The Archbishop Sleeps At The Altar

Our dear Captain Ogle has been unable to sleep tonight, so here we have him in his white robe, a glass with lemon juice at his side, he loves lemon juice in its purest form, it makes him think that all those pigs and cows he has eaten will somehow be wiped from his arteries by the acerbic nature of his lemon juice.

Please remember we are not here to judge this man, he is one of us.

The television is blaring away, something is being sold to him, a step-master exerciser, there are these very robustly plainly beautiful people in tights moving their legs up and down and smiling from all those endorphins that they are releasing, in the back ground a voice alerts us to the fact that these people will live to be one hundred years old because they have healthy lives unlike say, pork chops. But as we zoom back at our husky and lovable Ogle, we know we don’t want him to live to one hundred, age doesn’t improve your looks, any further deterioration here and the world might react to correct the anti-aesthetic aging process which this step exercise machine would allow.

Fortunately for us, our sleepless man is sort of dozing off, and not really hearing anything, wait he is moving. His body is stretching, he is grabbing at his balls, literally grabbing his balls, don’t look if you don’t want to, I have no choice I am the reporter here. He is trembling, his hands and arms grab a hold of his chest, he is perspiring, his head is stiff, the head on his face, stiff, his mouth is semi open, saliva, dry saliva is creating strings between his lips, he opens his eyes, wide, he sits up in a frenzy, looks at the stair masters doing their thing, and he calms down, everything is ok, everything is ok.

But just as he was reaffirming normality the wood on his floor started to creak and then it started to laugh and Ogle’s eyes and ears freak out doing the rounds to determine where the laugh was coming from, even as it was clear that it was coming from beneath the wooden floor, only he lived on the first floor, so there was no room for noisy neighbors, then the wood started to bulge, and bulge and a figure started to protrude from it, and Ogle got closer to his couch, his hand gripping the arm rest, the figure was laughing, as it was now obvious from a face, even as the figure was still flat, on the floor, it laughed, and still it sprouted, and then it started to talk, “ha, ha, ha, you just don’t know what just happened to you captain, you just don’t know, of course you couldn’t know…” the figure continues to spring out of the floor, into a full vertical upright, making about four feet tall, where captain can now see a creature, precisely shaped as if it had just gotten out of a cookie cutter, the figure is all black, flat with about eight inches of squared width, and its entire body is star shaped only very normally human with limbs and fingers, only just like a star cookie cutout, and all black with shiny white teeth, “Yes captain, I am real…” The captain was trying to look at the step master people exercising, but on the screen was just this easy credit card offer: “For only $129 dollars you can be on your way to 100 years of age…” this was not reassuring the captain “…and if you buy now…” so the cookie cutter figured sensed it and “…very real, real as you are real, only I just got here.” captain all scared but noting how entrance equally implies an exit option, “Just got here?” “Yes captain, I had to come you were looking so silly, I’ve got to witness all that and I said to myself, hey I better help the Capt out, true, I shouldn’t be here but hey I am a little devil, I try to be where I shouldn’t be.” “You’re a devil, oh Jesus lord, what have I done, forgive me lord…” Captain summoning all piety drops to his knees supplicating, “…lord, lord I promise I will change, please forgive me lord…” The captain would have gone on like that except that little devil decided not, “shut up, shut up now, he ain’t going to hear your pleas.” Capt pauses his inclination to seek mercy, “What do you mean he ain’t listening? Am I so damned that he wont listen to me!” Tears streaming from his eyes, “Oh Capt you’re such a show, forget it, I can’t explain the universe to you, I just wanted to tell you what just happened, here, when you got your balls all scrunched up nicely, or don’t you want to know?” Captain Ogle compromises with himself, he decides to listen to the insanity just to see if it will go away, only it doesn’t it just giggles, smirks, laughs and talks on, “listen here Capt, you got a nice visitation tonight you were in fact being possessed by a hungry female spirit that wanted to touch your growing, and just feel your husky fat football player essence. She was just passing through and lusting for mortal passions; and you Captain Ogle had your guard down, that is you weren’t busy reminding yourself that you are a human being that has to work and think, instead you were dozing off and that created an opportunity for this rapacious somewhat old and not so beautiful female spirit, do you remember what she looked like?” Captain Ogle now engaged in the conversation, “She looked all of purple with amoeba like figurines.” Little Devil replies, “Yeah the older ones get like amoebas with liquidy shades of purple and black. Ogle you should have felt this purple feminine flat blanket like wall, specially when she firmly grabbed your balls and a shuddering electricity rounded your body, but that’s when you thought that this was some kind of an evil thing, and wrongly started to pray, thus ending what might have other wise been the fulfillment of spiritual ecstasy.” Little Devil laughs and rubs its belly, then it turns and spins, “Yikes! gotta go, be back though Captain, best to you.”

It was close to five thirty in the morning so the captain shook his head and looked at his hands, he didn’t see anything, right, right, and so went to take his morning shower, only today it would be a cold one, he needed badly to wake up; yet as he was bathing his hunky black body, he saw an unusually magnificently engorged penis, and he felt sexual so he put it in his hands and thought “I hope it stays like this… this should stay like this for the babes…” but of course, he not being Habakkuk and not being susceptible to a spiritual awakening had no way of reaching the whole experience.

Meanwhile I wish I could tell you that Lauren and Antoinette were home together having a nice sleep but such was not the case, Antoinette was home with Loki while her beloved darling was out working. She had been asked to investigate the possible murder of an archbishop, the tragedy had taken place in the church, he had been found dead on top of the altar, with the chalice on his chest full of red wine. He seemed rather comfortable, nicely robed, and tranquil to the admiring eyes. The church had been as empty as the house of god can be when there isn’t any one there; Father Trocin found him just like that, he immediately phoned the authorities, suspiciously without first waking up the rest of the church gang.

Lauren speaks to him. “Father Trosin is it?” “Yes, yes,” he is skinny, partially bald with thick hair creating a crown on this pin of a walking man skeleton, all spirit I’d guess, “Yes, yes, Trocin, pronounced phonetically just like you spell it “T” “R” “O”” “That’s quite alright Father Trosin,” she mispronounced it, his eyes opened like an eagle ready to target a poor but attractive innocent white bunny on the hop, “that’s alright father Trosin, I get it, I am very good with names.” Father Trocin molested, moved his cheeks and tightened his mouth, he was a scholar, he had just dimensioned the entire cerebral Lauren cortex and found much to his comfort that he was smarter. “What time did you find the body?” “Oh I’d say about an hour ago? He was just laying there, at first I thought he was just getting some rest…” Lauren interrupts, “Getting some rest!” “Well yes, sometimes when we are keeping watch at night we climb on the altar and take a brief nap, it is very affirming, (raising his hands) the altar is the center of all the holiness that surrounds us.” “But would the Archbishop be on watch duty?” Hands clasped and almost spitting into Lauren’s face, “On no, no, his lord ship no, of course not.” “Then what do you suppose he is doing there Father?” “Well I think he is being dead…” retorts Father Trocin with raw condescension, “…but that is really for you to figure out isn’t it?” Lauren cutes her head a few degrees to point out to the father that he is smaller in stature, “Precisely why I am here and not sleeping with my honey.” And walks away.

She stumbles into Danny, “Hello Lauren, I see we continue to assure you job security.” Her eyes dart towards him, “Feeling cranky tonight!” “Jesus yesterday I had three druggies all done up the sleeves, the day before it was a bunch of rookie rompers all bulleted up, and now I have the honor of the archbishop.” “Yeah well don’t worry Danny… she closed up to his face as if to almost kiss him and grabbed his chin… “…he ain’t murdered until you say so, with any luck he was just taking a nap and died.” “Is that what you think happened?” “Danny, you know me, I don’t try to figure this stuff out so early in the game.” “Yeah right.”

Danny was unusually not himself, he seemed out of touch, Lauren took note of it, that was her job, notice the subtleties even if they dead end, besides, it was Danny, he was bound to have a bad night, specially if this place was beginning to feel like Daley’s Chicago.

Lauren waited for the cops to tape down the crime scene, she had talked to the only apparent witness and hence the only apparent suspect, she had something against the Jesuits, and this Trocin fellow had something of a Jesuit priest look about him that stirred eons of molestations within her. She opted to not care anymore for the night. “Hey Danny I’ll see you in the morning bright and early.” “Don’t bank on it.”

As she walked out of the massive cathedral a beautiful drizzle shined the brick walk, she covered herself with her dazzling much too cosmopolitan red jacket, and made way towards her brand new Ford motor car. Ford was a company financially in trouble, Lauren did not check the car buyers bible to see if the possible resale value of the car would make it a worthy investment, she didn’t even have the money to buy it, she did not even know that she was helping to save Ford, she just bought it because the dealership was on her way home. Antoinette gave her the money and the red jacket, Antoinette wanted her to buy a nice sexy European car, Lauren acted crustily indifferent, “They are all cars.” Sometimes Ford gets lucky. She made her way to her Ford when she stumbled upon a rattling bottle of pills. She picked them up, used her key chain flashlight to take a closer look, “Timothy Wellington” The prescription was for “Timothy Wellington” The label read “Paxil.”

Lauren placed it in her coat pocket looked back at the massive cathedral where she now knew Timothy Wellington lay dead, got in her car and went to kiss Antoinette good morning before rushing to the police department.

The Day the Whole World Closed

Habakkuk, our former prophet had gone back to his roots, he now wasn’t from an exotic place, his real name wasn’t Habakkuk, he wasn’t a prophet nor a seer, he was now more a pimp that had fallen in the snow in Times Square, and he had gone back to the ghetto that he was from, back to the poverty, back to his people which were thugs and petty criminals, an AIDS ridden malediction of drugged humanity; he had gone back home because he was no longer hiding from it, because having had sex with a whore he had lost his only escape from the shanty town of his youth and of his fears.

There he walked the streets, said hello to the cats and stayed away from the dogs which took the time to snarl his way; it was a bright sunny day, a perfect day to examine your roots, “Why do I come from this place?” He went to the house that had grown him, where he witnessed the sweet family beatings, “Jesus must have been an abused child too, he never got over guilt or wanting to be punished…” He remembered the belts, the hangers, the brooms, the books and piggy banks thrown his way, somehow his guardian Angel Gabriel always made sure that most homemade projectiles missed, but occasionally one would hit its intended target and the pain would revoke any previous failures. He remembers when rocks the size of a turtle would crash through the window and land to nestle by his side, never forget that rock that could hit your skull, never forget that rock that was bigger than your brain, never forget that that rock that had access at any time, that had no bus schedule; never forget that rock laying there next to you in bed, lacking the hollowness of the zombies that, having been unable to sleep, opted instead to practice their long shot.

Here was where the maladies played with Habakkuk’s innocence, here was where he could never figure out the world from the start, in this little tiny town called Belen, where women could not walk home alone so they took the frightened eight year old with them and presumed it was safe for him to return by himself with all of his imagination painted on the night canvas. The returns were never physically safe, boyish slurs and iron bars noticed his back, occasionally he was lucky enough to just get a nice punch, feel his jaw for a few days after that, made him doubt cowboy movies forever, no one could take all those punches. Thirty three years had passed before he could bring himself to return to this place, only his father still lived here, he was very sickly, Habakkuk had come with the looming fear of a final separation.

