Tequila's Sunrise

DUST

Two months later…

She still jumped every time she heard an airplane.

The sound never left her. In her sleep, at lunch, in the shower, watching TV—Laura relived it over and over again.

Emerging from the subway into the warm September day. Thunder crackles overhead; a stuttering, staccato sound. White noise. The thunder is loud (so loud—everything in the city is loud but this drowns it all out) and she stares upward in startled amazement (but not fear—not yet). The thunder is a plane, roaring toward the towers. Then the sky is falling and there is fire and now comes the fear because that is where Dallas is working.

The panic and chaos that ensued after the second plane were distant events; detached from reality. Only that first sound, the sound of the plane overhead, was real.

She’d been on her way home from the night shift. On a normal day, Dallas would have just been getting up. Laura would have arrived at the twelfth floor apartment they shared, and she’d tell him all about her night while he shaved and dressed for work. They’d discuss their plans for the weekend, when neither had to work. They did this every day. On a normal day.

But none of these things happened because Dallas left her a voice mail on her cell phone. He was going in early, anticipating a telecom rally when the market opened. Grubman said it was going to be big, and you could trust Grubman. Grubman knew his shit.

Dallas went to work early. He crossed the street. Bought a cup of coffee and the Post. Got on the elevator and scanned the headlines on the way up. Adjusted his tie. Walked into the office. Sat at his desk.

And never came home.

Neither had Laura; not since it happened. She never arrived home because of the sound, that terrible jet engine sound. The bottom fell out of her world that day and the center did not hold, did not pass go, did not collect two hundred dollars.

She’d spent the first few nights with some friends in Brooklyn, before moving to her sister’s house in Jersey. She couldn’t go home, they told her. The area was unsafe. They had to determine if the structure was sound.

Dallas had no funeral because there was nothing to bury. She waited. Eventually, she returned to work. She waited.

Then she waited some more.

Finally, the call came. They told her she could go back to get her valuables. There was still a lot of work to be done; windows to be replaced, apartments to be cleaned. Cosmetic work, the lady on the phone had said. But she could collect her things at least, and hopefully move back in within a month.

Now here she was, back at the place where they’d lived—a place she no longer recognized. Her neighborhood was a monument to sorrow. Its geography was forever altered.

The first thing she noticed (after the wreckage) was the birds. Like any other place, the concrete and steel canyons of the city had their own form of wildlife. Squirrels and rats. Dogs and cats. Flies and pigeons. These were common.

But turkey buzzards were something new.

Laura watched one soar overhead; its black, mottled wings outstretched to catch the breeze. The bird reminded her of the plane. Her breath caught in her throat. The frigid November air encircled her, and she was afraid. The shopping bag in her hands grew heavy, and its contents sloshed around inside.

The buzzard joined the other scavenger birds, circling the devastation from above. She wondered if it was the smell that attracted them, or some deeper instinct. Perhaps they waited on the promise of more to come?

She edged her way around the site, shifting the weight of the bulky, misshapen shopping bag from arm to arm. Workers called to each other from across the rubble. Heavy machinery roared to the accompaniment of jackhammers and the white-hot hiss of acetylene torches. Somewhere beyond it all, where the city still lived, came the echoes of traffic; the comforting, familiar chaos of horns and sirens. The sounds were muted, though. The mood here in the dead zone was palpable, and for a moment, Laura was convinced that the circling buzzards didn’t ride the wind currents, but instead, floated aloft on the waves of despair rising from the wreckage.

She continued on to her building, and found something worse than the carnage. Something worse than the circling scavengers or the noisy silence or the twisted girders or the smell coming from the ruins.

Dust. The sidewalks and the building itself were caked with dust. Her feet left tracks in it as she slowly climbed the steps. It coated her palm when she pulled the door open. The haggard security guard in the lobby was covered in it. Dust floated around him like a halo as he solemnly studied her letter of permission. He had her sign a dusty piece of paper on a dusty clipboard.

It’s the towers, she thought, and everything that was inside them. It’s dead people.

She felt a moment of panic as the doors closed behind her and the elevator lurched upward. She set the bag down on the floor, grateful for a moment’s respite. The soft whir of the motor and the cables sounded like the plane.

The dust was even here, inside the elevator. She brushed at the control panel with her fingertips and they came away white and powdery.

Dead people.

With each step, I’m breathing in dead people. I’m breathing in Dallas.

The elevator halted, and Laura froze for a moment, unable to go on. The bell rang impatiently, and she picked up the bag, grunting with the effort. She took one faltering step forward, then another. The doors hissed shut behind her.

The dust was much worse here on her floor. The hallway was covered in it, and the beautiful red carpet was now buried beneath gray ash. It clung to the paintings on the wall and coated the mirrors.

The hallway was quiet. Laura started forward. She heard a hoarse coughing echoing from behind her neighbor’s door. Laura stopped and listened. The coughing came again, harsh and ragged, followed by the sounds of movement.

Timidly, she knocked. There was a moment’s pause and then the door opened.

“Laura! Oh darling, it’s so good to see you.” An elderly German lady waddled out and squeezed Laura tight.

“Hello, Doris,” Laura sat the bag down and hugged her back. “I’d been worried about you. How’s Jack?”

“He’s still in the hospital. Cranky as ever. They’re doing another skin graft tomorrow. And his mind... It’s... How are you, dear?”

“I’m—” and then she couldn’t finish because the lump in her throat made speech impossible. Then the tears came, carving tracks through the dust on her face.

Doris held her tight and cooed softly in her ear, swaying them back and forth.

“I’m sorry,” Laura finally apologized, wiping her eyes. “I miss Dallas. It’s just too much.”

“I know, dear. I know. Do you want me to go in with you?”

Laura shook her head. “No. Thank you Doris, but I think I need to do this by myself. You understand?”

“Of course, Laura. You go on and do what need’s doing. I’ll be here for awhile. I’m just sorting through the mess. The windows inside our apartment are broken, and this damned dust is everywhere! They were supposed to put plywood up until they got them repaired, but they haven’t yet. Too many other things going on, I guess.”

Doris coughed again.

Laura squeezed her hand tightly, and then picked her bag up and moved on.

She came to her apartment door and paused. Something was moving on the other side. She put her ear to the door and she heard it again; a light, rustling sound.

Dallas? Was he alive all this time, and waiting for her? Maybe he had amnesia, like in a movie, and this was the only place he remembered.

She put her key in the lock, turned it, and opened the door. The breeze smacked her face. Something fluttered in the shadows. Laura fumbled in the darkness, found the switch, and flicked it, flooding the apartment with light.

A pigeon cooed at her from the windowsill, annoyed at the disturbance. Then it flew away through the broken window. It hadn’t been Dallas. It was just a bird. Laura felt foolish and sad and angry. It hadn’t been Dallas because Dallas was gone. He’d left for work early because Grubman had said there would be a telecom rally and now he was dead and Grubman was dead and everybody else was dead, too. Dallas was gone and there wasn’t even anything to bury because he was dust. Just dust in the wind, like the song.

