Between the Streetlights (part 3)

The only movement was a single droplet of water. It formed itself slowly on the exposed pipes and then cast itself free, experienced a brief flash of freedom and then was dashed upon the unyielding concrete floor. The whole scene was lit by the dispassionate glow of a single bare, dim bulb. My world held, caught in a limbo of circumstance.

Burnt out by the predations of the night, my mind was a dilapidated room; minimal furniture, damp walls, an unpleasant and lingering odor and one occupant who desperately wanted to get out. I wondered why I had ever thought I could do this thing and where had I misplaced the conviction I had started evening with.

After an age or a moment the lock grated and the door swung open. Fuller was all swagger and confidence, suit unwrinkled and hat still straight, every inch the conquering hero. He unbuttoned his jacket and sat in the other of the two chairs, the survivors of hard times and ill-treatment, they were as battered, hard and unforgiving as their usual occupants.

“Tell me, Winterton, why?” He fixed me with his blue eyes and let their stare pummel me.

“Why? Because he was my friend.” My fingers traced the filigree of scratches the marked the surface of the room's only table, anxious for the comfort holding a cigarette or whiskey tumbler.

“That makes the kind of sense only a whiskey-sodden deadbeat would understand,” he snarled, slapping his hand flat on the table and forcing me to recoil involuntarily.

“Ever had the kind of friend who you could read at a glance and could do the same to you? The sort of person who you could not see for months at a time, but when you finally met up again the beats still matched up perfectly?” His blank gaze answered me. “No, I don't suppose you ever have. Well, last month Clancy asked me how I was feeling.”

“You killed him because he asked how you were feeling? That's madness, Donald.” He shook his head, another drip launched itself from the pipe.

“It wasn't him. It wasn't the guy who sat on the park bench and sketched the passing girls in his notebook. Gone was the man who stirred his coffee once only, in case the spoon tainted the taste. There was no sign of the friend who took in a dirty, shattered person and made him whole and clean again. Something had come and destroyed my pal, put on his body like a new suit and was parading about in his place.” I laid myself open upon that table and saw only cold, hard logic in his eyes.

“You're all kinds of crazy, Winterton. People change, they get tired of drunken old sots sponging off them, they lose faith in those who fail them time and time again, sometimes they just kick out the trash and get on with their lives!” His raised voice bounced back at me from the walls.

“Am I? And what happened to young Hank , looking so proud in that uniform that was too big for the scrawny little guy? What happened to the man who swept Doreen off her feet on a starlit June night? What happened to you, Fuller?” The light flickered momentarily and I was suddenly afraid.

“I am still me! Stronger, smarter and better, Winterton, and you just don't like it.” He was on the verge of shouting and I knew then that I was right.

“Hank Fuller is dead, you took his place but you will never be half the man he ever was! Just face it, you're just a parasite, living in a corpse!” I spat the words at him. The light flickered again as I watched the scales of his temper tip dangerously towards anger.

He leaped across the table at my throat, his fingers suddenly elongated and wickedly pointed. I lifted the front legs of my chair and let his momentum push it off balance as I attempted to fend his hands off my face. As we fell I managed to get my knee between us and pushed him off as we hit the ground.

We both rolled away and lurched to our feet. He was quick, but he was not ready for instincts honed on the dirtiest streets of this insalubrious city. I fended him away with the hastily grabbed chair and then swung it with what strength I had left. The first impact knocked him back against the wall, the second hit hard enough to nearly jar my weapon from my grasp, the third never connected, he caught the chair and ripped it from my hand. He growled at me, completely unhurt.

A night of no sleep and several whiskeys meant his lunge caught me before I had decided which way to dodge. Again we toppled to the floor, the strobing light illuminating his face is brief flashes of ugly hate and determination. He pinned me down, his sharpened digits dug painfully into my arms. From somewhere I found the energy to laugh.

“What's so funny, Winterton?” He asked, a shadow of confusion passed over his face. “You can't hurt me, all you do is prolong your fate. If I kill you here, no-one will ever find out and if I don't you're going away for so long they might as well bury you now.”

“You'll never be as good a detective as the real Henry Fuller,” I tell him with nothing left to lose. “You asked me why, but you already knew the answer to that, what you should have asked is how.”