The town was practically painted all in white or red, an occasional yellow or green but really not for the houses eerily made of brick, squared brick, squared brick with its reddish hues which muster insanity and trashed any hope of possible escape. Habakkuk got away, one lucky day he got to walk away from this place and forget himself long enough to become a major prophet and a successful astroplaner, now his magic carpet had run out of fantasy and he was back inching into himself every fear just like those that he had as a child. Habakkuk was a classic sufferer of “Culpus Paranoia.” Defined in the venerable Velazquez Dictionary of Mental Illnesses as: “Culpus Paranoia: fear of feeling guilty about something that one is not yet guilty of.” As you can imagine a very debilitating condition, in which our boy could in this case dream up charges against himself without warrant.

In this instance Habakkuk was feeling that he was going to become like this place again, that he had never really escaped and that within minutes he would once again be an endemic part of the whole of Belen; and our Habakkuk did not want that and yet he felt that there wasn’t enough of anything else in him to fight the irresistible urge of being part of the scum of Belen again. Sure, even as a child he had not felt a part of this place, but the truth was he was unable to face the truth, that is where he was born, the universe tells you that you are born where your desire energy survives with its desire. Why Habakkuk had, according to the laws of the universe, wanted to be born in Belen and selected his parents as he indeed had, only he knew. Habakkuk knew and believed this to be true and now he was helplessly standing in the middle of this plaza, where all his memories of youth rose to their maximum size and with the old ladies that only dressed in black and parked their mollusk bodies on the benches, yelling at him, “You never left, you never changed, you never were anything more than what we are all here, good for nothing donkeys; and the only difference between you and us boy, is that you thought you didn’t belong, see how far you gotten!” Habakkuk looked down at his shoes firmly on the plaza’s brick floor, he looked up and got surrounded by a traveling circus of flies, which promptly made off but for some that stayed tangled in his nostrils.

He asked a couple of folks passing by where he might find his father, “Moises, have you seen Moises?” Everyone knew Moises, he was a drunk from times past, a man that had a genius of a brain, and the mind to speak it, where he could only make bitter friends of all. Too rabid rapid for his town, he still could never leave them, oh he tried, there were adventures and opportunities dangled that could have changed everything, except that his brain always sabotaged them. Why? Well that is anyone’s guess, the son didn’t know, the ex wife didn’t know either, everyone was aware of his brilliance but the man thought too much and too hard, and the drink wasn’t able to shut down that piercing brain, he could never quiet down the incessant mental notes, ‘specially because he had shut down his emotions tightly so that they would not feel what he felt as a child. Rivers of blood had flooded his eyes, children drilled by their parents and men going down river after having had sex with a machete. Some people see horrors and write them down to feed off of them, Moises was different, he locked it all within, he didn’t want anyone else to have to witness the tragedies, and he was not a sane containment vessel, tight inside of him he was being eaten away by witnessed atrocities.

Moises was laying on top of a white concrete bed. He liked things that were harsh, it was part of his being tough campaign, he was looking straight up at the top of another concrete bed right above him, only three feet no more from him, the sun was translucently dancing in all of the white, a color that rejects the sun is a color that keeps it moving, going, crossing itself, there was a sun show going on and father and son meet after thirty three years of absence.

It is obvious the father is suffering internal pains that he will not share with the world, his hands are crossed across his chest, he is wearing a gray suit, white shirt, black shoes and socks, but no tie. He is all of 78 years old and he still talks like a brilliant man full of certainties, proofs, facts and social formulas which if properly applied will make the world a better place, but people will not listen, he always finishes his brilliant statements, “no one is ever going to do it because they are idiots.” This rings tons of memories upon the son, he remembers being the incessant child idiot, a father that could rule complex mathematical terminology and deduce the logic squared from an inference ruler, was the man that Habakkuk the mystic heart had chosen for a father; you could see him now asking the universe, “I would like a father that is my precise opposite.” The universe didn’t flinch, it complied, Moises always thought that his son was too soft, too woman like, weak even, and there was nothing more intolerable to this fine Moises intellect than weakness. Neitche’s overman was the quintessential Moises, “I will never surrender to the vacuity of your nonsense, I shall prevail in the end even if now I must endure the harshest of critics, and I shall not endeavor to populate my humanity with fear or with weakness, I shall accept the expedition to the unknown blunder rather than accept the gentleness of a common life.”

Tough was a very tough way to live. Moises had had a very rough life, certainly his own doing, his own doing, he had refused to listen to anyone else and the universe was the only one that gave him what he wanted, the chance to be a coffin for fears, there they all went to be kept locked up for life. No one of course knew what would happen to all those fears, locked in severe confinement, upon Moises’s death, no one knew, but fears have certainly longer lives than humans.

Habakkuk sat on the floor next to his father, his father did not acknowledge the thirty three years of distance between them, nor did he acknowledge Habakkuk wearing some strange colored wool hat, orange, black and yellow.

Habakkuk with timid voice, “Hello father.” Moises turned to look at his son, his tiny eyes, skinny body, man could not weigh in at more than 90 pounds, “Hello son, how are you.” Hello son how are you. Irritatingly I was hoping to learn Habakkuk’s real name here, “My son…”, I don’t know why I was expecting more from this encounter, Habakkuk knew his father and wasn’t surprised nor moved, but I really wanted something more, instead all we get is the piercing sun, dancing around the white everything with impunity, a dying father acting out as if 33 years was only yesterday, and Habakkuk tolerating the whole thing!

“Are you feeling pain sir?” “No, no pain here.” “Have you seen a doctor?” “I don’t need a doctor, what do I need a doctor for, the only thing the doctor wants is my money, and I don’t have any money, and they don’t have the cure.” “Father it would make me feel much better if you saw a doctor, I will pay for the doctor.” “Those doctors don’t know nothing, I am treating myself that’s enough.” Father was taking herbs and holistic medicines, and he felt that he had the right prescription and undoubtedly that was the truth. In the meantime he was dying of prostrate cancer.

The neighbors had told Habakkuk that father had been there for days, only getting up to make himself toast and coffee or to get his incessant diet of cigarettes refilled. Now, Habakkuk, sitting on the floor, next to the bed saw the smoke coming from his fathers shaking fingers, only now, so involved he had been in their encounter, so involved that only now he saw the chain smoking that had started when his father was six years old. “Father lets go for a walk shall we?” His father always liked to go for a walk, always, there was never a bad time for a walk, not even rain could impede his father from walking, the question merely showed 33 years of distance between the two hearts.

Moises guided like Mc Arthur marching his troops, “this way… …over here… through here we can see some beautiful flowers…” And so they went on their little excursion, the man full of energy and life even as his life was coming to an end. Moises would point out some of the fallacies of the government, nothing much that Habakkuk could comprehend for he read nothing that had to do with current affairs, he read about things that were cosmic in nature, he had no time for the little world, but his father was a master of the little world, everything that was happening here today, he knew. Habakkuk did not want to get himself in an argument with his old man, instead he complied with as few responses as possible “yes… aha… that sounds right to me…” and the truth was that his father could carry on a conversation by himself so Habakkuk wasn’t really doing anything very much necessary under the circumstances.

They got to a plaza that had been the center of trade and commerce in town, when we speak of that we mean onions, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, tamales and morcillas, chickens with feathers, pigs, pigs so fresh… anyway you get the picture, a true farmers market; his father lit up another cigarette and almost falling out of character climbed up a certain group of stairs, came right to a corner that seemed away from the plaza and still you could see the whole plaza from it, smiling bright eyed, “here is where I had many trysts, oh this spot holds many bosoms, ah, ha, ha, ha, such a foolish young man I was, all those blunders… ha, ha, ha, and here I barfed as often as I spat… surprised this floor hasn’t dug itself an acid hole…” Habakkuk saw his father happy recollecting those bygone days of drunkenness and carelessness and womanizing which had ended the day the whole world closed, ended the day the whole world closed. The day of his divorce. The day his wife left him. The day his children left him. The day he walked into an empty house.

After the dancing recollections they returned to Moises’s house, and father noted that he needed a nap, so he went back to his concrete bed, where now the late afternoon had subdued the sun and the old man. He smiled at his son and remarked “You came a long ways to watch me die.” Moises quickly went into a feeble snore, and Habakkuk sat on the floor, there next to his old man, when he suddenly heard a thump slapping noise. He looked under the bed and engrossing his eyes there were a bunch of Banana Slugs hosting some kind of a massive convention, only falling off occasionally from their upside down enterprise. He fixed his eyes on them slugs, big yellow bodies, two and half inches more, he watched them slimy things and didn’t try to count them, the repetitive sameness of each member to the group would obliterate any count before it was done; permissive in their lack of defense, Habakkuk watched them fall and climb back up and persist, where above was his father, sleeping one of his last few sleeps.

Crazy Things Happen In A Sane City

Lauren might have gotten to the office only there was a distress signal coming in through her police radio, “calling all units, calling all units, shooting reported downtown, city hall steps, people down, people down, I repeat casualties,” “…people down, shots are being fired, use extreme caution while approaching the scene.” Lauren did not hesitate to approach the accelerator of her brand new Ford Mustang, a hefty 450 pounds of horse power, that is more than one horse, two horses, or three horses, Lauren pressed on the gas and floored her way to the shootout, and once there slammed her car into a circling halt.

The screeching Ford came to a screaming halt, and the pavement lay there as if nothing were happening, our Lauren got out of her car in a dashing move that presupposed importance, urgency, a need to get to the scene of the crime, and fortunately she was wearing pants, which made it easy for her to avoid any embarrassment that would have been produced by a dress moving out of her menacing way.

Revolver in full view, don’t know much about guns myself, kind of afraid of anything that has to do with weapons, so I don’t know what type or make it is, for sure it shoots lead particles through the air after some kind of repressed tunnel conducted explosion, it is silver, white handle, semiautomatic I presume, cops shouldn’t have to reload, they don’t in the movies; her hands firmly holding the weapon sometimes pointing at the sky sometimes pointing at the ground, always pointing away from her, she is looking, rushing, searching, looking rushing, that sort of thing, we are close behind her, sometimes in front of her, sometimes beside her, she looks dashing, sexy sort of, determined, yes; but still nothing pops up until a crossing corner defunct of meaning rushes in front of her the dying body of an innocent bystander, soon dead by any measure. She diagnosis him with her eyes, doesn’t squeamish, doesn’t drop a sentiment, pulls her gun up high and throws herself into the ground in front, rolling fast enough to be a moving target, when before her she sees the Major, the Major of this fine city, her bosses boss, he has a machinegun, one of those fancy things from Israel, the Usi, apparently sampling blood all over the place, he kills two and three people, one would think by accident, hard to tell, seems intended, but at the same time the machinegun seems bigger and more demanding than him, and Lauren pauses her overwhelming shining barrel in his direction, clearly at her bosses boss, “Sir, you must put that weapon down or I will shoot!” The Major halts for a second looks at her, doesn’t really recognize her but he is used to being known by unknowns, and attempts to aim the weapon towards Lauren’s pacing eyes, “Sir, I am warning you, put the weapon down, now!” The Major decides that such a move is not in his best interest, and so he pulls the trigger, a few hundred times, only the thing is empty, empty, nice gun fires fast but empties fast too, Lauren doesn’t hesitate nor wait for that empty metal hammering without a spark, she unleashes two, three, four and five maximum deadly bullets, all daggering in the Major’s direction, upon which he seemed very surprised to receive. His eyes swollen bright, he was caught by each with Lauren accuracy, and his tie, and his suit, and his moustache, and his flesh, caught all the flaming torches, which wobbled him into the schematic floor.

