Between Heaven and Earth: Chapter 3 Date Saturday, April 20, 2024 - 07:05 AM PST Topic Entertainment The key slides easily into the lock, and then I feel it. Someone is watching me. My hackles rise with that eerie prickling sensation. A quick glance over my shoulder reveals no one, but that is not enough. I can feel the presence of a watcher. A soft click, and the lock is open. Shutting the door behind me, I head across the gloomy interior of the inn. Years ago, I swore to myself that I would pay the money to have the light switches moved closer to the door, but I could never justify the cost. It’s also bad business sense to put them where drunks can get at them. I still feel someone watching me. Ancient man kept a fire going in his cave day and night, constantly. Anthropologists state that this is simply due to the difficulty of starting a fire and the need for heat and food over ruling all other concerns. I know differently. Someone is watching me and I feel a sense of panic. A fear of the dark. A fear of the unknown. The primal fear washes over me as I stand there in the gloom. I bolt for the back room, to flip the magic studs that will bring an end to the oppressive darkness. Ten paces across the floor, my heart trying to beat its way out of my ribcage. The knock at the front door sends my fear to a new level of fear until I pull the reigns in tight. Closing my eyes, I force myself to take three deep breaths and walk back across the room to the front door. The man standing at the door seems familiar to me, but I cannot place why. He’s wearing a nice over coat, probably London Fog. Everything about him reeks of money – from the shiny leather of his shoes to the silk shirt and tie. His eyes are hidden behind incredibly dark glasses. “Can I help you?” It seems like an honestly harmless question. “I hope you can.” His voice holds pain like I’ve never heard before. “I’ll do anything I can to help.” There’s that phrase again, I must be slipping in my old age – going soft. “She’s dead.” He holds a photograph up. I’ve seen this photo once today. I see, now, why he looks familiar to me – the familial resemblance is impressive. “I know.” “I… I need…” He pauses, not a calculated thing, but something that comes naturally in a situation like this. “I need to find out why… how… and… by who.” “Then why are you talking to me? The police are working on this.” “I… I just get the feeling that you might know something they don’t. I don’t know why I feel that, but I feel it in my bones.” My hackles rise again, but for a different reason - this guy might just have a bit of the shine, the gift. “Why would you say that, sir?” “I just feel it. We were never really close, but since the shooting, I’ve suddenly known things about her, about her life and I’m not sure how I know any of it.” “And what does this have to do with me?” “She used to come here. I thought that maybe, just maybe, by coming to a place she used to visit, I might find something.” “I see.” This guy is really torn up inside. I’ve never understood the bond between a girl and her father, but it is clear to anyone who cares to look that this man loved his little girl. “Come on in. We’ll have a drink, and we’ll talk. I’ve got a couple more minutes before I have to clean up. I cross those ten steps, and more to the back room. Somehow, the fear from a moment ago seems distant with someone else there. I feel silly for fearing the dark. Of course, there’s nothing in the dark that isn’t there in the light. The third switch from the right is the only one I flip. The lights over by the door come to life, illuminating the entry way and the two booths on either side of the door. I motion for him to take a seat as I grab two shot glasses and a couple of bottles. The heft of the bottles feels good in my hands, almost as if I was designed to be a bartender. Pouring us both a shot of Wild Turkey, I sit down. He takes off the glasses before he speaks. His eyes are tired, swollen and bloodshot from the expression of grief. “Thank you for your kindness, sir.” “Don’t ‘Sir’ me. I’m no where near that old!” He laughs, and it spreads across his face, lighting his eyes, however briefly. I can see that this is a man that loves to smile and laugh. “My most humble apology. I meant no offense, but what should I call you.” “Everyone calls me ‘Evil’. It’s as close to my name as a label can get.” “Evil,” another pause as he mulls it over in his head, “that really doesn’t seem to fit you at all.” “Yeah, I know.” “So why do you call yourself that.” “Well, honestly, that is a long story.” “I’d love to hear it.” I believe him. “Well, it all starts with the fact that I’m adopted. My parents were full blooded Romani.” “You don’t look Romanian.” Fighting back the initial anger this response normally creates, I maintain control. “Not Romanian, but Romani. I am full blooded Gypsy.” “Oh,” he looks apologetic, “I had no idea. There’s so much in this world that I don’t know about.” “It’s no biggie. Now, my people are not really welcome anywhere - especially in the Midwest United States.” “Why is that, do you think?” “My own personal opinion is that most of the Holy Rollers in the Bible Belt cannot bring themselves to trust someone that doesn’t settle down and work the land. They cannot even begin to comprehend the fact that someone would believe differently than they.” “That’s a truth about almost every human being I’ve ever met, my friend.” Normally, that phrase – my friend – would have angered me, but not today. I think he truly meant it. “Anyway, my parents left the campsite, into town, Hayes Kansas, to do what we do – fortune telling, odd jobs, etc. They came back to the camp to find the RV fully engulfed in flames, with a bible laid out in front of it. Every thing they owned, gone, burned to ash.” “That’s horrible!” Everyone says that, but none of them truly understand. “Yeah, well it just gets better. Inside the front cover of the bible is a note. ‘You’re already dead, you just don’t know it yet.’ Afraid for their lives, they fled Hayes, Kansas.” “How? The RV was torched.” “They stole a car, belted me into the backseat and took off. About one hundred miles south, the highway patrol caught up with us. They went to prison, and one of the arresting officers took me home as a foster parent. Then she adopted me.” “That was really nice of them.” I shrugged. “It might have been, but they did their best to erase all of my heritage, all of my past. They did their damnedest to hide everything. See, I was about a year and a half old when my parents were taken away. And these ‘Good Samaritans’ did not even tell me I was adopted. I had to find that out on my own.” “Maybe they hid it because they cared.” “Maybe, but it really doesn’t matter why. I mean, I always knew I was different, maybe not special, but definitely not who they thought I should be. Then, when I was 12, I was crawling around in the basement going through things I should have not been into. I found the adoption paperwork. And it all became clear. I confronted them with it and they told me the story.” “That must have been a horrible experience for all of you.” “They cried a lot and held each other. For me, though, it was freedom - freedom to be more than I had ever thought possible. I started researching and found my parents. Both of them had died ‘trying to escape police custody’. The records were investigations, messy, career ending investigations, but the records were sealed. I’m still not sure what really happened.” Silence - eloquence without words. This is something that no one who has ever heard this story has ever done. Most try to comfort me and express their empathy and lend their strength. That’s really the wrong thing to do. He’s doing the right thing, and listening. “I made a conscious decision to uphold the ‘old ways’ of my people. My psychologist stated that I was on ‘a spiritually divergent pathway as a result the need for adolescent rebellion.’ What a crock of shit.” I find myself snickering, the thought that I would do anything for the sheer purpose of rebellion is, honestly, absurd. “I grew in knowledge and in belief. One day, I met a little old lady on the street, just outside of my high school. She looked like a gypsy out of a Dracula movie. She stops me with a gentle hand on my chest and calls me by my real name, my given name. The one that I had only seen on the adoption papers.” “She says ‘Feralucce – at long last I have found you.’ I just stood there staring at her, in shock.” “Who was she?” “She was my grandmother, my father’s mother. After they had disappeared, my grandmother came looking for them here in America. She had seen the burned out remnants of the RV. She had seen the bible. She had seen their graves. But she had not seen me.” “So I ask her ‘How do you know that name?’ She tells me, ‘I changed your diapers, and those of your father. You look just like he did at your age.’ I stand there staring some more and she leads me to the local diner. We sit, we talk, and I learn so much about who I am and what I am supposed to be. Stan, the owner of the diner calls my ‘Parents,’ and they both come bursting through the doors and try to take me away from her.” “They did it to protect you.” He loses several points of respect with that comment. “You know what? What parents do in the name of protecting their children is bullying. Parents try so fucking hard to make their children into what they want them to be, most of the time a little carbon copy of themselves, and all in the name of protecting them. Sometimes people need to make mistakes.” “So they can learn from them.” “No, so they can earn, not learn. Frankly, any knowledge given is worthless unless the knowledge is earned.” “Now wait just a second! All knowledge is sacred!” He looks indignant. Good. “Yes, it is all sacred – BUT - the knowledge we remember the most and cherish the most is that which we must earn for ourselves.” “That’s a good point. I have to admit, I’ve never thought of it that way.” “Anyway, they bust in and start to drag me off. I look at the old lady and I know, I just know where her camp is. She nods slightly as I realize this, almost as if to say, ‘Precisely, young one.’ I slip out that night to her camp site and spend the next 3 years, 3 times a week sneaking out and regaining my heritage.” “Always a good thing to hold on to.” “I start practicing the ways out in the open, in front of my parents and the whole town. Slowly, it dawns on them that I am different, that I follow a pathway different from the one they have chosen for themselves. Once they have it figured out, they quickly become hostile.” I pull aside my shirt to show him two scars - a straight, ugly, deep gash, and a faint u shaped one. “These are the marks of the faith that these people had. Instead of showing me the compassion that is the trademark of their savior, they turned on me with violence.” “Those scars don’t look pleasant. What caused them?” I point to the u shaped scar first. “This one is from an old, 17th century, wood bound bible. The kid threw it at me as hard as he could. He was chanting ‘Jesus loves you’ as he did it. The other one is from the end of a 3 foot tall crucifix. I was stabbed with it for ‘Blasphemy against the Lord.’ Now, here, the SCAVS are attacking people with the same basic motivations - because they are different. All the while chanting that you are evil for not believing as they do. But that’s about the size of it. That’s why they call me Evil. It was a label that was slapped on me and I chose to wear it as a fucking badge of honor. I came here, and it stuck. I. Am. Evil.” We take a couple more shots of the whiskey, and he leaves, wandering off into the night. I hope he can find what he’s looking for, I share his feelings on the need to punish who’s responsible. I glance at the clock, and I see that it’s about 30 minutes til open, and nothing is done yet. Flipping on all the lights, I see it for the first time. Written across the back bar mirror, in black lipstick is a single word. Murderer. Part I Part II This article comes from Shmeng http://www.shmeng.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.shmeng.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=532