Dead Things Read online

  This reality tweaks Statten. Statten wants to curse Gerome. Unconsciously he starts to sneer, his face becoming the mask of a demon. Ian watches the transformation, his eyebrows twisting in surprise. Statten realizes this and catches himself. His face softens. A predatory smile crosses his lips as he offers Ian some advice.

  “Wherever you go, God goes with you. He is everywhere, everything. Take him in your heart, and you need not avert your eyes from his gaze.” Statten says more; he will pray for Ian, pray for God to clothe him in His armor of Righteousness.

  And then Statten offers something else: an invitation. “Tell Van to stop by the church before he leaves. I haven’t seen him since Easter…two years past.”

  Chapter Two: Baggage, Emotional and Other

  Van is incredulous. “Statten wants me to do what?” He pauses, draws from a joint, and sinks deeper into the leather recliner. Drugs are illegal, but Van worries little about reprisals sitting in his father’s study listening to Journey’s “Only the Young.” Roger Gerome apparently has a thing for Journey.

  They are surrounded by a collection of artifacts, things found and rescued from oblivion by Roger Gerome during his explorations. Wall-to-wall displays of novels, compact discs, DVDs, albums, artwork, and other relics compete for Ian’s attention, pulling it to and fro.

  The titles are odd, unfamiliar. Most have been purged from the libraries, titles like Catch-22, Fahrenheit 451, The Catcher in the Rye, A Clockwork Orange, Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, The Martian Chronicles, Slaughterhouse- Five, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Carrie, Cujo, Firestarter, The Shining, Frankenstein, American Psycho, Lord of the Flies….there are hundreds. Ian itches to read them.

  Ian assumes Superfudge is a cookbook, 1984 an almanac, and Brave New World an atlas. Except for the Star Wars trilogies and some “Star Trek” films, Van rarely invites Ian to watch these movies or read these books. Ian suspects they are something to keep Van occupied during his father’s expeditions. He doesn’t suspect Van has been instructed to keep them privileged.

  But there is one item that Van can’t hide: an aging American flag, ragged and faded, hanging on the wall behind Roger Gerome’s immense desk. It screams for Ian’s attention, and his eyes can’t help but heed the call and settle on the tattered stars and stripes.

  “Still,” Van wheezes, a little smoke escaping from his lungs. “I got to give old man Statten props. He’s keeping hope alive.”

  Keeping hope alive? Ian doubts that. More likely, Statten’s just thinking of a new way to fuck with Van. Van has not been to church since…since a lock-in when they were just twelve or thirteen.

  Ian remembers that night. Van got caught feeling up Maxine Brooks. Maxine was penanced. Ian never saw her again—they shared a defensive tactics class—but he hears there are scars on her back to prove it. Van, however, escaped punishment. Anyone can be an escape artist, anyone can be Houdini, when they have a father like Van’s.

  Nevertheless, Statten and Van have an implied agreement. Essentially this: if Van doesn’t come back, then the Church won’t have to ask him to leave...or worse.

  Statten’s invitation is provocative. It is a dare.

  The Church hasn’t held a lock-in since. “I’d love to take credit for that,” Van snickers, “but the teen pregnancy rate spoke for itself.” He’s right. Allowing virgins to get nailed in the Fellowship Hall is definitely not good governance. Plus, you can only go to the till with the whole Immaculate Conception pretext once every couple millennia or so.

  Van offers the remains of his bud to Ian, but Ian waives him off. He doesn’t do that shit. “You sure?” Van asks. “You’re not going to get another chance for, like, another four years.” But Van doesn’t wait for a response. He is already taking another drag from the roach, finishing it.

  “You know,” Ian says, “you shouldn’t do that shit either.” After all, Van’s shipping out in a few weeks, too. He’ll get busted.

  But Van has a plan. “Yes,” he replies with zeal. “I’m counting on getting busted.” He flicks the joint away with a quick snap of his fingers, discarding it as easily as he discards Ian’s criticism.

