Minders - a story.
I've become moved to start writing again. Experimenting with Livejournal as a forum. Ignore or read as you wish.
Typ
He followed behind them as they struggled with his luggage. When he thought of them, which was rarely, he thought of them as his Minders. They were tall, broad-shouldered men wearing suits ridiculously out of place in the Mexican sun. Sweat poured down their heads and necks, dark stains spreading across their backs as they struggled up the stone stairs that climbed along the side of the buildings and up the mountain.
John followed behind them, squinting against the sun as he looked around. Despite being surrounded by buildings, there wasn’t another person visible. He imagined they were there, tucked away against the glare of the midday sun, but they were out of his sight.
The illusion of isolation made it bearable. He would have said that it pleased him, but nothing had pleased him for some time. In truth, he felt incapable of being pleased.
He entered the large apartment on the heels of his Minders, noting only that the windows were barred yet had no glass in them, and stood in the middle of the tiled study as his Minders deposited his bags. They put a manila envelope on the counter near the kitchen, which John knew would be full of money. One of them foolishly asked if he needed anything, and the other tugged at the first’s shoulder pulling him silently from the room before he could answer.
Which was wise, John thought.
* * *
John woke just before sunrise, already standing in the bathroom, unaware of having gone there. He had broken the razor they’d left for him and stood staring at himself in the mirror, the razor blade held delicately in his thumb and first finger. He heard echoes of past sinning swimming through the haze of his recollections. He touched the blade to the pale flesh of his forearm and held it there, listening for some sign that he should proceed, some soul he could save with a flick of his wrist.
He heard nothing except the soft peep of a small lizard that lurked in the kitchen.
The illusion of isolation made it bearable, so he put down the razorblade and went out to see the sunrise over the ocean from his balcony. He thought, perhaps, that he would see the sunrise, and then he would do it.
But the sun did not rise over the ocean. He saw the first rays of light striking the ocean’s surface, setting smaller lights to dance over the waves, but the sunrise was behind him. The town lay sprawled out between him and sea, lounging in the shade of the mountain at his back. A New Englander, it had never occurred to him that the sun could rise anyplace but over the sea. He glanced around, and seeing a chair, he sat.
He watched the light creep up towards him over the town. He saw the traffic begin, but it was somehow remote from him. Distant. He heard the church bells in the cathedral go off at apparently random intervals. He started to sweat as the sun approached the sky above him, and he moved his chair into the shade. He dozed in the heat and awoke to see the sun burning the sky red as it dipped under the waves.
Now, he thought. He stood, but found his taste for self-slaughter had faded. Instead, he was hungry. So he ate.
* * *
He had been in the apartment for a week before he saw his first sign of human life beyond the infrequent visits of his Minders. He’d discovered a cockroach hidden in the piles of his discarded clothes. It startled and irritated him, jogging some memory loose. He stomped on the tiled floor near it and it ran for its life. He chased it, herding it with his stomping, through the kitchen. Before thinking too much about it, he threw open the door and the squat bug ran out.
He stood, blinking, in the doorway. The inescapable sun shown on him and he blinked as his eyes adjusted. He found himself looking out on a surprised Mexican. He was young, maybe five years younger than John. His black hair was cropped close to his head, his brown eyes half closed against the light. He wore a pair of khakis and a t-shirt, and carried two bags of groceries.
“Hola,” he said.
“Hola,” John said back after a pause.
“You from... United States?” he asked haltingly in broken English.
John nodded.
“Good. Good,” he said, nodding. “Alejandro. Me.”
“John.”
“Good to meet.”
John nodded and Alejandro smiled and nodded back, shifting his groceries. “Fucker of a hill.”
John smiled at that. “Yeah.”
Alejandro was silent for a moment before turning away. “Bye.”
John stepped back into the shade of his apartment and closed the door.
* * *
John woke just before sunrise, already standing in the bathroom, unaware of having gone there. He looked at himself in the mirror, listening carefully for a distant sound.
His week worth of stubble could almost be counted as a patchy beard. His hair was long, hanging down just past the tops of his ears.
“I look like shit,” John said into the darkness.
John went back to bed.
* * *
John woke in the late of the day. He picked the manila envelope that had been untouched since the day he’d arrived and took some money out of it. The money was colorful, and oddly shaped. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised, in a country where the sun didn’t rise over the sea and lizards peeped in the night, that the money would be odd.
He folded several of the bills into thirds and slipped them into his pocket. It took a little bit of looking to find the key to the front door, but he finally found it where it had fallen behind a chair. He clutched the key in his right hand and stood before the door.
