Mr Wicker Read online

  “You foolish woman,” he said. “I don’t make the rules.”

  Silence.

  “Would it matter if I told you what you meant to me?” he asked, his eyes blazing.

  Of course it mattered. She could not say it, but her face surely betrayed her true feelings.

  “I’ve already died once, Drunos,” she said, passion flattening to fact. “What worse could happen to me?”

  The passage shined behind him, those eyes emptying two thousand years of pain at her feet.

  Every part of her ached horribly for him—he had suffered so much—but she could not change her mind. For the first time in her life she felt whole and uncorrupt; not just because she had the book but because she was listening to her intuition, to her own needs and no one else’s. Wordlessly, she walked past him, clutching the book. At the edge of the light, she turned and looked back. He wasn’t going to stop her.

  Holding a victory in her arms—and love for him in her soul—she stepped into the light.

  Chapter 40

  The Lexus skidded and fishtailed as it sped down the treacherous hills away from the house.

  “How could you have left her alone?” he berated himself. “What the hell were you thinking? But...” The inescapable fact that she chose Mr. Wicker over him drove an ice pick into his chest. He wanted to die. How was this happening? Mr. Wicker was...he couldn’t say. A specter? A creature? How could she possibly go to that creature in her need and not him? Was she really that sick? She must be. But just because she loves—loves?—something so horrific doesn’t mean she’s horrific herself. Or does it? That...that quote from the movie Adaptation... If true, it means that he’s falling in love with—or, at least in serious lust with—a crazy woman, which makes him a crazy man. No. That can’t be it! Because then what does that make her because she loves a creature? A female creature? And then, by extension, does that not mean he becomes a creature for her being a creature because she loves a creature?

  The windshield wipers blasted away at top speed, swishing away each miserable thought so forty more could rush to take its place. The parade of self-castigating remarks marched back and forth between his ears and sometimes they became words he shouted at the windows. He lost himself in a tsunami of guilt as the Lexus squealed onto the 580 onramp.

  Or, what he thought was the 580 onramp.

  My potential girlfriend disappeared into another dimension. How fucking lame is that?

  Rain clung to the windows, slinging this way and that as the car slowed. Dim lights dripped from the crumbling rooftop of a liquor store. A derelict car sat up on cinder blocks, wheels locked. Homeless wrapped in dirty, ripped sleeping bags huddled in doorways. A marauding band of hoods and baggy pants spilled over the sidewalk, shouting at the car. And everywhere the P-funk was beating.

  “Dem wheels is phat, yo!” “Wazzup, G!” “You’d best be gettin’ yo whitebread ass out the Oaktown, crackah!”

  A loud whistle cut through the window glass, startling him like a fire alarm as he peeled past the hoods. A thunk as a rock hit the side of his car. And then another. He flinched. Even though every bit of prejudice had been schooled out of him by life and literature, everything he knew was eclipsed by the reality that he had entered an economic and cultural war zone. He, the privileged white man in a Lexus.

  Dr. Farron scooted down in his seat. Everyone looked his way as he passed. He wished for not the first time that he’d gotten his navigation system fixed. He drove around, thankful that at least the rain had abated for the moment, but nothing looked familiar as the Lexus rolled deeper into the outerlands of his own home. Barred windows. Graffiti. Laundry rope stretching from roof to banister, whipping back and forth in the rapidly mounting winds. San Francisco was one of the most racially integrated cities in the world, ten square miles of melting pot, simmering in the heat of geographical claustrophobia. Yet the Sacramento boy in him reared behind his eyes and rattled with fear, worried he’d be carjacked. Or worse.

  The streets continued grim and grimy as the fuel gauge slipped dangerously close to E. A house party bounced and flashed to the rhymes of old skool masters. He vaguely remembered that Rachelle lived somewhere in Oakland, and then realized that he had never been to her house. He flipped open his cell phone to call her and found there was no reception. “Oh, for crying out loud!”

  As he turned toward what looked like a freeway overpass but wasn’t, a green neon sign flickered over the roof of a building that squatted across the street from a closed corner grocer and taco stand. The Castle Rock Bar. The door was propped open, revealing a moderately well lit dive with a number of patrons inside. Adjacent to the bar sat a wide parking lot with one tall light that hung over the faded white lines. He parked under it amidst a dozen battered sedans and dirty compacts.

