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trash into gold

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OIL IN WATER

Pam Lazos

Chapter Thirty-Two

Weeks after Avery’s visit, a shiny silver oil tanker sat positioned to fill the underground holding tank at Cooper’s Service Station. Water droplets ran in impromptu lines down the windshield. The driver grabbed his clipboard, jumped down from the vehicle, and throwing his hood over his head, strode to the office through the misty fog. He burst through the door into the office, a futile move since he could see through the glass that no one was in there. He scanned the garage floor, his eyes settling on the closest mechanic, Tom Johnson, only three days on the job. The driver approached with long, unhurried steps that belied his impatience.

He wasted no time with niceties. “Cooper here?”

“He stepped out for a sandwich.”

“Business off or something?”

“No. I don’t think,” said Johnson.

“What d’ya’ mean, you don’t think?  I ain’t been here for two weeks. You should be bone dry, but you still got a lot left.”

“Got some yesterday,” Johnson said.

The driver furrowed his brows, annoyance creeping across his face. “Jesus Christ. How many times I have to tell that guy? Listen you. This is the third time I’ve been out here and the third time…” The driver doffed his hood revealing a pair of menacing eyes.

“Who is it? Exxon? Texaco?” He rubbed his hand over two days of stubble. “Chevron?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The driver took a step forward. “I got better things to do than come here every week for no reason,” he said, looking like he might throttle Johnson, clipboard and all.

Johnson took a step back. He was suddenly and acutely aware of the sheer volume of sound at his back, the whir and hiss and clink of the body shop, all stations in use, Mr. Cooper’s half-dozen motor heads fully engaged in their work. This guy could pummel him to a bloody pulp and no one would notice or hear a thing until they stepped over him to get to the free coffee which was now feuding with the breakfast burrito in Johnson’s stomach.

“Look, I just started three days ago.” Johnson turned to the room at large looking for support, but every last man had his head in or under a hood, engine, or wheel base.

“Sunoco? Getty? Who is it? I at least have a right to know?”

“I don’t know his name…” The driver stepped so close that Johnson could smell the man’s coffee breath.

“I’ll ask it slow so you’re little pea-brain can register it. What – is – the – name – of – the – company – that – delivered – here – this – week?”

“There was no a company. It was a guy. And I told you, I don’t know.”

“Then who’s he work for?”

The driver’s eyes narrowed and he moved even closer. In addition to coffee, Johnson now identified the distinct smells of petrol and body odor. Johnson flinched, cleared his throat.

“He doesn’t work for anybody. He’s just a kid makes oil is all.” His voice cracked. The driver was too close.

The driver furrowed his brow, lost in thought.

Johnson caught a movement on the periphery of his vision and turned to see Jim Snyder, the Assistant Manager, speed-walking toward them.

“Can I help you?” Snyder asked the driver.

“You tell Cooper he’ll be hearing from Akanabi.” The driver turned on his heel and stomped out the door into the rain.

“What the heck was that about?” Snyder asked. Johnson demurred, shaken.

“You have no idea?”

“That kid that brings the gas and oil. Who is he?” Johnson asked.

“No one for you to worry about.” Snyder walked to the office and looked over the papers on the desk, shifting them around. He walked back onto the floor, empty-handed.

“Where’s the invoice?” Johnson said nothing.

“Did he even fill the tanks today?” Snyder asked, more harshly then Johnson thought appropriate.

Johnson nodded. “Yeah, but I guess not much.”

“Do you know why?”

“He said they didn’t take much.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing. Just that some kid brings some gas and oil sometimes.”

Snyder’s face bloomed and he sputtered, “You told him about Avery?”

Tirabi. That was it. Johnson coughed. “What was I supposed to say?”

Snyder eyed him up. “All right,” Snyder said, as Mr. Cooper crossed the threshold to the shop. “Get back to work. I’ll take care of it.”

 ➣➣➣

Johnson returned to his station, trying to look busy – he was almost done retrofitting some new brake pads – but his eyes kept drifting to the scene in the office with Cooper gesticulating like crazy and Snyder alternating between grimacing and nodding his head. Mr. Cooper appeared more resigned than indignant. Perhaps he’d keep his job after all. The thought was quickly replaced by the next thing Johnson saw.

Avery Tirabi was pulling into the parking lot just as the giant tanker was pulling out. Apparently, the driver didn’t care that Avery had the right-of-way and pulled out across two lanes of traffic right in front of Ruth’s minivan. Both Avery and the driver slammed on their brakes, a near miss, and proceeded to yell and lean on their respective horns. After a full minute of this, with cars backing up behind Avery on the highway, the driver put it in reverse giving Avery enough room to squeeze into the parking lot. The driver flipped Avery the bird as he drove by and Avery responded in kind.

With the diligence of a worker bee, Johnson buried his head and shoulders beneath the wheel base, too nervous to even peek.

 ➣➣➣

“Hey, Mr. Cooper,” Avery said. The door rattled shut with a bang and a jingle.

“Avery!” Mr. Cooper looked up with a start. He hadn’t seen Avery coming, engrossed as he was in Snyder’s story, and felt like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. He cleared his throat and ran a hand over his eyebrows, hoping to hide his embarrassment.

“You okay?” Avery asked. Cooper nodded and smiled.

“Fine. Fine. Bit of a headache is all. Glad you’re here, son,” he said, motioning to a chair. “Sit down.” Avery obliged, first extending a hand to Snyder in a show of both manners and adultness.

“Look, Avery, I’m gonna be honest with you. We may have a problem.” Mr. Cooper stopped, weighed his words, wondering if the kid’s self-possession could withstand this potential pitfall. “That Akanabi Oil guy that just left? He was pretty P.O.’d.”

“Why?”

“Not much of a delivery. He wanted to know who the new supplier was.” Mr. Cooper walked over and poured a cup of coffee which he handed to Avery. Avery shook his head at the tar-like substance so Cooper drank it himself.

“Did you tell them?” Avery’s voice quivered slightly.

“No. He talked to one of the guys on the floor. Snyder and I are the only ones with that information.” Cooper sighed and sat down. “Likely the driver’s gonna call dispatch and tell them it’s the third week in a row we had a sub-standard delivery. He’ll recommend canceling us because we got another supplier.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Well, we’re almost out,” Avery said.

Mr. Cooper stared out the window. The rain had stopped and the sky was clearing. A slow smile spread across his face. He looked blankly at Avery, took a sip of his coffee and cleared his throat. “Too damn hot,” he said to himself. He rolled his ailing tongue, massaging the burned spot, and sat down at his desk.

“Avery?” Cooper said, smiling again. “What if you supplied me?”

“Me?! I can’t. I told you, we’re almost out.”

“Well, how about making some more? I’d take all you had. I’m not the biggest station in town, but we’re busy enough.” Mr. Cooper looked out the window: six pumps out front, all with cars in front of them at the moment, one in back, just for shop use. He grabbed a sheet of paper and pencil, did some quick calculations and pushed the paper at Avery.

“This is how much you’d gross if you could supply me weekly. I don’t know what you’re overhead is or how much the raw materials cost, but even so, it’s a pretty number, eh?” Avery bent his head to look at the paper and his eyes grew wide. Mr. Cooper smiled. Apparently Avery thought the number very pretty as well.

“I don’t know, Mr. Cooper, I…”

“Look. I’ll take all of what you got left. And in the meantime, think about my offer.”

“But Akanabi…”

“Akanabi doesn’t know anything. They’re probably dropping us even as we speak.”

“But what if someone finds out we’re not a real company?”

“No one’s gonna find out. We can arrange pick up at night, after hours, whatever you want.”

Avery furrowed his eyebrows. “Well, I don’t know…”

Mr. Cooper continued. “Don’t worry. The guy that left here today thinks we got a new supplier, not some sixteen-year old kid who invented some damn machine turns trash into gold. He’s not gonna come lookin’ for you, I’m tellin’ ya’.”

“But somebody came looking for us. And they know where we live.”

“Avery. Your father’s been working on that machine for over twenty years. And he told a lot of people. Hell, I even knew about it.”

Avery took a deep breath and folded his hands on his lap.

“Just think about it. If the answer’s no, I can get a new supplier in a couple hours.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Avery said. He shook Mr. Cooper’s hand before leaving. Cooper and Snyder watched him walk to the car.

“Do you think it’ll be okay?” Snyder asked.

“I hope to God, so,” Mr. Cooper said, as Ruth’s minivan pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road.

 to be continued. . .

to read what came before jump here. . .

copyright 2012

no one can know

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OIL IN WATER

Pam Lazos

Chapter Thirty

Avery pulled Ruth’s van into Cooper’s gas station. Kori sat in the passenger seat; Gil and Max were in the back reading comic books. Kori slunk down in her seat, pulled her hat low over her brow and bit her nails.

“You guys wait here, okay?” Avery said.

“All right, already. Just hurry up,” Kori snipped.

Avery blew out of the car as if he’d been sand-blasted, rolling down to the pavement and out of sight before Kori had a chance to change her mind. Max’s ears pricked up, but Gil made no move to indicate he was even listening.

 ➣➣➣

Avery crossed the parking lot as if he owned the place, a walk he’d been practicing for weeks in anticipation of this meeting. He could see Mr. Cooper’s bald head through the window, bent in concentration over a stack of papers. When he got to the door, though, Avery wavered, and rather than boldly stepping into his future, he knocked lightly, the little bell over the door tinkling as he entered. Mr. Cooper didn’t look up, but continued reviewing the stack of papers before him, initialing them one at a time as he placed them into the “completed” pile.

“Lazy bastards,” Mr. Cooper said, not quite under his breath.

“Excuse me,” Avery said, half-turning to leave. Not the welcome he expected.

