Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys Part 27

I read an on-line article a few days ago that said by the end of this decade, something like two-thirds of the cars manufactured in the United States will come equipped with some form of GPS technology, and by 2021 every car in the country will have it. So the Road will always be able to find you when your number comes up.

The more I come to understand how precise this system is, the more I find myself admiring it. And hating myself for it.

Dianne never called me. I'm guessing she erased the message when she heard my voice. I can't blame her. I still miss her. I always will.

I quite working for Brennert. He was p.i.s.sed but, being the type of guy he is, he didn't let it show. He told me he understood if I was feeling burned out, and if I ever changed my mind and wanted to come back to the job, it'd be there waiting for me.

Before I hung up, I finally asked him: "Do you ever think about the Leonard house?"

"Every day," he said.

"I was always sorry about the way Mark and I treated you that night."

"I know."

"Doesn't help much, does it?"

"Not a G.o.dd.a.m.ned bit."

Click.

I did some digging on-line one night-a free night for me, which doesn't happen very often-and found something interesting.

I'd been thinking about what Ciera had said about Daddy Bliss and Road Mama, how they were the only two who remembered their real names, and I began wondering if maybe there was something out there in the ether of cybers.p.a.ce that might tell me something.

It turned out to be a lot easier than I'd thought. I just entered the words Driscoll and Cars, then Bliss and Cars. I figured that might be a good way to begin.

Both searches pretty much started and ended right there.

On August 17, 1896, in London, Bridget Driscoll, age 44, became the world's first person to be killed in an automobile accident.

As she and her teenage daughter crossed the grounds of the Crystal Palace, an automobile belonging to the Anglo-French Motor Car Company and being used to give demonstration rides struck her at "tremendous speed", according to witnesses-some 4 MPH (6.4 km/h). The driver had apparently modified the engine to allow the car to go faster.

The jury returned a verdict of "accidental death" after an inquest lasting some six hours. The coroner said: "This must never happen again." No prosecution was made.

While Bridget Driscoll was the first person killed by an automobile in the world, Henry Bliss (1831 to September 13, 1899) was the first person killed by an automobile in the United States. He was disembarking from a streetcar at West 74th Street and Central Park West in New York City, when an electric-powered taxicab (Automobile No. 43) struck him and crushed his head and chest. He died from these injuries the next morning.

The driver of the taxicab was arrested and charged with manslaughter but was acquitted on the grounds that it was unintentional.

So now I know. The Road acquired its taste for blood early. And Daddy Bliss and Road Mama have been parents to their family for a very long time.

My first really big a.s.signment is coming up in a few days-the weekend of the OSU-Michigan football game. I've set up three different tracks for this. Thirty-eight fatalities and twenty injuries-not all in the same place, of course; the Road can't be too obvious about its methods.

I figured out a way to run several tracks simultaneously without blowing any fuses. I rig them to run off of car batteries. Seems to me there ought to be something ironic in there, but I'm too tired to figure it out.

I've been practicing with the controls. I've gotten really good. My hand/eye coordination has never been so sharp.

Ciera called me. Daddy Bliss is going to let her come visit me the weekend of the OSU-Michigan game. I'm really looking forward to seeing her. I remember the way she kissed me and hope she'll want to do it again. And maybe other stuff, too.

It's been a while.

And that's it. I don't know why I decided to write all of this down. Maybe to have some record, for my own sanity. Maybe I did it in case I decide to do a Miss Driscoll with some pudding and pills. But that would mean no Ciera weekend, so I doubt that's the reason. h.e.l.l, I don't know.

I tried to think of some clever way to end this, some witty remark that would leave you with a grin or something, and I'd almost decided on "Drive safely" but the truth is, even if you do-drive safely, that is-it won't make a d.a.m.ned bit of difference.

It never did. And never will.

Keep on truckin'....

Kiss of the Mudman.

"Music's exclusive function is to structure the flow of time and keep order in it."

-Igor Stravinsky.

"Without music, life would be a mistake."

-Friedrich Nietzsche.

1.

Of all the things I have lost in this life, it is music that I miss the most.

I read once that humankind was never supposed to have had music, that it was stolen by the Fallen Angels from something called The Book of Forbidden Knowledge and given to us before G.o.d could do anything about it. This article (I think it was in an old issue of Fate I found lying around the Open Shelter) said this book contained all information about Science, Writing, Music, Poetry and Storytelling, Art, everything like that, and that humanity wasn't supposed to possess this knowledge because we wouldn't know what to do with it, that we'd take these things that were supposed to be holy and ruin them.