  This begs a question from Ian: how is getting caught a good thing?

  “Don’t you see? Drug addiction, man.”

  Ian doesn’t get it, but he’s seen Van like this a thousand times. Van’s road is meandering, but at some point, he’ll arrive at his destination…even if he’s forgotten why he left for it in the first place.

  Van scolds, as always. “Try to follow me here, man. This isn’t adult swim.” Van reasons: “Drug use equals inability to serve. Inability to serve equals automatic discharge. Discharge equals, well, anywhere but the front line.” He leans back, awaiting accolades. They never come.

  Instead, Ian guffaws. It is, by far, the most stupid thing he has ever heard. And that says something, because Van says a lot of stupid shit. Van says only stupid shit. And Van talks a lot. Did Van ever happen to consider while he was hatching this brilliant scheme, when he had this epiphany, no doubt fueled by the very cannabis in question, that any resulting discharge would be dishonorable?

  “So?” is all Van can muster.

  So? Ian will gladly explain. Dishonorable discharge is distinctly different. Honorable discharge equates to citizenship. Dishonorable discharge amounts to a hard life. A very hard life.

  Like living and working in squatter rows lining the crumbling country roads of Corbin and Middlesboro in the shadow of poisonous dust clouds spewed forth by iron and coal mining operations.

  But Van disagrees with Ian’s assessment. “No, man, it’s an addiction, a disease. They can’t dishonorably discharge you for a disease.”

  There are just two problems with Van’s line of thought, and Ian is eager to point them out: first, Van’s argument that pot is not addictive, used so many times on Ian and other innocents, goes out the window. Second, the Church would keep Van hospitalized or in a stockade until he’s clean. Then it’s right back to the front.

  “Shit.” Van looks momentarily dejected. He rubs his tightly cropped hair, then he brightens. “I better switch to beer here on out. Want one?”

  Ian shakes his head and excuses himself. He’s got to pack for the flight. He tells Van to drink some cranberry juice, start cleaning those toxins from his system.

  Van laughs. “Yeah, fuck you, too, straight edge.”

  **

  “Are you packed, Honey?” Stella Mayberry asks from the shadows of the hall. She stands just outside her daughter’s bedroom door.

  “Yes,” Anne replies flatly. She is stoic. She shows none of the zest a teenager should, especially one traveling alone to Padre Island to allegedly spend time with a grandmother she has never met.

  Mayberry steps toward the door. She places a scarred and mangled hand against the frame and leans in slightly so that she can see Anne with her good eye. She reads Anne’s face easily, like reading an astrological birth chart. “You’re worried, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” Anne’s eyes are downcast. She looks up. “And no.”

  Why yes? And why no?

  “Mom, I saw the meteor last night. Right on schedule.” Anne sighs. She knows what it portends, and that answers both questions.

  Mayberry smiles behind the remnants of lips. She soaks in this moment with her daughter, realizing this is the instant her child makes the jump from being a girl to being a woman.

  Stella Mayberry has pinched pennies for five years so Anne can take this trip. She started saving when Roger Gerome’s discovery of Padre Island was announced by the Church, and she learned of her own mother’s survival.

  The island fared well like many other islands, the inhabitants largely protected by a natural moat. The survivors on Padre Island were especially enterprising, blowing the lone bridge and filling the bay with offal—human and marine—to attract a host of hammerheads and bul
l sharks, even some great whites, to keep the ghouls at bay.

  But Mayberry has taken terrible risks to pay for Anne’s flight, earning money clandestinely, in ways the church deems profane. And she should know better. She wears the church’s rebuke permanently on her skin, something like a scarlet letter, but more horrifying. Should the inquisitors ever learn of her return to the old ways—ways practiced by the ancients, the Babylonians, the Greeks, and the Mayans, ways taught by Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, and Jung—they will take more than just her skin.

