NINETEEN
In the highest meadow in the southeast quadrant of Harmony Corner, face-to-face with Donny, the mechanic who nightly feeds two possums named Wally and Wanda, my choice is kill or die. I have a pistol, he has a revolver, and the range is point-blank.
The thought of the hungry possums waiting for diner scraps that never come and then eventually waddling off in despair, the thought of Denise, Donny’s fry-cook wife, being widowed by me, a fellow fry cook, and other considerations cause me to hesitate a fateful couple of seconds, which ought to be the death of me. Because his face seems to be wrenched by rage, because of what he says—“Harry Potter, Lex Luthor, Fidel Castro, whoever you are, you’re goin’ to die here”—I feel sure that he is possessed by Hiskott, and I almost blow a big hole in him. But his face is easy to misread because of his terrible scar, and into my hesitation, he says with some desperation, “
Run
. Get out of the Corner, where he can’t get at you. This isn’t your battle. For God’s sake,
run
!”
Although he’s no one other than Donny, at any moment he might fall under the control of Hiskott and open fire without warning. I choose not to waste time engaging in a philosophical discussion of the merits of being thy brother’s and thy sister’s keeper.
With one sleeve I wipe at my nose, which has been set adrip by the flowery fumes of Bermuda Guy’s aftershave that lent the interior of his SUV the atmosphere of a mad perfumer’s laboratory.
Matching Donny’s urgency, I insist, “It
is
my battle. Jolie dies today if I don’t fight. I’m the only one who can get close to him without his knowledge.”
The thought of Jolie dying in the same brutal fashion that Maxy was murdered so distresses him that his once-torn face seems about to come apart along its inadequately stitched seam.
“But he’s commanded us to search for you. And he cycles through us, readin’ memories. I can’t hide I’ve seen you—and where.”
Belatedly, he realizes how dangerous it is for me if he retains his revolver. Holding the weapon by the barrel, he thrusts it toward me, and I take it with relief.
“Listen, Donny, sir, you’re the one who has to get out of the Corner, beyond his reach. If he discovers where I am, through you, then he’ll send the rest of the family to surround me.”
Anguished, he rebels at my suggestion. “No, no, no. No, he’ll torture ’em when he finds out I’m gone beyond his reach. He don’t have mercy. He don’t know what mercy is. He’ll make ’em torture and kill each other.”
“He won’t have time. First he’ll be searching for me. Then I’ll be in that house with him.”
“Just ’cause he can’t control you, don’t mean you’ll get the bastard. You won’t get him.”
“I’ve got more advantages than you know.”
“What advantages?”
I inhale sharply to staunch the nasal drip, and the inhalation becomes a reverberant snort. “No time to tell you.
Please
, sir, get the hell out of Harmony Corner. County road is right over there past the rail fence. You can be out in two minutes. Less. Go till you know it’s safe.
Go!
”
Five years of oppression and his own failed rebellion have nearly robbed him of all but perhaps the dimmest flicker of hope. Despondent, he has no energy for either resistance or flight.
I raise the revolver that he has surrendered to me, and I give him a chance to look down the barrel, to consider the potential of the bullet.
“Sir, I need that SUV, and I need more time that Hiskott doesn’t know where I am. Either you run out of his range fast as you can or I shoot you dead right now. I mean
now
.”
For a moment I think I’ll have to make a widow of Denise, but then Donny turns and bolts through the tall grass, as if a demon might be at his heels.
As I watch him to be sure that, under the influence of the alien other, he doesn’t turn back toward me, I can too easily imagine how his feathery hope
In the highest meadow in the southeast quadrant of Harmony Corner, face-to-face with Donny, the mechanic who nightly feeds two possums named Wally and Wanda, my choice is kill or die. I have a pistol, he has a revolver, and the range is point-blank.
The thought of the hungry possums waiting for diner scraps that never come and then eventually waddling off in despair, the thought of Denise, Donny’s fry-cook wife, being widowed by me, a fellow fry cook, and other considerations cause me to hesitate a fateful couple of seconds, which ought to be the death of me. Because his face seems to be wrenched by rage, because of what he says—“Harry Potter, Lex Luthor, Fidel Castro, whoever you are, you’re goin’ to die here”—I feel sure that he is possessed by Hiskott, and I almost blow a big hole in him. But his face is easy to misread because of his terrible scar, and into my hesitation, he says with some desperation, “
Run
. Get out of the Corner, where he can’t get at you. This isn’t your battle. For God’s sake,
run
!”
Although he’s no one other than Donny, at any moment he might fall under the control of Hiskott and open fire without warning. I choose not to waste time engaging in a philosophical discussion of the merits of being thy brother’s and thy sister’s keeper.
With one sleeve I wipe at my nose, which has been set adrip by the flowery fumes of Bermuda Guy’s aftershave that lent the interior of his SUV the atmosphere of a mad perfumer’s laboratory.
Matching Donny’s urgency, I insist, “It
is
my battle. Jolie dies today if I don’t fight. I’m the only one who can get close to him without his knowledge.”
The thought of Jolie dying in the same brutal fashion that Maxy was murdered so distresses him that his once-torn face seems about to come apart along its inadequately stitched seam.
“But he’s commanded us to search for you. And he cycles through us, readin’ memories. I can’t hide I’ve seen you—and where.”
Belatedly, he realizes how dangerous it is for me if he retains his revolver. Holding the weapon by the barrel, he thrusts it toward me, and I take it with relief.
“Listen, Donny, sir, you’re the one who has to get out of the Corner, beyond his reach. If he discovers where I am, through you, then he’ll send the rest of the family to surround me.”
Anguished, he rebels at my suggestion. “No, no, no. No, he’ll torture ’em when he finds out I’m gone beyond his reach. He don’t have mercy. He don’t know what mercy is. He’ll make ’em torture and kill each other.”
“He won’t have time. First he’ll be searching for me. Then I’ll be in that house with him.”
“Just ’cause he can’t control you, don’t mean you’ll get the bastard. You won’t get him.”
“I’ve got more advantages than you know.”
“What advantages?”
I inhale sharply to staunch the nasal drip, and the inhalation becomes a reverberant snort. “No time to tell you.
Please
, sir, get the hell out of Harmony Corner. County road is right over there past the rail fence. You can be out in two minutes. Less. Go till you know it’s safe.
Go!
”
Five years of oppression and his own failed rebellion have nearly robbed him of all but perhaps the dimmest flicker of hope. Despondent, he has no energy for either resistance or flight.
I raise the revolver that he has surrendered to me, and I give him a chance to look down the barrel, to consider the potential of the bullet.
“Sir, I need that SUV, and I need more time that Hiskott doesn’t know where I am. Either you run out of his range fast as you can or I shoot you dead right now. I mean
now
.”
For a moment I think I’ll have to make a widow of Denise, but then Donny turns and bolts through the tall grass, as if a demon might be at his heels.
As I watch him to be sure that, under the influence of the alien other, he doesn’t turn back toward me, I can too easily imagine how his feathery hope
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