The apartment was buried beneath it. Piles and drifts of gray ash covered the furniture and the floor, and dust motes floated in the rays of the dim bulb in the ceiling. It swirled in and out of the broken windows, and out the open door behind her into the hallway.

She shut the door and sat her bag down next to the coat rack. The can inside the bag clanked against the tile, and the liquid sloshed again.

Dallas stared back at her from the wall, frozen in time behind the glass frame. Their trip to Alcatraz, when they’d visited Gene and Kay in San Francisco last year. Dallas was laughing at the camera with that smile. It was his smile that she’d fallen in love with first.

In the kitchen, something caught her attention. A yellow post-it note, stuck to the dirty fridge, with her name scrawled on it in his handwriting.

Laura,

I had to go in early. Grubman was on CNBC this morning, and he’s saying that Worldcom and Quest will bounce back today. Tried calling your cell but I got your voice mail. My turn to cook dinner tonight. How’s fish sound? Hope you had a good night at work! Love ya!

Dallas

Laura sobbed. She reached out to touch the note, and her fingers came away gritty. It, too, was covered in dust.

“I miss you baby. I miss you so bad.”

The wind howled through the broken glass, kicking up mini-dust clouds all throughout the apartment. The dust swirled toward her, encircling her ankles. Laura turned, and for just a moment, she heard his voice in the wind. The dust hung suspended before her, twirling in mid-air, and she saw his face within the cloud. Dallas smiled at her, and even though it was gray and powdery, it was still his smile. The one she had fallen in love with. More of the cloud took shape now; shoulders, arms, his chest. Each muscle was chiseled perfectly from the dust.

“I want to hold you, Dallas.”

She reached for him and her fingers passed through his center. As suddenly as it had begun, the winds stopped and the ashes dissipated, floating to the floor. Laura pulled her hand away. The center of the dust cloud was cold, and the tips of her fingers turned pale. It reminded her of when she’d been a little girl, and built a snowman without wearing her gloves.

“Dallas?”

There was no answer. She knelt to the floor and scooped the ash in her hands, letting it sift through her fingers. Another gust of wind blew through the room, gently carrying the dust away.

“I miss you.”

She went back out into the hall and knocked on Doris’ door.

“All set dear?”

“If it’s okay with you, Doris, I think I’m going to hang around awhile.”

“I understand, Laura. Take what time you need. It’s important to do so. I’ll be off for the hospital then. Jack will be grumbling if I don’t get back soon.”

“Give him my best?”

“I surely will. And you must come see him soon, yes?”

Laura nodded, unable to speak.

She went back to her apartment and shut the door, waiting for the sounds of the old lady’s departure. When she was sure Doris had gone, she rummaged inside her shopping bag and pulled out the gas can and the pills. She swallowed the pills first, and waited for them to kick in. Then, as she grew drowsy, Laura unscrewed the lid and splashed gasoline all over the floor, the walls, and the furniture. It carved little rivulets in the dust, and the smell of it wasn’t at all unpleasant. It was welcome. The odor blocked out the stench coming from the pit below.

She was getting sleepy.

Laura lit the match.

“Dallas.”

The wind answered her with a sigh, and the dust began to move again, caressing her arms and face.

She was asleep before the flames touched her.

***

The fireman wiped a grimy hand across his brow. “Christ, like we needed this on top of everything else?”

“Least the building wasn’t re-occupied yet,” his partner said. “And the fire was contained to just a few apartments.”

“Wasn’t re-occupied my ass! What do you call those? Squatters?” He pointed at the two mounds of dust on the floor. They were both human shaped, lying together side-by-side. He let his eyes linger on them a moment longer, and swore that the dust piles were holding hands.

The other man shrugged. “Optical illusion? A joke? Fuck, do you know how hot it had to be in here to reduce a human body to ash like that? Couldn’t have happened, man, or else this entire building would be toast.”

“So what the fuck are they?”

“Just one of those weird things, like the photos you see in The Fortean Times. Simulacra they call it, or something like that. The security guard said there were only a few tenants that had come back to get their stuff, and he was pretty sure they were gone.”

“Well, it still gives me the creeps. Let’s go.”

***

After they left, the dust began to swirl again. Sheets of heavy plywood had finally been put into place, sealing up the burned apartment, but the air moved. A wind blew through the room. It came not from the windows or from the hall, but from somewhere else.

The mounds of ash rose and embraced. Then, still holding hands, they fell apart; floating away until there was nothing left.

***

***

***

This story appeared in my second short-story collection, Fear of Gravity, and was reprinted in A Little Silver Book of Streetwise Stories and as a promotional chapbook (along with a story by author Kelli Owen). All three are out-of-print.

“Dust” bounced around in my head for a year before I wrote it. One month after the 9/11 attacks, I went to New York City to do a live appearance at the Housing Works Bookstore. As I was walking down the street, I happened to glance up and spotted a turkey buzzard flying between the buildings. Then another. And another. Turkey buzzards are a common sight in rural areas like the town I grew up in. Any time there’s a dead animal in the field or on the road, you’ll find them circling. But I’d never seen one in the city. Especially New York City. A newspaper vendor told me the birds were going to Ground Zero—the wreckage of the World Trade Center. In some ways, that image of the scavenger birds, and the newspaper vendor’s explanation for their presence, chill me more than the footage of the planes hitting the towers or the Pentagon ever can. A year after, in October of 2002, I tired to write it out of my system. “Dust” was the result.

FADE TO NULL

She woke to the sound of thunder, lying in a strange bed with no memory of who she was or where she was, and panic nearly overwhelmed her. Her stomach clenched. Her breaths came in short gasps. Frantic, she glanced around the room for clues, but familiarity eluded her. The room was small, equipped with a dresser, a writing desk, and a chair with one leg shorter than the others. Atop the dresser sat a slender blue-glass vase with some flowers in it.

The flowers soothed her, but she didn’t know why.

She studied the rest of the room. Looming overhead were the cracked, yellowing panels of a drop ceiling. The carpet was light green, the wallpaper pastel. Framed prints hung on the wall—Monet, Kincaid, Rockwell. She wondered how it was possible that she knew their names but didn’t know her own. The closet door was slightly open, revealing a stranger’s clothes. There was only one window, and the blinds were closed tight. If the room had a door, other than the closet, she couldn’t see it.

The sheets were thin and starchy, and rubbed against her skin like sandpaper. They felt damp from sweat. Clenching the sheets in both fists, she raised them slightly and peered beneath. She was dressed in a faded sleeping gown with a dried brown stain over one breast. What was it? Gravy? Mud? Blood? Except for her underwear, she was bare beneath the gown.

She considered calling for help, but decided against it. She was afraid—afraid of who, or what, might answer her summons. Despite the fact that the room seemed empty, she couldn’t help but feel like there was someone else in here with her. Someone unseen.