Mr. Cooper’s head, gleaming like a cue ball in the florescent light, popped up to greet him. “Oh for Chrissakes. Avery Tirabi. I thought you were one of my employees in here for another cup of coffee.” He stood and offered his hand, recently washed, but still bearing the grimy remnants of what looked to be a mid-morning oil change. Avery gave him a firm shake and Mr. Cooper’s round belly, stretched over the limit’s of his size forty-two pants, jiggled in greeting.

“Sit down. Have a cup of coffee.” Mr. Cooper motioned toward the “Mr. Coffee,” formerly white plastic, now oil-stained from years of dirty, grease-stained hands. A few stacks of Styrofoam cups and a shaker of sugar sat next to the pot. Avery looked at the whole ensemble and grimaced.

“Oh, no thanks, Mr. Cooper. Don’t drink the stuff,” he lied. When he did drink coffee, Avery needed tons of sugar and milk, the latter of which was no where in sight. Instead there was a liquid plastic known as “non-dairy creamer”on the table. Avery never understand the American penchant for creating fake substitutes when the real thing was so readily available.

“So what’s up? Did you come to sell me some more of that lovely gas and oil?”

Avery brightened. Mr. Cooper was interested before he’d even opened his mouth. “Actually, I did. I’ve got a few fifty-five gallon drums outside.”

Mr. Cooper raised an eyebrow. “How’d you get them in the car? They’re monsters.”

Avery shrugged his shoulders. “I rigged a ramp.” Avery waved a hand in dismissal as if the feat were no big deal. “Car was dragging a bit on the way over though. Hell on the suspension.” Avery felt like an adult, using the word “hell” without coming off like someone who regularly used vulgarity. Mr. Cooper tried to suppress a smile, but Avery caught it. Right where I want him . “So, Mr. Cooper, you said before you’d take all the gas and oil I could deliver. Are you still thinking that way?”

“Absolutely. Finest product I’ve come across in all my thirty years of running a service station. Your father made a fine product.” A shadow crept across Mr. Cooper’s face. “Tragedy,” he said, shaking his head. “Terrible tragedy.”

Mr. Cooper shot Avery a half-smile, half-grimace, walked over and clapped him on the back. “What are we waiting for, my boy. Let’s go unload. Same price as before, I presume?”

“Actually, Mr. Cooper, I need to raise the price about 10%,” Avery said. “Overhead.”

Mr. Cooper assessed Avery for a few moments. “Anything I can do to help old Marty. Cold as he may be personally, his legacy lives on.” He squeezed Avery’s shoulder. “Your father’d be proud of you boy. Well. Why am I saying, boy? You’re not a boy. You’re a man. And a heck of a fine one, too, I might add.” Mr. Cooper opened the door and held it for Avery who was still seated.

“Mr. Cooper. There’s one more thing.”

Mr. Cooper closed the door and stood, hand on the doorknob.

“No one can know where you got this stuff.”

Mr. Cooper raised himself to his full height of five feet, nine inches and sidled up close to Avery, whispering. “What’s happened? Something else?”

Avery shook his head. “No. It’s just my sister’s still freaked out about the porch. She thinks it’s all tied together. So if anybody comes around….”

“I’ll just tell them that I’ve started buying from a competitor who wishes to remain anonymous.”

“You think that’ll do it?”

Mr. Cooper rubbed the stubble of his unshaven face, deep in thought. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle them. Haven’t been in business for thirty years without some savvy of my own, eh?”

“Thanks, Mr. Cooper.” Avery stood and they shook hands.

“Okay, let’s walk. We’ll talk turkey on the way.”

Avery stepped into the garage, abuzz with the whir of motors and power tools, and thought of Robbie’s penchant for mechanics. He should be home running a place like this. Maybe if I sold enough oil….

They walked out into the parking lot where the noise level dropped substantially. Mr. Cooper’s step was quick and light for a man with so much girth, and Avery had to walk fast to keep up with him.

“So how much more of this you got, and more importantly, can you make some more?” Avery was about to answer, but Mr. Cooper continued. “Frankly, I’d be happy to tell all these oil guys to go to hell. They’ve been gouging me for years. Government’s no help. Let’s ‘em get away with murdering, thieving and stealing from the American public. They say they’re a unified front to help with the foreign competition, but I call it price-fixing.” He poked Avery in the ribs. “You know what I predict? I predict it’ll come back to bite ‘em in the ass someday. I just hope I’m around to see it.” He chuckled, then laughed full out, exposing a mouthful of metal. Now standing at the back of Ruth’s minivan, Mr. Cooper lifted the hatch without waiting for a signal from Avery.

Mad Max greeted him exactly like Cerberus would have had someone tried to breach the gates of hell, green eyes ablaze and barking for all he was worth. His singular head moved so fast that he very well could have had three. Mr. Cooper jumped back a quarter mile.

“Gil! Get him under control!” Avery shouted.

Gil’s eyes peered out, an iridescent green gleaming between the barrels. He grabbed Max by the collar and pulled him down to the sit. “It’s okay, boy,” he said sweetly, rubbing Max’s ears. Max settled his head onto Gil’s lap, calmer, but still growling. The sound rolled around in his massive jowls before ricocheting off the front seat and out to Mr. Cooper who stood immobile and at a safe distance away.

“It’s all right. Gil’s got him.”

“I hate dogs,” Mr. Cooper said. “Scared to death of ‘em.”

Max barked once as if to say you should be , but Gil tugged at his collar and he relaxed again.

Mr. Cooper signaled for one of his employees to bring the hand cart. Gil gave Max an ear rub so thorough that he could do little more than roll over when Mr. Cooper’s guys unloaded the van.

 to be continued. . .

jump here to read what came before. . .

copyright 2012

mind the child

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OIL IN WATER

Pam Lazos

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Kori sat at the kitchen table going over accounts receivable for the umpteenth time. She wrote numbers on a yellow legal pad, arrayed neatly in columns, punched them into a calculator and wrote them down below previous groups of numbers; the paper was covered with at least a dozen such reckonings, all with lines through them. Upon transferring the final tally, she scribbled over the column and dropped her head to the table.

“Aaaaaaah!” She banged her head on the table several times.

Avery walked in, took one look at Kori and walked out. A couple minutes later he peered around the corner. Kori’s head was still on the table, but she’d stopped banging it.

“Just shoot me now,” she said without raising her head.

“You talking to me?”

“You see anybody else here?”

Avery looked behind him and then back at his sister. “No.”

“Then I’m talking to you, but it doesn’t matter,” Kori said. “I could be talking to the Queen of England. It wouldn’t matter,” she said, sitting up.

Avery sat down and assessed the mass of paperwork spread before her. “Are you going to tell me what the problem is or just go on in high drama?”

Kori raised her head and slammed her fist on the table again. “The problem? The problem is we don’t have enough money. That’s the problem.”

“I thought you just got a check from Robbie?”

“I did,” Kori nodded, “and I used it to buy groceries, and clothes for Gil since all his pants were like three inches too short, and pay the insurance, and the electric bill so they don’t shut us off, and the overdue cable bill…”

“We should be dropping cable. It’s an expense we don’t need,” Avery said.

“Oh yeah? You gonna listen to him whine all day about how there’s nothing to watch. Some expenses are necessary — for sanity’s sake.” Avery dismissed the argument with a wave of his hand.

“And just today I got a $3,700 tax bill and you know what I have left in the checking account? Two hundred and thirteen dollars. Enough to buy groceries for the next two weeks which is two weeks short of when Robbie’s next paycheck will be here.”

“What about the insurance money?”

“They’re still investigating cause of death,” Kori shook her head.  “Bastards.”

“Well, what about your clients? Don’t they pay you?”

“Just sent the bills out.”

“For work you did in the summer? Kori, you really have to stay on top of this!”

“Don’t you think I know that, Avery?” Kori’s voice trailed off. Avery followed her gaze out the small portal window flanking the kitchen. “Even if everyone pays right away, it’s not enough to cover the tax bill.” Kori dropped her head to the table again. “I can’t do this.”

Avery studied a handful of papers. He pulled the checkbook from Kori’s slack fingers and perused its contents.

“I can make this work.”

“I’m scared,” she said, and squeezed his forearm so hard, he almost winced.

Avery saw all the pain and sorrow of the last months in his sister’s face and felt his stomach lurch. He rubbed her back. “I’ll take care of it. It’ll be alright. I promise.” He took a deep breath before proceeding. “I’ll limit it to a few gas stations. And I won’t supply them more than a week at a time so their standing orders won’t be off by too much. Last thing we need is an oil company rep nosing around.” He looked at Kori who, Avery noted, was not protesting. “I’ll keep selling until I unload it all. Then we’ll be officially out of the oil business.”

Kori shook her head, a vehement toss that petered out as she covered her eyes with her hand. When she looked up, Avery noted the absolute despair in her eyes.

“What about Gil? He works out in the barn still. Sometimes for days at a time.”

“It’s armed,” Avery said. “Anything happens, the cops show up.”

“Avery, I could never in a million years forgive myself.” She squeezed his hand. “I know you’re trying to do what’s best for us. And I couldn’t do this, any of this,” Kori’s hand arced out, taking in the expanse of the house, “without you. It’s just…. It’s too risky.”

“But, Kori…”

“Something good’s gonna happen for us, A. I know it will. It’s got to.”

As if on cue, Aunt Stella rapped at the back door, a squat, red-cloaked figure, peering in, hands clasping her cloak together at the throat, eyebrows raised in greeting. Avery got up to open the door, and Aunt Stella, looking like Red Riding Hood plus, blew in, followed by a cold November gale. She set her basket on the table and began the meticulous process of removing layers of clothing: a woolen hat hidden under the cloak hood, woolen scarf and mittens, and a fine woven cloak, all red.