“Then how, Winterton, how did you do it?” His face pressed close to mine contorted in a leer.

“I didn't.” I grinned back at him. “And I lied, Henry Fuller isn't dead, he's somewhere deep inside of you but only something with real power can draw him out, that's your weakness.” That was all I had, my last mote of defiance, I closed my eyes and waited for death or worse.

Death was noisy. It kicked at the door, desperate to claim me for its own, the impacts filled the room. On the forth kick I heard the door splinter and the sounds of its remains being yanked from the hinges.

“Get away from him, brute!” I was wrong, it was an angel with Phyllis's voice.

“Hank? Is there still any of you in that creature?” A host of angels, this one sounded like Doreen. Fullers weight lifted from me slowly.

“Don't do anything foolish, woman, put the gun down.” Fuller growled.

“Oh Hank, I should have said yes and we could have run away like we planned, but I just wasn't ready for it. We could have left the city, bought a small farm and none of this would never have happened. Hank...” Doreen's voice broke and petered out.

“Doreen, I'm sorry,” The voice was Fuller's, but all the pride and surety were gone. “Do it, for me, for us...”

The gunshot was shockingly loud in the enclosed space, it assaulted my ears and Fuller's weight again pressed me against the unyielding floor. I opened my eyes to see Phyllis's sweet visage framed by her perfect hair in the harsh light from the solitary bulb. She gently prised her revolver from Doreen's shaking grasp and slid it back into her purse.

“I blabbed everything out to Doreen in the car,” Phyllis explained. “She filled in the blanks and convinced Billy to turn the car around. That was a hell of a gamble you pulled, Donald.”

“I knew I could count on you.” Billy Johnson, the man-mountain helped me out from under the former body of Henry Fuller. “There was no way I could have convinced Doreen myself.”

“What do we do now?” Asked Billy, the tremble in his voice a contrast to his imposing physique. “We have to tell the chief.”

“I think we should talk to his wife first.” I sighed. “First we get out of here, then we find somewhere that serves breakfast and see how many refills of coffee we can spring before we get thrown out.”

We made our way onto the street through a back exit. Phyllis and I leaned heavily against each other as we walked, Billy supported Doreen's sobbing form. The world was just waking up, getting itself ready for another ordinary day, completely unaware of the dark places that you find between the streetlights.

“Oh, and one thing, Donald.” Phyllis spoke to me between puffs on her cigarette. “Stop looking at me like that. Its been a long, hard night and I don't think I can deal with that on top of everything else.”

Between the Streetlights (part 2)

The smoke from my cigarette climbed lazily to join the haze that lingered in the room, hanging over the tables like a promise unfulfilled. I swallowed the last remnants of my drink, maybe the forth or fifth empty glass of the evening, maybe more. My world paused, tension building.

Phyllis was curled on the seat opposite me, I had draped my coat over her when finally her fatigue had overtaken her. She murmured something in her troubled sleep and I longed to stroke her sleek hair and offer her comfort, but I could not lie to her, things were not about to get better.

I tried to tune out the soporific jazz, but in MacAddam's the music inhabited the walls, the building moved to the vibrations of the quartet on the stage. Armageddon could come and they would play on, the bar's back room was its own universe, no windows, no clocks, forever three o'clock on a Sunday morning.

Doreen brought me another, sensing my need and ignoring Jim behind the bar; he looked on with a scowl, calculating my tab and the likelihood of payment. She placed a well-manicured hand on my shoulder and followed my gaze. The dim light left most of Phyllis's face in tantalizing shadow.

“Oh, Donny, she's far too fine for the likes of you, certainly too fine for a dump like this.” Nature had graced Doreen with a face that would forever be lost in the background of the scene, but her voice could lift you away from the dusty tables and haphazard jazz.

“Places fine enough for a girl like Phyllis don't take my credit any more.” We had nearly been an item once, Doreen and I, but she had ended up in the arms of a policeman. It had not ended up all that well, Doreen and I were both unlucky that way.

“Still waiting for things to turn around, eh?” She placed my empty glass on her tray. “Does she know that, or are you running up a tab with her, too?”

“She's had a rough night and I didn't want to leave her alone.” I considered the truth of my statement, I did not want to leave her.