The thunder boomed again. Blue-white light flashed from behind the closed blinds, and for a moment, she saw glimpses of other people in the room with her—a man, a woman, and a little girl. They were like the images on photo negatives, stark against the room’s feeble light, but at the same time, flickering and ghostly—composed of television static. The man stood by her bedside, dressed in a white doctor’s coat. A stethoscope dangled around his neck. He held a clipboard. The woman stood next to him, wearing a simple but pretty blouse. She seemed tired and sad. The little girl sat in the wobbly chair, rocking back and forth on the crooked legs.

“It’s okay, Mika. Grandma is just having a bad dream.”

The voice was distant. Muted. An echo. And female.

She tried to scream, but only managed a rasping, wheezy sigh.

The three figures vanished with the next blast of thunder, blinking out of existence as if they’d never been there at all.

Maybe they hadn’t.

She was dimly aware that she had to pee.

When the drum roll of thunder sounded again, the drop-ceiling disappeared as quickly as the ghost-people had. Everything else in the room remained the same—the drab furnishings, the dim light—but in the ceiling’s place was a purple, wounded sky. Boiling clouds raced across it, but she felt no wind. Although the temperature hadn’t changed, she shivered. The pressure on her bladder increased. She relaxed, and felt a sudden rush of warmth. Then the violet sky split open, revealing a black hole, and it began to rain desiccated flowers.

‘Flowers,’ she thought. ‘There are flowers on the dresser. Ellen brought them.’

Then she wondered who Ellen was.

Dried petals continued to shower the bed, tickling her nose and cheeks. She sighed. The feeling was not unpleasant. Then, as quickly as it had begun, the rain of flower petals stopped—replaced by something else. Her eyes widened in terror. A squadron of bulbous flies poured from the hole in the sky, buzzing in a multitude of languages. Their bodies were black, their heads green like emeralds. They circled the room in a swirling pattern. A flock of birds plunged out of the hole, giving chase. The thunder increased, inside the room with her now. The noise was deafening. The flies scattered and the birds squawked in fright. A black, oily feather floated gently towards her.

She tried to sit up, but her fatigue weighed her like a stone. All she could do was lie there and watch. Listen. Wonder.

Where was she? What was this? What was happening?

She thought again of the flowers. They’d been brought by... who, exactly? She couldn’t remember. Someone. She thought it might be important.

The warmth dissipated. She was cold again. Her fear was replaced by a powerful sense of frustration in both her physical discomfort and her confusion. Why couldn’t she remember anything?

Above her, the sky continued to weep. Now, strands of DNA fell in ribbons, forming puddles on the bed and floor. Life stirred within those puddles, writhing and squirming. The thunder changed into a voice—a deity, perhaps, screaming. It was a terrible sound. She clasped her hands over her ears and tried to block it out. She’d heard screams like this before. Perhaps she’d even made them, at one time. They sounded like the symphony of birthing pains.

A large puddle of liquid tissue had formed on the sheet in front of her, right between her legs. As she watched, something wriggled from the puddle—a one-inch tentacle, about the thickness of a pencil. There was an eyeball attached to one end of the tendril. It stared at her, and as she watched, the pupil dilated.

In the background, the deity was still screaming. She no longer cared. Her attention was focused on the tentacle-thing. The creature groped feebly at her gown, and then pulled itself forward. She slapped her hand down on it, pressing it into the mattress and grinding her palm back and forth. The tentacle squeaked—even though it lacked a mouth—and then lay still. She removed her hand. All that remained of the thing was a pinkish-white blob of mucus. Slime dripped from her hand.

Silence returned. The disembodied screaming stopped. So did the thunder. The flies and the birds turned to vapor. The hole in the sky closed up, and second later, the drop ceiling reappeared.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please... please...”

Then, new voices spoke. A man and a woman.

“She used to love to paint. I thought bringing some of this might help, but she can’t even hold the paintbrush.”

“Yes. Her motor skills are decreasing rapidly.”

“How long does she have?”

“In this stage of Alzheimer’s, it is difficult to say. I’ve seen some hang on for years after the fourth stage has set in. Others go quickly. All we can do is keep her comfortable.”

“I just hate bringing Mika to see her like this, you know? I’m worried about how it will effect her.”

“That’s understandable, Ellen. And while some studies suggest that it’s beneficial for patients, we can’t even really be sure that your mother is aware of the presence of those around her. I know it’s not much comfort, but at least she’s calm and peaceful, for the most part.”

“Who are you?” she moaned. “Where are you?”

She closed her eyes and let her cheek loll against the pillow, wishing the sky would rain flowers again.

“Who am I?” she whispered. “Please...”

The voices disappeared.

At last, she slept.

When she awoke again, the room was dark and cold. She shivered. There were flowers on the dresser, but she no longer knew what they were.

***

***

This story started as nothing more than a fragment. About one-hundred words of it was originally written for one of those multi-author collaboration projects—two dozen authors each contributing to one short story. Unfortunately, the project never came to fruition. I no longer remember who was involved or what the premise was. All I know is that it was never published (if it had been, I’m sure I’d have a contract or a copy of the book around here somewhere).

Anyway, I bought a new computer and I was in the process of transferring my files over to it when I ran across this old, forgotten fragment. I re-worked it into this story. Alzheimer’s has impacted my family in a very personal way. It’s a truly terrifying disease. I find it especially scary because none of us really know what’s going on inside the mind of the victim.

“Fade To Null” has only appeared once before—in my now out-of-print short story collection Unhappy Endings.

BUNNIES IN AUGUST

One year later…

He shouldn’t have come here. Not today. Especially not today.

This is where it happened, he thought. This is where Jack died.

Gary stood beneath the water tower. It perched atop the tallest hill in town, right between the Methodist church cemetery, and the rear of the tiny, decrepit strip mall (abandoned when Wal-Mart moved in two miles away), and a corn field. The tower was a massive, looming, blue thing, providing water to the populace below. Every time he saw it, (which was all the time, because it was visible from everywhere in town) Gary was reminded of the Martian tripods from War of the Worlds. When Jack was old enough to read the graphic novel adaptation, it had reminded him of the same thing.

“It looks like one of the Martian robots, doesn’t it Daddy? Doesn’t it? Let’s pretend the Martians are invading!”

The first tear welled up. Then another. They built to a crescendo. Surrendering, Gary closed his eyes and wept. A warm summer breeze rustled the treetops above him. His breath caught in his throat. He tried to swallow the lump, and found he couldn’t. Sweat beaded his forehead. The heat was stifling. His skin prickled, as if on fire. As if he was burning. The wind brushed against him like caressing flames.

Blinking the tears away, he glanced back up at the water tower and wondered how he could bring it down. He saw it every day—on the drive home, from the grocery store parking lot, the backyard, even his bedroom window—and each time he was reminded of his son. The tower’s presence was inescapable. How to erase its existence—and thus, the memories? A chainsaw was out of the question. The supports were made of steel. Explosives maybe? Yeah. Sure. He was a fucking insurance salesman. Where was he going to find explosives?