Kori gave Aunt Stella a peck on the cheek and pulled out a chair for her. Aunt Stella was sweating lightly above the brow – a result of so many clothes for what amounted to a two-hundred yard dash – but she rubbed her hands as if to warm them as she accepted the proffered seat.

“Oh dear. My goodness, it’s cold out. No need to go to the freezer section to get a turkey this year. They’ll be frozen in the bush,” Aunt Stella said. “It’s uncannily cold for November.”

“It’s global warming, Aunt Stella,” Avery said. “It’ll result in the ultimate demise of the human race, all because of man’s over-reliance on fossil fuels, which, in my opinion, is driven by greed, intractability and borderline contempt for issues concerning the environment, as opposed to a lack of alternative fuel options.”

Kori rolled her eyes, but Avery resumed his diatribe.

“Let’s see, twenty or thirty more years of wrenching million-year old fossil fuels from the earth’s core so I can drive my brand new Hummer, or another few centuries of life on this planet as we know it, rolling brooks filled with trout, mountains that rise up into infinity, not the kind that have their tops blown off so they can get to the coal seams beneath, but the majestic kind who’s crowns are still intact. Hhmm. I’ll take the oil for twenty, Bob.”

“See what you did?” Kori looked at Aunt Stella, clearly perturbed.

“All I said was, ‘it’s cold out.’”

Kori filled the coffee pot with water, a sibilant pfpfp, escaping clenched lips.

A confused Aunt Stella looked to Avery for clarification, but he waived a dismissive arm at his sister, punctuating her rudeness. He mouthed the words don’t worry about it and Aunt Stella waved her own arm at Kori’s back, ending the matter.

Aunt Stella pulled off the layers of cloth covering the basket and the most glorious of smells escaped, ensuring Gil’s materialization at Aunt Stella’s side, Max close on his heels, drooling, Gil about to be.

“There’s blueberry-walnut with brown sugar topping and apple-currant with pecans,” she said proudly, letting her own olfactory system get a whiff of the divine vapors rising straight up to heaven to where God could have a sniff. “My daughter sent me the recipe. She’s taking a cooking class.”

Gil pulled up a seat next to Aunt Stella and without waiting to be asked, popped a chunk in his mouth and gave a bite-sized piece to Max, careful to first remove the almonds. Curiosity piqued – generally Max’s palate wasn’t quite so discriminating – Aunt Stella couldn’t refrain from asking.

“Gilly, why are you taking the nuts out? Are you afraid the dog will choke?” Gil shook his head, his chipmunk cheeks bulging with blueberry muffin. Kori set a glass of milk before him and he gulped some down.

“No,” he said, breathless. “It’s because he loves them so much. I save them until the end.”

“And how do you know this, Gilly?”

“He told me. He’s not stupid. He knows what he likes.” Gil blinked his large eyes once at Aunt Stella before shoving his face into the basket. He took a long, slow draw, gathering every available scent, and after a few seconds he emerged, a muffin between his teeth. Aunt Stella’s eyebrows rose up and she pinched her lips together to suppress her smile.

“Gil,” Kori snapped, yanking the basket out of his reach.

Aunt Stella covered her mouth to stanch the ensuing giggle. “Oh my, I almost forgot.” She waddled over to her cloak, rummaged through the pockets and pulled out a letter. “The postman left it at my house by mistake.” She handed it to Kori.

“Robbie!” Kori ripped open the letter without a moment’s hesitation. “It’s been almost two weeks,” she said. “Why doesn’t he just use the internet?” She started reading to herself, but Avery grabbed it.

“Wow, it’s a big one,” he said.

“Read!” Kori demanded.

Avery glared at her before beginning.

Dear Kori, Avery, Gil, Aunt Stella, and of course, Max,

“He loves you, too,” Gil said, opening his hand to Max. Max swallowed the almonds in two bites. Gil grabbed him by the snout and kissed him.

Avery cleared his throat and began to read.

Hey guys. Sorry I haven’t written, but so much has happened. I guess in order to do it justice, I have to start from the beginning, so bear with me while I recount it, plus all that I’ve left out over the last few months. Maybe then you’ll understand the decision I’m about to make. ”

“Uh-oh,” Kori said. “Here it comes.”

Life in hell continues. It’s so hot (average 120 degrees Farenheit) that you have to wear gloves to hold a weapon or even a screwdriver. You always have to wear a mask on your face because the sand is so brutal and you have to eat hovering over your food because the flies are so bad in the daytime. It’s the same at night with mosquitos. We went today to Karbala today, a holy site of the Shiites and former wetland (before Sadaam drained it), to test the water. We left behind a portable water tester so the people could use it. Water is really their most precious commodity here, much more important than oil. And they have so little of it.

But it’s not all bad news. I met a girl. Truly the most amazing woman.

“See. Told ya.”

“Sshhh,” Gil put a finger to his lips and gave Kori the hairy eyeball. Avery continued:

Her name is Amara Mir Ahmad. She lives in Baghdad. Her paternal grandfather comes from a group of people known as the Ma’adan. Maybe I should tell you a little about them, especially her father and grandfather, so you’ll understand what these people are going through and how it effects me.

The Ma’adan, also called the Marsh Arabs, live on the water in the middle of the desert. Some people say their home is what the bible refers to as the legendary Garden of Eden. Nobody knows for sure if it’s Eden, but they do know that it used to be the largest wetland ecosystem in the world, measuring 20,000 kilometers which is about 7,500 square miles. But that was before Saddam Hussein dried it all up.

Kori, you remember studying about Mesopotamia and the Cradle of Civilization in art history? It’s the area where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers meet. On today’s map, it’s between Baghdad in the north and Basra in the south. The Sumerians lived there. They were the first people to build dams and irrigate crops. The Marsh Arabs can trace their roots back to those people and have been living the same way for the last five thousand years. They harvest reeds, grow date palms, rice, millet, fish, and raise water buffalo. They build their houses on artificial islands by fencing off some of the marsh and building it up so it stays clear of the tide of the marsh waters. Then they layer mud, woven mats and these giant reeds that grow everywhere in the marshes. Their houses sit on top of all this stuff and they add layers every year to compensate for settling and to make sure their floor stays dry.

Can you imagine? Living on water like that. To go to your next door neighbor’s you need to paddle over in your mashuf, a small canoe. Some of the villagers have larger boats, but everyone has at least a mashuf . People travel everywhere like this. There’s no sidewalks. You can’t drive. They make the boats from qasab, these humongous reeds that grow in the marshes and which they also use to build houses. Everything revolves around the water, the fishing, the water buffalo, the rice and millet, even getting goods to market. When the water started drying up, fishermen, reed makers and the other tradesmen were wading through hip-deep mud carrying their goods to market on their backs. It was terrible.

“Wow, that’s really sad,” Gil said.

“Enough of the history lesson,”  Kori said. “Get to the point.”

“Could you keep your mouth shut and listen, please,” Avery said. Kori grunted, but said nothing further.

Amara’s grandfather, Ajrim Mir Ahmad, left his home long before any of Saddam’s draining campaign, but the rest of Amara’s family, stayed behind.

“How many more pages are there to that letter?” Kori asked. “Cause I can come back when he gets to the decision part.” Avery shot her a nasty look. She rolled her eyes and bit at a hangnail.

When Amara’s grandfather first came to Khan Bani Saad, a market town northeast of Baghdad, his family didn’t want him to go. They’d lived in the marshes for centuries. They were a tight-knit community. People didn’t leave. But he felt the need to go so he moved his wife and their young family to Baghdad and became a fish merchant, selling the wares harvested from the marshes by his own people. He became wealthy by Marsh Arab standards, enough so that he could afford to send his four sons to the University of Baghdad. His family grew up educated which is not a luxury that was afforded the Marsh Arabs until the last thirty years. The sons took wives and got jobs in the city.

Amara’s father, the youngest son, became a civil engineer working for the state. He was well-respected until he refused to work on the dam building projects that Saddam started in 1991 – the ones that would eventually drain his ancestral home. He was arrested under the pretense of supporting members of the Shiite uprising. Saddam’s soldiers came in the middle of the night and took him away. Amara was eight at the time. She hid in the shadows clutching her younger brother and holding his mouth shut to keep him from crying as the soldiers questioned, then beat her father and mother.

The next week, Saddam’s soldiers came and took Amara’s grandfather away. The charge was suspicious behavior and crimes against the state. Amara never saw either one of them again. Her mother supported the family with a state-sanctioned job. She taught English lessons to members of Saddam’s army. Amara believes that had her mother not been some use to Saddam, they would be living with other Iraqis in a refugee camp in Iran.

I tell you all this, not to make you feel sorry for her, but so you will                            understand where she comes from. She’s a brilliant woman. She speaks three                  languages, her native language, English, and believe it or not, Italian, and                              has learned everything her mother has been able to pass on to her. She’s made up her mind to do this thing and I’ve decided to do it with her. It seems more like my calling then enlisting in the army ever did. Mom was right. It’s not about democracy. It’s about what it’s always about – money. So in the true spirit of democracy, I’m voting with my feet.”

“Oh my God, that is sooo like him. Always playing the Goddamn hero. So what, he walks her down the aisle and saves her from a life of oppression?”

“Kori! Mind the child,” Aunt Stella said, cupping her hands over Gil’s ears.  “Anyway, who’s talking about marriage?”

“Robbie is. Don’t you get it. He’s going to marry her. All this cloak and dagger talk about making a decision.”

“Well, I have no idea how you gathered that from his letter. I’m actually not sure what he’s made a decision about,” Aunt Stella said. “Read on, Avery.”