I remember thinking, How could G.o.d believe we'd ruin music? I mean, c'mon: say you're having a rotten day, right? It seems like everything in your life is coming apart at the seams and you feel as if you're going under for the third time...then you hear a favorite song coming from the radio of a pa.s.sing car, and maybe it's been twenty years since you even thought about this song, but hearing just those few seconds of it brings the whole thing back, verse, chorus, instrumental pa.s.sages...and for a frozen instant you're Back There when you heard it for the first time, and Back There you're thinking: I am going to remember this song and this moment for the rest of my life because the day will come that I'm going to need this memory, and so you-Back There taps you-Right Here on the shoulder and says, "I can name that tune in four notes, how about you?"

You can not only name it in three, but can replay it in your mind from beginning to end, not missing a single chord change, and-voila!-your rotten day is instantly sweetened because of that tune. How could any self-respecting Divine Being say that we might ruin music when a simple song has that kind of power? I'll bet many a sad soul has been cheered by listening to Gordon Lightfoot's "Old Dan's Records," or broken hearts soothed by something goofy like Reunion's "Life Is A Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)"; how many people in the grips of loneliness or depression have been pulled back from the edge of suicide by a song like "Drift Away," "I'm Your Captain," "(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66," or even something as lame as "Billy Don't Be A Hero"? You can't really say for certain, but you can't discount the thought, either, because you know that music has that kind of power. It's worked on me, on you, on everyone.

(It never occurred to me before, Byron Knight-yes, the Byron Knight-said to me the evening it happened, how frighteningly easy it is to re-shape a single note or scale into its own ghost. For example, E-major, C, G, to D will all fit in one scale- the Aeolian minor, or natural minor of a G-major scale. Now, if you add an A-major chord, all you have to do is change the C natural of your scale to a C-sharp for the time you're on the A-major. Music is phrases and feeling, so learning the scales doesn't get you "Limehouse Blues" any more than buying tubes of oil paints gets you a "Starry Night," but you have to respect the craft enough to realize, no matter how good you are, you'll never master it. Music will always have the final word.) Of all the things I have lost in this life, it is music that I miss the most.

I can't listen to it now, and it's not just because I'm deaf in my left ear; I can't listen to music anymore because I have been made aware of the sequence of notes that, if heard, recognized, and acknowledged, will bring something terrible into the world.

(The progression seemed so logical; leave the G string alone-tuned to G, of course-so the high and low E strings go down a half step to E flat. The B string goes down a half step to B flat, the A and D go up a half step, to B flat and E flat. The result was an open E flat major chord, which made easy work of the central riff. For the intro, I started on the 12th fret, pressing the 1st and 3rd strings down, dropped down to the 7th and 8th fret on those same strings for the next chord, and continued down the neck...as the progression moved to the 4th string, more and more notes were left out and it became a disguised version of a typical blues riff. The idea was to have a rush of notes to sort of clear the palette, not open the back door to h.e.l.l...but that's a road paved with good intentions, isn't it?) Some days I'm tempted to grab an ice-pick or a coat hanger or even a fine-point pen and puncture my good eardrum; total deafness would be a blessing because then I wouldn't have to worry about hearing that melody...but the tune would still be out there, and I'm not sure anyone else would recognize it, so who'd warn people if (...B string goes down a half step to B flat, the A and D go up a half step, to B flat and E flat...) the Mudman hears his special song and shambles in to sing along?

2.

The Reverend and I were out on our second Popsicle Patrol of the night when Jim Morrison climbed into our van.

That Friday evening was one of the c.r.a.ppiest nights in recent memory. It was November, and it was cold, and it was raining-the kind of rain that creates a gray night chiseled from gray stone, shadowed by gray mist, filled with gray people and their gray dreams; a dismal night following a string of dateless, nameless, empty dismal days. The forecast had called for snow, but instead we got rain. At least snow would have been a fresh coat of paint, something to cover the candy wrappers, empty cigarette packs, broken liquor bottles, losing lottery tickets, beer cans, and used condoms that decorated the sidewalks of the neighborhood; a whitewash to hide the ugliness and despair of the tainted world underneath.

Can you tell I was not in the best of moods? But then, I don't think anyone was feeling particularly chipper that night, despite the soft and cheerful cla.s.sical music coming through the speakers, one in each of the four corners of the main floor. (I think it was something by Aaron Copland because listening to it made me feel like I was standing in the middle of a wheat field on a sunny day, and that only made me feel depressed.) The shelter was about a third full-there were twenty-five, maybe thirty people, not counting the staff-and the evening had already seen its first "episode": a young guy named Joe (I didn't know his last name, people who come here rarely have them) had kind of flipped out earlier and took off into the dreary night, upsetting everyone who'd been eating at the table with him. The Reverend (the man who runs this shelter) spent a little while getting everyone settled down, then sent one of the regulars, Martha, out to find Mr. Joe Something-or-Other. Neither one of them had come back yet, and I suspected the Reverend was getting worried.

