NOVEL NEXT Chapter 18 – Storm
Where am I?
Cigarette butts and discarded cans of soda littered the city streets. The sweltering summer heat chased everybody into their homes and to the nearest swimming pools. A kid ran onto the asphalt barefoot, then immediately jumped into some grass to cool his feet off. Somewhere in the distance, the chime of an ice cream truck rang through the city, making a profit from the parents of squealing children.
Bright colored chalk was scrawled across upheaved slabs of sidewalk pavement. Basketballs could be heard thumping in a nearby court and a group of kids gambled with stacks of colorful paper discs.
Vincent stood as a disembodied phantom, a ghostly image of himself. Confused, he began to walk, unsure of where his feet were taking him. Two kids ran laughing down the sidewalk, one chasing the other with a squirt gun, unleashing a stream of water. Vincent raised his arms to protect himself, but the stream passed right through him, as did the kids. He was nothing more than a spirit.
Where is this? What is happening?
A boom box dominated the stoop on the opposite side of the road, CD spinning in its player. MC Hammer warned the world that they “could not touch this”. A group of men sat on the stairs with their shirts off, sweat bands strapped around their foreheads, drinking beer.
One of them, a familiar-looking face, took a puff from a cigarette, dropped it to the ground and snuffed it with his shoe. Dark dreadlocks swung around his shoulders. He turned the music down until it was no longer blasting at a deafening volume.
De...Deonte? Vincent crossed the street to get a closer look. Deonte! Is that you?
It was Deonte. He recognized the dreads, the face, even the shirt, which had the Chicago Bulls emblazoned on it. Vincent felt something tug at his chest and he tried to say Deonte’s name again, but the man did not appear to hear him.
Deonte! It’s me!
Deonte did not react.
“Such a sell-out man,” one of Deonte’s friends said. He also looked familiar. What was his name again? Reggie?
“Hey man, don't be talking trash about Hammer,” Deonte said, “say what you want, but the dude's a crazy dancer.”
“Man, he's a sell-out!” Reggie repeated, “I don't give a fuck how he dances!”
“Yo Reginald, what are those kids doing over there with those disks?”
“Did you just call me, Reginald? Man, only my mother calls me that,” Reggie cringed.
“You talk trash about my bro, I'll call you anything I want,” Deonte said, “I'll be your mother if I have to. I assume she gave you an ass-whooping when you were kid. Anyway, you didn't answer my question: What are those kids doing with those disks? I've seen those everywhere.”
“Pogs,” Wyatt said, scratching his goatee. “Stupidest things ever. John's obsessed with them.”
“What?” Deonte asked.
“Pogs. You collect them. They take turns stacking them into piles and they use these...weights they call ‘slammers’ to slam the piles as hard as they can. And I think whichever pogs land on their face, then that player gets to take them.”
“Sounds like a white people game.” Wyatt had been taking a drink when Reggie made the comment. He almost choked on his beer. “Man, you choke like a white person too. Can't even drink without needing somebody to perform a Heimlich maneuver! Shit boy, what's the matter with you?”
“That's because I am white, you dick!” Wyatt said as he tried to catch his breath, caught between gasping and laughing. “Anyway, my people didn't create that game! I think it came from Japan or China.”
“Nah man, that's Pokemon,” Rico, who had been silent until now, chimed in. “My sister says that's the new thing that's started showing up at schools. She's had to confiscate these Pokemon cards during her classes because her students wouldn't pay attention. They're obsessed with these damn things.”
“Whatever happened to sports?” Reggie asked, “man, when I was in school and somebody asked me to play cards, I'd tell them to go to hell.”
“What about poker?” Rico asked as he pulled a lighter out of his pocket. A few sparks later, he had a cigarette lit. As Vincent stood by and listened, a kid ran by, eager to join the squirt gun fight that was going down a few blocks down the street.
“Poker's all right man,” Reggie continued, “but I'm talking about when I was a kid. You couldn't get me to sit still for one second. My mother had to superglue my ass to the chair when she wanted me to eat dinner. Otherwise, I'd be running around screaming at my brothers and sisters. She would...she would keep–stop fucking laughing!”
“You’re full of shit!” Wyatt said.
“I swear to God this is true!” Reggie insisted, “I'm not making this up! She had this rack of spices, right? You had your cumin, oregano, and thyme, and at the end of it would be a bottle of superglue she'd use to glue our asses to the chair! She'd call everybody to the table, and I'd be running around. She'd say 'Reginald, stop being a dumbass and get over here!”