He hated the water tower. It stood here as an unwanted reminder, a dark monument to Jack.

This was where it happened.

This used to be their playground.

Weekends had always been their time together. During the week, Gary and Susan both worked, he at the insurance office and she from home, typing up tape-recorded court transcripts. Jack had school, fourth grade, where he excelled in English and Social Studies, but struggled with Math and Science. Gary didn’t see them much on weeknights, either. He’d had other… obligations.

Leila’s face popped into his mind, unbidden. He pushed her away.

Get thee behind me, Satan.

The weekends were magic. Once he’d waded through the mind-numbing tedium of domestic chores; grocery shopping, mowing the lawn, cleaning the gutters, and anything else Susan thought up for him to do while she sat at home all day long; after all that, there was Daddy and Jack time. Father and son time. Quality time.

Jack’s first word had been ‘Da-da’.

Gary had loved his son. Loved him so much that it hurt, sometimes. Despite how clichéd it may have sounded to some people, the pain was real. And good. When Jack was little, Gary used to stand over his crib and watch him sleeping. In those moments, Gary’s breath hitched up in his chest—a powerful, overwhelming emotional wave. He’d loved Susan like that too, once upon a time, when they’d first been married. Before job-related stress and mortgage payments and their mutual weight gain—and before Susan’s little personality quirks, things he’d thought were cute and endearing when he’d first met her, the very things he’d fallen in love with after the initial physical attraction, became annoying rather than charming. They knew everything there was to know about each other, and thus, they knew too much. Boredom set in, and worse, a simmering complacency that hollowed him out inside and left him empty. When Jack came along in their fifth year of marriage, Gary fell in love all over again, and his son had filled that hole.

At least temporarily…

Parental love was one thing. That completed a part of him. But Gary still had unfulfilled needs. Needs that Susan didn’t seem inclined to acknowledge, and in truth, needs he wasn’t sure she could have satisfied any longer even if she’d shown interest. Not with the distance between them, a gulf that had grown wider after Jack’s birth. There were too many sleepless nights and grumpy mornings, too many laconic, grunted conversations in front of the television and not enough talking.

So Gary had gone elsewhere.

To Leila.

A crow called out above him, perched on a tree limb. The sound startled him, bringing Gary back to the present. The bird spread its wings and the branch bent under its wings. The leaves rustled as it took flight. Gary watched it go. His spirits plummeted even farther as the bird soared higher.

He stepped out from underneath the water tower’s shadow, back into the sunlight, and shivered.

We beat the Martians, Daddy! Me and you, together…

“Oh Jack,” he whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

Gary felt eyes upon him, a tickling sensation between his shoulder blades. He glanced around. Through his tears, he noticed a rabbit at the edge of the field, watching him intently.

He sniffed, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

The rabbit twitched its whiskers and kept staring. Gary felt its black eyes bore into him. He wondered if animals blinked.

The rabbit didn’t.

“Scat.” Gary stamped his foot. “Go on! Get out of here.”

The rabbit scurried into the corn, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. Gary studied the patch of grass where it had been sitting. The spot was empty, except for a large rock. Was it his imagination, or was the stone’s surface red?

Maybe the animal was injured. Or dying.

His mind threatened to dredge up more of the past, and he bit his lip, drawing blood.

Gary checked the time on his cell phone. He’d been gone a long while. Susan would be worried. He shouldn’t have left her alone, especially on today, of all days. But she’d insisted that at least one of them should visit Jack’s grave. That was what had brought him here in the first place. He’d been drawn to the water tower without even thinking about it. Susan hadn’t come with him to the cemetery. Said she couldn’t bear it. She’d visited the grave many times over the past year, but not today. It had been left for Gary to do, and so he had.

He pressed a button, unlocking the keypad, and the phone’s display lit up. It was just after twelve noon, on August fifteenth. But he’d already known the date.

How could he forget?

He trudged back the way he’d come, wading through the sweltering afternoon haze. Heat waves shimmered in the corners of his vision.

He shouldn’t have come here. Not today, on the one year anniversary of his son’s death. This was a bad idea. It was bad enough that he could see this stupid water tower everywhere he went. Why come this close to it? What was he hoping to find? To prove?

The wind whispered, Daddy.

Gary turned around, and gasped.

Jack stood beneath the water tower, watching him go. The boy was dressed in the same clothes the police had found him in.

Daddy…

His son reached out. Jack was transparent. Gary could see corn stalks on the other side of him.

“No. Not real. You’re not real.”

La la la la, lemon. La la la la, lullaby…

Gary shivered. Jack’s favorite song from Sesame Street. He’d sung it all the time. All about the letter ‘L’ and words that began with it; a Bert and Ernie classic from Gary’s own childhood.

“You’re not there,” he told his son.

***

Gary stuck his pinky fingers in his ears and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Jack was gone. He’d never been there. It was just the heat, playing tricks on him. He lowered his hands.

Something rustled between the rows of swaying corn.

Gary didn’t believe in ghosts. He didn’t need to. Memories could haunt a man much more than spirits ever could.

He walked home, passing through the cemetery on the way, and his son’s grave.

He stopped at Jack’s headstone, knelt in the grass, and wept. He did not see Jack again. He did spot several more rabbits, darting between tombstones, running through the grass. Playing amongst the dead.

He tried to ignore the fact that they all stopped to watch him pass.

***

By the time he got home, Gary’s melancholy mood had turned into full-fledged depression. He’d been off the medication for months now, ever since he’d stopped seeing the counselor. If he went inside the house, he’d feel even worse. Susan had been crying all morning, looking at pictures of Jack. He couldn’t deal with that right now. Couldn’t handle her pain. He was supposed to fix things for them, and this couldn’t be fixed. Gary couldn’t stand to see her hurting. Had never been able to.

He decided to mow the lawn instead. Even though he dreaded mowing, sometimes it made him feel better—the aroma of fresh cut grass and the neat, symmetrical rows. He went into the garage; made sure the lawnmower had enough oil and gas, and then rolled it out into the yard. It started on the third tug.

Gary pushed the lawnmower up and down the yard and tried not to think. Grasshoppers and crickets jumped out of his way, and yellow dandelions disappeared beneath the blades. He’d completed five rows and was beginning his sixth when he noticed the baby bunny.

Or what was left of it.

The rabbit’s upper half crawled through the yard, trailing viscera and blood, grass clippings sticking to its guts. Its lower body was missing, presumably pulped by the lawnmower. Gary’s hands slipped off the safety bar, and the lawnmower dutifully turned itself off.

Silence descended, for a brief moment, and then he heard something else.

The baby rabbit made a noise, almost like a scream.

Daddy?