Avery scanned the rest of the letter before continuing.

There’s so much more I want to tell you about Amara, about my life here, about the people. But I want to get this to post and the guy’s leaving right now with the mail. Let me just say that the people here, they really want a democracy, but they’ve been duped. That’s not going to be enough for you to understand, but maybe enough to buy me some grace until I’m home to explain in full. Take care of yourselves as I am not there to take care of you. I know you’ll be fine. Kori, if things get to be too much, lean on Avery. He can handle it. Give Aunt Stella a kiss and Gil an especially big hug for me. Love, Robbie.

“I’m confused.” Aunt Stella said. “Do you think he’s really going to marry her?”

“Of course, he’s going to marry her,” Kori said. “That moron. He has no business getting married yet. He’s freaking twenty-two, for God sakes.”

Everyone turned to look at Kori whose face was shot red with anger. She stood, tipped her chair over in the process, and strode to the sink. She washed her hands with a fury and threw water on her face before covering it with her hand. Her tears landed with several swift plops , cascading and pooling in bunches on the porcelain, indistinguishable from all the other drops of water falling from her dripping face. No one spoke while Kori stood there, fighting back her fear for the brother she knew was no longer ten thousand miles, but light years away.

to be continued. . .

click here to read what came before. . .

copyright 2012

dream team

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OIL IN WATER

Pam Lazos

Chapter Twenty-Six

Dave Hartos walked into Bicky’s penthouse suite on the 45 th floor of the Akanabi building. Not much of a voyeur himself, Hart had always felt uncomfortable up here. Bicky loved it though, and once remarked that from a height this great, you could see into a man’s soul and in Houston, that was a valuable trait to have.

Phyllis sat at her desk, sorting a cart full of Bicky’s mail when she saw him. Her eyes brightened and she tossed the letter opener onto the desk, embracing him warmly.

“It’s you.” She said, brushing her hand across his cheek as if she had no control over the appendage. She assessed him for several moments, before nodding, satisfied. “You know if there’s absolutely anything you need that is within my power to procure,” she looked at the closed door to Bicky’s office, “and you know I have considerable resources at my disposal, then you shouldn’t hesitate to ask.”

“I know, Phyllis. Thanks,” Hart said. “We didn’t get a chance to talk at the funeral..”

Phyllis put a hand to her lips to stop the forthcoming apology.

“It’s going to take a lot of time, my dear. And it may never get better. It’s just something that you get used to,…or learn to live with.” She said the last bit with assuredness.

“He’s on the phone.” Phyllis nodded toward the door. “You don’t need to sit here watching me sort his mail. Go on in. He hates that.” Her smile radiated benevolence. Hart noted the distinct lines of her face, the beautiful, almond-shaped green eyes, the lovely, high cheek bones, and thought that in her youth, Phyllis had been a knockout. No wonder Bicky had hired her. He’d recognized her as a trophy and Bicky liked nothing more than to collect trophies.

“Thanks.” He searched for more to say, to give this moment the meaning he wanted. The words, “we should have lunch sometime,” were out of his mouth before he knew he had thought them, trite and non-committal, they sounded ridiculous even to his grief-laden brain. For her part, Phyllis was gracious and, as always, in charge.

“That would be nice,” she said, and squeezed his hand, and Hart knew she meant it.

➣➣➣

Bicky was on the phone, a burning cigar in the ashtray. He stood with his back to the door looking out over Houston’s great expanse with an antique pair of opera glasses. He didn’t turn to greet Hart when the door opened, but his shoulders stiffened, probably because he’d been caught spying.

The conversation wound down and Bicky hung up, walked around to the front of the desk and stood in front of Hart. He handed him the opera glasses which Hart accepted for closer inspection.

“They belonged to my mother,” Bicky began. “She never saw a live opera, but we had an old Victrola and some albums that she played over and over again. My dad bought the glasses for her at a flea market where he used to take the pelts he’d trapped. Came back with those glasses. They were cheap, maybe a couple bucks, but it was an extravagance that we really couldn’t afford. My mom pretended to be mad at him, but I used to watch her at night sometimes, listening to the swell of the music with the glasses to her eyes, looking out into the foothills, seeing what, I’m not sure.”

Bicky stopped and snatched the glasses back, unaware that Hart hadn’t finished his inspection. He picked up his cigar, flopped down into his chair and put his feet up on the desk.

Mr. Big. Hart smiled to himself, but his mouth did not.

“One of our oil platforms in the Gulf’s got a slow leak. A little sheen on the water, no biggee. They think one of the valves in the Christmas tree’s shot. I called Mahajan. I’m not sure he located a diver yet.”

“When did they first see the sheen?”

“Four days ago.”

“Why didn’t you do something four days ago?” Hart asked, deadpan. “The feds inspect those platforms every week. And they come down hard on repeat violators.” Hart watched Bicky’s face, an emotionless mask. “You can’t keep pushing the envelope or you’re going to have another crisis on your hands.”

Half of Bicky’s mouth quirked into a leer: “I’m sure that whatever happens, you’ll be able to handle it.”

Hart shrugged and looked away, unable to raise the contempt he should have felt in this moment.

“It’s up to Mahajan, of course.” Bicky took a puff of his cigar and blew out a large, round smoke ring. “But I don’t think it’s a rush. Inspections are way down, thanks to the Bush Administration. The guy from the U.S. Minerals Management Service shows up once a month, if that. So we’ve got at least three weeks to handle this, and if it’s just some valve change outs like I think it is, we can handle that in three hours.” Bicky took another drag on his cigar and tried to blow the second ring through the first. The smoke hovered in the air insidiously.

“What about the EPA?” Hart asked.

“Who the hell cares about EPA?

“You will when they slap you with a huge fine.” Hart said. Bicky tapped the desk in metronomic fashion, watched his son-in-law; Hart obliged and looked out the window.

“Who’s gonna tell them? We’re two hundred miles out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, for Chrissakes. Not exactly a drive-by.” He tapped the ash on his cigar. Hart stole a side-long glance at his father-in-law.

“Look, I’m not blind. I know that since Sonia…..”

“That event and the one before us are completely unrelated.”

Bicky placed his cigar in the ashtray. “You’re the best guy I’ve got. I’d hate to lose you but….” His sentence hung in the air alongside the cigar smoke.

Hart’s emotions swirled, trapped in a rip tide: guilt, rage, horror, fear, and somewhere deep down, both loathing and respect for the man who sat across the table from him. He didn’t say anything, just stared at Bicky, forcing him to address the unspoken. Vestiges of the solemn, haggard face Hart had seen the night of the funeral clouded Bicky’s ready-for-business face.

“I miss her, too,” he said simply. And that was all the rhetoric Bicky Coleman could muster for his one child, now deceased. Hart’s eyes locked on Bicky, but all he saw was the last ten years of his life, happy years spent living with Sonia and working for Akanabi Oil, incompatible bedfellows at best, he now knew.

“So what I need to know is, are you still on my team?” Bicky’s voice floated like bubbles to the surface of a turbulent lake.

A lump, all fibrous and full of itself, wedged in Hart’s trachea. He tried to dislodge it by clearing his throat, but the lump would not be budged. His eyes watched Bicky, but his mind saw Sonia. Except she was dead and all he had left was the job, and despite his desire to honor her memory, he didn’t feel up to losing that now, too. Not trusting his own voice, he nodded.

“Good.” Bicky sighed, relieved. “Very good.” He walked around to Hart’s side of the desk. “You fly out tomorrow night, assuming that gives you sufficient time to get your act together.” Bicky said the last part as if Hart had a choice. He leaned back against the desk in front of Hart. “Take a few weeks. Since you’re out there, you may as well look the whole platform over. When your done, maybe you and Mahajan can take a vacation. Some excellent fishing out there.” Bicky smiled and held his hand out to Hart who raised his own to meet it without an awareness of the movement. “The trip’ll do you good. Some surf and sun. Some good hard work. You’ll come back a new man.”

Hart nodded mechanically as Bicky showed him to the door.

 to be continued. . .

to read what came before: jump here

copyright 2012

unloading the booty

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Oil in Water

Pam Lazos

Chapter Nineteen

Avery and Gil saddled up with baseball caps, and sunglasses, and sporting dog collars wrapped around their wrists and calves, rode off into the clear light of day in search of fortune.

Three hours later, they rode home, exuberant with the success of unloading the entire booty. Avery had pitched them to the owners of three different hardware stores and left with each believing that no self-respecting dog owner could be without one.

“This calls for a celebration, Gil,” Avery said. “There’s a Rita’s Water Ice just up the road. Gelati?” Gil nodded, irrepressible, and bobbed and weaved the whole way to Rita’s.

The boys rode home in the daze following a good sugar dose. Gil smiled, trails of chocolate gelati on his mouth smiling with him.

“You gotta wash your face and change your shirt before Kori sees you,” Avery said as they parked their bikes. Ignoring Avery, Gil ran inside to find his sister.

“Kori? Where are you?” He checked the basement, but it was dark. He ran to the hallway stairs and yelled into the air above them, “Kori.”

Avery joined him at the base of the hallway stairs. Gil looked perplexed.

“Robbie’s car’s gone. She probably finished those wedding invitations and went to deliver them. Which means…” Avery smiled wide and stared at Gil, arms folded.

“What?” Gil said, eyes wide with anticipation.

“Which means she won’t be home for a couple hours going over the changes.” Avery rubbed his hairless chin in contemplation. “I got an idea,” Avery said. “But first you need to get cleaned up.”