“Your mother called you a dumbass?”
“Man, she said it like it was. If you’re being a fool, she’d call you a fool. Anyway, I’d run around screaming and being a dumbass, then she’d say ‘Reginald, stop being a moron, sit your dumb ass down and eat your damn food!' and of course me, being the dumbass that I was, wouldn't sit down. So, she'd pick me up and squeeze this bottle of superglue on my ass and then slap me down into the chair. I'd go to bed with that chair still stuck on my ass–”
“Dude...stop...my fucking ribs...”
Reggie ignored Wyatt. “–and it'd come off around four in the morning, cause that's when I started sweating too much. We had no air conditioning, so I'd sweat my ass off and the glue would come loose cause’ of the oils. And then it'd itch for the rest of the night. But yeah, I wouldn't play cards or checkers or none of that. Football was my game. You ask me to play cards, I'd beat your ass...fucking nerds!”
“Wait...wait...wait,” Deonte said, “didn't you wear pants as a kid? How the hell would the glue itch?”
“Man, my mother's frugal as fuck. She didn't want to ruin a good pair of pants,” Reggie said, “she'd pull them right off and slap my naked ass onto the chair.”
Deonte shook his head. “Man, you are so full of shit. You keep telling these damn whoppers.”
“Hey,” Rico said, deciding to change the subject. “Rej, this has been bugging me for a long time. But has anybody ever told you that you've got a big head?”
“My head? The fuck? What are you looking at my head for?” Reggie demanded.
“Man, it's been bugging me for years. You have the biggest fucking head I have ever seen, like...I could fit five of my heads in yours.”
“Man, look at this guy talking shit!” Reggie exclaimed, “the ladies love my head! It gives them more surface area to kiss.” He closed his eyes and pretended some invisible babe was smooching his oversized cranium.
“You probably bite their heads off,” Rico retorted, “that's probably why we see you with a new chick every week. You take them up to your apartment, you put on some music, dim the lights, you go in for a kiss...and then you end up biting their heads off. Is that why you have that dumpster under your window? You be like 'Baby, give me some sugar– '“
“–Give me some sugar...” Reggie slapped his knees. “You hear this fool? Who the hell says 'give me some sugar'?”
“'Give me some sugar baby'” Rico continued, “then you go in for a kiss with your eyes closed and everything. And then when you open your eyes back up, you see a stump where her head used to be. 'OH SHYIIT!!! NOT AGAIN!!!' Then you go over to your window–” Rico opened an invisible sash with his hand and threw the body out. “–right into the dumpster man.”
“Give me some sugar baby!” Reggie howled, “oh damn!”
“Rico, s-st–” Wyatt wheezed for breath. His face was red with laughter and tears streamed down his cheeks. “–stop...”
“Man, when you played football.” Rico kept on going. “Did they have to give you a special helmet? Like, how did you put it on? There's no way a regular helmet would fit over that fucking head of yours. They’d have to cut it in half and put a hinge on the back of that shit. As in you'd have to open up the helmet up to let your head in.”
As the four men talked shit, a young boy exited the nearby alley and looked around. Vincent saw him and did a double take. He was looking at a younger version of himself, younger and terrified. At the same time, he began to remember this moment. The boy, his past self, wore a vacant expression on his face, his eyes darted back and forth as if he saw ghosts lurking among the city's refuse. His complexion seemed to grant him some immunity to the sun's brutal rays and yet, he seemed to veer towards the shadows. The phantoms whispered into his ear.
“Turn right, they are coming for you.”
“No Vincent, turn left.”
“No, go right you stupid kid.”
The young boy turned to the right and walked down the sidewalk. When he passed by the stoop where the four men sat, Deonte sat up.
“What the hell?” he said.
Vinny recognized the voice, but he didn’t turn to look at its owner. The phantoms were guiding him to safety. If he talked to anybody, he would be found. So instead, he continued to walk down the path as though he had not been noticed.
“Hey!” Deonte called, “Cordell!”
“Cordell? Ain't that the family with the crazy kid?” Wyatt asked, unaware that Vincent’s phantom was standing nearby.
“Yeah,” Deonte nodded, “man, he’s not crazy though. He just has schizophrenia.”
“Same difference. He's fucked up in the head. Probably going to be a killer when he grows up,” Wyatt took another sip of his beer. “Instead of porn, they’re gonna find corpses hidden under his floorboards.”
