Pandora's Ark

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The night before Kimball Hayden fought at another venue, his third fight in ten days. His second bout was all about a quick execution of his skills with a flurry of blows and a roundhouse kick to the jaw, leaving his opponent on the mat as a complex heap in less than two minutes. After two fights the crowd loved him. By the third fight they hailed him as the Second Coming.

But it was Louie who told him to slow down the pace and make the fights last longer, draw them in and “Make them love you more than they already do. And then give them what they want, a total annihilation of your opponent.”

Kimball sat in the quasi-darkness of his apartment drinking straight from a bottle of Jack. Behind him the drapes were closed with marginal light slipping in through the seams where they met, and the air was hot and humid and stale with the smell of dirty laundry hanging in the air.

Make them love you more than they already do. And then give them what they want, a total annihilation of your opponent.

Is that what people want, Louie? A total annihilation of somebody else?

That’s the bottom line, buddy. That and the money, of course. But when you think about it, it all comes down to human nature. It’s what they want, J.J. And you’re the machine that drives them. Louie then turned toward the crazed and applauding crowd like an emcee and opened his arms, the downed opponent at his feet beginning to come to. Look at what you brought, J.J. Take a good look around and see what you’ve done.

A day later, the words continued to echo throughout his mind as if they were spoken from the end of a long and hollow tunnel.

Look at what you brought, J.J. Take a good look around and see what you’ve done.

Kimball took another swig, a long pull until a bubble surfaced inside the bottle, and then laid it on the armchair of the seat and stared straight ahead into darkness.

Last night was his third fight with the promise of more to come. His opponent was short and stocky with a bull-like neck and blunt limbs with tree-trunk thickness. It was obvious to Kimball that he fought his battles up close and personal due to his strike range being limited. So he thought that this was going to be a quick and clean kill like the other two. But his opponent was tough and mean and could take mind-numbing punches as if they were glancing blows. His lips were split and parted, a cut slashed over his eye, bleeding profusely. But he kept coming, defying Kimball’s well placed jabs, his punches, and his many scored kicks to the facial and chest regions.

The crowd was going crazy.

And his opponent kept coming, throwing quick jabs with undeniable power behind each blow, landing, scoring, and often driving Kimball off balance. And then a right-cross to Kimball’s face, a bruising blow which raised a knot above his eye, the bright light of intense pain soon following.

This guy was good.

Either that or Kimball was losing his edge.

Trading blow after blow, strike after strike, the fight waged on until the third round when Kimball found an brief opening and took it, driving a straight-on power punch like a pile driver into his opponent’s jaw, the bone shifting horribly to the left, breaking, the snap audible over the din of the crowd.

And then his world seemed to move with the slowness of a bad dream.

The raucous cry of the crowd moved in a slow drift as if the cries were weighted down, the shouts deep, long and drawn out, becoming a sigh of tragedy and awe.

For a brief moment his opponent wavered and teetered as his eyes went to half mast, his face horribly disfigured with the crook of his jaw threatening to punch through his skin. And then he fell, hard, the fighter landing in a grotesque shape, his knees bent in oddly acute angles.

And then Kimball’s world hastened, catching back up to the light of reality. The crowd cheered wildly as people applauded and raised their thumbs high. The decibels of their ovation carried across the air in concussive waves, the atmosphere moving, shaking, the walls closing in from all points of the arena, the effect finally striking him as a maddening drumbeat of cheers.

Look at what you brought, J.J. Take a good look around and see what you’ve done.

He looked down at the man on the mat, who was now receiving critical aid. And then he looked at his fist, at the glove, and then slowly unclenched his hand. He never realized that Louie was standing beside him, didn’t realize that the ref had raised his other hand in victory. Kimball Hayden had lost himself in the moment and blotted out the noise, the crowd, becoming detached.

Within thirty minutes he received his pay, a thirty-five hundred dollar bonanza for less than ten minutes of work.

But Kimball remained somewhat vacant; Louie’s words nothing more than a distant drone whenever he spoke, the money doing little to bolster his emotions as the bills lay curled in his hand.

He took another swig.

On the counter were leafs of hundred dollar denominations. Between his three fights he earned just over six grand. Not a bad take for less than two weeks. Maybe within a month, he thought, maybe two, he would have enough to start elsewhere, to be somebody with a remote future.

Forget Montana. Too cold.

What about Myrtle Beach? And in the darkness the corners of his lips edged up into a dreamy smile.

I always wanted to live by the beach — to have my own business. Start anew.

He then lifted his hand and let his fingertips run over the knot above his left eye, a vestige of his fight from the night before.

A few more fights, he told himself, to build the till. And then I’m gone. Like that.

After a sigh, and with the images of beachscapes and waves pounding the surf, the noise alive in his ears as he closed his eyes, Kimball dreamed.

And he drank.

Pulling from the bottle long enough for a drunken stupor to overtake him, with the images of the coastline remaining on his mind as he fell asleep, the bottle finally slipped from his hand and to the floor, the contents spilling onto the threadbare carpet.

Inside the Sistine Chapel another ballot was taking place, the second partaking on the third day.

For the past two days the people standing within Vatican City saw only black smoke spiraling from the chimney, the color meaning that an elected had not been chosen. However, the cardinals had congregated between ballots and refocused their thoughts as to who shall lead them. Names of the Preferiti were bandied about, each man providing the pros and cons of the four main candidates, the arguments between liberal and conservatism, a judicial gathering of thoughts finally reducing four to two.