He glanced around, frantic. A few feet away, the grass moved. Something was underneath it, hiding beneath the surface. Gary walked over and bent down, parting the grass. His fingers came away sticky and red. Secreted inside the remains of their warren were four more baby bunnies. The lawnmower had mangled them, and they were dying as he watched. Their black eyes stared at him incriminatingly. The burrow was slick with gore and fur.

Gary turned away. His breakfast sprayed across the lawn.

Despite their injuries, despite missing limbs and dangling intestines, the bunnies continued to thrash, their movements weak and jerky.

“Oh God,” he moaned. “Why don’t they die? Why don’t—”

The half-rabbit dragging itself across the yard squealed again.

“Please,” Gary whimpered. “Just die. Don’t do this. Not today. It’s too much.”

Daddy? Daddyyyy? La la la la, lemon. La la la la lullaby…

Gary stumbled to his feet and ran to the driveway. Without thinking, he seized the biggest rock he could find, dashed back to the rabbit hole, and raised the rock over his head.

“I’m sorry.”

He flung it down as hard as he could, squashing them. Their tiny bones snapped like twigs underfoot. Swallowing hard, Gary picked the rock back up again, ignoring the sticky, matted blood and fur that now clung to its bottom and sides. He stalked across the yard, tracked down the half-bunny and put it out of its misery, too.

Gasping for breath, he let the rock lay in the grass, concealing the carcass. His bowels clenched; then loosened. Kneeling, he threw up again. When it was over, he washed his hands and face off beneath the outside spigot.

This time, the tears didn’t stop.

Gary wailed. One of his neighbors poked their head outside, attracted by the ruckus. When they saw his face, saw the raw emotions etched onto it, they ducked back inside.

Eventually, when he’d gotten himself under control, Gary went inside. He poured a double scotch, and gulped it down. The liquor burned his raw throat. He called out for Susan, but there was no answer. He found her in Jack’s bedroom, sitting on their son’s bed and holding one of his action figures. Her face was wet and pale. He sat down next to her, put his arm around her, and they cried together for a long time.

***

That night, Susan said she’d like to try again; she’d like to have another child. She murmured in his ear that it had been a long time since they’d made love, and apologized for it. Said it was her fault, and she’d like to try and fix things. Make them like they used to be, long ago, when they’d first been married. Every party of Gary stiffened, except for the part of him that could have helped insure that. When she noticed, and asked what was wrong, he told her that he didn’t feel good. Too depressed. Susan pulled away. She asked Gary if he still loved her and he lied and said yes. She snuggled closer again, and put her head on his chest.

Gary thought of Leila and tried very hard not to scream. The guilt was a solid thing, and it weighed on him heavier than the thick blankets pulled over his body. He held Susan until she fell asleep and then he slipped out from underneath her. She moaned in her sleep, a sad sound. He went downstairs, turned on the television, and curled into the fetal position on the couch.

He’d never told her about Leila. As far as he knew, Susan had never expected. At one point, he’d thought the secret might come out. Leila had made threats. She was unhappy. Wanted Gary to leave Susan and be with her. He’d been worried, frantic—unsure of what to do. But then Jack had died and the whole affair had become moot. For the past year, he and Susan had both been overwhelmed with grief. And though Leila was no longer in the picture, and though Gary had tried very hard to be there for his wife and make the marriage work, he couldn’t tell Susan now. She was a mother who’d lost her child.

He couldn’t hurt her all over again.

Restless, Gary tossed and turned. The couch springs squeaked. Eventually, he needed to pee. Rather than using the upstairs bathroom and risk waking Susan, he went outside, into the backyard. He pushed his robe aside, fumbled with the fly on his pajamas, and unleashed a stream.

And then he froze.

In the darkness, a pair of shiny little eyes stared back at him. Although he couldn’t see the animal itself, Gary knew what it was—the mother rabbit, looking for her dead children.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

The eyes vanished in the darkness.

He went back inside and lay down on the couch again. Sleep would not come, nor would relief from the pain. It hadn’t been this bad in a while, not since the months immediately following Jack’s death.

Gary stared at the television without seeing.

It was a long time before he slept.

***

That December, when Gary got home from a particularly harrowing day at the office, Susan was in the bedroom, holding the stick from a home pregnancy test. It was the second of the day. She’d taken the first that morning, after he left for work. Both showed positive; a little blue plus sign, simple in its symbolism, yet powerful as well. That tiny plus sign led to joy and happiness—or sometimes—fear and heartbreak.

Susan was ecstatic, and that night, after they’d eaten a romantic, candlelight dinner, and curled up together to watch a movie, and made love, Gary decided that he’d never tell her about Leila. Not now. He couldn’t.

After all, he’d lived with the guilt this long.

He could do it for the rest of his life.

***

According to the obstetrician, (an asthmatic, paunchy man named Doctor Brice) Susan was due in August, within ten days of the anniversary of Jack’s death.

On the way home from Doctor Brice’s office, Susan turned to Gary.

“It’s a sign.”

“What is?”

“My due date. It’s like a sign from God.”

Gary kept silent. He thought it might be the exact opposite.

***

Two years later.

On the second anniversary of their son’s death, with Susan’s due date a little more than a week away, they woke up, dressed solemnly, and prepared to visit Jack’s grave. Susan had picked a floral arrangement the night before, and both of them had taken the day off work.

Once again, the August heat and humidity was insufferable. Gary waded through the thick miasma on his way to start the car (so that the air conditioner would have time to cool the interior before Susan came out). He slipped behind the wheel, put the key in the ignition, and turned it. The car sputtered and then something exploded. There was a horrible screech, followed by a wet thump. The engine hissed, and a brief gust of steam or smoke billowed from beneath the hood.

Cursing, Gary yanked on the hood release and jumped out of the car. He ran around to the front, popped the hood, and raised it. The stench was awful. He stumbled backward. Something wet and red had splattered all over the engine. Tufts of brown and white fur stuck to the metal. A disembodied foot lay on top of the battery.

A rabbit’s foot.

Guess he wasn’t so lucky, Gary thought, biting back a giggle. He was horrified, but at the same time, overwhelmed with the bizarre desire to laugh.

The rabbit must have crawled up into the engine block overnight, perhaps seeking warmth or just looking for a place to nest. When Gary had started the car, the animal most likely panicked and scurried for cover, taking a fatal misstep into the whirring fan blades.

He glanced back down at the severed rabbit’s foot again.

A bunny. Same day. Just like last year. With the lawnmower. He’d run over the nest, and then he’d… with the rock…

Susan tapped him on the shoulder and he nearly screamed. When she saw the mess beneath the hood, she almost did the same.

“What happened?”

“A rabbit. It must have crawled inside last night.”

She recoiled, one hand covering her mouth. “Oh, that’s terrible. The poor thing.”

“Yeah. Let me get this cleaned up and then we’ll go.”

Susan began to sob. Gary went to her, and she sagged against him.

“I’m sorry. It’s just…”

“I know,” Gary consoled her. “I know.”