➣➣➣

Half an hour later, Avery climbed in behind the wheel of Ruth’s minivan. Wearing his father’s lightweight overcoat and hat, Gil slipped into the front passenger seat and onto the phone books Avery had stacked, enabling Gil to be higher than the dash board. He struggled with the seat belt until Avery snapped it into place. Three fifty-five gallon drums, one oil, two gas, were loaded in the back. It had taken a makeshift ramp and their combined strength to roll the drums in and now there was no time left for second thoughts.

“You ready?” Avery asked, hands gripping the wheel.

“Kori’s going to be pissed,” Gil said, rocking.

“Not if she doesn’t know, she won’t,” Avery replied. Gil shook his head and wrung his hands together, moaning softly.

“Easy, Gil. It’s no big deal. I can drive, but I need an adult with me. So sit there and try to look old. No cop’s going to stop me with my dad in the car.” He cocked his head and looked at Gil for emphasis. Gil nodded and stared straight ahead. Avery crawled out of the driveway and onto the street.

“Oh, no!” Gil shouted. Avery looked in the direction Gil was pointing.

“Jesus, it’s Aunt Stella,” Avery said, ducking down in his seat. Stella was walking back to her house, sorting through the mail, her back to the street. Gil moaned and Avery put the window up. He crawled past Aunt Stella’s house then gunned the engine, disappearing over the hill before she looked up. Avery glanced in the rearview mirror long after they were out of sight; Gil turned around to see if they were being followed.

“She’s not going to run after the car,” Avery said. “I don’t even think she saw us.”

Gil mulled this over a moment then broke into laughter so contagious that Avery started laughing so hard that he violated the first rule of driving:  keep your eyes on the road.

“Look out!” Gil shouted.

Avery’s head snapped back so fast he could feel the air around him swirl. He cut the wheel and zigzagged right, grazing the hip of a mangy-looking dog now limping to the side of the road.

“Stop,” Gil screamed. “Avery, stop!”

“Shut up!” Avery said. He cut the wheel hard to the left, and the combined weight of the drums sprang to life, bolting in the opposite direction and wreaking havoc on a suspension system already under duress. The van bucked and moaned and after much screeching of tires, Avery skidded to a halt.

Gil bolted toward the injured animal now lying on a soft patch of grass under a tree. He knelt down, shed his father’s coat and pillowed it under the dog’s head. He scratched its ears, hummed softly, and placed a hand on the dog’s hip. The dog licked Gil’s hand in return.

“Gil!” Avery parked at the curb, got out and ran to check the back hatch for damage. The walls of the van had been scuffed in the pandemonium, the drums dented, but the lids remained secure. Avery breathed a sigh of relief then turned to Gil and the stray.

“Gil, we can’t keep him.”

“We have to. He doesn’t have a collar and he needs a vet. And you have to take him because you almost killed him.” Gil eyes grew wide, his face resolute. Avery leaned over and scratched the dog behind the ears. He tried to examine the dog’s hip, but the animal winced and pulled away so Avery withdrew his hand. He looked at Gil’s pleading eyes and his own softened.

“Alright. Let’s take him to the vet and get him checked out. He probably needs shots, too,” Avery said, wondering how he was going to pay for it. Gil smiled so big that Avery could feel the force of it.

“I guess that ramp’s going to come in handy for the second time today,” Avery said and trotted off to the car to retrieve it.

 copyright 2012

to be continued. . .

to read what came before, click here

simple arithmetic

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Oil in Water

Pam Lazos

Chapter Eighteen

The walk-out basement was light and airy, one wall comprised completely of French doors, the opposite wall built into the bedrock below the house. Kori’s drafting table faced out to the back yard and the bucolic setting where, beyond the horizon a decomposing and noxious mountain hid at the edge of her tranquility, its spawn leaching exponentially into the groundwater while she worked.

Avery bounded down the stairs. “What are you doing?”

Kori was draped over the table. “A wedding invitation for Stacey Clinghoffer.”

“That cow?” said Avery. “Who would marry her?” Kori stifled him with a look. “Hey, Kori?” .

“What?”

“Since you’re bringing home the bacon, I want to do something to contribute – other than every single menial, yet necessary, task that goes into running a household, that is.”

“Why can’t you talk in English? I’m not sure I even understood what you just said.”

“That means, I don’t mind cooking and cleaning and helping with the laundry, but you’re not sticking me with all of it.” Avery picked up the medicine ball and bounced it off the wall.

“I never said you had to be my personal slave. It would be nice, but….”

“I was thinking of selling off all that gas and oil out in back of the barn. We must have more than a hundred of those fifty-five gallon drums. It would take a long time for us to use it all. We may as well make some money with it. At least until Robbie’s checks start coming.”

“We don’t need any trouble, Avery. I just paid off the porch repair.” She paused to look at her work. “As long as I keep getting jobs, you don’t need to. We’ll be all right. Just worry about school. You need the grades.”  She flashed her steel blue eyes at him.

“I have the grades.”

“Yeah, well.” Unlike her average self, Avery was always a straight A student. Kori thought he could simply sleep with a book under his pillow and still get an A. And although he didn’t have Gil’s ingenuity when it came to inventions, he could recreate either from drawings or Gil’s verbal direction, anything Gil envisioned. Kori seethed at the ease with which Avery excelled, but then she discovered that art was her forte and forgave her brother his gifts.

“I was also thinking of creating a web page to sell some of Gil’s contraptions on the Internet. You know, he’s got that state-of-the-art juicer. And now that dog collar thingee,” he said, repeatedly tossing the ball. “A couple other things kicking around in the garage. Maybe some of the local hardware stores would want something.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Kori looked up at the incessant noise. “Could you please stop bouncing that ball. It’s hard to concentrate.”

Avery nodded. “I’m going to get started on the web page right away.”

“Let me know if you need help with the graphics,” Kori said.

Avery stood looking at her, but said nothing.

“What?”

“I could help with the checkbook, too, if you want. Especially if I’m going to start selling stuff. I’ll need access to the house account. For the deposits.” Kori didn’t even look at him.

“Robbie told you to do that, didn’t he?” she said.

Had Kori not suddenly been swamped with the responsibility of raising her siblings, the fact that she couldn’t balance a checkbook wouldn’t have bothered her. She could care less how much money she had as long as it was enough for art supplies. But phone, gas and electric bills, not to mention groceries, cost much more than art supplies and the need to know exactly how much money she had in her checking account took on new significance. She’d already been denied the use of her Mac card at the grocery store once and had to use a credit card to buy the weekly groceries because of bad planning. She was furious, and later determined there were insufficient funds in the account as a result of a simple arithmetic error on her part.  Still she was too embarrassed to ever shop at that store again.

“Did he?”

Avery’s lips formed a tight line and he nodded once.  When Kori didn’t answer, he went upstairs. Kori could hear him banging around in the kitchen. She wanted to jump at the offer, but to turn the checkbook over with a zero balance and not look like a moron would be tough. He’d press her to sell off that stupid oil.

“Avery!” she yelled up the stairs.

“What?”

“Let me think about it,” she said. Avery walked halfway down.

“Okay. Well do you mind if I take your car? I want to take a ride over to Cohen’s Hardware and see if I can unload a couple dog collars.”

Relieved to switch topics, Kori he tried to sound motherly, but remembered those first days, itching to get behind the wheel. She’d go anywhere with one of her parents:  the gas station, the grocery store, even the dump, just for a chance to drive .  “You don’t even have your license.”

“I have my permit.”

“For which you need a licensed driver.” She gave him a look, but wanted to giggle, and turned away before she lost her composure. “Take your bike.”

“Fine!” Avery stomped up the steps.

“Take Gil with you,” Kori yelled after him.

 copyright 2012

to be continued. . .

to read what came before click here. . .

strangers in the night

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Oil in Water

Pam Lazos

Chapter Sixteen

A full moon glowed, casting an iridescent light over the farm-cum-landfill that loomed in the far distant corner of Kori’s bedroom window. The first inkling of the sun’s rays wouldn’t be seen for more than an hour on this chilly late October morning. Gil tiptoed into the room, hovering above the bed where Kori and Jack lay sleeping. He pinched his fingers around Jack’s nose, cutting off Jack’s oxygen supply. After several moments, Jack inhaled a frantic pull of air through his mouth and his eyes flew open to see Gil looming above.

“What?” Jack hissed, shoving Gil’s fingers away to rub the appendage.

“Are you awake?” Gil asked.

“I am now you, little jerk.” Face-to-face with Gil, watching his salamander eyes hold his own, Jack smiled in spite of himself. Gil could stare, unblinking, for well over ten minutes. Jack loved Gil like a brother and even with the little cretin’s exasperating habits, Jack would do anything for him.

“What time is it?” Jack asked, discouraged by the murky darkness still clinging to the curtains.

“Five o’clock.” Gil said. “C’mon. I want to show you something.” Intuiting that there would be no more sleep for him this morning, Jack allowed Gil to pull him to his feet.

“Hhhhmmmph. Briefs. I wear briefs, too,” Gil said approvingly.

Jack scrambled into his jeans, pulled a tee shirt over his head and a sweatshirt over top. He looked over at his boots and opted for bare feet. He took one more longing look at the bed, sighed and headed toward the door.

“I gotta take a whiz,” Jack announced, stopping at the bathroom. Gil tried to follow him, but Jack barred the way. Gil leaned against the closed door, tapping his foot in exaggerated fashion for the minute it took Jack to emerge, disheveled and still half asleep.

“Let’s go.”  Gil led. A light clicked on in Robbie’s room as they walked by, but the door didn’t open. Gil put his finger to his lips and tiptoed down the stairs, Jack trailing him.

Once outside, Gil took off running across the lawn to the shed. Determined not to be outdone by a ten-ear old, Jack sprinted the hundred yards to the barn, but bare feet and the fact that Gil was more awake at this regrettable hour put him at a disadvantage, about fifty paces behind, he’d later estimate.