He swallowed and took a slow, steadying breath.
“I just need a haircut,” he said quietly. “I don’t talk to anyone. No one talks to me. I’m going to go and find a barber and then I’ll come back here. It’s not the end of the world.” He stepped toward the door, saying again, “It’s not the end of the world.”
* * *
It took him an hour and a cab ride to find a barber. The cabbie spoke excellent English and quizzed John on his background. John stuck to short, mono-syllabic answers, hoping to derail the conversation, but the driver seemed to take it in stride. Despite his best efforts, John was grinning when he got out of the cab.
The barber was an old man named Tio Carlos, an uncle of the cab-driver. He leaned John back in an ancient leather barber chair with patches all over it. He lathered his face with warm shaving cream, and shaved him with a bare razor.
John tensed when he first saw the razor, unbidden memories flooding his mind, phantom screams echoing in his ears. His breathing sped up, his fists clenched on the armrests of the chair. Vivid and bright phantom blood splashed his face, filled his mouth as she screamed.
“I no cut you,” Carlos said, patting his arm comfortingly. “Very careful.”
John tried to let it go, forced his hands open and flat on the armrests. He tried to call back the feeling of isolation, the heat-scorched devastation of the mind that had shielded him. It had fled, however, and John simply felt alone.
* * *
John was watching from the balcony when Alejandro started up the ordeal of the stone steps. John moved through the kitchen, taking a beer in each hand. He stood lurking in the shade of his doorway like some ridiculous mugger, waiting to spring on his unwitting prey.
When Alejandro reached the level of John’s door, John stepped into the light, smiling. “Hola,” John said.
“Hola,” Alejandro replied, pausing.
“Those stairs are a pain in the ass,” John said in Spanish.
“It’s true! I didn’t know you spoke Spanish, John.”
“I’m a quick study. Join me for a beer?”
Alejandro nodded and John handed him a bottle. John squatted on his doorstep, half leaning against the doorframe. Alejandro walked up a few steps further and sat, facing John.
“Your first time in Mexico?” Alejandro asked.
“Yes. Nice place. Where are you from?”
“Nearby, as a crow flies.” Alejandro gestured behind him with his thumb at the great mountain. “Just on the other side of this great bitch of a mountain. It’s a long ride, though. You need to circle around to the south.”
“You come to the big city to strike it rich?”
“Came to take some money from the beautiful tourists,” Alejandro agreed, drinking his beer. “I work in a pottery shop on Basillo Badillo. I paint tiles, work on the kilns. That sort of thing.”
“Good pay?”
“Not bad. Better than home, that’s for sure. How about you, stranger from the States? What do you do?”
John thought of screams and the taste of blood, of the gut twisting nausea, the feral grins, and the convoluted sounds of dead languages.
“As little as possible,” John said at last, finishing his beer. “Thanks for talking, Alejandro.”
“My pleasure. See you tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” John said. “Sure.”
* * *
“Who are they?” Alejandro asked, pointing down the stairs.
John didn’t have to turn to see whom he meant. “My Minders,” he answered unthinkingly in English.
“Your what now?”
“My Minders. Erm...bodyguards, I guess. My keepers.”
“They come by every week, bring you groceries. You never talk to them. Not even to wave.” Alejandro leaned closer to him, putting his beer bottle on the step next to him. “Why do you need to be kept?”
John was silent for a while, trying to come up with an answer. He swirled his beer around absently. “You ever meet someone who was just really good at something? It could be something silly...like jacks, or hopscotch...but whatever it is, they’ve got an honest to God talent for it.”
“Yes,” Alejandro said. “I know a boy, Lucas, who is a very good painter. Never had a lesson, but he can paint pictures of the Virgin that would make you weep.”
“Yeah. He’s talented, right? He’s got a talent for painting.” John finished his beer. “I’ve got a talent.”
He heard himself chanting, but it was distant now. It didn’t overwhelm him or pull him in. He could see it, feel it, smell it, but it was subdued. His stomach twisted in a knot and he pushed it aside, pushed it down.
“What’s your talent for?” Alejandro prompted.
“Magic,” John said, and his stomach rebelled and he vomited over the side of the staircase.
“Jesus!” Alejandro swore, jerking himself back from the vomit. He inadvertently smashed his beer bottle with his elbow, cutting himself. He stood, arm pressed to his cut. “Damn it! You okay, John?”
“Yeah.” John wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Shit, I’m sorry. Listen, I’m not feeling well...”
“I guess not. Hey, I’ll talk to you later, okay? I need to clean up...”