She pushed away. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Susan—”

Turning, she waddled as quickly as she could back to the house. Gary followed her, heard her retching in the bathroom, and after a moment’s hesitation, knocked gently on the door.

“You okay?”

“No,” she choked. “I don’t think I can go. You’ll go without me?”

“But Susan, I…”

She retched again. Gary closed his eyes.

“Please, Gary? I can’t go. Not like this. One of us has to.”

“You’re right, of course.”

Susan heard the reluctance in his voice.

“Please?”

Gary sighed. “Will you be okay?”

The toilet flushed. “Yes. I just need to rest. Remember to take the flowers.”

“I will. Susan?”

“What?”

“I’m sorry.”

He heard her running water in the sink.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “It’s not your fault.”

***

The graveyard was empty, except for an elderly couple on their way out as Gary arrived. Despite the heat, he’d decided to walk to the cemetery rather than dealing with the mess beneath the hood of his car. By the time he reached Jack’s grave he was drenched in sweat, his clothing soaked.

Panting, he knelt in front of the grave. Droplets of perspiration ran into his eyes, stinging them. His vision blurred, and then the tears began. They were false tears, crocodile tears, tears of sweat and exertion, rather than grief. Oh, the grief was there. Gary was overwhelmed with grief. Grief was a big lump that sat in his throat. But still, the real tears would not come.

But the memories did.

When he glanced up at the water tower, the memories came full force.

Grief turned to guilt.

“I mean it, Gary. I’m telling Susan.”

“You’ll do no such thing.”

Leila’s smile was tight-lipped, almost a grimace. “I’ve got her email address.”

Gary paused. Felt fear. “You’re lying.”

“Try me.” Now her smile was genuine again, if cruel. “I looked it up on the internet. From her company’s website.”

Gary sighed. “Why? Why do this to me?”

“Because I’m sick of your bullshit. You said you loved me. You said you’d leave her—”

“I’ve told you, it’s not that simple. I’ve got to think about Jack.”

“She can’t take Jack from you. You’re his father. You’ve got rights.”

“I can’t take that chance. Damn it, Leila, we’ve been through this a million times. I love you, but I—”

“You’re a fucking liar, Gary! Just stop it. If you loved me, you’d tell her.”

“I do love you.”

“Then do it. Tell her. If you don’t have the balls to, I will.”

“Are you threatening me? You gonna blackmail me into continuing this? Is that it?”

“If I have to.”

Gary wasn’t sure what happened next. They’d been naked, sitting side by side on the blanket, their fluids drying on each other’s body, the water tower’s shadow protecting them from the warm afternoon sun, hiding their illicit tryst. He wasn’t aware that he was straddling Leila until his hands curled around her throat.

Choking, she lashed out at him. Her long, red fingernails raked across his naked chest. Flailing blindly, his hand closed around the rock. He raised it over his head and Leila’s eyes grew large.

“Gary…”

The rock smashed into her mouth, cutting off the rest.

He lost all control then, hammering her face and head repeatedly. He blocked out everything; her screams, the frightened birds taking flight, his own nonsensical curses. Everything—until he heard the singing.

“La la la la, lemon. La la la la lullaby…”

Jack. Singing his favorite song.

The boy stepped into the clearing. Believing his father was working that Saturday (because that was the lie Gary had told Susan and Jack so that he could meet up with Leila for an afternoon quickie in the first place—he’d even stayed logged into his computer at work so that if anybody checked, it would look like he was there working), Jack froze in mid-melody, a mixture of puzzlement and terror on his face.

“Daddy?”

“Jack!”

His son turned and ran. Jack sprang to his feet, naked and bloody, and chased after him.

“Jack, stop! Daddy can explain.”

“Mommy…”

Unaware that he was still holding the rock, until he struck his son in the back of the head.

“I said stop!”

Jack toppled face first into the grass. He did not move. Did not breathe.

When Gary checked his pulse, he had none.

Something inside Gary shut itself off at that moment.

The rest of the memories became a blur. He dressed. Wrapped the blanket around Leila and loaded her into the trunk of the car, which he’d parked behind the abandoned strip mall, just beyond the cemetery and the water tower. Her blood hadn’t yet seeped out onto the grass, and he made sure none of her teeth or any shreds of tissue were in sight. He’d thrown her clothes and purse inside the car as well.

Then he picked up the bloody rock, the rock that he’d just bludgeoned his son to death with, and threw it down a nearby rabbit hole.

He drove to the edge of LeHorn’s Hollow, where a sinkhole had opened up the summer before, and dumped Leila’s body. Gary knew that the local farmers sometimes dumped their dead livestock in the same hole, as did hunters after field dressing wild game. The chances were good that she’d never be found.

He cleaned his hands off in a nearby stream, then got back in the car and drove to the closest convenience store. He bought some cleaning supplies, paid cash, and then found a secluded spot where he could clean out the trunk. Then he returned to the office, unlocked the door, logged himself off the computer, and went home.

Then he went home.

The police knocked on the door a few hours later. Three teenaged boys found Jack’s body. One of them, Seth Ferguson (who was no stranger to juvenile detention) immediately fell under suspicion. When the police cleared him later that day, they questioned the local registered sex offenders, even though Jack’s body had shown no signs of sexual abuse. In the weeks and months that followed, there were no new leads. The case was never solved.

The murder weapon was never found.

***

Daddy…

Gary sat up and wiped his eyes. Steadying himself on his son’s tombstone, he clambered to his feet. His joints popped. He hadn’t aged well in the last two years, and his body was developing the ailments of a man twice his age, arthritis being one of them.

Daddy?

“Oh Jack,” Gary whispered. “Why couldn’t you have stayed home that day?”

Daddy…

His son’s voice grew louder, calling to him, pleading. Sad. Lonely.

Slowly, like a marionette on strings, Gary shuffled towards the water tower.

“Where are you, Jack? Show me. Tell me what I have to do to make it up to you.”

Daddy… Daddy… Daddy…

The voice was right next to him. Gary looked around, fully expecting to see his son’s ghost, but instead, he spied the rabbits. A dozen or so bunnies formed a loose circle around the water tower. They’d been silent, and had appeared as if from nowhere.

Penning him in.

Daddy. Down here.

Gary looked down at the ground.

Jack’s voice echoed from inside a rabbit hole.

The same hole he’d thrown the rock into.

Gary’s skin prickled. Despite his fear, he leaned over and stared into the hole. There was a flurry of movement inside, and then a rabbit darted out and joined the others. Then another. Whimpering, Gary stepped backward. More bunnies poured themselves from the earth, and he felt their eyes on him—accusing.

Condemning.

“What do you want?”

Daddy.

Gary screamed.

***

They found him when the sun went down. He’d screamed himself hoarse while pawing at the ground around his son’s grave. His fingers were dirty, and several of his fingernails were bloody and ragged, hanging by thin strands of tissue. He babbled about bunnies, but no one could understand him. The police arrived, as did an ambulance.