At the barn door, Gil found the lock laying on the ground, the door swung wide. “Huh?”  A shadowy figure rooted through the drawers, a roll of drawings under one arm.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Gil demanded.

The figure ran, knocking Gil to the ground and whacking Jack in the face with the drawings in his bolt to the woods. The impact caused stars to jump before Jack’s eyes and he staggered, holding his nose.

“Hey! Come back here,” Gil yelled, and before Jack could clear his head, Gil took off running after the intruder. Jack ran after Gil, grabbing his arm moments before he disappeared behind the copse.

“Whoa, man. That wouldn’t be a good thing,” Jack said. Gil struggled, but Jack’s grip was firm.

“Jack. Let Go! He took something — some drawings.” Gil pried Jack’s hand off his arm and yanking free of his grip, dove to the ground. Jack grabbed his collar and pulled him back, surprised to hear his own heavy breathing. After a few deep breaths, Jack knelt down beside Gil and wrapped an arm around his waist.

“We can’t go, Gil. It’s too dangerous.”

“But he’s getting away,” Gil said.

“We want him to get away. Then he won’t hurt us.” Jack squeezed Gil’s arm gently.

“This isn’t a movie, buddy. It’s real life. And somebody really wanted something bad out here. Bad enough to break in.” Jack searched Gil’s eyes for understanding.

Gil grimaced at his besmirched barn and turned to see Robbie running toward them dressed only his underwear.

“What going on?” Robbie asked.

Jack pulled himself up to his full height. Despite their differences, at this moment they behaved as if nothing had ever come between them.

Gil darted over to Robbie and jumped in his arms, sniffling. “He took some drawings.”

Robbie ran his hands up and down Gil’s body, turning him around, checking for injuries.

Jack shook his head, reviving the dull ache in his own face. He raised his hand to his eye and probed delicately.

“He wasn’t expecting us,” Jack said. He winced as he touched his nose.

Satisfied that Gil was injury free, Robbie set him down and turned to Jack. “Did he hit you?” Robbie asked.

Jack shook his head. “Only by accident. The drawings caught me in the face when he was making his getaway. You know when people say they see stars, you always think like, ‘yeah, right.’ Well….” Jack rubbed his nose again, then his eyes. “Little brother here’s lucky he stepped aside. I think that guy was taking no prisoners.”

“Did he have a gun?”

“I don’t know. It’s so dark out here. It’s the middle of the night, for Chrissakes.”

“Yeah, so what are you doing out here?” Robbie asked.

Jack smiled and tilted his head in Gil’s direction. “The salamander woke me up.”

Gil toed the dirt in response. Jack scanned the treeline, but the light was still too dim to see anything clearly. In the opposite direction, the sun’s first rays whooped and hollered, mad streaks of reds and oranges overtaking the horizon like a five-star general.

“He’s long gone by now,” Jack said. Robbie nodded in agreement, folded his hands across his chest and rubbed his arms.

“Let’s go inside. It’s freakin’ cold out here,” Robbie said. Jack nodded and they hoofed it back to the house, pausing once to glance back over their collective shoulders.

The light clicked on as they entered the kitchen. Kori stood in the doorway wearing a revealing nightgown and suppressing a yawn. Jack shot her an approving glance which dissolved the camaraderie of the last few minutes when Robbie intercepted it.

“What are you doing? Don’t tell me you’re hunting? Why do you have Gil with you if you’re hunting,” she said to the room at large. “And why are you in your underwear?” she said to Robbie in particular.

“I heard a noise.” Robbie brushed past her on his way to the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Kori called after him.

“To put some clothes on, Kori,” he replied. “ I suggest you do the same.” Kori and Jack exchanged glances. Jack tightened his mouth so as not to smile in front of Gil and nodded in the direction of the stairs. Kori spun on her heel, leaving Jack and Gil alone.

“How about some breakfast, Salamander?” Jack asked, grabbing the coffee pot and filling it with water. “Sleuthing always makes me hungry.”

Gil said nothing, but walked out of the kitchen and to the hallway closet. He climbed way in the back in between bulky winter jackets, past umbrellas and over hiking boots. Jack heard an occasional grunt followed by several more minutes of rooting around and Gil emerged victorious, the precious bundle in hand.

He returned to the kitchen, the bundle of drawings hooked under his arm, and took a seat at the table waiting for Jack to serve him. Although already ten, up until now he had led the life of the pampered: there was very little Gilliam William Tirabi did for himself. Jack poured a bowl full of cereal, added some milk and set it before Gil.

“So they didn’t get what they were looking for?” Jack said.

Gil shook his head, set the drawings on the table and scooped up a heaping spoonful of Cheerios. His cheeks bulged and his words were drowning in milk and wheat. “After breakfast will you and Robbie help me find someplace safe to hide them?” Gil asked.

Jack nodded. “Sure.”

He pushed Gil’s hair back and sat down next to him to wait for his coffee. “Better eat up. My guess is the Spanish Inquisition’s comin’ down the stairs any minute now.”

copyright 2012

to be continued. . .

to read what came before, click here. . .

going, going, gone

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copyright 2011

OIL IN WATER

a novel by

PAM LAZOS

Chapter Thirteen

Several weeks later after all porch repairs had been completed, Gil sat in a darkened room, ZiZi at his feet, watching Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome. He held a fistful of popcorn halfway to his mouth, eyes wide with fear and excitement. The music swelled as the crowds called for the great showdown. Kori came up from the basement wearing a pair of overalls doused in paint, several brushes sticking out the top front pocket, the paint still on them.

Gil was so engrossed in the movie he didn’t hear her enter. She surveyed the scene, strolled casually to the coffee table, picked up the remote and pressed the off button. The T.V. went blank and Gil went ballistic.  With a grunt he threw a handful of popcorn at her face with more emotion than force.

“Turn it back ON!” he shouted, reaching for the remote. Taller by a head, Kori was able to withstand this onslaught with little effort. Gil clutched and yanked and tried to knock it from her hands. “KOREEEE. TURN IT ON!”

“No.” She pulled away and walked to the window, throwing back the curtains. Sunlight blasted in, temporarily blinding him. He blinked in reptilian fashion until his eyes adjusted to the glare. Kori pulled back the rest of the curtains, flooding the room with light, and pointed to the door. On her signal, Gil’s accomplice moved to the front door where he stood, head erect, tail wagging, more than ready to take the punishment with his master.

“It’s 11 o’clock. In the morning! It’s Saturday. Go outside.”

Gil took a deep breath and blew it out in a huff before turning toward the door.

“C’mon, Zi.” He grabbed a baseball cap off the coat rack, carefully pushed his bangs to the side, and held the door open for Zizi who barked once and bounded out into the brilliant sunlight. Gil stuck his tongue out at Kori and was gone. Kori watched from the window as they played fetch the stick. She smiled, and headed back to the basement.

She was halfway down the stairs when she heard Gil’s high-pitched wail.

“Zi, Zi, no! Come, Zi! Now!

She took the stairs two at a time and threw open the front door. Gil sat in the middle of the street, ZiZi’s head on his lap. He rubbed her ears and spoke softly to the inert figure. A boy of about eighteen hovered in the background, his car door still open, radio blaring, looking on helplessly. Kori sprinted across the wide front yard to the road and dropped to her knees.

Gil was rubbing one hand softly over ZiZi’s body while the other hand scratched instinctively at her favorite spot behind her ear. There was very little blood, but one look at her and it was clear the internal injuries were tremendous. She was panting, each attempt at breath wracking her body. Kori placed her hand on ZiZi’s ribs and the dog whimpered before paroxysms of coughing began.

“Take your hands off of her,” Gil said, throwing Kori’s hand back at her as if it were diseased. “This is your fault.”

Kori opened her mouth to protest; her voice caught in her throat.

“Broken,” Gil said.  ZiZi’s body looked to be shrinking. She shivered and Gil covered her with his arms. Kori touched ZiZi’s nose; it was warm.

“She’s broken and she can’t be fixed,” Gil said, rocking, his eyes locked on the dog.

Kori touched Gil’s arm. It was cold, like ZiZi’s body, and his face had turned a preternatural white. He scratched ZiZi’s ears and murmured, soft clucking noises meant to soothe. ZiZi took a deep breath and shuddered again.

“Do you have a cell phone?” Kori asked the young kid pacing behind them. The boy nodded. He looked too young to have a license. “Can you call a vet? Tell them it’s an emergency.” He nodded and ran to his car.

Gil continued his quiet incantations, alternating between stroking ZiZi’s head and scratching her ears. They were like two lovers who know the end was imminent, but continued making plans for the future.

“And after lunch, we’ll go down to the creek and look for baby minnows,” he whispered, his voice straining with the effort. “And maybe we’ll take a nap under the Willow tree.” ZiZi thumped her tail once and whimpered. She raised her face to Gil with considerable effort and licked his nose. Gil stroked her head and rubbed his face in her fur.

“What do you want for lunch, girl?” Gil asked. “How about a melted ham and cheese sandwich?” ZiZi wagged her tail twice, winced and stopped. Gil rubbed her tail. “Maybe a few chips, too, huh?” Gil rubbed his nose in the nape of her neck and she moved her head to nuzzle him.

“The vet’s tech is on his way.” The young driver was back, pleased with himself that he was able to make the arrangements, but his face fell after seeing ZiZi’s condition.

Her breath came in short bursts and recognition lit in Gil’s eyes. He’d seen this before in movies and shuddered at the thought of what was coming next. Gil had watched them all. The hurt, the hunted, the hapless, their last breaths coming in fits of fury or lackluster sighs. Gil had watched people die so often that he thought he’d become immune to it. When his Mom and Dad died, he reacted in stalwart fashion, just like the heroes on T.V., dry-eyed and tight-lipped. Now he clenched his teeth, but it couldn’t stop the tears which were pouring out of the corners of his eyes like molten lava.

