man, though he eyes me suspicious; mother’s a sweet, plump thing, who eyes me worse than the old man, though you’d never know it by the look. But I couldn’t be forced at the end of a gun to care for either, or Bill, for that matter, because across that table was an angel Bill’s parents named Charlotte.
She didn’t talk much over dinner, and neither did I, but there was something in those big blue eyes I couldn’t keep from looking into. And at the end of dinner she mouthed one word to me, “barn” before she told her parents she was slipping off to bed. She met me out back a few minutes later.
She didn’t say a thing, but stole a kiss before I could, and I’m an old hand at that sort of thing. Then she told me, “Good night,” and went to bed. Now I’m certain the only thing of worth Bill’s ever done is to have a sister. I could die a happy man tonight, but if I live just one more day, I’ll never be able to let her go. God himself will have difficulty shuffling me off this mortal coil without her.
2010
I’m dying. I’ve known for months, though I’ve tried to hide it. I tried to hide the truth, as well, always dangerously close to violating the fourth of the five precepts. But my son is clever. He woke me in a panic this morning, and I found I could not move. “You’re dying,” he told me.
“I know,” I replied. He’d known for some time; I wondered if he sensed the hour as I did, felt the King of Death’s wind blown against my neck.
He was silent for a time. “I’m a lousy student. I’ve become attached to you; I suffer because I will miss you when you pass.”
“The fault is mine,” I said through a lumped throat. “I’ve been a lousy teacher. Through my craving, I insisted your mother adopt you to Buddhists. To feed my craving, I watched you grow from afar. For my craving, I insisted I teach you the Sangha’s ways. A good Buddhist would have given you away to someone else, as your mother and I did once before, but I craved time with my son. You suffer for your father’s failures, and I’m sorry for that, because I can’t suffer enough to compensate.”
I expected surprise, but he was, as I said, clever. He had deduced his lineage, as he had my frailty. “I suffer for the loss of my father, my teacher, and my friend. And I suffer gladly.”
I smiled. “I am not lost. I will be again- but I hope my rebirth does not become your attachment. Let this be the last we say goodbye.”
2079
Bill’s a bastard. Maybe I’m rationalizing again. I spent a little time sneaking around, following him, until one day he confronted me and kicked the hell out of me; took my wallet, too, just to be a bastard, I think. I let a PI do the rest.
He beats his girlfriend, who pays the rent. He’s not a drug addict, only because he can’t afford to be, and he’s too lazy to make small-time breaking and entering a career to pay for it. But that’s not justification. All that means is I should cripple the bastard before he hurts someone seriously; no, what it is… is confirmation. If I needed anything to tell me this was Bill, a few lifetimes removed, this is it.
The gun was in old Bill’s grave, packed in a cigar box. It’s a Colt Single Action Army. I’ve spent time cleaning it, learning it, getting so the weight of it and the recoil come as natural. One of the men I asked for help getting it ready offered more money than I’ve ever seen for it; apparently it’s a collectible.
My daddy from a different life had tried to buy it from an Indian (or Native American, I suppose) who claimed he got it from a dead soldier at the Little Bighorn, but he wouldn’t sell it. So my daddy got the Indian drunk, then won it off him in a game of cards; my bad apple didn’t fall far off that tree. It was friendly if mean, or it was supposed to be, but the Indian, once he’d sobered up, came at him with a knife, and got shot with his own gun. Out of shame, Dad put that gun away, and I never saw it until he was dying of cholera. That’s when he told me the story, and gave it to me.
I’d used it for no good, at least until I used it to put a bullet in the old Bill; that was an undertaking long overdue. So’s this. New Bill’s curled in a ball, whimpering like a broke-legged mule. He thinks I’ve got him wrong, that I don’t see him for what he is. But I’m getting tired of his blubbering- not that I expected him to man up.
“Figured you wouldn’t remember any of this; if most people did, that would change the nature of the world. I know I’m supposed to be seeking enlightenment, searching for a grander purpose to existence, but I don’t want it. Only thing I want is to hunt you down and kill you, over and over and over again. You’re not my son; y'ain’t even Bill, just pieces of him, stirred up and reset. But you’re built from bad parts; I’ve seen enough already to know more often than not, the bastard you’ll come back to be. I think the point of this here life is letting go, just not yet.”