From the undergrowth, a brown bunny rabbit watched them load Gary into the ambulance.

When he was gone, it hopped away.

***

***

This story first appeared on the Horror World website, and was reprinted in my out-of-print short story collection Unhappy Endings. It takes place in the same town as my novels Dark Hollow and Ghost Walk (as does the end of Take The Long Way Home and several other short stories), and alert readers might recognize a few familiar places and people. The water tower exists much as I described it here, but it is far less sinister in real life. My oldest son and I used to play there when he was little. The mishap with the rabbits and the lawnmower is also based on something that happened in real life. I was mowing my lawn and accidentally hit a hidden nest of baby rabbits. It was horrifying and terrible and I felt guilty about it for months afterward. I channeled some of that into the story.

THAT WHICH LINGERS

Sarah awoke to the wailing alarm clock. Blurry-eyed and still half asleep, she went for her morning run—from the bedroom to the bathroom. Three seconds later, she knelt, retching as she’d done every morning for the past two months.

Finished, she collapsed onto the couch and lit the day’s first cigarette while the coffee brewed. A dull ache behind her temples was all that remained from the night before. Sarah frowned, trying to recall the exact details. She remembered arguing with the bartender. He hadn’t wanted to serve her, commenting on her condition. After some flirting, she’d managed to hook up with several men who were willing to buy a girl a drink in exchange for a hint of things to come.

At least she hadn’t gotten completely smashed and ended up bringing one of them home. Her empty bed testified to that. She hadn’t shared it since Christopher walked out on her four months ago. She inhaled, letting the acrid smoke fill her lungs, and fought back tears.

Sarah showered, trying to wake up as the water caressed her skin. Trying to lose herself in a flood of happy thoughts. Trying not to notice the swell of her abdomen as she lathered her lower body. Trying to cope.

She wrapped her long, chestnut hair in a towel, and cinched another around her waist. Then she grabbed breakfast. The coffee was good, but a single bite of the granola bar made her stomach nauseous again.

She let the towels drop to the floor and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. This too, reminded her of Christopher.

They’d dated for three years. The pregnancy had been unplanned. Christopher had been ecstatic—and crushed when he learned that she didn’t feel the same way. She’d tried to explain how she felt. How the timing wasn’t right. She still wanted to go back to school and get her bachelor’s degree. She wanted to do more with her life than working as a waitress. Having a baby now would jeopardize all of that.

What she hadn’t told him was that she worried about his drinking and of how he was turning out to be just like the father he hated. She didn’t express that she had come to seriously doubt their relationship.

Christopher was completely opposed to the abortion.

Sarah noticed how her breasts were growing fuller while echoes of Christopher’s pleas rang in her ears.

The abortion had devastated him, killing whatever chance of love they’d still had. A part of both of them had died that day.

That was four months ago.

Collapsing onto the unmade bed, she began to cry. How could she possibly deal with what was happening to her alone? She needed Christopher.

She’d considered having an ultrasound, but knew that nothing would show up during the procedure.

She wasn’t crazy.

She was haunted.

Deep inside, Sarah felt something kick.

***

***

The original version of this story appeared in my very first short story collection, No Rest For the Wicked, which is long out-of-print. I touched it up a bit for its appearance in A Little Silver Book of Streetwise Stories (also out of print), but left most of it intact. This is one of the first short stories I ever sold for publication, and it remains a personal favorite. When it was first published, it caused a minor stir on early internet message boards among both pro-life and anti-abortion readers. That surprised me at the time, but the internet was young and new then, and things like flame wars and trolls hadn’t been invented yet. Rest assured, I had no political agenda with this tale. I just thought it was a pretty cool ghost story.

TWO-HEADED ALIEN LOVE CHILD

Kaine worked for the government. This was not something he revealed when meeting women or starting conversations. These days, with all of the paranoia and conspiracy theories, it was best to keep silent. When meeting women and starting conversations, Kaine introduced himself as an appliance salesman from New Jersey.

He’d served the department for thirty years, watching it grow from a tiny office into a sprawling bureaucratic monstrosity with buildings in every city of every state. He’d watched administrations rise and fall, witnessed cover-ups and exposures. He’d seen other divisions like the CIA and NSA hide their tracks repeatedly, but his division had never been covert. It worked with and among the civilians it was designed to help. True, in recent decades it had become slower and less efficient, but it still never failed to get the job done.

Getting the job done was something Kaine took very seriously. That was why he sat here tonight, listening to Neil Diamond while the rain beat upon the roof of his non-descript sedan. Sitting on a quiet suburban street in Idaho. Sitting outside the home of Sylvia Burns, a woman who, like thousands of young, unwed, or divorced mothers before her, was burdened by evil.

A blinding flash burst silently above the house like a miniature sunrise. Kaine glanced at the dashboard clock. 12:47 a.m. Right on schedule. Then the clock flashed zeros as ‘Sweet Caroline’ dissolved into static. Outside, the streetlights dimmed, plunging the housing development into darkness. Kaine knew from experience that the neighbors would sleep undisturbed throughout the occurrence.

A ball of light appeared, soaring down from the sky and hovering just off the ground. A ramp descended and six diminutive figures walked out of the sphere. They approached Sylvia’s bedroom window, and vanished into the house. After a few minutes, they reappeared, carrying a comatose Sylvia between them. The gray-skinned beings disappeared into the craft. The ramp began to recede.

Pausing only to smooth his tie, Kaine crept through the darkness, clutching an unregistered semiautomatic pistol in one hand, and a black briefcase in the other. Swiftly, he leapt onto the platform. The figures had retreated into the depths of the vessel. Kaine shuddered as he recalled Sylvia’s description of the craft’s interior.

The hatch closed behind him. Kaine examined the dimly lit corridor. A distant humming reverberated off the walls and floor. A bluish-green glow emanated from a doorway at the end of the hall. He examined the strange symbols scrawled across the door. Kaine placed the briefcase at his feet and touched the cold metal. It throbbed from deep inside, as if it were a living thing. Seconds later, the door slid open, revealing a nightmarish scene.

His client lay naked on a table, surrounded by dozens of the alien beings. They were vaguely humanoid, with two arms and two legs, but their heads were much larger than the rest of their bodies and their eyes were huge, dwarfing their almost nonexistent noses and mouths.

Kaine had seen them before. His mind flashed back to a supermarket tabloid from ten months ago: WOMAN IMPREGNATED BY ALIEN ABDUCTORS. Beneath the garish headline had been a photograph of Sylvia. Two weeks later, Kaine became her caseworker.

“Nobody move.” He raised the pistol with one hand and unlatched the briefcase with his other. Kaine pulled a stack of papers out of the briefcase. The aliens cringed, fear flashing in their black eyes. Kaine held a document before him like a shield. “My name is Kaine. I am a Domestic Relations Officer, as well as the caseworker for the young woman you have strapped to that table.”