  Under the low rumble of the bar patrons, 2Pac encouraged his listeners to be strong from a jukebox tucked in the corner of the room. Although the room was smokeless, a dim haze clung to the tables. Dr. Farron stepped in and paused to survey the scene. Several people elbowed their neighbors, jutting their chins at him—most likely not just because he was a stranger but because of the Superman tie. He flipped it over his shoulder to stifle its scream.

  Behind the bar stood the bartender in a tissue-thin tank top that stretched over a grand landscape of sculpted muscles. To his left sat a scruffy guy who was watching a fight on the television hanging above. A skinny redhead with a cauliflower nose, he slouched in his dingy gas station uniform, leaning on one elbow as he gritted his teeth every time one of the fighters took a punch.

  Dr. Farron approached the bar and stood next to Mr. Gas. “Excuse me,” he said to the bartender, “but can you tell me the way back to the freeway?”

  The bartender scowled as he picked up an icy beer bottle, twisted the cap, and slammed it down on the bar in front of Dr. Farron.

  That wasn’t the answer he’d hoped for. It wasn’t even the answer he’d expected, given his reception in the streets. He took the bottle reluctantly. It had been years since he had had a drink. Not since that night at the Red Lion. It seemed he was now knee-deep in haunts without the assistance of alcohol. So, he might as well indulge.

  Mr. Gas struck the bar top with his fist as he hollered for the guy in the red boxers—or was it the guy in the gold boxers who just got six-packed by the ring floor?—on the tube. Dr. Farron wondered if perhaps when the round ended this fellow could give him directions. He sat on the bar stool, hunched over his beer, and feigned interest.

  “You see that, brah?” Mr. Gas said, pointing at the screen. He barely looked at Dr. Farron, but kept watching as the fighters resumed their slug-and-hug fest. “Daaaaamn. He got right back up, too!”

  Dr. Farron nodded and wondered if he should put the beer bottle to his lips. His back prickled as the eyes of other patrons continued to prod at him. As Mr. Gas continued to invest his interest in the fight, Dr. Farron bided his time by mulling over his predicament but felt more self-conscious the longer he sat there not drinking. At last, the bell rang for the second round and Mr. Gas turned to him.

  “So, brah, you a fan?”

  “Yeah,” Dr. Farron responded. “Although I’m more of a basketball man myself.”

  “Lakers, brah, forever,” he raised his beer bottle, which Dr. Farron took as his cue to clink green glass. As Mr. Gas swilled his brew, Dr. Farron put the bottleneck to his lips and took a sip. The bittersweet yeast of the Beck’s lathered his tongue. He swallowed, setting down the bottle with an emphatic not-doing-this-again thud, despite how good it tasted.

  “Hey, I’m actually just passing through,” Dr. Farron said. “Can you tell me how to get back to 580?”

  Mr. Gas bristled. “Whatch y’all in such a hurry for? Ya got a woman on yer ass to get home or somethin’?”

  Dr. Farron sighed. No, he didn’t. And why was he so afraid? No one was threatening him. Sure, he was a fish out of water. So what? He focused on the beer sweating in his hand. And how good would it feel to slip
on a mild buzz? The guilt jangled inside him like a lung full of razors. He almost didn’t survive the last time he felt this way. “Nope. Just tired is all.”

  “Brah, ya gotta watch the fight,” Mr. Gas said. “It’s all messed up, this guy knockin’ down Clark and him gettin’ up and shit.”

  “Oh yeah?” Dr. Farron said.

  The bell rang again and the next round started. As Dr. Farron watched, he put down the entire beer in two more rounds. His long sobriety opened him readily to the sway of the alcohol. As he set the empty bottle on the bar, the bartender slammed down another at his elbow. And so he continued until he had downed almost three beers. He recollected that he had not been asked for money or given a credit card to keep a tab. Maybe this place was so casual, they just assumed you had a tab and made you pay up before you left. That bartender could make anyone pay up with no more than a hard stare.

  When the bartender planted the fourth on the bar and cleared away the empties, Dr. Farron was gesticulating in harmony with Mr. Gas at the tube. His tie slipped back into place, but Dr. Farron no longer cared. He also failed to notice two young wannabe gangstas draw up next to him at the bar, exchanging rough words in a street slang Dr. Farron failed to understand. The featherweight fight then ended and the ring personnel prepared for the middleweight contenders. Mr. Gas took this opportunity to turn to Dr. Farron.

