Sidney II

“He has not cursed you,” He said to me upon waking. “He is afraid of you.”

I tilted my head and pet Chewy who was doing the same next to me, he was also doing a big yawn under the shoplights, orienting himself on the couch.

“Has it occurred to you, that she’s afraid of you?” He said while hidden behind the hood of my car. 

“Who?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. 

“Sherri the sheriff,” He mumbled. 

“I didn’t mean to.” 

“She doesn't trust strangers. Watches too much TV.” He acknowledged. 

I looked around for the white haired sheriff but she had left, it was late at night at this point. She was probably shaken from the commotion. Being possessed probably takes a lot out of you. 

“It’s fine,” He said. “Fear makes folks dumb.” He took a pot of coffee off and poured us both a cup. “Now tell me your tale.”

The coffee steamed up from my mug, burning my hands almost through the cup. The man Black Patridge heeded no mind to the temperature and knocked back a large swig from his own. I sipped at mine and placed it on the coffee table with a scalded tongue. “Thank you for saving me,” I said. He didn’t reply, he just got tools off his wall and went to work on my car. 

“I’ve been chasing this man across the country. Well he is not really a man…” I spilled my story out in front of me, and he heard it true and clear. He asked questions at times, but his face hardly changed, as I went through the highs and lows. I told him everything I knew and had seen. Well… I left off some parts about vomiting on myself and some other crasier details. He listened without judgment. He even told me he liked it when I talked about seeing my wife. Her ghastly and beautiful face in glances, and then clearly under the lake. He asked what her favorite flower was and I told him the truth, Orchids.

But he was mostly silent for the majority. Toying with my car late into the night. Now that I was done he was silent for a while. Until I spoke once more.

“Is Sherri going to be okay?” I asked. 

“Yes,” he nodded, he was pulling and tightening something with a wrench. “She’s fine.”He looked at me and went back to his work. Sighed. Looked at me again and begrudgingly walked over. Bringing his coffee and sitting in a cheap plastic chair that was placed under his playgirl calendar. 

“It’s a small town out here, with a nice sense of community.” He smiled and shook his head. He grew serious. “Yes. They are good folks. But so are most across the years. Peaceful. Steady, not much changes here.”

“Maybe I should move?” I laughed. 

“No, you should go home. You should get some help.” He said stoically. 

I swallowed my coffee quickly and coughed. “I still have some work to do. Like I said…” 

He stopped me. “You are chasing something that you cannot catch. It is fine, it reminds me of tales of Wisaka, a man who has many names. Fables that are all clad in truth my friend.”

“You don’t believe me?” I asked astonished. 

“No, I do. I do believe you. I believe it is what you say. But I also see you, unwell and bruised. You have lost your love, even your dog can see that you have spiraled down my friend. You have not taken care of yourself. This is a tragedy I have seen a thousand times. It is the story that is underneath this one, I'm afraid. It is the one that matters most. You know I speak the truth, my truth as you have spoke yours. One of us does not have to be wrong, we can both be right. This is not a game with winners and losers.” He nodded and poured some cold coffee into his cup. 

I gripped at Chewy’s fur a little tighter. “Everyone wants me to go home,” I chuckled out. “There’s nothing back there for me. A blood stain I can’t get out of the carpet. That’s what’s there! Do you wanna hear that?” I asked. “Do you wanna know that I wasn’t there to help her cause I fell? She was muttering and calling for help and I was supposed to be there! I wasn’t! She couldn’t move a limb and she was calling my name and I was out cold, because I fucking tripped. I was away, passed out, while she died. Alone, calling for me.” I tapped my chest and pulled at my shirt. Chewy tried to crawl up on me to calm me but I pushed him away. “I was her husband and I wasn’t there for her. I could have saved her.” Tears fell from my face, snot running down my grimace. “I should have died! Not her. I was useless. A waste. You wanna hear that? How I'm a pathetic failure? I couldn’t save anyone!” 

He looked away, his jaw clamped shut. He cleared his throat, the moonlight painted one side of him and it showed the silver in his long midnight hair. “I do want to hear it.” He nodded. “I do.” He looked at me with eyes dark with understanding. “Because you need to have it heard. I cannot give you anything.” He held his hands in fists to me. “But I can take from you, friend. Share a little pain. It is what connects all creatures, only suffering is guaranteed in this life.”

“It’s a crock of shit,” I muttered as I wiped my eyes and nose on my collar, close to hysterics in remembering how I left her there. 