“Talking of rough nights, look what's hauled its sorry ass onto my doorstep.” Doreen straightened herself and glared towards the door. A missed note from the band signalled a change in the atmosphere, a breath held collectively by the bar's denizens. It did not take a frosted glass office door embossed with my name followed by the letters P and I to work out what kind of person had just entered the room.

A shadow loomed over me, reducing the poor quality of the light even further. A hand was placed on the table, the nails clean and neatly trimmed. A throat was cleared. Unperturbed, I took a sip of my drink.

“Winterton.” The voice was clear and had the polished mahogany of education but the dirt of the city had taken the sheen off. Henry Fuller had been a good man once, but his job had taken him into the dark, seedy corners of the city and a certain corrosion had set in.

“Detective Fuller, I did not know you were a jazz lover.” Phyllis's eyes opened, she appraised the situation in a flash of verdant green and sat up demurely.

“If I were then I would give this place a wide birth.” I glanced around, Doreen's face was set in stone, but her eyes held the far away look of summer meadows and a missed opportunity. By the door a mound of muscle poured into a suit was Fuller's back-up. Fuller himself was cast in iron, hard, unbending and bereft of sympathy “I'm here to ask you about Clancy Burton.”

“Clancy is an old friend, we go back a long way, he'll tell you that.” I could not risk looking at Phyllis, did not dare suffer accusation in her gaze.

“You still have friends, Donald? Word is you pawned those long ago.” My cigarette burnt its last and I ground the remains in the already full ashtray. “Someone put three point thirty-eight rounds in him at close range tonight, know anything about that?” Phyllis twitched, but Fuller's attention was on me and it went unnoticed.

“Clancy? He...” I withered, suddenly feeling the weight of a grief the drink was supposed to have lifted.

“Yes, you met with him earlier and now you can answer some questions for me down at the station.” There was no way of saving myself, but I could spare Phyllis.

“Doreen, would you mind being an absolute doll and take Phyllis home? I don't think she wants to be left alone.” I put the surety and suave nonchalance borrowed from another day into my voice, that day was long ago.

“Johnson,” Fuller called across to his man-gorilla. “Take the car and escort the ladies home, maybe the walk to the station will sober mister Winterton up a little.”

Jim the barman did not even look in my direction as I was hustled out. The other customers kept their heads down and their hands on their glasses. The band played on, another mangled jazz favorite. Another night at MacAddam's, another of the bar's rats caught in the trap, they had seen it all before. Pour me another, Jim.

Between the Streelights (part1)

She leant against the wall, head back, staring into the night sky. The stream of tears had forged its way down her face, its banks littered with the debris of her make-up. Her mouth hung slightly open, the bottom lip still quivering. My world hung, waiting for her.

The city was still, as if in shock. The streetlights shone against the night, same as ever, somewhere traffic and a freight train rumbled their perpetual background noise, but there was something vital missing. It was as though nothing could not believe what had just transpired and everything feared moving, lest worse was to come. Maybe it was just me.

Eventually she exhaled, breathing a gout of smoke into the cold, unfriendly air. She sobbed again, but the tears had all been used up. Something harder crossed her face, an eggshell of firmer resolve. A hand slipped into the deep pocket of her scarlet coat to reassure herself of the compact revolver, now three shots lighter, that lay within. Ash dripped unnoticed from her cigarette.

“Tell me, Donald,” she said, her usually honey-tinged voice raw and splintered. “Tell me, did you ever think it would come to this?”

“I hoped it wouldn’t,” her eyes meet mine and I could see her adrift on a raft of unhappiness, lost on a sea of horrible circumstance. “I sincerely hoped it would all just go away, but deep down I could feel there was only one way it could go.”

“But, Clancy, he...” She choked back another sob. I longed to grab her in my arms and hug her until I crushed the misery out of her, but if I did that I would break the fragile scaffolding still holding her together, so I held myself back until she could rebuild her framework.

“Clancy was my friend, too, Phyllis.” I told her, needing her to know I shared in her sadness. “He helped me out of a very dark place once, but that wasn’t Clancy any more, not the Clancy I respected, not the Clancy you knew.”

“How can you be so calm?” It was almost an accusation, as though I had shrugged my shoulders and turned my back while everything played out.