  “So, no bitch, brah? A slick guy like you?” His eyes flickered up behind Dr. Farron’s head, as if gauging something going on behind him.

  Dr. Farron shook his soggy head.

  “Them bitches ain’t worth it, brah. I got me a wife once back when I was in Maui. She was a nutty one, too. All over my ass for everything, and you know what? Bitch left. But I ain’t mad. No sir. It’s better that way. More TV dinners and shit, but hey. Can’t have everything. Where would ya put it?” He pulled on his beer and his whole body seemed to nod.

  “I lost her.”

  “Whaddaya mean, ya lost her? Ya mean, to another brah?”

  “Sort of. If you can call him that.” Under his breath: “Charbroiled bastard.”

  Mr. Gas waved his hand in protest. “C’mon, man! You’re a player, I can tell. Smart, good lookin’, and hey—” he said, gesturing to the goofy tie, “ya got the threads. This other guy can’t have much on you, Super Dude. What’s he like? Do you know?”

  Dr. Farron swilled his beer, wiped his mouth on his arm. The beer had foamed up his brain pretty well by now. “Well, he’s tall...and...” he rolled his eyes, “...he’s a good dancer...and...and...I don’t get it because,” Dr. Farron lowered his voice, not wanting the whole bar to know he was crazy. “He’s—he’s covered in black!”

  Mr. Gas eyed him. “You mean he’s black?”

  “I mean—”

  One of the brothers who had been listening to the exchange kicked his stool out from under himself and stood so close to Dr. Farron that he nearly pressed his chest into his face. A compact wad of angst, he placed his hands on his hips and stared down at Dr. Farron. He chewed a piece of gum like it fueled his perpetual anger machine. Behind him loomed a brother who could have been mistaken for a slab of Stonehenge if it weren’t for the Ray-Bans. He crossed his arms and watched Dr. Farron from over the shorter man’s head and shoulders.

  “Yo, wonderbread,” the shorter man said. “You dissin’ a brutha?”

  “Excuse me?” Dr. Farron said, unsure if he heard correctly.

  “Ah said, Ah heard you jankin’ a brutha—crackah,” he said, pushing a finger into Dr. Farron’s face. “Less you ’pologize fo yo janky mouth, I be sendin’ this muthafuckah mandingo to mess wit yo comic book shit.”

  Dr. Farron squinted at the men through beer goggles. The only bit he caught in the swell of words was “comic book” and he wasn’t certain he’d even caught that. Just as he realized that he had been staring a moment too long, he said at last, “Could you please repeat that?”

  The man grabbed Dr. Farron by the tie and yanked him off the barstool to his feet. He appraised Dr. Farron’s clothes, shoes, and tie. Dr. Farron frantically looked to the bartender, who daintily dried a shot glass with a massive towel.

  Mr. Gas, however, showed some interest. “Hey, hey, hey! Tryin’ to watch the fights here, brah! Show some respect for the locals.”

  The man licked his lips and stared hard at Dr. Farron. “Mah name is J Money and this’s Amp. You know why he called Amp? Cuz he talk so loud.”

  Amp nodded mutely, his neck so thick that he could barely move his head. He palmed a large fist armored with gold rings.

  Devil alcohol bowed to devil fear, clearing Dr. Farron’s head enough to realize he was in real danger. “Look,” Dr. Farron said, “I don’t know what this is abooout.” The last part of that word spiked in his throat as J Money choked up on the tie.

  “Hey hey, knock that shit off, will ya?” Mr. Gas pointed to the TV. “It’s the ninth round, fer Christ’s sake. Let’s finish one fight before we start another, huh?”

  “Check dis muthafuckah with his bitch body, yo,” J Money sneered, addressing Amp. His eyes seemed to snap Dr. Farron’s bones everywhere his gaze landed. “Sucka betta come correct, or I’m gonna smacka cracka. You feel me?”

  The patrons started making room for whatever was going down by the bar. Dr. Farron then grasped that, when complaining about Mr. Wicker being in “black,” he had been seriously misunderstood.