I pull the hammer back; it all feels like a dance I know, with a girl I’ve loved, and that brings back Charlotte and the life that son of a bitch took from me, so I take this one from him.
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Ghost Dust
The terrorists killed more people on 9/11 than anyone understands. My wife worked in the South Tower. She'd forgotten her lunch on the counter, and I didn't have class until later, so I was bringing it to her. I was a few blocks away, when the first plane hit.
The police tried to evacuate everyone, but I couldn't go home. I watched the second plane strike, from the sidewalk. I stayed, hoping my wife would walk out, smile the way she does when I wake from a nightmare, telling me everything is still okay.
And then I saw it fall, and the wall of smoke and rocks and debris that rained down on the street. I choked into my collar, staring through the wreckage, before my mind caught up enough to tell me she was gone.
I was diagnosed with lymphoma shortly after we buried her. I imagine the doctor was as distracted as the rest of us, which is why I didn't sue him when the biopsy came back negative. He was still distracted the second time around, and was a few pen strokes from sending me home with a prescription for tuberculosis when he stopped himself, and told me he would like to get a consult.
The second doctor asked what my symptoms were, and I rattled off fatigue, lack of energy, weight loss, aches and pains, shortness of breath- his response wasn't cold or dry or meant to be funny, but he said I sounded depressed. Then he looked at the x-rays, and told me I had sarcoidosis, granulomas in my lungs that were producing vitamin D and causing an overdose.
I'm not responding to the prednisone, or any of the other corticosteroids. Because the granulomas are wrapped in T cells, the doctor tried the immunosuppressant infliximab. He's not hopeful that will be enough, and is already planning to put me on cyclophosphamide, a chemo drug, but even then he said, after I badgered him for the better part of fifty minutes, I've got a 30% chance.
We discussed it a long time, and he admitted there was only one thing in my history that might have caused this: exposure to toxic dust from the towers. Certainly the dust was bits of building and broken airplane, and the myriad things you find in an office building, smashed to bits and burned. But there was something else.
What they did on 9/11 was so much more horrible than any of us realized. They found a way to kill us with our loved ones. They weaponized people.
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Bloody Hands
It’s dark; the rain spatters the entire world with mud. A man sits on a horse the color of a starless sky, trotting at a dead man’s pace. Simple John calls to him, “Lee, Lee,” grabbing his reins. He throws his leg over his horse and slides out of the saddle. “The McLaren boy’s up in that loft. Got the family scattergun, says he’ll use it on anyone comes in- then hisself.” Lee undoes his gunbelt, holds it out to John like a limp prairie dog.
Lee pokes his head into the dark. “It’s Lee. I’m leaving my guns put, so don’t shoot.” The boy peers over the ledge, lit only by candle shaking in his hand.
“Hold. Don’t, don’t- No closer.” Lee walks towards the ladder against the loft, and keeps his hands out to show he’s
unarmed.
“What are your thoughts, son?” The boy doesn’t answer, but ain’t started shooting, either, so Lee starts to climb. “I ain’t armed. I’m coming up. Don’t shoot me.” As he reaches the top, he’s greeted by the cold, metal eyes of the shotgun; Lee moves slow, keeping distance between them as he sits in the hay. “I ain’t coming at you; you don’t need to point that. Tell me, what are your troubles?”
“This ain’t over no woman, is it?” Jamie snorts a response, a bitter smirk on his lips. “All right, then, what?” After another silence, Lee adds, “You want to speak, or you’d be already killed.”
“Why- why didn’t you stop me? You could have got close, and took this shotgun off me.” Lee didn’t smile underneath his hat, though under some other light he might have.
“I might stop you, take that shotgun away and put you bleeding in the hay. But I won’t be here tomorrow; just ain’t no stopping a man wants it done. Question’s why?”
Jamie shudders, falls over; the thought of telling was enough to make him heave dry into the hay; Lee doesn’t take advantage, use the moment to get at the gun, but sits back, waits.
“Sometimes pa, when he and ma was fighting, he’d come to me at night, real late. I didn’t like it, but he- he says I was his special boy, and it