Seraphim (26 page)

“That’s a vicious rumor,” he balked.

She flopped back down, laughing. “You can’t fool me, Donut. I know you like her.”

“Okay,” he said, “she’s all right. Sometimes.” He put his hand on the light switch. “Now go to sleep. Our flight leaves very early.”

“When we take off it’ll still be dark,” Rachel said. Then, just as she always did with Amy every night, she blew Kathy a kiss from the doorway. “Sweet dreams.”

Hurriedly, Kathy said, “Rock Bay isn’t the end of the world.”

“Of course it’s not,” Duncan said. “I believe that title belongs to New Jersey.”

Rachel stared at her curiously. “Why would you say that?”

“Just because,” she said. “See ya in the morning.”

Then the light went out.

“The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of his wings.”

–John Bright

Part Three

Reunion

1.

The sun was a good thirty minutes away, and already the airport was bustling.

In the line for United, the woman standing in front of Chris Kaddison was a bit shorter than him, but much broader about the shoulders. Her carrot-red hair was cropped military-style, and the back of her bare neck offered a galaxy of freckles, with a few eraser-size moles added for celestial dimension. But it was the silkscreen on her back—two grinning, leather-clad skeletons straddling a Harley Davidson motorcycle—that was adjuring him to betray his better judgment.

The man next to her, a tall, thickset ape with a shaved head and Fu Manchu mustache (and pierced in places even Chris hadn’t considered), carried his own proverb:
If you can read this
, proclaimed the back of his shirt
, then the bitch fell off
.

Chris could no longer contain himself. “Biker cunt!”

From the adjacent lines of travelers, an erudite brunette (with the biggest pearl necklace he’d ever seen) went slack-jawed, gaping at him in disbelief; a dark-skinned man, who Chris guessed was of Muslim descent, was studying him with the black, abhorring eyes of Allah. And to his immediate left a rather refined gent in a gray tweed jacket was nodding in agreement.

The redhead glanced casually around, as if the accusation had surely been directed at someone else.

“Biker cunt!” he charged again. A nervous tick had begun to somersault across the left side of his face. As if to quell a threatening burp, he pressed the top half of his one-way ticket to his pursed lips.
Damn!
His mouth was going to get him into trouble once again.

This time, the redhead turned slowly around. Her front looked every bit as masculine as her back insinuated. Chris even thought she might have a bright future as a short lumberjack.

The Ape had turned around as well, and was regarding Chris dolefully; sorrowful, perhaps, that he was going to have to squash this little bug.

Standing a few persons ahead of the redheaded biker was an older woman who looked and dressed like a Rockwell schoolmarm. She was ogling him, her huge bosom swelling around her crocheted carry-on as if it were the eyes and ears of a child, protecting it from the wickedness that abounded in this world.

Staring directly now into her eyes, Chris quickly countered himself. “Like, I’m really sorry, lady. It’s just that I—
cunt!
—have a condition.”

Her eyes narrowed. “A condition, huh?” she said in a voice that was more feminine than Chris had anticipated. “How would you like me to cut—”

“Kick-stand mama!” Chris barked.

“—your balls off and shove them down your throat?”

“That might be an undertakin’,” said a tall, urban cowboy, his chivalry as garish as his belt buckle, “considerin’ the fact that this asshole’s obviously got a pair the size of bowlin’ balls between his legs.”

“Split-tail on wheels!” Chris accused.

“Potty-mouths,” Schoolmarm accused, indignant. “The both of you!”

The urban cowboy laughed. “Don’t go gettin’ your cotton undies all bunched up, grandma. I believe what this pissant needs is for me to stomp his ass into a mud hole.”

The Ape stepped in. “I’ll take care of this,” he said wearily. “You can have sloppy seconds.”

Although a few passing travelers had paused to observe the quarrel, most continued on without giving a second glance. Those waiting in line, however, were forced to endure the situation, some with scathing resentment, still others with ribald amusement, but most with indifference. After all, Chris thought, this was LAX, where fracases like this were as much a part of the scenery as those Rama-Rama-Ding-Ding guys and their Hare Krishna bibles—although he hadn’t really seen any of those people hanging around this morning. It had been quite some years since he’d been in LAX, or any airport for that matter, and he wondered if they’d been kicked out for good, or if they’d just opened up their own website like everybody else.

The quiver on his face was growing spastic.