“Have you ever watched a really good waiter?” She needed a distraction, something else to think about. “Someone who has made a career out of it, not some about-to-hit-it-big screen-writer or actor down on his luck. No matter how uneven the floor is, how many people try to trip him up or how many flights of stairs he has to climb, when he brings you your drink there’s barely a ripple in it. Right now I’m running over the most rutted track you’ve ever seen, but I’ll be damned if I’m spilling good whisky on the ground.”

“So what do we do now?” She gave me a look as though the world had fallen apart and I was the only solid ground left.

“We find some place where there people and there is music, and somewhere for you to fix your make-up. Then I buy us both a brandy and a coffee because I won’t be sleeping tonight and I don’t think you will either.” The lights of a passing car slid across her features, an unflattering hard portrait of moving shadows. The car’s engine broke the stillness in a not unwelcome fashion.

She dropped her cigarette to the pavement, still wet from the afternoon’s rain, and crushed it under a boot heel. As she pushed herself away from the wall there was a new look in her eyes, not the steel-hard gaze of the veteran, but the wavering glance of one unsure yet determined. She would hold together, for now. I straightened my tie, adjusted my hat and offered her my arm.

We made our way through the cracked concrete maze of the streets, two people maybe not fine, but not falling apart for now. She put her weight on my arm and I took comfort in the warmth of her body. The city sensed the turn of mood and responded in kind; sirens in the distance, a trashcan being overturned in an alley and the sound of an argument spilling from a tenement window somewhere above us. Nothing pretty, but life nonetheless.  

Blossom

Doug's car was where we had left it, pulled off the side of the road when the engine had finally died from whatever malaise it had picked up three hundred miles before. Doug had loved that '72 Chevy Nova, but his mechanical aptitude and finances had never lived up to his dreams and so it had remained dented and unreliable.

Three years on and it had lost what remained of its paint to windblown grit, the tires were deflated and part of the exhaust had finally won its battle against the piece of wire holding it on. Peering through the windows it looked like something had made its home inside, although that could have just been the detritus from our panic-stricken flight. A romantic part of me considered salvaging the vehicle, but that felt uncomfortably like stealing from a grave.

Doug had been very sick as I let the car roll itself off the highway with the last of its momentum; they had both reach their limits at the same time. Had I been less distracted by my own plight I might noticed Doug's pallor and the unhealthy sounds from under the hood before we were out in the desert, miles from everywhere. The results would have been the same, more public, messier, but the guilt was still there.

At the side of the road lay a rock the size of a house, a sun-beaten, uncaring monolith older than man and all his follies. As the air in the car became unbearable I had dragged Doug's unresponsive weight around into the scant shade, my desperation lending me strength. I retraced my steps as though in a dream, drawn towards the spot where I had left him by an invisible thread.

We had managed to escape the city before the worst erupted and the crackdown hit. Fleeing towards his parent's old cabin in the mountains, an isolated retreat where he had proposed to me in the spring, we had stuck mainly to the back roads, scared of attracting unwanted attention. We had got this far before our bad luck overtook us.

I had left Doug with a supply of water promising to bring help as soon as I could. Two days down the road, delirious and dehydrated I was picked up by a quarantine patrol. Two years trying to explain my strange immunity and then a year of my own guilt and fear had prevented me from coming back before.

Any tracks I had made had long faded away. I fanned the regret from my mind and replaced my hat. Trailing my hand on the rough stone, warming as the sun began to climb to its zenith, I reversed those steps that had taken me out of my old life. The desert, straggly shrubs, baked rocks, ceaseless wind and the wide, parched ground regarded me with disinterest, waiting for me to pay my respects and move on.

The blight tree growing in the spot I had last seen Doug was not a surprise. These plants had become increasingly common since the outbreak of the plague, they attracted hate and destruction as no-one understood their significance. This example was ten feet high, a fleshy, multicolored trunk topped with a spray of frond-like leaves. A cloud of tiny iridescent purple bees issued from a hole just above head level, but did not bother me, content to buzz around the tree.

I placed my hand against the smooth rainbow of the trunk, cool and vital under my fingers. Above my head a bud opened into a lily the color of the desert sky, it waved in the wind for a moment and then the stalk snapped. I caught it and smiled for the first time in years.

“Oh, Doug, you do remember me.”

Mud/Toes Continuation

“Nobody respects a galaflarge.” Runstable laments.