Lauren, from the urgency of the moment had held the gun to close to her head, and suffered a concussion from the shock, and would have the pleasure of hearing a ring in her ear, every now and then for the rest of her life. For now, she rested on the floor, in shock, while her peers attempted to recover her thinking that she might be wounded, even as she had only a mild shock.

Ogle, is ogling his dead boss, we are not sure if he realizes that now he can’t fire him, they never got along anyway, it was a rough going relationship, Majors have a constituency and police captains have criminals, both are captives of a different kind, obviously both men were bound to misconstrue each others activities. The Major always wanted to fire Captain Ogle and Ogle always wanted to resign. Now, thanks to Lauren, his favorite detective the Major was dead. Only from the look in Ogle’s eyes he wasn’t happy, he did not seem to be cherishing the moment, rather, he walked back towards Lauren, that was now fairly awake, looking towards her up and coming captain, who was now walking towards her with his charcoal revolver in his hand, seeming to not care where it aimed. “Lauren, Lauren, this is it you shit! You have finally ruined me, that is what you wanted to do,” Lauren’s eyes are still trying to focus reality, her hand feeling her pained head, “Huh! Huh” “Lauren, this is what you have always wanted to discredit me, to ruin my career, you have done it now.” Captain Ogle rinses his forehead with his arm, “fine Lauren, this is just fine, BOOK ‘ER, BOOK’ER for killing the major” And with that a very frustrated captain walked away.

“Ogle are you out of your fucking mind, Lauren was seeing taking defensive action against the Major that was attempting to waste her.” “Oh fuck you Cook, you have always had a crush on her, you just want to save her, to be her rescuing prince wonder, you asshole, she shot the Major, if I don’t take immediate action then my ass is on fire!” “Listen to me Ogle, listen to me,” pointing his finger straight into Ogle’s forehead, “you put her in jail and everyone will know you’re a coward, she was defending herself for god’s sake, defending herself!” “Cook, in case you didn’t notice his Usi was empty! Empty!” “Yeah it was empty alright, after six people were dead and four were injured, it was completely empty! A man fell dead in front of her what was she to do Ogle! Was she to think that it was empty!” Ogle preferred to ignore the district attorney’s worthy points, instead he said, “She stays put.”

Lauren was immediately taken off of custody, after minor screening she was released by order of Mr. Cook, district attorney. At least twenty-three witnesses testified that the Major had gone on a shooting spree, that Lauren had come on the scene, that he had attempted to kill her, and she had put a stop to that venture.

The next morning the papers headlined: “Major Dead, Killed by Cop”

The Nest of Insanity

I am not into murders, these first few chapters go against everything I wanted out of this book, but then I am not the one dictating, it is Lauren and her cast of characters that determine that. Yesterday, to appease myself, I opted to take a drink at a local joint, I am an old male, and so it is not that fun to go out for a drink anymore, the drinking crowd is so young, so distant from my emotional world or my history, I feel out of place, all the good drinking joints are infested with callous youth, with all that hyper plastic magenta character that promises you, with a smile, that there inst a worry in the world, that everything is wonderful and they are themselves wonderful; I went to have a drink at Buffalo Joes.

Buffalo Joes was a bar voided of people like me, I don’t know what people like me are like, I have never found the bar that they hangout at, I always go into the bar scene knowing every discomfort will dress me with incertitude and alter my sense of fear. I feel that an entire world alien to me is watching my every move, I feel their bodies menacing the languishing pudgyness of my fondling fat cells; when I reach the urinal to release acidic content from my bladder, I smell within my lungs every man that has been in the room, part of them now burnished against the ceramic wall and floor, cankerous sores swelling my oxygen, cornering pungent acids filtering through osmosis to feel every cell I have duly created with sausages, hamburgers, and steaks; where cows and pigs must be equally frightened by my presence.

I order a martini, I should not drink martinis, they are the supreme drink, I don’t know of a more arrogantly elegant congregation of minimalist essence. A touch of vermouth, Vodka, two olives, a chilling touch and there is her majesty. No, no, no. A martini is wholly masculine, the vermouth is full of palpable emotions that can’t surmise themselves into anything, you don’t imagine that you can like it by itself, you don’t imagine that by itself it is tolerable nor can you say, this is what vermouth tastes like; the chaotic congregation of possible influences tells you it has a convoluted history of certainty but only certainly doubtful of its own self. Vermouth says, “I don’t know what I am but I want to be something to do with alcohol.” Vodka is precisely the opposite, you don’t have to ponder what Vodka is, the entire certainty of Russian culture which stirs the blood of anyone willing to touch it and suffer a little hard pain, the gulags and slaughters of Russian history, are there plenum. Those hard Russian winters, the Russians waiting for Napoleon, the Russians waiting for the Germans, the Russians waiting for Lenin, it’s all the same, waiting, waiting for somebody to come and kill them so that they can show their perdurance. A potato and the Russian character have everything in common, there was no need to try to convince the Russians that rooted potatoes were a national necessity; from there you have to purify the essence of the potato and you get your vodka, the Russians and Vodka know how to drink each other. The olive is a distinctively different matter, added after Tsar Nicholas and his family found out that all those souls that they tortured and killed and maintained in perverse poverty, would send the living hate in for natural retribution; the olive added to remind us that though vermouth is confused and vodka harsh, there is still room for a touch of aesthetic intervention. Every olive inside a martini is saying “I refuse to surrender to your barbarism.”

Yes, yes, I know what you will say, the Martini was invented in the west. You will never convince me of that.

My brain doesn’t like Martinis, I like them and I don’t like my brain. I drank, and drank until I forgot myself. This morning I woke up with blood on my hands and clothing, I am trying to recollect precisely what happened last night. Fuzzily disturbing fragments of recollections start to climb into my judgmental brain. There was a young beautiful woman, she portrayed all the ambivalence that causes me to break into a feverish rash. I kept on watching her, partly trying to admire her but I found her beauty obfuscating any desire that may have risen. She was saying “like me, love me, envy me.” I don’t know why I have such a strong conflict with people that say, “envy me.” We all want to be loved and liked but amongst us there are people saying, “envy me.” I wasn’t attracted to this woman I was mortified by her much as another woman might feel threatened by her; I kept on watching her incessant laughter as a direct assault, and so I dashed towards her with a fork and pricked her lips with it, I pricked her lips. Oh dear God, what have I done, why did I drink that devil drink! Why did I go to a joint where all the discomforts would accompany me!

I recall running out, running furiously, a gang of youth after me, I don’t know where I got the adrenalin to outpace them, fear does such a thing, legs keep moving fast and forever forgetting that muscles have physical limitations, my legs are now in excruciating pain, my wretched imagination kept the vivid images of this woman feeling the lacerations of a tool not designed for cutting, I stormed my brain to stop recalling, it was too late, I had inspired this pain loving brain that doesn’t feel the reconstructed images of the splitting blood, of my forked hand before me, of the anguish in her face, the constructs more monstrous with each evolution of the fork, and then the awakening of fear, my pounding heart, my racing body! At some point I saw Lauren, wearing a business light yellow pant suit, arrive at the crazed scene, she immediately made me out and rushed towards me but, by some magnificent miracle I floated upwards away from her. Upon seeing my heavenly rising body, she hastily looked all around her, and upon seeing no witnesses her arms and hands fisting towards the ground: “Shit! Why do this crazy things always happen when there are no witnesses! Shit! Shit. shit.”

Somehow I made it home, but now I knew that I would be remembered by all eyewitnesses, the bar was only four kilometers from my apartment, I was locked in, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know why I did what I did, I don’t know why I am confessing this to you, I am trapped and now Ogle’s star detective is hunting me down.

After much thought I cut my long wavy brown hair completely, went completely bald and started to grow a moustache, I love hair and I hate moustaches, but now I had to not be me, I had to not be me. And continuing my documentation of Lauren’s life becomes now for me a burden.

Lauren had never gotten angry at Ogle for insisting that she be locked up, she knew that he had to act as if there was every possibility of her being guilty of murdering the major, and then allow for the system to vindicate her, which was precisely how events had unfolded. She is now in Ogles office, “Captain this whole city is going nuts, we have a dead priest, a dead major, a bunch of massacred citizens and now some crazed fuck with a fork running amok! I don’t get it what the hell has been added to the water, we must start imagining that there is some contaminant in the water or food supply, at this rate the entire city will be a funny farm in less than a week.” The captain’s eyes were blood shot, he certainly wasn’t getting any shut eye, his frustrated masculine hands running the length of his face as if to mask the anxiety building within, “I don’t know Lauren where we go from here, we got no clues, nothing, this is really a nest of insanity and I am not sure reasonable conclusions will help us any. Lauren places her hand in her pocket and takes out a bottle of medicine, placing it on top of his desk, “well I do have one clue Capt” “What is this where did you get it?” I don’t know yet what it is but Danny is working on it, I found it outside the cathedral where lay the dead priest, I have a hunch that this bottle is a start, with nothing else, we gotta a hold on to this bottle Capt.” “I didn’t see this bottle in the list of evidence?” “Yeah, I sort of found it outside by accident, I think it best not to mention it to anyone for now, who knows what will pop up.” Captain opens a drawer, takes his gun out of its holster, places it inside and closes the drawer. “Maybe it is a good time not to think like a cop. Keep me posted, right now I got a dinner date with something in my refrigerator.”

I don’t get the papers, I don’t like reading newspapers because they are full of bad news, because they are written by the worst writers, reporters are not writers, and there is no law that says they should be, reporters are just that, reporters, it is wrong for any of us to demand that they write better prose, that they ink a little fortune and imaginative narrative to their extroverted introspections. Anyway reading a paper bores me and reading news is for those people that want to make a difference in the world, I never wanted to make a difference so I didn’t read the papers, I didn’t vote, I didn’t even believe that democracy and information were the key to an intelligent society. But now, I needed to read the paper, so at 6am this morning I committed my second crime, I stole my neighbors newspaper.

“Crazed male attacks woman with fork.”