A pretty flight attendant, blonde, clad in a tight, navy skirt and vest, towing a miniature dolly stacked with luggage, hesitated as she went by. “Everything all right here?” she said with a practiced smile.

“It’s about to be,” promised the Ape.

“Chrome blower!” Chris said, backing away from the promising beginnings of a lynch mob. God, how he hated lynch mobs. He’d been the focus of many throughout his years as an intrepid loudmouth.

*****

Kathy tugged Duncan’s pant leg. “What’s a chrome-blower?”

“A poor choice of words,” Duncan said, watching the commotion with keen interest.

“Are they going to beat him up?”

“More like
throttle
him, I think,” Duncan said, but Kathy missed the joke.

“Stay out of this, Duncan,” Rachel warned. “You’re not the law anymore.”

But Duncan was already on his way.

“Damn it, Duncan!” Rachel shouted after him.

The young man—still in laudable control considering the mess he was in—gestured with his hands pleadingly
,
but his mouth kept betraying him.

Duncan pushed his way in. “Ever heard of Tourette’s Syndrome?”

The afflicted man nodded.

“No,” said the Ape, “but I’ve heard of people getting hurt when they don’t mind their own business. So step aside, asshole.”

“Of course!” said the pretty flight attendant. “Oh my God, of course!”

“Spontaneous, uncontrollable outbursts,” Duncan explained. “This young man suffers from a medical affliction, not a moral one.”

“You tellin’ me this asshole’s got a prescription to spout off at the mouth whenever and whatever he wants?” said the garish cowboy, stepping toward Duncan.

Duncan met the advance: “I don’t remember him calling you a shitkicker. Get my drift?”

The cowboy stood his ground for a moment, reconsidered, then dropped back a few paces. Throwing up his arms, he said, “Hey, I was just tryin’ to help.”

“You wanna help,” said the redheaded biker, “then fuck off already.”

Emasculated, the cowboy cowered into the crowd.

“John Wayne!” Chris called after him.

Although the Ape stood his ground, his steely if not somewhat groggy eyes conveyed a look of surrender, as if he could smell a badge, retired or not. “Can’t you put a muzzle on him?”

“Afraid not,” Duncan said. “He’s not my dog.”

“Isn’t there a pill you can take for that?” said the redheaded biker.

Chris nodded. “Yeah, there is. Quite a few, actually. But I don’t—
bitch!
—take any medication because it screws with my telepathic abilities.”

She looked stunned. “Only in LA!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. She grabbed her apish partner, both huffing and elbowing and excusing themselves back into line.

“Thanks, dude,” Chris said to Duncan. “But, like, how did you know I have Tourette’s?”

Duncan smiled. “Let’s just say that I made the same mistake once.”

He looked Duncan up and down. “Cost someone the use of their lip, I’ll bet.”

“And two days’ suspension for me,” Duncan admitted. “You seem fine now.”

Chris offered a devilish grin. “I was fine three minutes ago. Sometimes a guy just has to make his point.”

“And what point would that be?” Duncan said. “That you’re a bigot?”

“Hey, dude, most of it was legitimate,” he assured, not the least bit insulted.

Chuckling, Duncan said, “So, you’re heading to Boston, too?”

“Yeah,” Chris said. “Business trip.”

“Ahh.”

“Hey, like, thanks for helping me out.” He extended a hand. “Name’s Chris.”

“Duncan,” he said, taking Chris’s hand. “And don’t mention it.”

Chris’s face pulled back in sudden shock. “McNeil?
You’re
Duncan McNeil?”

Duncan tightened his grip. “Yes. I am.”

“Wow!” Chris said. “This is too
bonzoid!
”

“Translate.”

“Like, you’re why I’m going to Massachusetts. Flyspeck called Rock Bay. I’m supposed to meet you at some chick’s place—
owh, owh...
”
Grimacing, twisting back and forth, Chris said, “Dude, my hand!”

Duncan released him. “The name of this chick?”

“Patricia…something,” Chris said as he dug into his blue jeans pocket. He withdrew a crumpled piece of yellow notebook paper. “I wrote it down. Yeah. Here it is. Patricia Bently. Her address is—”

“I know her address,” Duncan said. Upon the wrinkled piece of paper, below Patricia’s name and residential information, he observed the names Kathy, Amy, Wife Rachel, Juanita, and his own.