  “So, despite what you know, you still want to go?”

  “Come on, Mom,” Anne responds. “Of course I do. As above, so below, right?”

  Stella Mayberry nods approvingly.

  Anne smiles. “Hey, let’s make some ice cream.”

  **

  Ian hears the final boarding announcement for Flight 183 to Brownsville. Then the air marshal says, “Time to go.”

  She has observed Ian for an hour, watching him glance at his watch every few minutes as if he might be able to stop time with his mind. Then the pacing started. He could take just ten strides in the modest gate before he had to spin and repeat his steps. At each turn, he paused and looked for…someone.

  The air marshal wonders if it is a girl. She sees it every year, young lovers, their marriages newly minted, escaping their families and friends to steal precious and final moments together before leaving for the front.

  It is not unusual for an air marshal to accompany a flight. In fact, they travel on most, especially those making passes over, or even approaching, the forbidden zone. Air marshals provide safety instruction and security. But in the forbidden zone, or “the wilderness,” as some call it, they provide something else: insurance.

  She takes a surprised Ian by the elbow and ushers him across the tarmac toward the twin-prop Eagle designated as Flight 183.

  Ian dissents. “Look, Ms.—” he locates her name on her chest, “—Wright. I’m just waiting for my friend.” He tells her that he should be here in just…a bit.

  She can’t help but be intrigued by the “he” part. No girlfriend? She guessed that wrong. But otherwise Wright doesn’t care. Her grip is firm as she escorts him across Stanford Field.

  “A bit.” It’s a relative concept, Wright tells Ian. Twenty passengers on this flight alone, air traffic controllers, who might need to modify flight vectors because of constantly changing weather patterns; flight 353 from Chattanooga, hanging in the air right now, directly above, burning fuel, unable to land until 183 has departed; and dozens of schedules in disarray, all impacted by “a bit” of delay, some kid’s selfishness, and a need to vacation with his friend.

  Ian cannot argue with her logic, but “kid?” He is at the age of majority, and she is only a handful of years older.…

  Wright tells him to have a seat in 5A, and to enjoy his flight.

  Confounded, Ian does as he is told. He shambles to his seat, accidentally making eye contact with a man four or five rows back. The man is in his forties. He sports a Phantom Menace baseball cap and grins at Ian through a thin red beard.

  The Phantom Menace? Ian hates the film, and “film” stretches suitable use of the term. First, Menace wasn’t even printed on celluloid. It was digital, technically not a film at all. Second, only good movies should be called films. Menace is an aberration, the bastard child of George Lucas’ incestuous rape of his first three installments…or episodes four, five, and six…or whatever. Ian couldn’t watch any of Van’s other Star Wars movies after viewing that pile.

  So Ian can’t smile back at the ginger man. He just sighs, shakes his head, and aims his attention toward less demanding tasks. He stows his luggage, spreads the creases from his faded jeans, picks a piece of lint from the sleeve of his “Punk’s not Dead” T-shirt. Accomplishing these monumental chores, Ian focuses on the forward door and tries to will Van’s arrival.

  The plane is an Eagle J-150, a miniature of the metallic dragons that used to traverse the globe in leaps and bounds. It is an antique, just a single row of ten seats running along each side of the cabin. There aren’t many planes left, just a handful of puddle jumpers maintained with cannibalized parts. Ian’s ticket was expensive, paid for by two summers of mowing lawns, his last hurrah before conscription.

  He watches the air marshal ready the cabin. She moves like a panther, lean and confident. The cockpit door opens, the captain smiles, says a few words. Wright nods politely, but Ian detects something else, like annoyance, before she secures the hatch.

  Damn Van. Probably got caught sneaking weed on the plane.

  Ian ponders sleeping on a cold, damp beach for two weeks. He thinks about how, for months to come, he’ll find sand in areas of his body he doesn’t yet know exist.