  “Oh, I get it. I’m sorry. There’s been a misunderstanding,” Dr. Farron managed to stage whisper. His neck was burning where the tie was cutting into his jugular as he shuffled on his tiptoes to stay erect. Unfortunately, the beer spoke. “I went to Cal Berkeley. I can’t possibly be prejudiced.”

  With that, J Money planted a solid punch across the bridge of his nose. Blood flooded warmly over his upper lip and a flash of pain seared his skull. He fell toward one of the tables, which skidded under his weight. As he splayed on the table, Dr. Farron felt the wooden surface dig into his gut. At first, he didn’t care. They could come beat the hell out of him. But... Pushing himself up off the wooden tabletop, he leered at them as he bellowed: “BEWARE MY LASERS OF DEATH!”

  J Money cocked his head slightly in confusion. “Say what?”

  And then Dr. Farron rushed him. He drove his shoulder into the hood’s stomach like a linebacker. J Money tumbled back against the barstool. He crumbled as it dug into his kidney.

  Amp pulled a large silver milli Glock from his pants and leveled it at Dr. Farron’s head. He spoke in a voice that would have rattled a subwoofer: “Hol’ still or I’ll put you underground.”

  Dr. Farron felt as though someone had dumped ice water on his head. A woman screamed in the background. Everyone cleared the bar in two seconds flat, along with Dr. Farron’s will to live. “Just go ahead and blow my brains out. I don’t care,” he said. The blood ran from his nose into his mouth and down his chin.

  J Money considered this for a moment. Then, something large whizzed toward his head. In a single blurred movement, Amp twisted and shot blindly toward the chair sailing in his direction from the surprisingly strong arm of Mr. Gas. The noise cracked like thunder in Dr. Farron’s ears.

  The raspy cock of a shotgun slid over the bar and the barrel landed in Amp’s direction. “Gimme the gun! Cain’t have you killin’ my customers,” he said. Amp sighed and laid the Glock on the bar top. He held up his hands and stepped back. The bartender picked up the gun with a dishtowel and put it under the bar. He then ordered the two thugs onto the floor facedown where he kept them at bay.

  Dr. Farron took a few deep breaths to get his body back, but noticed Mr. Gas lying bleeding on the bar floor. He immediately checked his breathing, which was shallow. The shot seemed to have torn deeply into his abdomen, just below the left breast. “Call an ambulance!” he yelled, grabbing a bar towel to staunch the bleeding. “Hang in there, man,” he kept saying. He threw his sports coat over Mr. Gas.

  “What’re ya, a doctor, brah?” He gasped as he clutched Dr. Farron’s arm.

/>   “Yup.”

  Mr. Gas held his arm even tighter, fighting as the blood loss threatened to drag him into the abyss of unconsciousness at any moment.

  “Stay with me! What’s your name?” Dr. Farron asked, trying to keep the man conscious.

  “Dan Foster.”

  “So, tell me, Dan, where are you from? Maui?”

  But with each moment that passed, Dr. Farron lost faith that the ambulance would arrive in time. He remembered how reluctant the medical crews were to enter these neighborhoods.

  As he waited, he got encouragement and help from everyone around him.

  “Hold on, man! We gotta get you fixed up so you don’t miss the next fight.”

  Mr. Gas smiled crookedly. “Brah, you just gotta go get ’er okay? I’ll be alright.”

  “Get who?”

  “Get yer woman. Bring ’er back, brah. That’s what I shudda done.”

  The ambulance siren sliced through the air, but it was too late. Dr. Farron had seen people die, but this was the second time someone had died in his arms. The agony of losing a patient and the despair of losing Alicia drew and quartered his heart.

  But he didn’t show it.

  The next thing Dr. Farron knew, he was standing outside the bar with a dishtowel on his gushing nose as he spoke to a police officer. The flashing lights of the cop cars were the only illumination for what seemed like miles around. When the interview finished, he wandered out into the empty parking lot.

  Empty being the operative word—

  “Where the hell’s my car?” he shouted. He turned, and turned, and swiveled back to stare at the ground where he had parked it under the dead light. A black metal box with a squid of wires on the asphalt caught the glare of spinning police lights. He squatted beside the curiosity and poked at it:

  It was his LoJack.

  Dr. Farron sat down on the curb and drooped with misery, the adrenaline still shaking him like a martini. Every bit of him hurt and he just wanted to go home.