“Please don’t go, Zi,” he murmured. He rested his head on ZiZi’s and she raised her nose an inch to meet him then dropped to the ground, her last breath escaping in one small sigh. Gil tightened his grip, trying to hold on even as he felt her spirit go. Gil began to cry, a low, crazy moan that sounded like death itself.

“I’m so sorry,” the young driver said. “She ran right out in the road. I didn’t see her until she was right in front of my car.” Kori nodded, but Gil had no room to hear him above the sound of everything ZiZi’d ever told him.

to be continued. . .

to read what came before, please scroll down. . .

ashes, ashes, we all fall down

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copyright 2012

OIL IN WATER

a novel by

PAM LAZOS

Chapter Twelve

Robbie, Gil, Kori and Avery piled into the late Ruth Tirabi’s Honda Odyssey . Thanks to Honda, Ruth hadn’t needed to substitute comfort for clean air simply because she had a large family. The Odyssey had accommodated her need to transport a husband, four kids, their dog and their gadgets without sacrificing low emissions, and it still got pretty  good gas mileage, two things American car manufacturers deigned unworthy of excess research funds.

“Where we going?” Kori asked, starting the engine.

“What about Jersey? We could go down to Cape May point?” Avery said, fiddling with the lid of the cardboard that contained his parents ashes. “This way they can look at the sun rising and setting all the time. I’m also thinking I should drive.”

“Forget it. I’m driving,” Kori said.

“Cut him a break once in a while, Kor, or are you too old to remember sixteen?” Robbie said with raised eyebrows. “Soon he won’t need your permission. But you’re still going to need a lawyer someday.”

“If you let me drive today I promise I won’t charge you,” Avery added.

“I’m thinking Chickies Rocks overlooking the Susquehanna. Mom and Dad loved that spot,” Kori said, ignoring both her brothers. “I’m also thinking you should both shut up and just be passengers.”

“Awwww, you said shut up,” Gil said in a sing-song voice.

“Yeah, and who you gonna tell?” Kori said. Gil turned to the window. Robbie shot Kori a sad look; Avery squeezed Gil’s thigh, but said nothing.

When Ruth and Marty died, Kori installed herself as the family matriarch despite her lack of any obvious mothering instincts.  She hated to cook, couldn’t stand the sight of blood, and her advice — which in no way resembled Ruth’s thoughtful and incisive rumination — sucked.  If Ruth’s words were like creamy hot fudge over vanilla ice cream, Kori’s were more like motor oil. There was a good flavor in there somewhere, but you’d be likely to throw up before you were finished.

The boys shouldered on even though most days they wanted to tell her to just shut up. But they held their tongues out of love and a sense that Kori’s assumption of Ruth’s role was the only thing keeping her from fracturing into a billion jagged shards. So the three brothers exchanged glances and suppressed smiles which Kori didn’t notice.

“Whatever, Kori. Let’s just go,” Avery said. An excellent judge of character, a skill that would serve him well throughout his life, Avery was the first to discover that going head-to-head with his sister rarely worked.

“We’ll let Gil decide,” Robbie suggested. All three siblings turned to Gil for a decision.

“Rocks,” he said, and Kori peeled out of the driveway.

“Hey, let’s get there in one piece, huh?”

“Hhmmmph,” was all Kori said in response.

Two hours later, they pulled up to the precipice at Chickies Rocks, a favored spot of the remote-controlled plane cognoscenti, a steep three hundred foot drop straight down a rocky ledge.  Four pairs of eyes looked upon the banks of the mighty Susquehanna River.

Robbie pulled Gil’s remote-controlled plane from the back hatch and Gil plopped down on the ground to fiddle with it, adjusting the tail, the landing gear, and anything else that moved.  ZiZi ran over to Gil and after a cursory sniff, licked Gil’s face several times.

“Down, Zi,” Robbie said.

Gil made no move to push ZiZi away while he scrounged through his toolbox, huffing and shoving the tools around. Robbie reached in and pulled out a small wrench. Gil snatched it and adjusted a few screws on the plane.

Although the weather was balmy, the force of the wind whipping up the sides of the cliff made it feel ten degrees cooler. Like an insistent child, it swiped at Kori’s hair as she stood, clutching the cardboard box to her chest.  She dropped to her knees, squeezing her eyes shut.  Moments later, she felt the gentle pressure of Robbie’s hands as he placed his baseball cap on her head and tucked her hair up underneath.  She leaned against his leg in gratitude.

In private, Kori had cried every day since her parents died, her body wracked and shuddering with silent tears, her shoulders aching with the weight of grief and new responsibilities, and the one thought that kept returning to her again and again – tinny and insistent – they were orphans.

Avery joined Kori on the precipice.  Gil handed Robbie the small wrench and stood back to remotely test the landing gear, driving the plane forward and back on its makeshift runway.

“Box, please,” Gil said to Robbie.

“He’s ready,” Robbie called over his shoulder.

Avery took the box from Kori and set it next to Gil’s plane, pulling out the contents: two thick plastic bags filled with charcoal grey ash and small white bits of bone.

“How are you going to keep the bags in the plane,” Robbie asked.

Gil’s imperturbable face grew wide-eyed and he looked to Avery for help.

“Don’t look at me, man. I just record the stuff,” Avery said.

Gil rummaged through his tool box, picking up each tool and throwing it down again. Robbie walked to the car and returned with a role of duct tape. He made a ring, sticky side out, and stuck it to the bottom of each bag before setting them in the plane.

“Good to go,” Robbie said. Avery put a hand on each bag, blinking away the water that flooded his eyelids. Kori shuffled her feet and folded her hands across her chest.

“Anyone want to say anything?” Robbie asked. Kori covered her mouth; Avery shook his head from side to side.

“I’m no good with words,” Robbie said, his voice cracking. “They know how we feel.”

Gil stepped forward, cleared his throat as if about to deliver an edict. “Mom, Dad, we love you very much. It sucks that you’re dead.”

Avery giggled, breaking the tension. Gil leaned over, his face touching the bags, containing the last mortal remains of Ruth and Marty Tirabi. He opened them and whispered something to each, then stood back and started the plane’s engine. It lurched forward, bucking under the additional weight, bumping over small sticks, and gradually picking up speed as it approached the end of the makeshift runway and the cliff’s edge.

“It doesn’t have enough speed, Gil,” Robbie said. “It’s gonna crash.”

Gil bopped his head slowly in time to a beat the rest of them were not privy to. At the exact moment when the plane would run out of ground, and gravity was about to have it’s way with her, Gil flipped a switch on the remote and a turbo thrust sent it hurtling out and up, clearing both rock and trees. It hung tenuously for several seconds, but Gil hit the turbo switch again and it took off like a shot arching up and away.

Gil sent the plane soaring over the cliffs of Chickies Rocks, swooping and sliding, in, out and around, but not upside down, edging closer each time to the banks of the Susquehanna. Bits of the plane’s contents were occasionally swept away by an errant gust of wind, but for the most part, Ruth and Marty’s ashes remained solidly ensconced inside the cockpit of the little plane.

“Mom’s going to get dizzy,” Kori said.  They watched the plane, now far across the river.  Handfuls of ash spilled out, whirling like mini-tornadoes before drifting to earth.

“Last chance. Anybody want to say anything?” Robbie said.  No one responded.

Avery’s speech was more akin to a whisper: “You are in our breath and in our bones. You are in the lights of our eyes, and the shapes of our hearts. As long as we live, we will think of you and remember, and we will never be a minute without you for it’s your blood mingled with ours, your life, the life you’ve given us.”

Gil sent the plane hundreds of feet into the air before bringing it back down to dive-bomb the river. At the last minute he pulled out and sent it up again, this time, though, instead of climbing straight, he performed a series of spirals which sent the plane up through a spinning vortex of ash. “Bye-bye, Mommy and Daddy,” he said, as ashes arced out and down to the river. When the wind scattered the last of them, Gil brought the plane in for a landing.

Robbie dried his eyes and removed the bags from the cockpit, turning them inside out; they were empty.

“What do we do with the bags?” he asked.

“Burn ‘em,” Kori said.

“You can’t burn them,” Avery said. “They’re plastic.”

Robbie gathered everything up, plane, plastic, remote control and placed it all in the backseat of the minivan. He pulled out an insulated backpack and a blanket and walked to a small clearing. From the backpack he procured a small feast: bread, cheese, pepperoni, olives, grapes, mangos, peanut butter, yogurt, a bottle of wine and some dog treats for ZiZi. He whistled low and ZiZi charged over, tail wagging. Robbie handed Gil, now smashed up against his brother, clutching his arms around himself as if he were cold, a yogurt and a spoon.

“Nice insulation,” Avery said. “Does it work?” Robbie nodded, and wrapped an arm around Gil who relaxed. He handed a knife to Avery to cut pieces of cheese, and pulled plastic glasses out of the pack along with a bottle of spring water.

“Geez, how much’ ya got in there?” Kori asked.

“Gil doesn’t make anything half-ass, sister,” Robbie said, accepting the half glass of water from Avery.  He topped it off with a sip of wine and handed it to Gil.

“You’re giving him wine?” Kori glared at Robbie, then Avery. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

Gil giggled and cast his eyes downward. He sniffed the glass several times then put it under ZiZi’s nose and let her sniff. The dog shook her head to remove the scent from her nasal passages.

“We’re going to miss the heck out you, Mom and Dad,” Robbie said holding up his glass. They clinked plastic: Robbie and Avery threw theirs back; Kori and Gil sipped theirs.