“Maybe,” He nodded, a quiver to his lip. “Maybe.” He grabbed a dirty rag from his coffee table and handed it to me. “Dry those eyes,” Black Partridge said. “My people had stories about tears, what they were. But… they were all false. Just stories.” He headed back to work and patted me on the shoulder. 

“Have you lost people?” I asked, not wanting to let him leave me. 

He nodded to me. “I have. Many.”

“Tell me about them?” I gulped. 

He turned slowly and smiled. “No, I think I will keep them for myself. I hope that gives you some hope.” He poked his head around the hood and saw that his remark made me crack a smile. Satisfied, he spoke again. “Tell me? You have been chased, attacked, and fought these demons. Every world you journey too? Do you feel like yourself there? Or are you losing your soul in between? I imagine it takes a toll, no? A little bit at a time. Less and less like yourself. You cannot live in these different worlds forever. You always end up here, do you not? Sitting with earth beneath your feet. You put yourself through this… This… Chase. For what? A chance to glimpse your love again.” He ratcheted a piece of machinery and started pouring some liquid into a compartment, capping it after. 

“When do you feel closer to her spirit? When you talk to me about her, when you share some pain? Or when you stay up hours into the night, scraping your brain for moments with her. Are they as strong? Or do they shift into something else when induced with sleepless nights and drugs? I imagine they turn into something else. Less so. Less than before. Your love, turning from remembrance to a sickness. Wringing out pain and hurt to feel something, anything. You are forgetting that love does not feel that way. It is a blanket not a fire. They both keep warm but one sets us ablaze. One can kill us.” Then he pointed at me. “Then you end up crashing into a pole miles from anything, a quarter past noon on a Sunday. Where are you going? You see?” He was almost pleading with me in his monotone way. “I know you do. This is no way to live. No way to respect the dead.”

I was silent.

“Is it the Windigo that shows her to you? Or have you found her in the moments you make yourself? Is it the Windigo that insults her memory or is it you? Go home my young friend. I know you see me true. You know I talk with vigor because I have been exactly where you sit.”

~

Where did I sit?

I sit in my working automobile. Freshly fixed from a sprung gasket and a broken belt. It has zip ties holding the bumper on. 

It is a day later now. 

I know that because I slept through the night. The first real sleep I had in some time. The coffee we shared the night before is not even a lingering taste on my lips. The mug, and him, and his words are fading and I cannot tell from which world I heard them in. I would like to shake his hand and thank him profusely for everything. I wish I showed more gratitude. But I remember a mumbling thanks and nod to the sentiments he shares. I am embarrassed, ashamed how I treated a stranger whose only sin was caring and helping. Was he even real? Or some angel shade I called forth? His touch joined the dream I had of my wife. She was dancing our wedding dance all by herself, dancing to the music he played on his CD player. I will be there with her soon enough. 

“Go home,” I say to myself. “Or go to her…” I look at my dog sitting chin high in the passenger seat. Ready for the next journey. I think about my choices and can hardly decipher the difference between the two. “Isn’t home where she is? Wasn’t that our vows?” I mutter to myself. My talkative dog is silent. More like a dog than he has been on this entire trip. He waits for the wheels to turn and the engine to rumble once more. For the little ways that it will go before it dies again. 

The man known at Black Partridge told me so. He leans into my window now. 

“That way will take you to Texas,” He points down one crossroad. “The other way, you'll eventually find your way to Montanna and the border to Canada. Then you keep going along here and it loops back to the 80 and it will take you to Nevada. Las Vegas and all that and the best way to get back to Arizona is there. Take the scenic route and see the Grand Canyon. That’s what I would do. All your troubles seem small there, looking at that magnificent view.” He bit his lip looking at the roads around us, giving a curt and sure nod. 

The lone power line pole I hit stood on this corner. Almost mockingly. I hadn’t even angled it over from my accident. 

I look the three ways. I know I am not going back. So three ways. Made of freeways. 

Made of concrete and asphalt. Faded dashed lines. Roadkill smattered across the path. Bellies burst and fuming stench. 

Vistas and plains and valleys of green and brown and gray. A hundred miles in a day. Too much to ever know. Only a screensaver of important moments that passed by. Ones I never held or saw or even heard the whispers on the winds. Passing by like people pass by fish in fish tanks. 

Did we start going too fast? Did we spread too far? 

100 miles of asphalt and cracks and tar being dumped on top. Held together by heat and dust. It was almost disgusting. We were little ants swarming a bloodied cut up corpse. 

100 miles.

I turned to Chewy in my confusion. “You are just a dog, aren’t you?” I asked. Hoping it was true.