On the day of the ballot the cardinals voted, the votes casted then presented to the first of the three Scrutineers. Raising the container high, he shook it, and then passed the ballots among the three of them to be counted with the last Scrutineer writing the name down, and then calling the name out loud.

… Cardinal Giuseppe Angullo…

… Cardinal Giuseppe Angullo…

… Cardinal Bonasero Vessucci…

… Cardinal Giuseppe Angullo…

… Cardinal Bonasero Vessucci…

Both men could feel their nerves tightening, their hearts racing, palpitating, the ballots casting a final decision.

… Cardinal Giuseppe Angullo…

Bonasero closed his eyes and waited for the next name.

… Cardinal Giuseppe Angullo…

And then he began to lose confidence, knowing that two thirds of the vote was needed and Angullo’s name kept rolling.

And then:

… Cardinal Bonasero Vessucci…

… Cardinal Bonasero Vessucci…

… Cardinal Bonasero Vessucci…

… Cardinal Bonasero Vessucci…

He opened his eyes.

… Cardinal Bonasero Vessucci…

… Cardinal Giuseppe Angullo…

This was getting too close, thought Vessucci.

When he turned to face Cardinal Angullo, he could see the man looking at him with the intensity of a scalpel. His hatchet thin face was directed at him, eyes as black as onyx and a stare as cold as ice.

… Cardinal Bonasero Vessucci…

… Cardinal Giuseppe Angullo…

… Cardinal Bonasero Vessucci…

And it went on until a pope was finally chosen and white smoke billowed from the chimney.

Finally, the people in Vatican City cheered for the newly elect.

At the conclusion of the election, the Cardinal Dean summoned the Secretary of the College of Cardinals and the Master of Papal Liturgical Celebrations into the hallway where the Cardinal Dean asked the Pope-elect if he assented to the election by stating in Latin: "Acceptasne electionem de te canonice factam in Summum Pontificem?” Do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff?

Cardinal Bonasero Vessucci nodded in affirmation and accepted the post by citing the proper Latin phrases.

The Cardinal Dean stepped forward and asked him for his papal name. “Quo nomine vis vocari?” By what name shall you be called?

“I choose the name… Pope Pius the Fourteenth.”

The Cardinal Dean nodded, and then led the way back to the conclave where the Master of Pontifical Liturgical Ceremonies created a document recording the acceptance and the new name of the Pope. Once the traditional motion was complete, Bonasero was then led into the “Room of Tears,” a small area inside the Sistine Chapel where he dressed into the pontifical choir robe; the white cassock, rochet and red mozzetta before donning the gold cordedpectoral cross, a red embroidered stole, and zucchetto — all in preparation for the masses.

When Bonasero was ready, the Cardinal Protodeacon went at the main balcony of the basilica's façade with his hands held out to the people of the Square and proclaimed the new pope in a voice that was loud and projecting: “Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: Habemus Papam! Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum Bonasero, Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem, qui sibi nomen imposuit Pope Pius the Fourteenth.” Translated: "I announce to you a great joy: We have a Pope! The Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord, Lord Bonasero, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, who takes to himself the name Pope Pius the Fourteenth.”

When Bonasero walked onto the balcony he saw the world differently. Throngs of people lined up so thickly he could barely see an inch of space between them, the cheers maddening. And somewhere, he knew, Cardinal Giuseppe Angullo was entirely livid with the outcome.

As he waved to the crowd, Bonasero knew he was now within Angullo’s crosshairs.

The day was done and the ceremonies were over.

As the moon traversed the sky, Cardinal Giuseppe Angullo stood before the open window of his dormitory room at the Domus Sanctæ Marthæ watching its slow trajectory. His mind, however, was detached from the reality of actually watching the moon as different images played within his mind’s eye.

He had been so sure that his campaigning on the basis that he was a man ‘bathed in old tradition,’ would garner the guaranteed ballots needed. But he was wrong. Cardinal Bonasero Vessucci won, taking the post he coveted to the point of pushing Pope Gregory over the rail because it was God’s will to have him pave the way to the papal alter, for which he was to preside over. Now with Gregory gone and Pius the Fourteenth standing in the way, Angullo could feel something alien and familiar at the same time. It was the feeling of losing control, which was buffered with the need to do something about it in order to bring that back under his rule. Unknowingly, as he considered this, he clenched his right hand slowly into a tight fist as if grabbing something tight within his hold, the courses of blue veins tightening against translucent flesh as the knuckles of his bony fingers turned white.

Control was vacating him.

And he needed to curb this loss, this emptiness.

Stepping away from the window, the moon traversing overhead at a glacially slow pace, Cardinal Giuseppe Angullo began to outline a course of action against Bonasero Vessucci. He would have to be clever and sly. And he would succeed believing that there was a solution for everything.

Standing before the bathroom mirror, Angullo studied his reflection.

For an odd moment words punctuated his thoughts, words he had never considered in the past or why he thought them. They simply came: Mirror Friend, Mirror Foe.

He examined his features further without emotion or movement. He stood as still as a Grecian statue, looking with impenetrable onyx eyes that never wavered in their sockets.

Mirror Friend, Mirror Foe.

Finally, he traced his fingertips over his image.

Mirror Friend, Mirror Foe.

Yes, Bonasero, he thought. There’s a solution for everything.

Deep down he began to feel something very familiar.

Control was beginning to seep back into his soul, something that was black and twisted, something very ugly.

In the mirror his reflection took in a deep breath and exhaled in an equally long sigh. Yes, Bonasero, there is a solution for everything.

Behind him the moon continued to move in its guided path, albeit with the slowness of a bad dream.