Alejandro withdrew up the stairs. John sat still for a moment before going inside and washing his face. He came out a few minutes later with a bucket of water and doused the steps. He knelt and gathered the shards of Alejandro’s bottle, dropping them one at a time into the empty bucket. He brought the whole mess inside, closing the door behind him. He started to empty the bucket into his trash barrel, but paused. Squinting, he took one shard of glass that was red with Alejandro’s blood and put it carefully on the counter next to the stove. He dumped the rest of the glass into the garbage. He put the bucket away and opened himself another beer. He sat in a chair on the balcony and stared at the ocean.
“Damn it,” he said.
* * *
Two days later, his Minders came again. He heard their steps on the staircase, and John stepped into the bathroom. He didn’t want to talk to them, if he could help it. He took a long shower, enjoying the feel of the tile floor and the luke-warm water. He stepped out of the bathroom some twenty minutes later, only to find his Minders still there.
“Mr. Desmond,” the blond one said, and paused.
“Yeah?” John said, fantasizing about pounding the Minder’s face in.
“Mr. Rose called. He’s asked us to inquire as to your health.”
“In other words, am I together enough to go back.”
“I imagine that’s the gist of what he’s getting at, Sir.”
“You tell him to go to hell.”
“He said the situation it getting grim, Sir.”
John clenched his fists. He was shaking with the effort of not doing violence to those in front of him.
“Grim or not. I don’t care. I’m not going back. You can try and take me, but it’ll be a fight. I swear to God, it’ll be a fight.”
“He didn’t say we had to bring you back,” the Minder said, unmoved. “He just asked us to inquire as to your health.”
The anger left John, and his shoulder slumped. “Get the hell out,” he said, suddenly exhausted. “Just get the hell out.”
The Minders left him, but he knew they hadn’t gone far. They never did.
* * *
The next morning was a difficult one. John found himself lying in bed, looking at the ceiling. He kept blinking his eyes, trying desperately to summon some shred of isolation, some scrap of the parched separateness that he’d found so readily upon his arrival. Instead, he heard the city coming to life around him. He smelled the sweet smell of fruit from somewhere nearby, heard neighbors greeting each other.
The illusion of isolation had shattered. He heard the tides of humanity around them, and felt connected to them on some deep level, as if they were facets of some singular gem left to gleam in the morning sun. He wondered what he would have for breakfast, and looked forward to walking on the beach later in the day. He thought maybe he’d have Tio Carlos trim his hair again, maybe have a beer with Alejandro.
He knew he’d have to leave soon. He pulled himself reluctantly from his bed, and was unsurprised to find his Minders waiting in the living room. One of them started to speak, but John cut him off.
“Tomorrow morning,” John said quietly.
The first Minder nodded. The second simply turned and opened the door. They left. John showered.
* * *
John was waiting on the steps of his apartment, drunk, watching the sun come down over the rooftops between him and the ocean. He was surrounded by empty beer-bottles, and a half-full bottle of tequila. He was having trouble getting his eyes to focus, but despite that he saw Alejandro when he started up the monster staircase. John had a beer open and waiting for him when he reached the doorway.
Alejandro smiled. “Thanks, John. Feeling better?” He picked up the beer and sipped at it.
“Feeling no pain,” John agreed, smiling contentedly. “Just wanted to say good-bye. I’m leaving town tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Alejandro asked. “So soon?”
“Yeah. Kinda short notice, I know, and I’m not exactly ready to leave here, but...” John shrugged.
“It’s your Minders, isn’t it?”
“Huh?”
“Making you leave. Your Minders. Somehow, they’re making you leave. Did they threaten you, John? Some of the police here cannot be trusted, but I know some that are true. I can get you help, John.”
“No. I mean, yeah, it’s because of my Minders, but they didn’t threaten me. They would, if they had to, but...but, no, they didn’t. It’s just that I have to go. I don’t want to. God above, I don’t want to. But, I think I have to.
“It’s all still been going on. It didn’t stop when I left. None of it ever stops, as far as I can tell. You’d like to think it does. That when you take a break from your life that your life waits for you to get back, but it doesn’t. It just keeps going, and all a break gets you is behind.
“I like you, Alejandro. You’re a good guy. A little simple, maybe, but a good guy. I like this town, I like the ocean, and the beach, but mostly I like the people. They’re mostly polite. Direct. Friendly. They’re easy to get to know. So I need to leave.”
“I’m having trouble following you, John. I’m not sure what you’re....”
“I kill people.”
Alejandro was silent.