“Why would you say that?” He replied his posh accent marred with an air of disgust. Like how dare I say something so asinine?

“What do you say?” Black Patridge asked me. Slapping my shoulder with the back of his hand. 

“How much do I owe you?” I asked him. Pulling back to find a wallet I didn’t even know I had anymore. 

“No worries here. I won’t take your money. Just get home safe.” He lined up a hand for me to shake and I did so. And then he slipped it away and pointed toward the road that would take me to the interstate. Back home. 

“When we stop asking questions we are institutionalized, right?” I muttered.

He leaned down. Showing his crows feet in his squint. “I’m not sure I understand?” 

“What if we are, but in our heads? Do you ask questions about yourself? Do you trust yourself? When I was young I knew things weren’t right. Weren’t there. But I had to check anyway, because what if I was wrong? What’s the point?” I asked. “If you can’t trust yourself then why even live?”

“You can trust me friend. Now go home. Nevada and Arizona, you hear?” His voice from far away was saying.

~

“I do hear.”

 I said and I found myself on the next page of our story. 

Uh oh. Things were becoming... italicized. That’s never good.

I found myself in a different state. And then another. I saw myself and my car driving into the night. And as I passed under the dusty rays from light poles. I tried to count all the moths circling in their shine. And I saw them swirl and splatter when big rig trucks passed near them. 

It was energizing. To see clearly a world we couldn't understand so beige and bare in front of us. That light was important to them. They would struggle and die for it. Is that how The Imminent Man watches us? Goldfish circling a toilet bowl. Happy in their dance.

I was starting to understand. Doors within doors within doors and reason not withstanding. Other worlds than the one you see. Endless lights pouring out from them. Moths linger. Or create them. Or maybe it’s the protons and electrons that mingle over tea and birth happy little families of horrors and stick them behind windows that shadows cover and conceal.  

As I passed road signs I realized I was not following them anymore. I was following the power lines. They would appear and disappear like punctuation. Bringing light or electricity or connection. So you can hear that lovely little voice a little louder than the one rattling in your head. Different power lines steadfast against the pitchblack sky. 

All do the same thing. To take, to bring, to serve. To scream civilization and lead it further. To mark the roadways, no, the pathways to ascension. Enlightenment. Popping up as giants. Guardians. Watchers in the valley we stretched through. Leaving smoke and rubber and ionized gas in our wake. An eulogy of machinery. And they listened to it. They cried for us in our silent Subaru soliloquy.  

Could they laugh and cry at the same time? The ones behind were waving with tears, the ones ahead beckoning us with grins. The power lines that crossed overhead. That danced along the horizon. That wiggled and chanted in the night within a buzzing of electric fuel. Their lightning touch. The power to kill and give life. The beauty of their ugliness was not unnoticed. Idols of old. Ancient behemoths of great power. They still exist, I realized. If you knew where to look. And what to look into.

Along the roads these tiki torches, these easter islands heads. The statues that we erect. Ones that slip into the night and vanish like how others slip away into history. 

Do I only see the one power line? They are all connected. So it is only one? Reappearing in front of me like I'm in some cartoon. And does it wait when I don’t see them? Wait for me to notice their passing and so when I look again they would be near. 

The power lines of yore. Where were you guiding us? What rail did we sled along? Or are you just sticks and screws and beaten metal sticking up from the mud? A stupid poject that we create for wasting hours. 

Busy hands are saints. 

And idle hands are sinners. And what would mine be? When they were wrapped around a neck, Would it matter? What if the neck was my own? Would my electric soul be wicked away by the power lines? Carried along the breaking roads of america? Cradled and disappeared and reappeared like a poltergeist or a child's game outside the car's window. Watching as they passed. Only there when you notice. 

How I was in life. 

And if every power line needs a road to travel upon are they not unlike souls of our own. And if they break and snap and sunder do you not only care for the disappointment they caused you? Was every free radical they conquered a soul to match on this plane? A railway of the damned. A roadway of angels. Hear their electric scream. Here their gospel wails. I hear them loudly. And clearly. They call to me in their dance along the foliage. They shake and crack and sizzle. They say to me that they are showing me the way. That like all the roads, they are connected but they are not bones of dead things, they are alive and they guide the living like boatmen across the styx. 

They call and say that they are taking me to where I need to go. And when. That is important too. They tell me we are going to the right when. That's what matters. And the when is when the matter is where. The where is the place in time where the power lines end. 

That’s what they say.

Where the power lines end but the road remains.

“Where the power lines end but the road remains.” I repeat.