I don’t know what I thought at that moment, I knew that guy, I didn’t want to know him. The article read:

“In what can only be construed as an incident muscled by insanity a man attacked a woman with a fork, aiming straight for her lips, causing severe injuries to her jaw, cheeks and lips. The incident took place at the popular Bermuda’s Bar, a place where many yuppies gather for happy hour.” Witnesses were many as the place was crowed and the full tragedy of the event is well documented, including a clear description of the male, an older man, presumed to be in late forties early fifties, long curly brown hair, husky, 72 meters tall, he had drank five shots of whisky, was alone, and apparently did not know the woman involved.” Joe Monger, a software engineer described the scene “It was harrowing, she was not doing anything to him, she was just in standing there in shock, and so were we, we could not believe what we were seeing, you are used to seeing that at the movies or on television but when you see it happen like that you just freeze you cant believe that’s real.” Many of the other witnesses were equally in shock and some are being assisted by the red cross to seek counseling, Mandy Williams a frequent customer of the place, was all tears, “How could some one do that, how could such people exist, why this is horrible, I will never be able to come here again.” Obviously many people deeply affected by this terrible incident. “A composite of the man will be released by police today, and detective Lauren, charged with the investigation, is urging the public to collaborate but use all caution, “We have a very accurate description of this male suspect, a composite will be draw up from independent interviews with the witnesses, we will release the profile to seek assistance in the capture of this man, but we urge that anyone making contact with the suspect should use extreme caution as only a deranged man could have accomplished this atrocity.” Police will further release a psychological profile of the suspect, expected to round out misogynistic traits and psychotic anti social behavior patters. Already the police have requested that mental institutions report any missing lunatics.” “Your reporter promises to stay very close to this tragic story. Alfred Mangled.”

Oh no, not only did I now have Lauren assigned to my case, but I now too had my very own reporter, Alfred Mangled. From hence forward I would undoubtedly become an avid reader of this Alfred Mangled fellow.

Sun You Are The Last Of A Line

Antoinette and Loki and Francisco were home alone, as was their plight being married to a detective one could expect nothing else, nothing else. Antoinette had willingly resigned her executive job and opted to stay home for a year of rest, and to pen her emotions while taking care of the kids. The kids were Loki the mischievous god, and a new addition, Francisco an orange tabby cat, of gorgeous and aggressive proportions, prone to biting that hand that fed him. Antoinette had found him an irresistible must rescue from the iron pet store, where animals went to get sold to humans. Francisco, or Pacho as was his proper nickname, Pacho had been most happy to be rescued and then expected that from there everything would just get better and better; no dry food for him, no cold nights, always nestled between Lauren and Antoinette, running interference in-between their mutual tenderness, yes Pacho became a lovely pain in the ass, as both of his masters were patrolled by his self serving character.

Antoinette is feeling the absence of her mate, she is inking away frustrations, equally wishing she was not writing them down, how else to hide her weaknesses from her lover than to destroy them by way of manifesting them, “if I let the ink pen them they will vanish,…” so went her reasoning, “…the world can not hold a thought if it is spoken...” the pen was silent enunciation, the light from three candles powdered the air, her wine glass held next to her cheek to warm her, “Sun vitriolic center of emancipation… where thy spun angst is negligent… where I sit here, oh sunrise your one rendition, of a dying line, a dying line, oh sun…,” her sentiments pausing, she hates herself for missing her lover, she is not going to accept it, she decides to be truthful to all but Lauren, the fear of being spotted by her detective, “One day you fall in love with a tiger and the next you get swallowed whole by her.” There, that abruptly, the lines came to an end, “one day you fall in love with a tiger and the next you get swallowed by her.”

The wine isn’t enough to explore all of Antoinette’s feelings, she downs a couple of cough medicinal tablets that do not say, “does not cause drowsiness.” The sleep call will take two hours to pronounce itself throughout her body, Antoinette is aware that there will be a wait, she cuddles next to Loki on the couch, and begins to explore her fantastic reality, she is in love with Lauren, she doesn’t know why, she knows that there doesn’t have to be a reason but she doesn’t want to comprehend it, its just that it would be so much easier of there were a reason where she could say, “I love Lauren because she eats hotdogs.” But that isn’t a valid reason to love someone and Lauren doesn’t eat hotdogs, and if she did Antoinette would find less of a reason to love her since her person abhors hotdogs and its hearty slouch companion baseball. But if that were a reason Lauren had already a horrible trait in that she loved, loved SPAM. Yes that weird combination of shit and ham and shit again, where the Federal Drug and Tobacco administration have failed to recommend a daily dosage of Spam, at any level, and though they have not officially announced it, the FDA was anti spam, evidence that they did not recommend it as lunch meat, dinner meat, healthy breakfast. What was spam anyways? No one had ever accurately described it, nor should it be, was it everything that one shouldn’t eat combined into something that one could eat but shouldn’t? Was it the coalesced regiment of souls from all of the cows and pigs killed in the universe in one day? Was spam an act of God to prove that he could create something impossible to eat that could be eaten, and worse, would be eaten? Spam, easy to cook, fills you with lard sensitivity and Lauren, our Lauren, was an avid fan, Spam sandwiches! There is no point in going further, Spam wasn’t going to be any less for it nor would consumption deteriorate, Spam, is one of those staples of the food chain, it was always there, no one can remember when it wasn’t, it will always be here, it doesn’t need any advertising, it is self serving, self sustaining, a perpetual food supply, when everything goes in the universe, there will still be spam and Antoinette will still love Lauren.

Antoinette dozed off. She fell sleep clinging to, “Sun you’re the last of a line.”

But her sleep was not to be, she was awakened by a kiss on the lips from her detective, her swollen eyes rehearsed an opening, and then pronounced their natural discharge of affection towards the one person that somehow made her feel herself. A sweetness crept all over both admirers when Lauren spoke, “Babe, did you forget that we have the engaging moon asking us to listen to some Jazz tonight?” Antoinette’s lips in full blossom, while her hand retrieved the permissiveness of her hair, “yes, we have a night out, I will get ready, just give me a few minutes…” her voice disappeared and followed her into the bedroom.

I must confess from a writers perspective that it is difficult to define Antoinette, hence your lack of knowledge of her. I have a firm grasp of Lauren, Lauren tells me “this is who I am! this is who I am!” Antoinette is an ephemeral creature, she doesn’t say “I am here…” Instead she tries not to be noticed by not trying to be noticed. She fades into the crowd even as she is beautiful and alluring; something in her tells you to look away, to distance yourself, any approach could be dangerous, or strange, but you don’t know what, instead you end up avoiding defining her and meeting her; in a crowd she is with everyone and no one, she is willing to listen, she is first not to doubt your superiority of wit and charm and might, she assumes you are correct about everything, she is willing to give you the benefit of the doubt when you are wrong or worse when you are afraid of yourself. She will never muster the necessity to say something obligingly ridiculous about your ways and feelings, those things are not there for her. In a crowd she subtracts herself, and yet she is with all and in all more than any of those others which have so well defined the fences of their character.

Perhaps her intangible nature is based on our avoidance of feelings, we are afraid to feel, Antoinette feels everything and worse wants to feel more and more and doesn’t want to subtract herself from feeling. Perhaps when we approach her we are afraid to go into that limbo of sentiment, into those eyes where reason falters, where the comforts of logic and discernable matters fail to enter; Antoinette’s heart is engorged with lust for the emotional life, when she left her executive job she left nothing, there was nothing there, her indifference won her much, but it was a genuine indifference, she didn’t care if the internet survived in the modern world, she didn’t think the world a better or worse place because of the internet, she didn’t feel it either way, if some day the last in a line of Sun’s were to banish and only moonless nights would continue, Antoinette would not see how that could change what she felt, for even as the beautiful flowers which she loved so much, might disappear, Antoinette did not hold them hostage to mandatory existence. It was all a flow of events transpiring while some conspired to stop them, she did not.

Lauren and Antoinette went to listen to Jazz at a joint that had not reached the levels of professionalism that would educate the faltering notes, instead hapless musicians sure of their breathless beats, blew meaning down saxophones and pounced upon riveting pianos, while guitars got hand molested in ways that guitars shouldn’t be touched. The two women laughed, the smoke was illegal, the abundance uninhibited; at any time everything in this place could be in first place, right now it was all simply in last.

Lauren drove home, she was over the drunken limit, she didn’t have a wedding ring on her, she noticed this as she saw her hand on the steering column, she felt herself complete, she turned her cigarette and face towards the woman next to her, “Hey lets get married.” Antoinette leaned back away from her lover, so as to capture all of that woman before her, “yes, I will marry you Lauren but you have to get me a ring.” “Shit yeah woman I get you an emerald ring, but you have to get me one too.” Antoinette leaned back and kissed her detective.

The Aztec’s Root For Maguey

The next day was a Saturday, Lauren felt that something wasn’t completely right with Antoinette, and so she decided to skip work, sometimes murder cases can wait, once the coroner does his evaluation you have seven years to discover if the body was killed or if it was an accident that looks like a murder or if it was a deceptive suicide, or if it was simply a murder by mother nature. Lauren was one of those who believed that everything was a murder because she was a homicide investigator but Habakkuk could have told her, though he never did, that the universe considers all murders accidental overload, when enough things agglomerate in a certain direction and all the participating entities are in negative accordance someone gets killed, simple as that, the murdered is an equal participant in his undoing, and the murderer is equally a victim of their mutual interaction. But we are not going to try to explain that to Lauren. Anyway she now felt that Antoinette needed some time away from the rambunctious city, and so awakened her with a scramble egg breakfast on what was a lovely sunny Saturday.

Antoinette munched down on the buttered toast and the delicious tea, of the latter she preferred more than coffee, Lauren was the coffee addict, in its pure essence, no sugar, no milk, black, and Italian roast preferably though sometimes she softened and accepted French roast. “Hey why don’t we go to Salinas tonight for the weekend, its near here but far away in every other sense, we can have some delicious Mexican food, and perhaps get those banana leaves you been wanting for your tamales.”

Antoinette loved to cook tamales and she always complained that she could never get the banana leaves, so this was a very pleasant idea, “Salinas, yes that sounds wonderful.”

Salinas was not a tourist town, it was instead a farming community full of illegal and legal Mexican migrant labor that worked away the days pulling lettuce, spinach, celery, broccoli; and contrary to popular belief, they were mostly happy people, migrant labor yes, hard and dirty work yes, but they didn’t consider ground dirt, and mostly they were happy; poor yes, mostly illiterate yes, they hadn’t even heard of homeboy Steinbeck; nor were they as sad about Salinas and their lives as he was. Would their sixteen year old daughters mostly get pregnant out of wedlock and with the wrong boy? Yes, but they were happy families just that the fathers and the mothers were a bit unreasonable, they wanted the best for their daughters; yet most of them would end up just like them, which could be a sort of compliment; the parents wanted their daughters to marry rich white boys or some Mexican from Mexico City, but they were not being realistic, sixteen year old girls from poor families don’t get to meet a lot of white guys from Harvard, specially not where white boys are a minority, nor do these girls get to Mexico city because they are part of a caravan of lettuce pickers in America, these Mexicans parents were just being idealistic so as to protect themselves from the reality that the chances of their daughter getting out of their way of life were nil. Statistic after statistic showed that 80% of a community kept on reproducing itself, rich and poor alike; sure, the Mexican families took their daughters to the famous Salinas rodeo to meet the cowboys, but the cowboys were nothing more than migrant laborers themselves, and just as happy and as drunk as the Mexican lettuce pickers. So little Conchitas or Mijitas weren’t going to get anywhere beyond this little town, and it was only for the parents sake that they were punished for getting pregnant like their mother did; and little Fernandito that got her pregnant would get his balls temporarily tied, by mother tears, like those horses at the rodeo, but in the end he would be an added and much loved son to the girl’s family. They were all mostly happy. Most of the time life was calm, food was good, very good for it was Mexican food, but of course you couldn’t tell the human rights activists, you couldn’t tell them that these were the descendants of the Aztecs; that the Aztecs were the worlds greatest farmers of their time, hence the reason why the Salinas Valley was so productive, Aztec energy, but you couldn’t even tell it to the big plantation owners; that the Mexicans picking their lettuce were the descendants of Tenochtitlan.