“Man, would you shut up?” Deonte asked, “I've got a cousin who has schizophrenia and that guy's in his thirties. It fucked his life up, but he isn't a psycho. Little V.C.'s only a kid, he's being robbed of his life before he has a chance to live it.”
V.C., that’s what Deonte used to call me.
“I'm just saying–”
“–Yeah, you're saying a lot of shit. You keep that filthy mouth of yours shut. That kid's got enough problems without assholes like you spreading your poison. Seek Jesus man, seek Jesus.”
“That's fucked up for real though,” Reggie said, watching Vinny stop at the corner.
“Well. I'm going to go get him.” Deonte got up and brushed the cigarette dust off his pants. “He's probably lost. His house is a few blocks down.”
“You picking up kids now Deonte?” Wyatt said.
“The fuck is wrong with you? Get your mind out of the gutter and go get some help. I know his mother and father.” Deonte left the others behind and continued down the sidewalk. Vincent followed him, a disembodied phantom reliving his past.
“Yo, little V.C.!” Deonte called.
Vinny turned to look at him, the expression on his face was unreadable.
“Hey man, what are you doing way out here? Where are your parents at?” Deonte asked.
Vinny averted his eyes and looked at the ground, as though making eye-contact were an admission of guilt. When Deonte reached him, he squatted down so that he was level with the kid’s face. Vincent’s phantom watched as a detached, unseen observer as his past played out before him.
“Where are your parents at, bud?” Deonte repeated, “hey man, don't be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you. Do you remember me, the funny guy who made your sisters laugh at the picnic?”
Vinny kept his gaze fixated on the sidewalk, but he nodded.
“What are you doing out here man? You’re looking kind of lost. Do your folks know where you're at?” Deonte asked.
Vinny hesitated for a moment before shaking his head.
“Why? They're probably scared outta their mind right now looking for you.” No answer. “Hey, look at me. Are the voices talking trash right now?”
Vinny whispered something so faint, Deonte couldn’t hear it. The mouth formed shapes, but no words came out.
“You gotta speak louder son, I can't hear you,” Deonte said, brushing the dreadlocks out of his face.
“I...got into trouble...school,” Vinny said, his words seemed to be choked with barely contained grief, “Dad is going to kill me.”
“Huh? What'd you do? Put a frog in the teacher's desk? Steal her car?” Vinny shook his head. “Did you steal the principal's car?” Again, he shook his head. “Then whose car did you steal bro?” A weak smile crawled across Cordell's face.
“I said a bad word,” Vinny admitted, “they told me to. Ryan...he was...being a moron. They said I should call him a...bad word.” Vinny’s eyes glassed over as he brought his sleeve up to his nose and wiped it.
“Hey man, I said plenty of bad words when I was your age. We all make mistakes, even when we don't have voices screaming in our ears,” Deonte said.
“D-dad said he was g-going to kill me if I got in trouble again.”
“Man...Joe isn't going to kill you,” Deonte assured him, “if my mama followed through on any of her threats, my brother and I'd be dead a thousand times over. She beat our ass– I mean...our butts, but she never killed us.”
“They say he's coming for me and–” Vinny looked slightly to the left as though somebody else were talking to him. Deonte snapped his fingers to grab his attention.
“Yo, are those voices talking trash right now?” he asked, “if they are, they're lying to you. You tell them Deonte says if they don't stop talking trash, he's going to find some way to whoop their butts. I've got a special magic butt-whoopin paddle back at home. I'm gonna go get it and I'm going to come back and giving them a beating. It's got a purple handle and glowing sparkles around the edges because it’s magic. You hear me, voices? I'm gonna come for you if you don't leave little Cordell alone.”
“He's lying. Stupid fucking kid.”
“It's a trap.”
“A paddle, he is going to hurt us.”
“Did that work?” Deonte asked, “are they still talking trash?”
“Talking trash...”
a phantom repeated, but it was barely a whisper.Vinny was about to shake his head, but then he gave the shortest of nods as the phantoms dissolved into the background.
“He says they aren't real,” he said.
“Who does?” Deonte asked.
“D-dad. He says it’s a lucinashion.”
“A hallucination?” Deonte asked. Vinny nodded. “Well, he doesn't hear them, does he? But they are real to you. I've got a cousin who has the same problem and he's in his thirties. You aren't alone, he hears voices nobody else hears just like you do. Your father is a great man and you should always honor your mom and dad. But don't let anybody tell you that those voices you hear aren't real. They may be in your head, but you got to treat them like they are real. If they talk trash, you talk trash right back. If they tell you to say a bad word, you tell them 'no!' This is your body, you let them know who's boss. You feel me?”
