get to help me. You want the Bin to go away. I want the Bin to go away. We have different reasons. But yeah, I’m going to help you.”

Peter smiled. “I told Gabriel you would. It was revealed to me. I had a vision.”

Nemo eyed him suspiciously. “You had a vision, about me?”

Peter held up his hands, as if he could still see his vision in the fluorescent lights. “You were all in flames, but the fire didn’t burn you. God called to you, and you ascended into heaven. The sky turned to fire, raining down on the wicked. And the children of God rode the flames into the sky like a fiery chariot.”

Nemo could almost see this vision himself. “I have a dream something like that. How did you figure it meant I’d convey a virus into the Bin’s operating system?”

“You were chosen by God,” Peter said, as if it were obvious.