The Cedar Hill Open Shelter is located just the other side of the East Main Street Bridge, in an area known locally as "Coffin County." It's called that because there used to be a casket factory in the area that burned down in the late sixties and took a good portion of the surrounding businesses with it, and ever since then the whole area has gone down the tubes. Most of the serious crime you read about in The Ally happens in Coffin County. It's not pretty, it's not popular, and it's definitely not safe, especially if you're homeless.

As hard as it may be to believe, there's not all that many homeless people in Cedar Hill. If pressed to come up with a number, the Reverend would probably tell you that our good town has about fifty homeless folks (give or take; not bad for a community of fifty-odd thousand), most of whom you'll find here on any given night, which explains how he knows all of them by name.

The shelter is in the remains of what used to be a hotel that was hastily and badly reconstructed after the fire; the lobby and bas.e.m.e.nt were left practically unscathed, but the upper floors were a complete loss, so down they came, and up went a makes.h.i.+ft roof (mostly plywood, corrugated tin, and sealant) that on nights like this amplified the sound of the rain until you thought every pebble in the known universe was dropping down on it; luckily, the lobby's high ceiling and insulation had remained intact after the fire, so that-combined with the soft cla.s.sical music the Reverend always has playing-turned what might have been a deafening noise into only an annoying one. When it became evident that "Olde Town East" (as Coffin County used to be called) was not going to recover from the disaster, the city decided its efforts at a face-lift were better employed elsewhere. As a result of the Reverend's good timing in getting the city to donate this building, the Cedar Hill Open Shelter was the only one in the state (maybe even the whole country) to have Italian marble tile on its floors and a ballroom ceiling with a chandelier hanging from it. Makes for some interesting expressions on peoples' faces when they come through that door for the first time.

The shelter has one hundred beds on the main floor, with thirty more in the bas.e.m.e.nt adjacent to the men's and women's showers and locker rooms. (Aside from storage, the bas.e.m.e.nt was used by the hotel's employees, many of whom worked two jobs and came to work at the hotel after finis.h.i.+ng their s.h.i.+fts at one of the steel mills or canneries-those too now long gone.) A third of the main floor is covered with folding tables and chairs-the dining area-and the Reverend's office, which is a pretty decent size and doubles as his bedroom, is past the swinging doors on the right; go straight through the kitchen, turn left, you're there.

During the holidays you'll see more unfamiliar faces and crowded conditions because of transients on their way to Zanesville or Dayton or Columbus, bigger places where there might be actual jobs or more sympathetic welfare workers. The shelter turns no one away, but you'd d.a.m.ned well better behave yourself while you're here-the Reverend might look harmless enough at first, but when you get close to him it's easy to see that this is a guy who, if he didn't actually invent the whup-a.s.s can opener, can handily produce one at a moment's notice. (Opinions are divided as to who the Reverend more resembles: Jesus Christ, Rasputin, or Charles Manson. Trust me when I tell you that he can be very scary when he wants to.) Almost no one does anything to p.i.s.s off the Reverend. The business earlier that night with Joe was a rarity-even those folks who come in here so upset you think they'll crumble to pieces right in front of you and take anyone in the vicinity with them know that you don't ruin things for the rest of the guests. That's what the Reverend calls everyone, "guests," and treats them with all the courtesy and respect you'd expect from someone who uses that word. Still, the business with Joe was enough to set everyone's nerves on edge a bit. It wasn't even ten-thirty yet, so the regular guests who weren't already here would be wandering in by midnight. Of the two dozen or so guests who were here, I only recognized a few.

We had four new faces tonight, a young mother (who couldn't have been older than twenty-three), her two children (a boy, five or six; a girl, three years old tops), and their dog (a sad-a.s.s Beagle with an even sadder face who was so still and quiet I almost forget he was there a few times until I nearly tripped over him). It breaks my heart to see a mother and her kids in a place like this. The Thanksgiving/Christmas period's always the worst, and the most depressing. At least for me.

"That's about all the excitement I can stand for one night," said Ethel, the old black woman who mans the front door. She's a volunteer from one of the churches-St. Francis-and sits here every weeknight from seven p.m. until eleven, greeting folks as they come in, handing out all manner of pamphlets, answering questions, and you-bet'cha happy to take any donations; she's got a s.h.i.+ny tin can at the edge of her folding card table marked in black letters for just such a purpose.