I look across at him. Once again work halts as he leans on his faddystick and gazes off into the distance. Following the line of his yellow eyes I catch him watching the line of soldiers march along the road past the estate.

“You know exactly which end of the faddystick people get if I find them lacking the proper respect.” I threaten.

The war in the south is none of our concern, we just watch the columns as they pass by and feed the wounded as they trickle back northwards. If our rulers issue edicts from the city then they rarely make it this far, something in this rural expanse swallows them like a turrifenge with an unlucky scurrige.

“You're different, Grandfather,” he retorts. “Everyone knows what you did for the revolution.”

My gaze rests upon the purple-grassed hill. Most no longer remember the gallows that we burned, the waste of good timber a recompense for the waste of good lives. Now a small but expanding copse of strange trees tops the mound.

“I only made sure the farm ran smoothly and people got fed,” I tell him. “That's what a galaflarge does.”

I reposition my feet and the red mud oozes between my remaining toes. A lifetime of working the land and fending off turrifenges has ravaged my feet. In a couple of weeks the wayward appendages

will begin ache again, despite their long absence, heralding the return of the rainy season.

“I'm just no good at this,” he complains. “My sisters are much better.”

The piping voices of serrits call to each other across the fields, telling each other of insects found and devoured, living out their uncomplicated lives in joy. Verrita used to say the serrits were the souls of the unborn, not yet weighed down by the burdens of life.

“That's true,” I agree. “But they don't have your way with a scurrige. I was dreadful at the craft when I was first apprenticed under your namesake. You'll just have to practice the things that do not come easy to you.”

The sound of a sterry's six hooves on the track heralds the return of our overseer, Lintly, from the rebuilt Seven Summits estate. His post is bureaucratic, managing supplies, keeping the outside world from interfering and staying out of the actual work of the land; that suits the former revolutionary captain quite well. He smiles and waves, a far cry from his predecessor.

“What has changed the most since you were an apprentice, Grandfather?” He asks.

The sun bakes away at the land and those working upon it. I look forwards to breaking for food, and then I shall climb the purple-grassed hill and rest in the shade of Verrita's tree. I feel a smile creep onto my lips as I consider discussing the day with her.

“Me,” I answer. “The rains still come on time, the serrits still sing in the evening, the crops still ripen and get carted off to the town, but I have grown older and slower and less patient with my apprentices.”

I can only guide my grandson, he must face his own challenges and heartaches by himself, the same as I had to. As soon as he stops dreaming about leaving the farm for adventure elsewhere and concentrates on living in his true place in the world everything will come easier, that is the real secret of the galaflarge's craft.

“Fine, I get the hint,” he responds. “Come on, little scurrige, its time for you to earn your dinner.”

Flag/Earth Confrontation

“Who is in charge here?” The captain demands.

The breeze flits clouds across the azure sky, insuring none block the sun for long, yet this is the wind that will shortly bring the rains. It also holds their flag proud of its pole, the symbol means nothing to me, but it is not the palm print that has governed our lives for so long. There is little doubt the stocky man on the skittish sterry represents the wish for a new set of masters.

“We are in charge here,” I reply. “The overseer and supervisors fled months ago, there are no supporters of the High Council here.”

His troop is a mixed bunch of men and women, armed with a variety of weapons and dressed with little thought of uniformity. A handful hold vaguely menacing postures, but most just stand there, glad to have ceased marching for at least a little while. I hold my faddystick loosely, lest it be mistaken for a symbol of aggression.

“We require use of your farm as a barracks.” He tells me.

We have left many of these lower fields by the road fallow this last couple of years, to make the farm seem poor and ill kempt. Disguise seemed prudent after the burning of Seven Summits Estate. Bare patches in the wild grass show that a turrifenge has moved in, I anticipate the struggle of persuading it to leave.

“You can stay one night and then head north to the town to wait out the rainy season.” I tell him. “We will resupply you with food.”

Behind me on the track someone coughs loudly. I swallow my fear, knowing people are relying on me to resolve this, my on family is at stake. With a reduced workforce this is an unscheduled interruption in the planting we can do without.

“There are strong men here,” he states. “Tell me, do you not wish to fight for what you believe in?”

Over the wind I can hear the piping of the wild serrits. They have been fattening themselves up on grubs and insects, but soon they will replace their interest in food with interest in each other.