Vinny’s jaws were clenched as his lips trembled. He was trying with all of his might to stop the tears from flowing, but a stray drop trailed down his cheek. He wiped it away with his sleeve. He gave another curt nod at Deonte's words.
“Your parents love you more than anything in the world,” Deonte said, “even though they’ll occasionally threaten to wring your neck for trashing your room. Joseph? He'd throw himself in front of a bus to save you. He just doesn't understand what you are going through.”
“I...I don't know where...I'm lost. I don't belong here...” Vinny stuttered as the tears began to pour from his eyes.
“I know,” Deonte said, patting him on the shoulder. “I'm going to go get my car. You see it right down there? It's the sweet black convertible with the funny lights on it. It's time to take you home.”
“I don't belong here, Deonte.”
Vincent woke up to the crack of lightning and disorientation. A stream of water poured down the open window, cascading over brick and mortar before dumping into the trough. A sharp pain lanced along his back, indicating that he had fallen asleep on his wing. So, he sat up and leaned against the post, allowing the extra limb to stretch out. Another crack of lightning painted a flickering square onto the floor.
A shiver crawled up his spine as the water had soaked his clothes. The wind howled across the windows, screaming for him like a furious banshee. He reached down to the drake gut that kept him tethered to the post, the strobing of the lightning animating it, making it appear like a snake. Something had cut clean through it while he slept, and he was no longer shackled. A yawn gurgled among the curtains of the violent torrent and a voice, low and foul, called his name.
Vincent stood on his feet and carefully navigated between the sleeping creatures, dragging behind him the severed cord. With each step, he traversed through the transmitted sounds of the storm's unrelenting fury, the clinking of the rings hid behind its clatter. The fire had long died out during the night, so he was forced to use the flashes for illumination. The flickering made his movements appear erratic. He was a phantom who teleported in increments of two to three feet. The crack of distant falling trees resonated throughout the room and he timed his steps to its cacophony.
When he reached the entrance, he clasped a hand to the doorway, opened the door, and stepped out into the storm. He could feel the flux lines emanating from the stakes in the ground, keeping most of the viciousness of the storm at bay. Yet the wind still whipped at his hair and wings, spraying him with water. The landriders were huddled against each other to form one mound of fur.
Vincent stared into the heavens above where lightning flashed, and the clouds churned. They moved as if compelled by some geas to roil and tumble as if the night itself boiled. Whisps fell and columns churned in on themselves, their movements captured by the blinding flashes. The illuminations revealed the tortured faces of people he had once known, pareidolic entities whose moans he could hear in his mind.
Shrieks of torment hid behind the howling wind and hands clawed their way out of the flashing core, only to disappear with the next strike. The wind lifted his wings as if it meant to claim him. He stumbled a few steps, set his hand on one of the totems to steady himself, then he shouted into the heavens.
“Look what they did to me...” he mouthed, his voice puny compared to the tumult of the storm. Yet his rage felt powerful enough to equal its vitriol. “LOOK AT WHAT THEY DID!! DEONTE! I KNOW THAT'S YOU!”
Lightning flashed, creating a zoetrope-like display of trees bending under the strain of the wind, their leaves desperately clinging to the branches like survivors of a sinking ship. Streams, which poured down the hill, frothed and boiled in the vicious eddies of the storm. Phantoms whispered vacant threats as they rode the tempest's gales. The yawn resonated across the skies as if the supports of reality were coming apart. And the shrieking, the shrieking of a thousand tortured souls screamed in unison.
“THEY DID THIS!!! DEONTE! THEY TOOK ME!!! I COULDN'T CONTROL THEM! THEY DIDN'T EVEN LET ME SAY–”
The wind lifted the wings and threw him down. His knees splashed into mud and he was knocked onto his back. The wind whipped under his shirt and sprayed his eyes with water and grit. He no longer saw the ground. Instead, he became lost in the roiling heavens whose terrifying majesty was captured in brief moments of illumination. He felt the power of its virulent energy shriek at his soul and clawed at the faces that churned in the clouds.
“I want to go home...” Vincent’s voice was mute, overpowered by the crack of thunder. “I want to–” The storm pulsed in his ears, crackling with electronic static. The rain became motes of white noise, releasing tears of countless rent souls. A clawed hand reached for the sky in place of his own as if it meant to grab the clouds.