“There’s just one ‘L’ in McNeil,” Duncan said. “It was the
only
habit my ancestors dropped when they came over.”

“Sorry,” Chris said. “Like, I just write down what the voices tell me.”

What the voices tell him?

“Voices?” Duncan said, his legs beginning to buckle.

“Peter, Paul, and Mary,” Chris said. “The voices in my refrigerator.” He shrugged. “Well, this week’s crew, anyway.”

Up until this point, Duncan supposed he was in denial, was still holding on to the hope that it was all just a nightmare aggravated by a severe stroke. He would like to believe that at this very moment some nurse in an ICU ward was making his comatose ass comfy while preparing to give him his low fat, low sodium breakfast intravenously.

“Excuse me a moment,” Duncan mumbled. Dizzy, he backed into a row of chairs and plopped himself down. “These voices: Peter, Paul, and Mary. You don’t mean the, um...the people who sang, ‘Monday, Monday,’ do you?”

“No, dude,” Chris said, sounding slightly annoyed. “You’re thinking of the Mamas and the Papas. And they aren’t the ones mentioned in the
Bible
, so don’t take that exit either. I mean, c’mon, don’t make this any weirder than it has to be.”

Although his face was now hovering above his knees, Duncan was coming around. “Oh, wait, yeah, they were the ones who did, ‘Leaving On a Jet Plane.’” He slowly lifted his head, regarded his surroundings with a bit of wonderment, and said, “Doesn’t that strike you as being a rather odd coincidence?”

“Naw, it’s too vague. I mean, if it was ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane to Rock Bay to Kick Ass,’ then that might get my attention. Or, for instance, they also did ‘Puff the Magic Dragon,’ and if they’d asked me to meet you in the Hotel Honah Lee, and you’d just made reservations with a desk clerk by the name of Jackie Paper who sold sealing wax on the side, then I might be swayed. But, hey, don’t get me wrong, synchronicity’s par for the course.”

Duncan was sorry he asked. “So, you’re clairvoyant, huh?”

“Among other things,” he stated proudly.

“I see,” Duncan said, shakily rising from the chair. “Then I assume you’re foreseeing a safe flight for us this morning?”

“Oh, for sure.” Then, appearing slightly worried, he said, “But, like, I can’t see beyond tomorrow. It’s all blank after that. It just keeps going deeper and deeper until it eventually turns itself inside out. Then it repeats.”

“What repeats?”

“The nothingness.”

Duncan was starting to feel like he did when Juanita took her native tongue to speeds and levels beyond his comprehension. Satirizing the gallant cowboy, he offered, “Maybe you just got a catch in yer get-along.”

“Ain’t nuttin wrong with my get-along, pardner,” Chris rebutted. “I jest ’spect it’s cuz I’ve been lopin’ my mule too much.”

“Well, there’s yer answer,” Duncan said. “Ya done finally went and gone blind.”

Chris pointed. “Is that yer missus over yonder, lookin’ madder’n a tick on roadkill?”

Duncan nodded. “I reckon it is.”

He grabbed Chris’s carry-on, shouldered it, and started walking. “Where you from?”

“San Diego,” Chris said. “I just hope it’s there after tomorrow.”

Interested, Duncan looked down at the young man. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Dude, you really don’t know what’s going on, do you?”

2.

As he drove away from the Texaco, leaving Gloucester proper, Duncan set the cruise control to five miles over the posted limit and started wondering again why he’d suddenly developed a fear of flying.

He’d flown in aircraft all of his life, from rotor- to fixed-wing, and not once had he ever given it a second thought. Until today. Thankfully, he was already on the ground when the phobia struck. Just as they entered Salem…Witch country. Probably just an errant spell, he’d reasoned, floating around like a cold virus. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was something. Hell, he just couldn’t figure it out.

But he was confident that it had nothing to do with either crisis he’d faced earlier while at 32,000 feet.

The first calamity was encountered about forty-five minutes after takeoff from LAX. A rather homely stewardess had explained to everyone in coach that the Harrison Ford movie that was scheduled would not be shown after all, as they were experiencing technical difficulties. Somehow, Duncan had managed to hide his grief. Rachel, on the other hand, wouldn’t have looked more shocked if an oxygen mask had dropped in front of her face. And the meager jeers that followed only confirmed what the passenger manifest already knew: the plane was practically empty.