“We believe that people need to be fed, whether there is fighting or not,” I respond. “Any who wished to take up arms for either side has long since done so and left here.”

Occasionally we receive news that one place or another has changed hands in the struggle. The names mean little to me, Frayed Rope farm lives according to nature's seasons, not the politics of man.

“It strikes me that is little here to stop an armed force from doing what they so wish,” he threatens.

There is a parity between the captain's troop and my own; we both command mixed groups cobbled together as a way of surviving a difficult time, only our methods differ. They look for enemies, we look for friends.

“You are a city man, let me advise you and your rebellion not to mess with the old ways of the countryside,” I warn him. “Take what hospitality is offered and no more, and avoid crossing a galaflarge.”

I slam the butt of my faddystick into the earth of the road, pushing at the ground with the skills of my craft and more; there is a pause and then the ground trembles. The turrifenge erupts from the soil of the field spraying mud and clashing it terrible jaws. It is much larger than I thought, it is going to take a serious effort to move it beyond our borders before the rains come.

“My apologies,” he stammers. “You have the thanks of the rebellion for your generosity and support.”

Mud/Words Interference

“Greetings, Overseer.” I call.

I do not need to turn around, I have been watching the expression on my apprentice's face, the way boredom has transformed to fear. My sandals lie discarded some distance away so I can feel the mud between my toes. The energy of the land runs tingling from the soles of my feet to my eyeballs.

“Why are you still on the lower fields?” She snaps. “The orchards have been untouched.”

I plant my faddystick back into the soil carefully so that it stands up neatly on its own. The scurrige that has nestled so peacefully with its tail held between my elbow and ribs and its head in my hand begins to wriggle wildly as soon as I hand it to the cowering girl. If she is to learn the craft then he will have to overcome her distaste of the beasts.

“The lower fields must be planted, sprouted and wormed before the rainy season, Overseer,” I point out. “The orchards are fine and can wait.”

Figuring that I have spun out my rudeness as far as the overseer's temper will stretch, I reposition myself so that I am facing her. Her feathered headdress and multihued garb are as ridiculous and out of place as ever, but there appear to be more lines on her face this year and a weariness in her eyes that was not there before. The sterry she rides shuffles its six feet, not enjoying the sticky, red mud, it cranes its long neck forwards and sticks out its tongue at me, remembering past acts of kindness.

“Have you seen this year's quotas?” She blusters.

Behind her the birds flit in and out of the hedge, making their own preparations for the coming rains. Workers pass carrying the timber for the new barn. I can hear the shouts of the supervisor making sure that the planting team work at his preferred rate.

“No, I leave such things to the storemaster.” I tell her. “I rely on the overseer's excellent choice of staff to deliver the demands of the high council.”

On the road sterry-carts transport our crop of spring gourds to the town. Piled high with the green and orange striped fruit and pulled by the six-legged beasts they make slow progress. They will return lighter, carrying tools and the latest influx of displaced workers from the north.

“May I remind you of the fate of your predecessors?” she warns. “Perhaps you spend too much time scurrying off to Seven Summits Estate and not enough concentrating on your own duties.”

There are many things that drag me beyond the boundary of the farm. The thought of a hidden glade where two strange trees now grow side by side and the image of Verrita, leaning on her faddystick to support the weight of her rapidly growing belly leap into my mind. If I have been neglecting my work here then it has been with good reason.

“Maintaining a viable scurrige breeding stock is one of my duties,” I respond. “Co-operation between farms benefits us all, am I to understand that you were not appreciative of the sterry-cart of excess feed I brought back last week?”

She is city-born and has never fully understood the freely trading relations between farming estates. Soon the sun will have climbed high enough to make the air uncomfortable and she will retreat back within the estate's compound, then we will work without fear of interruption.

“Be very careful,” she growls. “It would not be much of a stretch for the high council to declare the craft of the galaflarge outlawed.”

My eyes flick involuntarily towards the purple-grassed hill and the gallows that have become a permanent feature there. A sign of the present, I tell myself, just another pressure to endure. The overseer turns her sterry around and spurs it back towards the compound leaving me and my apprentice alone in the mud.

“Don't just stand there, hand me that scurrige, girl,” I order. “Can't you see we have work to do?”