“I deserve it...I didn't say...I let her...” His chest heaved with a violence that threatened to break his ribs. The lightning cracked another judgment.
White noised poured over his brain and allowed him to lay in the storm, water pouring down his cheeks and pooling within the membranes of his wings. He didn’t react to the deafening clash of thunder nor to the wind that whipped the hair into his face. Nor did he give any indication that he was aware of his violent shivering.
A figure with lime eyes knelt down and tucked her arms under his shoulders. She clasped her hands around his chest and began to drag him out of the storm. His protests dissolved into the wind, yet when he was dragged inside, the word “Deonte...” could be heard repeated over and over again, “No...Deonte!!” His hand reached towards the door though it lay beyond his reach, trying to grab the storm.
“He has the Bane!” somebody said, the owner had eyes of glowing orange.
“Relos,” Slade barked, “assist me. Hold him down.”
“Deonte!” Vincent struggled against his captor's restraints. “Get the hell off me you goddamn lizards!”
Clayde held Vincent in a headlock while Tuls uncapped the bottle of Triasat nectar. Deonte's voice spoke the same words which he had heard as a child.
“This is your body, you let them know who's boss.”
Vincent bit down on Clayde's arm like a feral animal and wriggled his snout back and forth. The relos uttered a Falian profanity, but he didn’t let go.
“It's poison,” a phantom whispered.
Tuls dipped his claw into the Triasat nectar and extended his finger toward the side of Vincent’s mouth. He tried to pull away, but Clayde's strength held him still. A noise resembling a growl rose up from his throat as Tuls wiped the sweet substance onto his gums. Violent coughs seized him as the familiar fire spread through his veins, correcting any abnormalities. Clayde let him go and he crawled in the direction of the doorway.
“Deo–” he clutched his chest. “Deonte...” He reached for the storm, begging it not to leave him behind. “Don't go...take me back.”
Black wisps of smoke began to flow forth from his snout and fall to the ground like fog. The storm spoke of shattered memories and of disembodied spirits crying out to him. The Triasat washed through his mind and corrected the miswired circuits in his brain. The last plume of black smoke rose up in front of him, taking the phantoms with it.
The storm no longer yawned in agony or whispered unspoken accusations to his ear. The howls at the window were no longer the screams of angered spirits, but of the wind creating a resonance in the chamber. The squall was virulent, but it was no longer supernatural or caused by some ill phenomenon. It was just a very violent storm. A luminescent crystal had been activated; it shone its argon light around the chamber. What in the hell had just happened and why had he just been screaming at a storm? What the fuck had he been doing?
“How...how did he break free?!” Ro'ken asked.
Slade picked up the severed end of the drake gut, her expression unreadable.
“The storm...it’s...normal?” There was disbelief in Tuls’ voice. “Vincent, Are you well?”
“No.” Vincent did not look at them, he couldn't, not after what they had witnessed him do. He did not even understand it himself. “As long as you see me in this world, I will never be fucking 'well'. But there you have it. You all just witnessed your first psychosis. I now know that miracle juice won’t hold my schizophrenia back forever. There is no cure for it. Just...perpetual madness. It's fatal to you, but to me it's just...life.”
A silence as deafening as the storm followed. Without even looking at them, he could practically see the relos exchanging looks.
“Sorry for the bite.” Vincent said to Clayde. No answer, just a grunt. The windows wept with rainwater, which in turn ran along the mortar in the floor.
“Who...or what is Deonte?” Slade asked, still examining the tether, tracing a claw along the cut.
“I'll tell you what he's not: Your damn business.”
He walked back over to his sleeping mat and pulled it away from the window. It had soaked up a lot of the water, but he didn’t care. He wrung it out and laid it on the floor before lying down on his side. He pulled his knees to his chest for warmth. Between strikes of thunder, he could hear Tuls and Clayde conversing, no doubt talking about what had just transpired. He was mildly surprised Slade didn't immediately bind him again, but that was the least of his worries. What the fuck had he been doing? Why the hell had he been chasing after the storm as though it were Deonte?
“I'm sorry,” Vincent whispered to the wall, “I forgot about you, man. Don't know why I remembered you now, but sorry I forgot.” The bricks gave their reply by weeping the storm's water. “I didn't remember a damn thing. That's how screwed up I am.” He closed his eyes and let the weariness take him away. Before he faded into slumber, he heard somebody describe what they had witnessed as being “impossible”.