The two pretties drove to the fertile Salinas Valley and found an inn where they could rest the coming night, though they had every intention of eating out, and ignoring their hostess’s offerings. They went to the town market, “Jose’s” and there they went of a buying binge for everything that composed a tamale, lard, pork butt, nixtamal and including banana leaves, sure Mexicans were more in the habit of using corn husk but Antoinette had her own version, she was an avid lover of the dark green texture of banana leaves, that is how she hid her tamales.

Coming out of the town market they stumbled into Jose, the owner of the market, a Mexican, now in his late fifties, that had worked the fields all of his life, but saved enough money to open his own market. He was getting into his white van and Antoinette and Lauren greeted him, as they knew him from their occasional shopping. Jose greeted them cordially but seemed a bit distant, less his usual cheery self. Antoinette took notice and made her way closer to him, “where are you going Jose?” “Out to the field to pick Maguey for some Pulque.” Antoinette was familiar with the miracle plant and Pulque its fermented sweet liquid that was the product of the end of a Maguey’s life, the sweet liquid was the result of ten years of maturity and a blossoming stem, to get to the sweet liquid Jose would have to cut the stem, that would kill the plant. Perhaps the Aztec in him was into pulling hearts and tasting the sweetness of the act. Antoinette without asking Lauren “Jose we will go with you, would love to see you extract the sweet liquid.” Jose didn’t know how to say no to the ladies, he was himself a sweet man, and though underneath his ruana his heart hesitated, “Come on then, that plant and I have waited for ten years for this moment.”

This was why Lauren loved Antoinette, because at any moment something different would happen, the shopping trip had turned into a trip for extracting some liquid from some plant, and this was what they were going to do. She was pleased, they hopped on the van both sat in the back, the front was all cluttered with boxes, the back had no seats, it was not going to be a very comfortable trip, but Jose’s conversation made things comfortable enough. “Worked this fields all my life, there hasn’t been a place where I haven’t stood beneath a hot sun to rip harvest from the earth, long years.” Antoinette, “Did you ever marry Jose?” there was some hesitation from the man, “No, no, couldn’t bring myself to it, there was so much work, all the time work, Mexican woman require lots of attention and I didn’t have the time, not the time.” This was highly unusual and Lauren took notice of the cultural dissent, so she decided to dig a little deeper as was her nature, “Jose but surely you have some children running around all of Mexico?” She finished that sentence with the appropriate smooth over giggle and eye play towards Antoinette. From the drivers seat the pause was another long one, then the man that had no philosophy in him, only worked the fields all of his life, picking lettuce, carrying boxes, loading trucks, and shelling out dough to fill the shelves with inventory, the man with fingers always inflamed and dirty nails, but dirty with the grub of the earth, dirty because the earth had sculpted them so that he could touch her, “children, no, no…” and his voice faded then he revitalize himself, “Pulque will be good today, that plant doesn’t give around these parts, planted it there myself just ten years ago.” With that the van came to a halt somewhere next to a huge lettuce field. Lauren and Antoinette followed their tour guide, he pointed somewhere towards what could have been the center of the field with military precision, “its over there.” Only Antoinette and Lauren stared at each other, over there could be anywhere, it was a huge field, you couldn’t see the other side, they started through the furrows occasionally losing balance and crushing the total production of lettuce, Jose walked firmly but slowly, after about a seven minute walk they reached what they had not seen but should have seen, amongst all the lettuce was this gorgeous and huge Maguey, a leach collection long and sturdy plant, belching out towards the sky and then subdued by gravity retrenching towards the earth, a desert plant amidst this fertile valley, she seemed like the queen of the lettuce patch, and a huge stem rising full of blossoms, “children, children” his hands up, cried out Jose, “children you wanted to see my children here are all my children, blossoming after ten years.” Antoinette and Lauren smiling joy, seeing the glory in these man’s love of his plant, “beautiful.” Cried Antoinette, “yes, very beautiful.” Followed Lauren.

“Well but to get our Pulque we must cut out the stem.” and with saying that, Jose, grabs a machete from his bag, and chops the twenty foot stem right off its foundation. And a jolly Jose grabs the yellow exposed heart of the maguey, and he takes this yellow large banana shaped organic container, and from the top, cutting a small hole, begins to suck agua the miel, then he gives some to his companions, which approvingly enjoy the honeyed water, though not wholly aware that the formation will arouse drunkenness. After the afternoon hot sun had shied a little, the three were laying on the lettuce, next to the plant, Jose utters, “the plant I now freed to die.” “What do you mean Jose?” When I cut the stem the plant’s life was over, but it was the only way to get the pulque out of her heart.” Lauren a bit disgusted, “You mean that beautiful plant dies after you cut it?” Jose inching no sympathy, “Well we just drank the blood within its heart lady.” Antoinette, “It’s a shame, a real shame, Jose we could have let it live, it was wrong to kill it.” Jose, is now just as drunk and somewhat candidly he said, “you don’t know why I cut that heart, you don’t know why I drank its blood, I had a child, I had a child, you want to know I had a child!” Antoinette and Lauren are a bit out of comprehensive range, “I had a child, had to come work this field, work this field, we wore head covers, couldn’t afford a hat, so we used blankets, cover our heads from the presumptuous sun, I brought little Joselito here many times, couldn’t leave him at home alone…” Antoinette and Lauren have lost any drunkenness they had amass, they remained silent, “then one day, I get done and having Joselito in my back the blanket heat had killed him, I held my Joselito in my arms, I held my only companion in my arms, he didn’t cry, never cried, he didn’t breath, didn’t breath, I buried my Joselito there.” Pointing his earthly fingers at the core of the dying plant while tears drained him. Lauren puts her hand to her mouth, Antoinette, doesn’t move, “My little Joselito, today I drank his sweetness, no one knows lady cop, now you know, you wanted to come here with me, my Joselito is the root of this pulque we just drank. You can arrest me now, I am ready to go, I was just waiting for ten years.”

Lauren and Antoinette don’t know how to react they haven’t a socialized ritualized reaction for what they are witnessing, they came here to get away from the vibrant city, and now they are both in front of a man that lost his baby to the sun god, and now before the altar that he constructed on top of his baby’s grave they have drank the sacred liquid in his honor. Something Jose had waited ten years for, ten years.

Lauren somewhat restored but hesitant, “What happened to your baby’s mother Jose?” The despondent man responded, “never had a wife, she didn’t want to marry me, she said she never wanted to marry me, that she didn’t love me, she had Joselito and gave him to me, said she couldn’t keep a child from a man she didn’t love.” To Antoinette the complete separation that had existed between them and Jose became huge and impossible to ignore, Antoinette got up, walked over to him, grabbed his earthly bound hand, “common Jose, come with us, you can stay at the Inn with us tonight, it is best we talk later, for now lets just go.” Lauren, who was not quite sure she was in agreement with Antoinette, helped to carry him into the van, and Antoinette held the languishing Aztec, while Lauren drove them to the Inn.

Happenstance Tragedies

The sane world had passed away into obscurity and come back again, Lauren was preparing for her morning shower; cleaning her teeth she stared at herself in the mirror wondering if the Chinese had also invented the toothbrush, this she thought possible because they had invented clocks, chess, gunpowder, religion, and now everything that was being used in America even her toothbrush was made by Chinese, cheaper, better and faster so why not equally assume that it was genetics, the Chinese were the inventors of that cumbersome morning task, a toothbrush was one of those inventions that could never be taken back or forgotten, just like perfume. Though the latter was most certainly invented by the French, the French wanted everything to look pretty and part of looking pretty was smelling pretty, but maybe the French were also a Chinese invention, so cutely intellectual they, a timeless receptacle of cute thoughts.

Lauren considered brushing her teeth time for mental chatter, and so these were her thoughts, but when she jumped into the shower, that was time for serious thoughts. “How many Jose’s in the Salinas Valley, how many lettuce fields are nourished by the happenstance tragedies induced by toiling under the hot sun?” And after her dutiful killing of Sister Bertha she sure wasn’t a convincing moralist, but still she thought to ask herself the tough questions with hot water running through her back, “Do I report this to the captain and turn the burden of judgment upon him? What would he do with Jose? The man is obviously a victim of circumstances, a hard life, maybe Captain wont look at it purely from a legal perspective, or will the burden of knowledge force him to charge Jose with involuntary manslaughter?” The noise of the water droplets hitting the shower curtain kept rhythm, Loki was outside the shower watching Lauren’s shadow flourishing through the plastic, his head moving back and forth with it.

Lauren turns the water off, and is met with fresh coffee by Antoinette, “eggs will be ready in a few.” Lauren looks at her lover with the anticipation of many beautiful years to come. Over breakfast Antoinette “Last night I realized that we are just puppets of the relationship being felt by our souls, we are mere reflections of it Lauren, you and I are a poor construct of the true love that our souls are experiencing, I felt our souls last night bonded, truly bonded.” Antoinette’s sincere remarks struck a truth within Lauren, just she too somehow felt that there was something that wasn’t complete here in the material between them, and yet that they were in separately together in the spiritual realm. But Lauren was definitely not ready to move on from the happenings in Salinas instead she reverted the conversation, “Babe, I don’t know if to report Jose, or to let it be, a child has been born, who knows if he was baptized or just had in some field of labor, and now this child has died, and no one has recorded his death, and how can I let that go, someone has to say something.” Antoinette pauses everything, “No Lauren you cant say anything this is not a matter for you or the authorities, let this man be, what ever happened to that child he has done nothing wrong but be a victim of painful circumstances.” “Even if that is true I cant ignore it, and the community needs to be aware of what can happen when they take their babies out into the fields, and that if it happens social services will take action to hold them accountable, Joselito did not deserve to die like that because of the ignorance or squabbles between his parents.” “No, your insane, your just going to punish him to serve a greater good that has no immediate benefit but to further destroy this already burdened man. Your not going to correct the ills of the world by hurting him further, only try to feel how devastated he is Lauren, feel him, please.”