I smiled at her as I cleared away some more of the empty plastic plates left on the various tables. "But you gotta admit, there aren't many places like this that offer a free floor show with dinner."

"Mind your humor there; it's not very Christian to make light of others' woes."

"Then how come you grinned when I said that?"

"That was not a grin. I...had me some gas."

"Uh-huh."

"That's my story and I'm sticking to it." She winked at me, then looked out at the guests. "I don't mind doin' the Lord's work, not at all, and Heaven knows these poor people need all the help they can get, but I swear, sometimes...." She squinted her eyes at nothing, trying to find the right way to express what she was thinking without sounding uncharitable.

"Sometimes," I said. Then winked back at her. "We can leave it at that and it'll be our little secret."

She laughed as she dumped the contents of the DONATIONS can onto the table and began counting up the coins. "Oh, bless me, will wonders never cease? It looks like we might've took in a small fortune tonight. Why there must be all of-" She counted out a row of dimes, then a few nickels and pennies. "-three dollars and sixteen cents here! Might put us in a higher tax bracket."

"I'm sorry it isn't more," I said, digging into my pocket and coming up with thirty-three cents, which I promptly handed over. If you've got spare change, it goes into Ethel's til or. She. Will. Get. You.

"Always remember, Sam," she said to me as she took the change, "what the Good Book says: 'What we give to the poor is what we take with us when we die.'"

"Then I'm screwed to the wall."

Her eyes grew wide at my language.

I looked down at my feet. "I'm sorry."

"I'm going to chalk that up to your being tired and let it go, Samuel."

"Yes, ma'am." Both Ethel and the Reverend (who've looked out for my own good as long as I've been here) call me "Samuel" when they're irked at me about something. I prefer "Sam." "Samuel" always sounded to me like the noise someone makes trying to clear their sinuses.

Ethel picked up her purse and took out a five-dollar bill and some change, adding it to the til. "I have one rule for myself, Sam-I will not, absolutely not hand the Reverend less than twenty dollars at the end of each week."

"How often do you have to make up the difference?"

She shrugged. "That's my and the Good Lord's business, you needn't bother yourself worryin' over it." Then she gave me a conspiratorial wink. "Maybe we'll soon have enough saved up to get the bas.e.m.e.nt wall fixed."

"Be still my heart," I said.

Ethel was referring to the east wall in the men's shower room. For the last several weeks, more and more of the tile and grouting had fallen out, and the cement foundation on that side was starting to crumble. Because of an unusually damp autumn, and with the almost non-stop rain of the past week or so, the soil behind the weakening cement started oozing through the gaps, slowly transforming everything into a muddy wall that was pus.h.i.+ng out what tile still held its ground (it didn't help matters that there was a leak in one of the pipes running into the showers). I'd been down there with the Reverend earlier that day, piling bags of sand, wooden crates filled with canned food, and even a couple of pieces of old furniture against it. It was a fight we were going to lose unless one of the contractors the Reverend had been guilt-tripping since spring threw up their hands in surrender and donated the time, manpower, and materials to repair it. I didn't think Ethel's twenty dollars a week was going to help much, regardless of how often she'd been making up the difference-something I suspected she really couldn't afford to do.

I was thinking out loud as I watched Ethel slide the money into a brown envelope with the rest of the week's donations. "I worry that if something isn't done soon, that whole side's going to cave in and we'll have a h.e.l.luva mess down there."

Ethel shook her head. "My, my-the mouth on you this evening!"

"I'm sorry-again." I rubbed my eyes. "I haven't been sleeping too well the past couple of nights."

"Which means most of the week, unless I miss my guess-don't bother denying it, either. I could pack for a month's vacation in the Caribbean with those bags under your eyes. Still taking your medication like the doctor prescribed?" Meaning my anti-depressants.

"Yes."

"Still going to your weekly appointments?" Meaning Dr. Ellis, the psychiatrist who prescribes my anti-depressants.

"They're twice a week-and, yes, I'm still going."

She tilted her head to the side, puzzling. "Hmm. How about your diet? Your appet.i.te been okay, Sam? Been eating regular?"

I nodded. "Yes, ma'am. I'm not particularly worried about anything, I haven't been drinking too much caffeine or anything like that...I have no idea why I can't sleep."

"Bad dreams, maybe?"

Before I could answer, a voice behind me and said, "Terrible, just terrible," loudly enough to make me jump, nearly dropping the stack of plates I'd gathered.