He flung the paperwork toward the tightly clustered aliens, and undid Sylvia’s straps. She clung to him weakly, as if waking from a dream.

“This, gentlemen, is a court order for child support. You are hereby ordered to appear in domestic court one month from today for a child support hearing. My client claims that you impregnated her; therefore, you are financially responsible for part of the child’s welfare. Bring whatever pay stubs and supporting documents you may have with you. Also bring a copy of your most recent tax return. If you can not afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you by the state.”

Still brandishing the gun, Kaine backed Sylvia towards the exit.

“The next time you decide to abduct and impregnate someone in my state, gentlemen, I suggest you remember that we do not go lightly on deadbeat dads. Good evening to you.”

The door hissed shut behind them, leaving the aliens to stare at one another in bewilderment.

“Shit,” said one. “We haven’t fucked up this bad since Roswell.”

***

***

The original version of this story appeared in my first short story collection, No Rest For the Wicked (which is long out-of-print). I revised it considerably for its appearance in A Little Silver Book of Streetwise Stories. I’m not sure where I got the idea. I think it stemmed from drinking a six-pack of beer while watching The X-Files.

GOLDEN BOY

I shit gold.

It started around the time I hit puberty. I thought there was something wrong with me. Cancer or parasites or something like that, because when I looked down into the bowl, a golden turd was sitting on the bottom. When I wiped, there were gold stains on the toilet paper. Then I flushed and went back to watching cartoons. Ten minutes later, I’d forgotten all about it.

You know how kids are.

But it wasn’t just my shit. I pissed gold. (No golden showers jokes, please. I’ve heard them all before). I started sweating gold. It oozed out of my pores in little droplets, drying on my skin in flakes. It peeled off easily enough. Just like dead skin after a bad case of sunburn. Then my spit and mucous started turning into gold. I’d hock gold nuggets onto the sidewalk. One day, I was picking mulberries from a tree in a pasture. There was a barbed-wire fence beneath the tree, and to reach the higher branches, I stood on the fence. I lost my balance and the barbed-wire took three big chunks out of the back of my thigh. My blood was liquid gold. And like I said, this was around puberty, so you can only imagine what my wet dreams were like. Many nights, instead of waking up wet and sticky, I woke up with a hard, metallic mess on my sheets and in my pajamas.

Understand, my bodily fluids weren’t just gold colored. If they had been, things might have turned out differently. But they were actual gold—that precious metal coveted all over the world. Gold—the source of wars and peace, the rise of empires and their eventual collapse, murders and robberies, wealth and poverty, love and hate.

My parents figured it out soon enough. So did the first doctor they took me to. Oh, yeah. That doctor was very interested. He wanted to keep me for observation. Wanted to conduct some more tests. He said all this with his doctor voice but you could see the greed in his eyes.

And he was just the first.

Mom and Dad weren’t having any of that. They took me home and told me this was going to be our little secret. I was special. I had a gift from God. A wonderful, magnificent talent—but one that might be misunderstood by others. They wanted to help me avoid that, they said. Didn’t want me to be made fun of or taken advantage of. Even now, I honestly think they meant it at the time. They believed that their intentions were for the best. But you know what they say about good intentions. The road to hell is paved with them. That’s bullshit, of course.

The road to hell is paved with fucking gold.

My parents started skimming my residue. Mom scraped gold dust from my clothes and the sheets when she did laundry and from the rim of my glass after dinner. One night, they told me I couldn’t watch my favorite TV show because I wouldn’t eat my broccoli. I cried gold tears. After that, it seemed like they made me cry a lot.

Everywhere I went, I left a trail of gold behind me. My parents collected it, invested it, and soon, we moved to a bigger house in a nicer neighborhood with a better school. Our family of three grew. We had a maid and a cook and groundskeepers.

I hated it, at first. The new house was too big. We’d been a blue-collar family. Now, Mom and Dad didn’t work anymore and I suddenly found myself thrown into classrooms with a bunch of snobby rich kids—all because of my gift. I had nothing in common with my classmates. They talked about books and music that I’d never heard of, and argued politics and civic responsibilities and French Impressionism. They idolized Che Guevara and Ayn Rand and Ernest Hemingway. I read comic books and listened to hip-hop and liked Spider-Man.

So I tried to fit in. Nobody wants to be hated. It’s human nature—wanting to be liked by your peers. Soon enough, I found a way. I let them in on my little secret. Within a week, I was the most popular kid in school. I had more friends than I knew what to do with. Everybody wanted to be friends with the golden boy. But here’s the thing. They didn’t want to be friends with me because of who I was. They wanted to be friends with me because of who I was. There’s a big difference between those two things.

So I had friends. Girlfriends, too.

I remember the first girl I ever loved. She was beautiful. There’s nothing as powerful or pure or unstable as first love. I thought about her constantly. Stared at her in class. Dreamed of her at night. And when she returned my interest, my body felt like a coiled spring. It was the happiest day of my life. But she didn’t love me for who I was. Like everyone else, she loved me for who I was.

So have all the rest. Both ex-wives and the string of long-term girlfriends between them. My happiest relationships are one night stands. The only women I’m truly comfortable with are the ones I only know for a few brief hours. I never tell them who I am or what I can do. And before you ask, yes, I always wear a condom and no, I can’t have children. There are no little golden boys in my future. I don’t shoot blanks. I shoot bullets.

I’ve no shortage of job opportunities. Banks, financial groups, precious metals dealers, jewelers, even several governments. Of course, I don’t need to work. I can live off my talent for the rest of my life. So can everyone else around me. But that doesn’t stop the employment offers from coming. And they’re so insincere and patronizing. So very fucking patronizing. They want to invest in my future. Just like my parents and my friends and my wives, they only want what’s best for me. Or so they claim.

But I know what they really want.

And I can’t take it anymore.

I’m spent. My gold is tarnished. It’s lost its gleam. Its shine. I can see it, and I wonder if others are noticing, too.

Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to put this gun to my head and blow my brains out all over the room, leaving a golden spray pattern on the wall. The medical examiner will pick skull fragments and gold nuggets out of the plaster. The mortician can line his pockets before embalming me. You can sell my remains on eBay, and invest in them, and fight over what’s left.

I want to fade away, but gold never fades. This is my gift. This is my legacy. This is my curse.

I have only one thing to leave behind.

You can spend me when I’m gone.

***

***

This story first appeared in A Little Silver Book of Streetwise Stories. The first and last sentences came to me one day, and I liked them so much that I wrote a story to tie them together. A friend of mine, fellow writer Kelli Owen, read this prior to publication and said it was a metaphor for my current place in the genre. But Kelli is quite possibly mentally ill, and says that about all of my work. Plus, I’m fairly certain she was drunk when she read it. Take from “Golden Boy” what you will, but I just think it’s a quirky and kind of fun fable. Not a metaphor, and (hopefully) not a prediction of the future.