“That was nice, what you said earlier?” Kori said.

“Thanks. Well, thank Mom for all the poetry she made me read.”

“I miss Daddy’s laugh,” Gil said. “And Mommy’s smell. Like bread and flowers,” Gil devoured a small sandwich of bread, cheese and pepperoni. The corner of Kori’s mouth crooked up watching him eat.

“I miss Mom’s cooking. And her stories. And Dad’s stupid jokes. And his crazy inventions.” Kori sipped her wine. “You don’t suppose that those people might come back, do you, looking for some of Dad’s other things?”

“I hope they do.” Robbie said. He downed the rest of his glass, and Gil and Avery did the same. Kori bit her thumbnail and cast a worried glance out across the river.

to be continued. . .

to read what came before, click here. . .

deadly circumstances

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copyright 2012

art by gregory colbert

OIL IN WATER

a novel by

PAM LAZOS

Chapter Eleven

Manuel slid the Rolls Royce into the Hart’s driveway on wheels silent as death.  “Here you are, Mr. Hartos.”  Manuel got out and opened Hart’s door.  Hart stepped out and shook Manuel’s hand.

“Thanks, Manuel.  You’re a lifesaver.”  Manuel returned the gesture, but didn’t make eye contact.  Apparently, Bicky Coleman never shook Manuel’s hand.

“Anytime, Mr. Hartos.  Give Mrs. Hartos my best.”  The car pulled out as silently as it came.  Tired and disheveled, Hart watched Manuel leave before heading up the walk.

The front door of the house was slightly ajar.  Hart stared at it then back over the expanse of the lawn.  His heartbeat quickened yet his hands were steady as he opened the door in infinitesimal increments so as not to wake, or alert, anyone inside.

He saw no one in the foyer and swung the door open wide, his eyes adjusting to the darkness.  He peered into the silent study and saw a single ray from the streetlight, the only illumination.  Nothing appeared amiss.  He looked across the hall at the formal sitting room, useless space they never set foot in.  Even with just the paltry single streetlight to illuminate it, one could attest to the pristine condition of this room.  The couch cushions, plush, white and fluffed to capacity were offset by the deep red, hand-stitched Moroccan pillows, an attempt to convey reckless indulgence, except they were exactly where they always were.  Sonia couldn’t go to bed at night until the magazines were in the rack, the recycling in its bin, and all errant glassware stashed neatly in the dishwasher, as if a careful regulation of her home before bed would afford her an ordered night’s sleep.  When she couldn’t sleep, she sorted tupperware.

Hart continued down the hallway past the stairs.  The kitchen was dark so he turned back to the stairs and crept slowly up to the landing.  The effect was comical and he suppressed the urge to laugh.  Just who in the hell am I sneaking up on?  Sonia was probably asleep, and Hart’s overtired, overactive imagination stressed beyond endurance.  The light from their bedroom spilled into the far end of the hall.  Hart inhaled deeply and let out a sigh of relief as he strode toward the bedroom door, the monotonous drone of the television growing louder with each step.

“Geez, you had me so worried,” he said, crossing the threshold.  The bed was empty, but a light from the bathroom escaped from under the door.  “Why didn’t you pick up the phone?” he shouted to the door, shutting the television  and crossing the room.  “Sonia?”

Hart turned the handle, pushed open the bathroom door and pulled back the bathtub curtain.  He found the tub filled to capacity, the water cold.  Small rivulets of water cascaded over the side.  “Jesus.”  He reached in and shut the dripping faucet.  “Sonia?”  He turned and ran out of the bathroom, fear spilling out of him like the bathtub water.

“Sonia?  If this is a game, it isn’t funny,” he said loudly.  A growing terror gripped him as he tore down the hallway and hit the stairs, taking them two at a time.  “Sonia?”

He rounded the steps at the bottom and ran back into each of the rooms he had already inspected, flipping on the lights and scanning their perimeters in urgent, yet methodical fashion, opening closet doors and checking behind furniture.  The rooms were as empty in the light as they were in the dark.

“SONIA!”  After a brief glance outside, Hart bounded down the hallway and into the kitchen.  He reached for the light and tripped over something solid and inert. He half fell, half flew headlong across it.  He crashed with a loud thump, his head hitting first, and lay sprawled on the floor.

“Jesus Christ.”  He rubbed his head and sat up, looking back at the source of his precipitous fall.  Sonia’s prone body stretched in front of the kitchen door, as if in sleep.  “Sonia?!”

Hart scrambled over to her and put his fingers to her neck, checking for a pulse.  He recoiled in horror as his fingers touched her cooling skin.  He wavered, dizzy and gulping air to keep from passing out.  He shook his head, trying to regain his dwindling presence of mind.  He tried CPR, a rotation of pumping the chest followed by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, cringing each time his warm, twitching lips touched her cool, lifeless ones.  She made no move to breathe on her own.  His large rough hands, the same hands that stroked her gently during their afternoon lovemaking, now shook her gently at first, and then, as realization dawned, more violently.

“Sonia!  Wake UP.”  Gripping her by the arms, he shook her again and again, her hair, wet and sticky, flipping back and forth around her face with each surge.  Her neck jerked and bobbed like a rag doll’s until Hart heard a snap that brought him round and he abruptly stopped shaking her.  He looked at her face, illuminated by the night light in the corner, her eyes closed, her mouth agape.  He laid her back on the floor, smoothed the hair back from her face and kissed her cool lips tenderly.

“Sonia.  Please.  Wake up.”  His voice, contorted by fear and sorrow, seemed to hover above them, alien and disengaged.  His fingers reached again for her soft, white neck.  There was no pulse to enliven that hardening, dead body.

As if he just remembered something, Hart’s head jerked toward her belly and his eyes grew wide.  In that moment he tasted eternity for time stood still.  One second, and then a million passed as he held his breath and looked –  not with the detachment of an ascended master, but the calm of one in a state of shock –  at what should have been his son.  His eyes observed the splayed legs of his wife’s body, her twisted arm, the displacement and slight concavity of her stomach as a result of the partial delivery.  And then….

Hart shuddered a pervasive, body-wrenching shudder that cascaded from the top of his head to the very soles of his feet.  He was back, lucid and substantial, with full awareness of the surreal snapshot lying before him.  He made no move to turn on the light, perhaps to hide her visage for a moment longer from the pain that would surely color her face and stay with him for a lifetime.

He inhaled raggedly and gripped his hands together to stop their shaking.  Sonia’s robe, her only garment, hung loosely around her body.  Unwilling to look on the child just yet, he steeled himself and began an examination of his wife.  He inspected her body inch by inch looking for signs of injury, using his powers of analysis, long honed in the field, all the while trying to maintain a clinical, dispassionate attitude.  If he thought for a moment that this was his wife, the woman whom hours before had been alive and vibrant in his arms, he would surely crumble on the spot.

Hart noted no bruising around her neck.  No large hands held her, squeezing the tender blood vessels beneath the surface until they were pinched and bruised and dying.  He took another deep breath and ran his hands through her hair starting at the face and coming around to the back where his fingers intertwined in something sticky.  His heart jumped and he raised her head to find a large welt and a small cut at the base of her skull, misleading because of the amount of blood in her hair and on the floor.  Head injuries bled profusely, but this bump didn’t cause her death.

He continued his foray downward, slowly, haltingly, stalling the inevitable.  His fingers probed her belly, still plush, although somewhat less than round now that its occupant was only partially home.  He steeled himself for the final examination, letting his glance fall between her legs.  Tears welled in his eyes and he turned away, his body shaken by paroxysms of vomiting.

After several minutes, he stopped, wiped his mouth and looked again at the gruesome scene.  Protruding from his wife’s vagina, approximately half a foot into the world, lay the legs and torso of his dead baby.  Hart touched the curled, little legs, clammy with the blood of childbirth, noted the fingers of one hand protruding from Sonia’s body.  He tried pulling the baby the rest of the way out, but he was stuck.  Rigor mortis was already starting to set in for both mother and child.  Even without the rigor mortis, Hart knew from the parenting classes he and Sonia had attended, that breech births were the most difficult and delicate and that the baby was likely not coming out without assistance.

Whether it was the need to know, to see his child at least once, or to set him free in the world even if only in death, Hart couldn’t say for sure.  But he began pulling and prodding and adjusting until he had managed to wedge the chest out.  He continued wiggling the baby back and forth until he heard a crack.  He reached in and pulled out a tiny arm, broken now from all the jostling. And still he pulled until he reached the neck and only the head remained inside.

The neck was wrapped tightly with the umbilical cord, three times around, leaving no more give in the line.  Hart stood and walked calmly to the counter and pulled a large pair of scissors, used for cutting meat, out of the knife rack.  He took a deep breath and began cutting the cord, still slightly warm to the touch, the tendency toward life the last thing to go.  He worked one piece at a time until he’d cut it thrice, then pushed it away.  He pulled again and this time the baby emerged with a pop, his lackluster, unblinking eyes fixed on his father.

Hart cradled the head, a halo of blood forming beneath it.  He leaned over and kissed the tiny cheeks, touching the faintest line of the small eyebrow and ran his finger over the little nose and then the whole face, the color of a midnight blue sky.  He closed the baby’s eyes and laid him on his wife’s belly.  He stared at them for several minutes, tears spilling down his cheeks, anointing their bodies like holy water.  He wiped his eyes and clawed at his face, the blood and ooze of the afterbirth smearing it, a warrior preparing for battle.

The scream started as a low moan, growing in intensity and fury, building and climbing toward the crescendo, a high-pitched wail which ended when Hart was out of breath and fallen, left with his only remaining partner, the shadow of grief, lying prostrate across his past and future.

to be continued. . .

to read what came before, click here. . .