Lauren finished her coffee searched for empathy within herself, “He has something terrible to live the rest of his life, and I might have to hold that within myself too without any resolution, a child has lived and died without record, a mother has abandoned him, a father has buried him in silence after a hot day of picking lettuce, I don’t know, were we put there by destiny, by his soul to let the world know what took place? Was it a coincidence that we met this tragedy, that we went out to the field with him was that a coincidence?” Antoinette placing her hand on Lauren’s heart, “Perhaps it is not a coincidence, perhaps Joselito guided us there to be with his father that had loved him all of those years and he didn’t want him alone in his only birthday a decade long, he brought us to Jose to be with him, that’s really what happened Lauren, Joselito did not want his father drinking his blood alone, and we were there to take him home afterwards, where else he might have stayed there and dry under the hot sun like his son.” Lauren didn’t know what to say to this, she hugged Antoinette, they both felt each other, with ten thousand times less sensitivity than there souls were hugging now.

Bobbie’s Love Letters

Antoinette was home alone, another day for her contemplations to reach beyond the sky net of her now more or less normal life. She is rummaging through one of Lauren’s unpacked wooden chests, the opened vault offering insight into her lover, Antoinette is just thinking she will organize things a bit, when she finds a golden envelop, wrapped nicely with a silken lace. Antoinette admires the wrapping, she unleashes the silk, and within her view captivating letters, at least 62 letters she counts, yes, she decided to count instead of reading first, then she posed herself the moral question, “If I read them am I betraying our trust, is Lauren going to eventually let me read these letters? Should I wait? What if she throws them away before I read them?” Her curiosity helps her decide to see who they are from, they are from Bobbie, Bobbie to her lover. Antoinette does not read any more than that, she quickly puts the works back into the chest, closes it as if definitely for the last time, she mentally notes that the letters do not have a date, they look fresh, they even have a scent, could not be that old, and yet, Lauren had told her that she was her first lover.

That night with Lauren home, over dinner and the usual glass of wine, Antoinette was moody, she wanted to bring the topic to the conversation but could not bring herself to do it. Lauren noticed moodiness, but having had a hard day she opted not to bring the matter to life. Silently the two went to bed, almost without touching each other, and each facing her side of the bed away from the other, the night stood still for a few weeks.

Bobbie, who was Bobbie? I can tell you but I am not sure if I shouldn’t wait till Antoinette and Lauren discuss it, maybe for good reason I shall let Bobbie be silent for now too. It is always safer to follow a pattern.

The next day and the next day after that, Antoinette stared at the wooden chest, the wooden chest stood silent, wooden chests perhaps because of their pirate history have a tendency to keep treasures and secrets for long periods of time; this particular wooden chest seemed content with keeping within something that somehow separated Lauren and Antoinette.

The house became a dueling ring, Antoinette in the house, with the chest, the chest at the center of her grueling attentions, another dinner and another dinner of silence, this went on for about three weeks and then one day things exploded. Antoinette, “Is there something that you want to tell me?” In the middle of a bite Lauren replying, “Something to tell you…” Spaghetti stringing between her teeth and the expanding chasm, “…something like what, that I had a hard day at work or…” Lauren knew that Antoinette was tremendously jealous and so she uttered the following without thinking of the implications, it was just to curtail what she thought her mate might be conjuring with her vivid imagination, “…or do you want me to tell you about a lover or something like that!” And she raised the accent as induced by the breathed air between the two that had undoubtedly huge quantities of dark matter embellishing their lungs.

“You never want to listen, you never want to talk, you keep this silence between us, makes you feel more in control! Well I am not like that, I want to talk things through, there is something eating at us and you don’t want to discuss it because you think it is going to magically fix itself, well it isn’t going to magically fix itself, we have to talk, I want to talk about it, because I love you, and I want our relationship to work and I am willing but you’re not and I can not do this by myself!” Lauren frustrated replied, “Look I am happy in our relationship, I don’t have any problems with it, you’re the one that seems to think we have problems, I have never been happier in my life, so I don’t have to fix anything, why don’t you go see a psychiatrist if that will make you feel better, I personally don’t believe in therapy.”

“See how you are, because you don’t believe in therapy you won’t go with me and it does me no good to go by myself because the problem is within our relationship, I can’t fix it by myself, it won’t do me any good to talk to someone if you won’t go with me!” Antoinette finishing with some starting cries. Then she continues, “we are distant, we haven’t had sex in practically a month, I don’t feel you, you are off somewhere else, I admit that I have been cold, but that is because I can’t open up, and I can’t open up because you are so distant, there was a time when you made me feel so much.” Tears unleashing trickling past her fruitless fingers.

Lauren walks over to her, holds her neck, she gives her a kiss on the forehead, “hey, listen to me, I love you, I love you, I am happy with you, I am in love with us, with us you hear me?” Sobbing Antoinette joins with a few gasps, “Yes, I am so silly, sorry I know you love me its just that sometimes I feel so insecure, I feel that nothing has any seriousness, like I cant grasp anything real.” Lauren holding her hands, breathing near her, talking next to her ear, “We all feel like that at times, there is nothing wrong with that, but you just can’t make it into a problem of our relationship, and more jealousy is not a sign that you love me, it is instead a sign that you are afraid of our love, please, just calm down; think of us; when ever I have problems I think of you and me, and us, and I feel better immediately.”

Antoinette moved her arm and the wineglass went crashing down into crystals. They both took attention and Antoinette, “I am becoming such a klutz.” Lauren laughed, “A beautiful klutz, lets go to bed.”

The two went to bed, in the bedroom was the chest with Bobbie’s letters.

Ok I will tell you about the letters.

Bobbie, Bobbie, was someone that was madly in love with Lauren, she was a nicely husky natural baby face and sedately beautiful woman, she had this very wonderful calm way about her, like she knew just what she wanted, like she would not make any mistakes about her choices in life, that she knew where she was going, that she might have to go at it alone for a while but that she would make it in the world. Such people have an enigmatic attraction, life does not seem complex to them, it is something that they just live through without much doubt. Bobbie, was the daughter of one of Lauren’s mentors, Ralph Andalonol. Ralph had taught Lauren much in the way of detective work, he was, along with Ogle, a first rate mentor, he knew the business of digging up crimes and their criminals, but he had something else, he had been frank with Lauren, he once told her, “this police work is shit Lauren, I never wanted to be a cop, I fell into the labor of it one day and never found my way out of this shit hole. I will teach you, you want me to teach you I will help you become the best, but don’t expect me to tell you that you chose a fine profession or that we are on the side of the good guys. You’re going to see shit here and you aren’t going to be able to tell if the shit is from your guys or the bad guys, that’s the truth here Lauren. You will do well to know that from the start, that way you don’t get any fancy ideas about saving the world and becoming the first cop Wonder Woman.”

Yeap that is exactly how their friendship started, Lauren at the time thought, “Oh another crap spitting disappointed cop.” Later she grew to love him as a friend and mentor, and she realized that his early speeches had trained her in the most difficult art of law enforcement, seeing gray all over the place, seeing gray all over the place. This is where life blurs definitions, where you see the likeness between a judge and a syndicate boss. Where you see the gray relationship between supreme justice and supreme injustice, where the hoodlum in the street learns your heart and you his, where bullets define the only genuine difference between humans, some are dead some are alive. Detective Andalonol, was not here to define the gray line, everything was gray.

He had always wanted to be the captain of a fishing vessel, he thought of himself as a man that had never caught his ship, he had the mariner’s blood, he read the nautical charts with pleasure in his eyes, he even knew how to use a sextant and would use it in his backyard charting the earth’s navigation across the universe strapped on to a solar system. He was Bobbie’s father, he adored her, and cared for her after her mother died in a car accident. So many people die in car accidents; in any given day a metal clump on wheels smashes into pedestrians, churns and crushing their bones, organs and flesh, the noises are subtle, the screams of the driver that perhaps realizes that there is a nightmare that will never sleep, the pedestrian’s tumbling eyes helpless under the wheels going into shock realizing helplessness; what scream can rescue you now when only silence can buy you peace, there before your eyes your mangled body parts, an open wound throwing blood into your face, your favorite shirt an invalid tourniquet, your eyes reading rubber threads, the street severely motionless, the lights, the colors, the passers by, all distorted from this angle. Bobbie’s mother died that way, a painless memory a splinter in her daughter’s brain.

Detective Andalonol wanted his daughter to be the captain of a shipping vessel. He would take her on deep sea fishing excursions, she saw her father struggle with swordfish, reel them in, take a picture with them and then back into the shining sea they went. Her father didn’t have the heart to kill any of the fish that he caught, he was always throwing them back, no matter how big no matter how abundant he always ended up throwing them back into the waters where from they came. Bobbie understood the implications that his behavior implied towards his dream of being a fishing vessel captain, but she was so beautiful of mind, one of those rare types, that could keep all of those comments to herself, her Dad was a good cop, he caught criminals and no fish, and he probably was more a cop than a fisherman but he had to think of himself as a fisherman and she did nothing to discourage this behavior. Naturally he wanted his daughter to be a fisherman, even if that meant getting up at four o’clock in the morning, even if it meant that she would have to endure long periods at sea, away from her loving father, a father that had never remarried and needed his daughter more than she needed him.

One day, one day, Lauren went to Detective Andalonol’s house, to fix herself a shot of whiskey and to drown a bad day at the office, a bad day at the office was usually a shootout that had dead cops, dead civilians, dead criminals, dead all over. She went over, to a beautifully constructed wooden house, it was a sort of modern cabin, large, five bedrooms and yet small, or quaint, lusciously clean, and reeking of comfort from all angles, it had a sauna, a Jacuzzi, a nicely cared for backyard, and within, the furnishings were modest but all so well laid out, that they seem part of the wood fixtures, grown organic furnishings. While they waited for Andalonol to get home, Lauren and Bobbie chatted in the studio. The drinks perhaps made them more honest, they had always had lots in common but nothing in particular, they just liked talking and being together. This day Lauren was frazzled and she had welcomed a much needed hugging session with Bobbie. Comforting as that might have been, and redundant and pointless as it was for Bobbie to tell Lauren that she was never going to be a ship’s captain, as it was the hugging and drinks were nurturing more, and so it came that the two stared at each other, for a brief moment when the aperture of their mutually probing eyes let them know something intimate about each other. Something told them that they loved each other, their souls reached out and told one another that they felt loved, and yet neither Bobbie nor Lauren admitted anything, not a word was spoken. Lauren removed Bobbie’s frazzled hair from her forehead, while Bobbie touched Lauren’s shoulder in a comforting manner.

Then Bobbie, moved Lauren to the couch, gently coerced her to sit and then rushed over to a desk drawer, withdrew some contents, a beautiful golden envelope wrapped with silk, she then, smiling, handed it to Lauren and said, “these are for you,” Lauren was a bit uncertain of what she was accepting, Bobbie noticed and complied with a difficult explanation, “I have always been writing letters to my lover, they don’t have your name because I didn’t know your name, but they are for you, I wanted to give them to you sooner but I didn’t know how, and I wasn’t certain till now that you are my spiritual lover.” There was just one little problem, at this time Lauren still thought of herself as merely a dissatisfied heterosexual, she still thought that it was all still a matter of finding Mr. Right, everything would be good after that; and so she replied, “Oh no, I can’t accept this, I can’t accept this, thank you but no.” And with that her long fingers, palm stretched, pushed the golden envelop away.