“It’s like I’m poison, and just knowing me puts someone’s life in danger. Like I’m some cancer that eats away at people around me. The more I like someone, the better I know them, the faster they get eaten away. They get pulled in. In to my life. The things I do, the things I deal with...people shouldn’t see them. Good people shouldn’t see them. Decent people shouldn’t see them. I do, and the only reason that’s okay is because if I see them, you don’t have to.
“But you get pulled in.” John was crying now, weeping openly. Alejandro was stunned, watching.
“You get pulled in, and you die. I live in hell, and the only way out is to know people, care about people, but when I care about them, they get pulled in.” John sniffed. “And then you’re in hell too.”
* * *
John went to bed, drunk. He slept poorly, dreaming about great dark things that moved slowly but with purpose. He dreamt of dark powers finally finding, and he woke just before sunrise to the sound of banging at his door. He got up and turned on a light, blinking as his eyes adjusted.
He opened the inner door of his apartment. Alejandro stood on the steps, hanging on the bars of the outer door, panting. He was half-dressed and obviously scared. “John. John. Oh, Holy Mary, John, you need to help me. Something...something’s chasing me. It’s...Christ, John, I don’t know what it is....”
John scrambled with the latch. He slipped the door open, just a crack, enough to let Alejandro slip in. Then he slammed it shut, latching it closed. He closed the inner door as well, locking it for good measure.
“What was it, Alejandro?” John asked, turning towards him. “What did it look like?”
“It was like a great beast, John. A great, bulging beast, surging to be born. Ah, Christ, John, it knew my name.” Alejandro sunk to his knees on the tile floor of the living area, in the small pool of light cast by the bare bulbs in the ceiling. “It knew my name.”
John knelt next to his friend and put his hand on his shoulder. “I need to know more, if I’m going to take care of it. Did it say anything?”
“Yes,” Alejandro whispered. He rose suddenly, slamming his fist up into the bottom of John’s jaw. John staggered up and back, hand going automatically to his jaw. He felt blood flood his mouth, his head was spinning. Alejandro was on him in a second, baring him backwards towards the wall, hand on his throat. Alejandro slammed him into the wall, pinning him in place, choking the breath from him.
“The Yellow King sends his regards, John,” Alejandro said in perfect English, grinning a feral grin that revealed perfect, pearl-white teeth. “He says he’ll see you in hell.”
“I am so sorry,” John coughed out from between clenched teeth. He pulled to the side, brought his hand up, and drove his index finger into Alejandro’s brown eye. He watched it pop, saw aqueous humor spill onto his cheek. He kept pushing until it was sunk to the second knuckle, then hooked his finger and pulled it out in a fluid motion. Eye, optic nerve, and gray matter exploded into the warm Mexican air. Alejandro staggered back. John gasped for air.
Alejandro moaned distantly. John lunged past him. Alejandro reached out after him, and John paused to stomp on the side of Alejandro’s leg, hyper-extending his knee and sending him sprawling to the floor.
John rounded the small counter that divided the living area from the kitchen. He swept the counter clear, spilling cartons and containers onto the floor. He grabbed a salt-shaker and broke the top off on the edge of the counter. He poured the salt in a circle on the counter top, muttering.
Already Alejandro had regained his feet. His kneecap was visibly dislocated, but he moved on it, oblivious to any discomfort. He lurched towards John, murder in his eye.
John snatched an empty soda can from the trash and put it in the circle. He pinched the shard of glass he’d kept on the edge of the stove with two fingers and dropped it into the can. The glass, still dirty with Alejandro’s blood, made a clinking sound when it hit the bottom of the can.
Alejandro stopped still at the sound.
“Get out of him,” John growled. “One chance. Get the fuck out of him, or I will shred his and your soul both.”
“You wouldn’t,” Alejandro hissed. “You wouldn’t dare.”
John raised his hand up in the air.
Alejandro lunged for him.
John brought his hand down quickly and violently on the top of the can. It crumpled, bending along the sides like an accordion, folding on itself a hundred times, and flattening against the surface it rested on.
So did Alejandro.
Bones snapped, blood exploded across the room in haphazard arcs, splattering the walls, the ceiling, and John. John blinked and did the best he could to keep the taste of his friend’s blood from ever entering his mouth.
* * *
The Minders were on his front steps five minutes later, panting and coughing, silenced pistols in their fists. The kicked open the door, and entered the room in text-book fashion.
The younger one threw up, the older looked ill. John was standing, fully dressed, bag in hand, waiting for them.
“Get me the fuck out of here,” John said. “I hate Mexico.”
.
Also seeing if the cut worked. :)