  The air marshal begins talking about flight safety. She’s interrupted by a yelp from the tarmac.

  She peers through a saucer-sized port, shakes her head in disgust and smirks. There’s a passenger down there.

  Wright leans into the cockpit, tells them to halt preparations for takeoff. Ian clearly reads the curse that crosses her lips.

  Another cry, this time louder.

  She pops the door, shouts: “Let’s go, Molasses. Move it.”

  Van bounds aboard, frantic, like a cat that’s bitten into an electrical cord and found the marrow. He bounces about, looking wildly from side to side.

  Wright tells Van to take his seat. Now.

  A Cheshire grin flashes across Van’s face when he spots Ian. He stomps to his seat, his giant army green duffle slapping the faces of passengers he passes. A heavyset man rubs his temple and stares at Van icily.

  Ian tries to become invisible, but avoiding embarrassment is a difficult task considering Van is talking to him right…now.

  “That was close,” Van starts. “Hey, this container’s pretty small, huh?” He palms the walls of the plane on either side of him.

  Wright shakes her head. Does this kid have ADD? She has to tell him to take his seat again. The captain cannot start the engines until he complies.

  Van swings halfway around, nearly decapitating Ian with the duffle. “Oh, yeah, sure.” He spins back, this time catching Ian square in the shoulder and pressing him hard against his seat.

  “Sit down,” Ian urges under his breath, shoving the bag from his chest.

  Van drives the pack into the storage compartment under the seat before him. It does not take a geometrician to compute the volume of the bag exceeds that available under the chair, but Van is resolute. He grunts and kicks it like some mad punter, and the flurry has the intended consequence. Inch by inch the duffle squeezes into the storage bin, the woman in the seat before Van bouncing with every jolt.

  “Here,” he says, handing Ian a small backpack. “Stick this under your seat.”

  “Fine,” Ian huffs.

  A baby wakes, somewhere aft, and launches into a howl, eliciting a communal moan from the passengers.

  “Dude,” Van calls, prodding Ian from across the aisle. He shows Ian some old Playboys. They’re from Roger Gerome’s personal collection, published sometime in the 1990s, maybe something he owned prior to Van’s mother dying, but probably something he picked up since. Men have needs, after all. “Do you want Miss March or Miss August?”

  Ian ignores him, ignores the danger the mere possession of these magazines would pose to most, by feigning sleep. He prays for actual sleep to take hold, and soon.

  **

  They are clawing at the door, the wood splintering. It is always the same.

  Pounding.

  Pounding.

  Pounding.

  Ian awakes to a thunderclap. It takes a moment for him to get his bearings, to understand that he is here in the air in the present and not a kid in a closet eighteen years before.

  Lightning. Glowing veins of rain pulse across his window.

  One-one-thousand.

  Two-one-thousand.

  He counts off the seconds, each equating
to a mile, as he has done since childhood.

  Three-one-thousand.

  He swivels to find Van staring at him. Four—

  Boom.

  “Punk’s not dead?” Van asks suddenly, lightning alternately illuminating and silhouetting his face.

  Ian is still groggy. What is Van talking about?

  Boom.

  “Punk’s not dead,” he repeats. He points to Ian’s chest. “Your shirt says, ‘Punk’s not dead.’

  So?

  A tinny voice over the intercom warns them: keep your seatbelts fastened. The captain is going to try to get above the weather.

  Flash.

  One-one-thousand.

  “So,” Van asks, “what the hell does your T-shirt mean?”

  Two-one-thousand.

  Ian grumbles, “It means what it says.”

  Flash.

  Boom.

  Boom. Boom.

  The thunder rolls in bursts, like heavy jungle drumming. The natives are not just restless, they want blood.

  Van’s not satisfied. “No—what does it mean to you?”

  Flash.

  Ian elucidates: “While the godfathers of punk—the Ramones, Sex Pistols, Panic Attack, Stooges—have died—”