Normal people understand rejection but Bobbie, a tomboyish short-haired blond with a confident baby face, blue eyes disposition, was sure of herself, “No, don’t say no, these are for you, don’t worry I don’t expect anything, I wrote them knowing that you wouldn’t expect them, I am happy to give them to you, I am happy knowing that they were not written in vain, that you did show up, I wouldn’t have expected it to be you, but I am certain these are for you,” she paused, smiled, and reasserted herself, “…they are from me to you.” Lauren helplessly accepted the letters and placed them in her purse, taking only a brief moment to acknowledge the gorgeous wrapping.

It was then that “Hello girls how are we?” It was Detective Andalonol, the two saw him entering the room and readjusted themselves, Lauren feeling like she had done something wrong begun to look for an excuse to get out, “Oh I really must go now.” Detective Andalonol unaware of the transpiring emotional cauldron, “I won’t hear of it, you will stay and you will have a few more drinks with us until we forget three dead, two seriously wounded by stabbings, and one that got away, we have to first forget all that Lauren.”

After much comradeship Lauren managed to get out, with a brief moment, to search Bobbie with her eyes, she felt something, something which she liked, she noticed it, and said “Bobbie, I am glad you are trusting me with these letters, I will read them, read them soon.” Bobbie, greeted the warmness with a spiritual smile, Dad noticed nothing.

On the way home, Lauren got a flat tire, she didn’t want to be bothered by anyone, so she pulled over on the side of a very busy freeway, and changed her flat tire for a good one. Occasionally cursing the tire, but really seeming to enjoy the arduous moment.

When she got home Lauren did not read the letters she placed them in her wooden chest, and forgot about them. Forgetting was made easier because Detective Andalonol was killed three months later in one of those bad days. Bobbie moved away, without even telling Lauren where she went.

Then one day, Antoinette opened that wooden chest.

Second & Third Suspect

Lauren was at her desk, sipping the morning drug, hot and dark and thick as she liked it, perhaps it made her feel more passionate than someone holding a clerical desk job, though any analysis of her detective work would reveal more paperwork than the more alluring chase scenes, which mostly never happened because Lauren was really a criminologist, studying carcasses, locations and relationships to divine why some unnatural event would curtail the possibility of a natural death.

In her wallet was a picture of her best friend, Antoinette, it was a photo taken quickly at one of those instant photo machines, Antoinette looked like the mug shot of a seductive killer, her hair uncombed, her face pale, her lips seeming disjointed, it was Lauren’s favorite photo of her lover.

The entire precinct knew that Lauren had a female lover, some had suspected that Lauren regardless of her blond daisy-spring-day beauty was not keen on men, specially because she never paid attention to the handsome and very manly detectives and officers that she was constantly in contact with. The fact is that Lauren did date men, that before Antoinette she had not considered herself sensitive to the sensibilities of the feminine, and more a fact it was that Lauren had no interest in marrying another cop, she didn’t like the mental construct of police neurons, she felt that there was nothing to share in that world, she herself did it because it was easy, Lauren had never fought with her self, she did what came natural to her, there was no thinking involved in her job.

Danny pops in, “Hello Detective Lauren!” She puts down her coffee cup so that she can use all of her physical proportions to greet Danny with raw warmth, the one face in this place that always cheers her up. “Hey buddy, give me a hug, how are you?” The words were filled with mutual emotive actions, the hug was long and soothing to both, and then they automatically took their seats and again robot like commenced to talk business as if the previous instant had existed in another dimension.

“Got you the final results on the Archbishop’s autopsy, guess you were right.” “Right about what Danny?” “He just died of natural causes, he just died in his sleep, that’s why the results from the autopsy took so long to finalize; see when someone gets poisoned or hit over the head with a hammer, that usually makes it easy for me to reach a conclusion, but when they die of natural causes I have to run more test, and more test, just to make sure that it isn’t one of the 101 ways you can kill someone without detection. We finally finished all the testing on the sleepy Archbishop and you were right, he died of nothing other that natural causes. It looks like he might have felt a little tired, probably wanted to sleep, felt comfortable in the house of the lord, and plopped himself to snore on top of the altar. At some point, an act of god perhaps, his body functions ceased, very much their own decision.”

“He was taking Paxil, we spoke to his psychiatrist,” Lauren perplexed pauses Danny, “He was seeing a psychiatrist?” “Yes, am afraid that the good father was suffering from a severe depression, unfortunately we are not privy to those medical records unless you subpoena them as part of a murder investigation, but anyone can suffer from depression, and Paxil is a commonly used mood normalizer, I wouldn’t think that there would be a reason to suspect anything out of the ordinary.” Of course Danny wasn’t a criminologist, he was a coroner, there was a slight difference there, sufficient enough to cause Lauren to ask, “What’s the name of the Archbishops Psychiatrist? “Doctor Rosen, Bill Rosen.” “Did you meet with him?” Danny replies moving his head off kilter as if trying to divine what Lauren was seeing here that he wasn’t, “No, we spoke on the phone, twice, once to confirm the medication and the other to ask about the Archbishop’s condition in general, he reported nothing extraordinary, and acted as if he were willing to cooperate with us if such need arose. However he did make it clear that his patients’ mental health records were sealed.” “Danny why would he offer to cooperate with us if further assistance was needed?” Danny pauses for a thought and responds, “Maybe he would just want us to know that he is not a suspect in his own eyes.” “That’s why I love you Danny boy, precisely that, he wants to assure us that he is not a suspect in his own eyes. I think we got our second suspect in the murder of Timothy Wellington.” “But Lauren I just told you he died in his sleep…” Danny pauses, he realizes now that something is or could be out of whack, then he continues, “…second suspect Lauren?” “Why yes, second suspect, my first suspect is Father Trosin.” Danny takes a look around the office, almost as if he is searching for an anchor of sorts, then ever helpful and understanding of Lauren, “Is there something that you need me to change in this report before I hand it to the Captain.” Lauren sits up straight and shifts some papers on her desk, letting Danny know she was moving on to other business, “Nope Danny, you say he wasn’t murdered, he died in his sleep, then he died in his sleep; just write it like that, works for me, I will worry about the murder wrap, after all there are 102 ways to kill a man without killing him.” Her smile blinking the trust me eye at the coroner. He placed his hand on his chin, paused there for a few seconds, then moved on, “You’re something else.”

As Lauren watched Danny walk away, his sexy ass covered by denim pants, she recalled last night, her coffee sipping begun again, Antoinette laying on the bed, with Lauren straddling her, was sucking her breastless nipple, Lauren holding her lovers hair, the night holding both; the coffee had all that memory in her lips.

Unfortunately her phone rings and cancels that, it is the voice of an elderly man his name is Otto, he wants to meet with her, at a grease pit called Sam’s Truck Stop. It is a truck driver’s heaven. His coarse voice has a quick and volatile charm, she assumes nothing from it and asks, “How will I recognize you?” He replies while thinking the question ridiculous. “Lady, you will be the only well dressed lesbian cop in the joint” Lauren hastily hung up the phone. Went to the bathroom, and self consciously attempted to search her self, to see if she could also see a well dressed cop and a lesbian, she couldn’t see either at all.

She sat down at Sam’s, the place a giant squared box of architecture, a fine example that you don’t have to design beauty into buildings nor do you have to care about the surroundings, the square box was only in touch with the restaurant and with truck drivers, it function well, as far as the outside world was concerned, that world did not exist. The truckers were surely from all over, this was one of their important pit stops, showers, restrooms, food, gas, they could buy stuffed animals, they could have a drink, they could gamble poker hands, and they could chat to their comrades from the big and long highway. Lauren didn’t look like she belong there, the sign on her table read, “breakfast all day long.” Another “coffee is always free.” She ordered a coffee. Her waitress was in between a reddish, brownish, yellowish hair die situation, she was surely forty something and divorced; “Hello Doll what will you be having?” nicely unpretentious, “I will have just coffee please.” “Well if you have just coffee then you have to pay for the coffee, its only free honey if you eat something with it.” Lauren moving her hands over her thighs so as to rub off any clingy energy. “yes, that’s fine, coffee please.” The fine maiden could have waited to get closer to the counter before yelling “Jose, coffee table 9” but then, she was just as efficient as the building.

A man in blue jeans, worn red shoes, a long charcoal colored coat, wearing a brown cloth hat and hardly shaven, “hello lady may I join you?” Lauren recognized the voice, “Please.” Jose a very alert bus boy arrives with two coffee cups; though he does ask if the second cup will be needed, to which the man replies, “Get me a bourbon will you.” The boy calls for help, “Madge quieren bourbon on 9.” Madge replies loudly without ever changing her current tone or activity, bending down to get some muffins from a warming drawer, “Jose, how long have you been with us now, you tell those people we don’t serve bourbon and we don’t serve any liquor before 8 PM, mothers against drunk drivers pain in the ass.” Jose turns to look at the customers in table 9, the man blinks both eyes, warm smile, “I’ll just have coffee.”

Lauren offers a greeting hand, “I am Lauren.” The man does not acknowledge the hand, instead he reaches in his blue jean pocket and pulls out a cigarette, offers one to Lauren, she declines, “suit yourself lady.” A red disposable lighter ignites the nicotine charm, while Lauren takes notice that his hands are trembling, that normal trembling of someone that has drank too much, seen too much, been too much. “Your name?” “My name, oh yeah you would be wanting one of those, don’t matter what you call me now lady, you can call me Otto, Otto is my name, just like that guy that invented car engines.” Lauren became compulsively more detective, “What do we want to talk about Otto?” “I think I can tell you about a man that you need to know more about. But first I want you to swear to me that I can walk out of here regardless of what I tell you, else I say nothing.” “You have my word.” “Good enough for me.”

“I used to be a priest with the diocese, you wouldn’t know it from looking at me today, that’s heavy work the lord’s, takes a man down fast if he is not ready to give his soul and blood. I could drink all the bourbon in the world back then, now I just ask for it, no where to get it.” He pauses as if to acknowledge that he misses the missionary work load, his cigarette lighting the way, he resumes, “then Mother Superior Adelaide happen to me, and the archbishop now and I know it is strange to tell it to you lady, but I think you sense something is very wrong with the whole thing.”

Lauren replied slowly as she was still stuck with the mother superior part, how did Adelaide fit into all this. But she reassured Otto that she was being patient and was listening and that he could continue so indirectly through his story.

“There was a nun, sister Estela, she was the holiest of nuns, she was always in holy prayer, always helping the poor, always shining a path to the lord, she never had time for nothing else but the lord, then one day, I walked in on Mother Superior Adelaide and she had handcuffed Estela and Estela was on her knees. Fortunately she did not see me, neither did the other nuns that were apparently chanting, but they weren’t chanting for the lord,” he pauses, runs his trembling fingers through his forehead, “chanting for the devil spirits, chanting for the devil spirits, Detective, this is going to sound weird to you but where else are you likely to find daemons, more likely than the church no place ever, now I know that, I didn’t then, nor should I have known it.” Lauren was all ears. “When I was a child I used to see spirits, mostly bad spirits, mother used to punish me for seeing them. I came to be a priest to get away from the bad spirits, I became a man of the lord and faith to escape the spirits, till I saw Sister Estela cuffed and being drawn up into some kind of master devil ceremony, that day I realized that I had not escaped the daemons, that day I realized that there would be no escape for me, with the daemon lady present within the house of the lord, there was no place to escape. I watched as they chanted, as they poured oily liquids into her robes, as they chanted occult madness, they would bring flame close to Estela’s body, yet not lighting her robes. She was sweating but not scared, she didn’t seem scared or heavily troubled, I, I was scared, but I felt there was nothing to be done. The whole thing must a lasted over an hour, then they removed her cuffs, and allowed her to leave. Estela got up and moved out of the room as if she had been in cohorts with them, she moved to her room, I followed her there, her bedroom door closed, I came upon it and heard cries, cries, long cries, I whimpered but knocked at the door; her eyes opened it, she looked me in the eyes, “yes Father Otto?” “I saw what they did to you, what is going on here.” “Father please, please,” “She suddenly got brave and direct Detective, as if she were there to protect the evil happenings. Exclaiming with her hands, ” “...Not a word to anyone father, these things are strange, the lord does not explain himself to us, we are not here to judge why I am in this predicament, nor why your here too, where you have witnessed the evil spirits too, so have all.”

“But why do you let them do that, why don’t you go to the archbishop and tell him what is going on right underneath his nose!” “Listen to me father Otto, the archbishop is not naive, the world is the way it is, who are we to explain it or change it, the lord always prevails in the end but to fight evil one must only be good, one can not fight evil, to fight it is to be evil, I shall, and you shall remain silent about these happenings, we can not escape the lord’s will, nor can we overcome evil spirits that have capacitated themselves within our church.” “It is the will of the lord, that’s it, it is the will of the lord, I don’t think so Estela, we must rush to heal the world from this infamy, you must help me to expose this.” “Calm yourself father Otto, you are not so wise or so able, they are aware of you, they know your limitations, your only able to feel evil spirits, you have no divine power over them, the evil is among us and we must face it with patience and calm, rest your energies, pray to the lord as I do father, here sit, (she patting the bed with her angelic palm,) next to me, and lets give the lord prayer, where in us he will find the faith that we have and must posses.”

“I sat with her Lauren, sat with her till we both fell sleep on her bed, holding each other so that heaven might take pity on us and save us from this infamy.” “More coffee?” Madge arrived at the table all smiles, it took both Lauren and Otto some time to recognize her presence, they both refused the coffee offering, even as both of their throats were dry. Lauren finally accepted a cigarette from Otto, who kindly lit it for her, they felt each other under the same lung mess.

“We were rudely awakened by the nuns which promptly took us to Mother Superior Adelaide who was waiting for us in one of the classrooms; next to her was Father Trocin,” Lauren had to pause, her mouth agape, “Father Trosin the same one that works with Timothy Wellington the now dead archbishop?” “Yes Lauren the very same Trocin, a spiteful little man, a conceit of intellect, a man that through pure intelligence dominates within the diocese; he knows all the rules and esoteric trivia of church court protocol, he cancels people out by offering to take their actions and comments to the Holy See, and he can because he is empowered by knowledge of the church hierarchy and certainly not by faith.”

“But let me continue before I coward, let me continue. Father Trocin, (Laura noted that there was still respect of some sort in Otto’s expression of Father Trocin.) told me that trying to rescue Estela from the clutches of a destiny which her Lord had divined for her was a sin, a sin Father Otto, a sin Father Otto!” he said this to me. “We shall not endeavor to control that which is beyond our grasp and reach, we shall endeavor to change what the Lord has deigned in us to change and not any more than such can we expect or impose upon our persons. As you are tempted Father Otto, so you shall tempt others, where your night of prayer can only be seeing by the Lord as a betrayal within our church, thou shall not lie in prayer, thou shall knell and stand and sit in prayer, but this night has witnessed the trespassings of a nun by her priest.” “I don’t know why I attempted to defend myself, I made argument, it was useless the only fool was I. Estela demanded of me to honor our Christ and quiet myself with devotion.”

“I was unable to do so from disgust and anger, till I saw her go up to Father Trocin and offer her wrists for the handcuffs. He had the nuns place them upon her, and then the ointment was poured on her, while nuns danced with candles fully lit all around her, motioning to torch her but just gesturing was enough; Father Trocin looked pleased with himself, and he spoke pointing at me, “Your silence is requested by Estela.” With only this words Estela pronounced upon me, “Father Otto, I beg you to remain silent, our Lord will vanquish all evil from the earth, what ever sacrifices he deigns from us now will advance his presence among us, our will is the lord’s, our will is the Lord’s.”

“At this point she was on the ground, her robes saturated with oils, incense was diluting visibility, I didn’t know what was going on, part of me said listen to Estela, it is lack of faith to be rational, but the other part of me was saying, I need to call the police, even as this meant that I had no faith in our Lord.”

“It was while I was thinking that, listening to my palpitating heart and to the chanting round about reducing Estela’s divine energy, that a sudden shrieking blatant and horrid noise escaped from outside the school barriers, it was enough to freeze us all, we rushed outside, and watched the garden in darkness pouring rancorous soul walling voices usurping from the fences and the trees, and rushing us from all sides accompanied by a wind, a furious wind; and suddenly we did see the crumbling earth succumb to heat, smoldering dirt lost its darkness, lava was scurrilously syndicated everywhere, no one had time to pray, we were all, even the evil ones amongst us, unaware of what was occurring; yet we were not running away, when from the darkness rushed these hideous gray huge flock of bird like figures, formless, and flying without wings gelling through the atmosphere, and another, and another as if it were the night of the gel-birds, only these things did not have any reasonable shape, swooping down upon us all we could see were large dark bulbous eyes, popping out so as to see the night, and then, they grabbed, snapped and disappeared Sister Elena. And then another Sister and another, and a severe choir screeching accompanied each disappearance; one by one and blood rained on us all, that hideous night, while the flightless swooping gel-birds of prey continued their sanguinary excursion into our still night.”

Otto severely stressed from the recounting, Lauren in capsized yet serene disbelief.

“The creatures did the night take; even father Trocin had in him the fears, and we must all have gone into shock, as the night kept on stealing one after another. The morning came, the Garden had been ravished, not a single flower had been left unraped, it looked as if a hurricane had destroyed our beautiful Eden, and only the four of us remained, Mother Superior, Father Trocin, Sister Estela and I, all soaked with our sisters blood.”

“Father Trocin was the first to abandon us, then Mother Superior Adelaide, neither saying a word. Sister Estela got up, came up to me, and putting a caressing back hand to my cheek, “We should all abandon this place.” I watched her procession away from the place, away, she didn’t stop to pick up clothes, to clean herself the bloodstains, to say good buy, to kneel and bless her leaving, she just walked away just as she was. I never saw her again.”

“I don’t know why, but I followed her instructions, by doing the same, I never went back. When I read in the paper about the Archbishop’s death, I felt it was time to say something to someone rational, and that’s why I called you.”

“I must go now.”

“Wait I have something’s to ask.”

“Remember your promise.”

Lauren sat there with her arms crossed, watching Otto walk away, managed by a strong sense of commitment and responsibility, she let the estranged man distance himself. She nurtured a few thoughts, but really to few, she was emotionally distraught, she was trying to cope with something, she did not know what to do. Finally she too walked away from the truck stop, got in her car and made it back in the office. Instinctively she looked for Danny, where she was sure to find comforting realities.

When Lauren told her tale to Danny he was familiar with the name Otto.

“There was a Chinese Fortune cookie note in the archbishops mouth it read, “Have you seen Otto? Have you seen Otto?” Lauren replies hands slamming into her sides, “but you told me that he died of natural causes!” Danny not motioning any regret, “I told you he died of natural causes, he did, the fortune note did not kill him, it was just stuck in his mouth, as if he had started to chew on it.” “But why didn’t you tell me about the note?” “It was there in the autopsy report Lauren, common lets not make a big deal about this, you didn’t read the report, you should have read it, specially sense you think there is a murder wrap here somewhere to paste on someone!” With that, Lauren puffs some air from her lungs, and the whole incident is forgotten; only now Lauren is really troubled, she drives somewhere, “Have you seen Otto?” She is sitting at her desk, “Have you seen Otto?” “Who is Otto?” “Where is Otto?” “Fuck I had Otto and I let him walk away!” She would practice telling Captain Ogle this charming fact, “Capt, I had Otto and I let him go because I can’t break a promise!”

The next morning bright and early Lauren, attempting to correct the error of her ways, proposes a hearty breakfast at Sam’s Truck Stop. Antoinette grudgingly accepts the offer. Madge is there, Madge is probably always there. Lauren, who had never been there for breakfast nor for that matter ever before her meeting with Otto, orders for both, “two breakfast skillets, over easy on the eggs, and English Muffins instead of toast.” Antoinette approvingly disavows herself from making decisions in Sam’s truck stop. Lauren holds Madge’s arm to prevent her from leaving, “Do you know Otto the man that I was with yesterday?” Madge replies with recognition, “You’re the lady cop that was here the other night with Otto. Otto, no I don’t know him and I don’t like that guy he seems weird, but he is friends of Achfad’s” “Achfad?” “He’s my boss, the restaurant manager big bad tempered guy, I better git.” And with that Madge leaves. Lauren seemingly offended leans towards Antoinette, “Do I look like a cop?” Antoinette kisses her, “No darling you don’t look nothing like a cop.” Kiss.

A tall skinny man, with a thick moustache, dark complexion, a Syrian with bulging veins all over his bony body, comes up to the table. He is habitually trembling, smoking straight into his audience. He sits next to Lauren without urging permission, she slides to the side. “Your asking for Otto he isn’t here.” Lauren introduces herself so as to establish much needed authority. “I am detective Lauren this is my friend Antoinette.” Achfad looks at Antoinette with predisposed desires and doubts about Lauren’s concept of friendship, “Your friend, yes, your friend, nice to meet you I am Achfad, from Syria.” He gets lost in himself and continues with what could be a glaring and obtuse misuse of pickup lines, “I was a member of the Syrian Air Force, I flew jets, we had the most powerful secret jet in the whole world, it would riddle the sky with bullets.” The two women were not very much moved by the holed up sky images, he relentlessly puffed his cigarette, “Otto, what do you want with him.” “I just want to ask him something, we met here the other night, do you know where I may find him?” “Otto comes an’ goes, we have coffee together at least once a month, he is very lonely, I got tired of watching him all alone with his coffee, his brain talks to him too much, I think I have helped him a lot, we have long discussions, we are both expatriates, I can’t fly jets any more and he can’t be with his lord. Messed up worlds.” “Do you have his phone number?” “No he just comes when he wants to. But if you want next time I see him I will tell him your looking for him.” Lauren hands Achfad her contact information and thanks him. The egg skillets arrive with Madge, they are placed on the table, hogged washed with grease, bacon, lard mushy potatoes, both Lauren and Antoinette look at each other with greased awareness, Lauren apologized to Madge, “sorry Madge, just got an emergency call, we have to dash.”