kaolin fire presents :: writing :: fiction

"HeWould.0"

words

Otis sat in his idling blue Chevy, listening to the bursts of cheer coming from his ex's flat. He imagined he could distinguish Penny's chitter, Mack's snort--he imagined Mack laughed just like him--and the interloper. Were there more people there? Probably, but they were just a background noise to the people he cared about. He imagined the interloper sprayed spittle in a cone when he laughed, some misfigured beast.

Otis imagined walking into the house; imagined the noise stopping, his heart pounding--blood rushing so that he saw spots, but he'd hold his ground. He rubbed the fuzzy dice hanging from his rearview for comfort--he'd have them in his pocket, then, and he'd knead a bit of fuzz between his thumb and forefinger to calm himself until he could see again.

Penny'd given him the dice the day he bought the car, so he wouldn't forget her when he was out cruising. A joke. But an omen, too. She'd never really trusted him.

And where he'd gone cruising, there were no cars. A fishing trip, a boy's night out--a wasted weekend turned into twenty years. Fishing just over the border--but where did the whores come from?

They'd ensorceled him, somehow; he remembered a turf war, but mostly he remembered the drugs pumping through his system; and blood, lots of blood. Not vampires, though they played at it. Tech-heads. Cyborgs.

They played games in his head that the human mind wasn't meant to process--colors and shapes and dimensions that--

No. He wasn't there. Sissy had let him go. And Penny couldn't blame him for that; for any of that. Sissy had been fucking his head.

He concentrated on the rumbling of the engine, a deep purr like Penny used to make in bed. Had she done that before the car? Or had the car done it to her? So many different lifetimes ago, that was, it was hard to remember. Dreams of dreams.

Otis imagined the shocked, hurt look on Penny's face, with him just standing there after all those years. Would she recognize him? She'd have to. But Mack--Mack wouldn't have a clue who he was. He'd been just a baby. Maybe she'd told him stories; or maybe she'd kept those to herself. Maybe Mack'd seen a picture, somewhere. But of the people there, Penny'd be the only person to know him. Would she say something? Or would Jon--George--Jim?

Those letters had broken him--once Sissy had him, she had his life--his accounts, all of them. She played his life, separating thread from thread. Twenty years, he'd been someone else, something else. Otis had disappeared, had died, and Penny had moved on. Sissy snooped and pried and told him of the suitors, one by one.

It didn't matter.

Penny, who swore by clean living; she'd never trust his tale. She believed in law, justice; happy endings. He probably wouldn't believe it, himself. He'd heard tales of the tech heads, sure, the kind you'd check out on the net, find an article proving its spuriousness. Otis wondered what he'd find online, but he was scared to jack in. He'd been running lowtech since his escape. Since she let him go. He didn't, couldn't, trust Sissy wouldn't change her mind.

How long had he been on the road, gathering dust?

Otis imagined the dust falling off of him under Penny's gaze. Heart in his throat. He'd tell her he loved her. That was the important thing. He loved her, and--and what? He'd swallow his pride, sure, whatever it took to make things right, but what? He'd have the fuzzy dice in his hands, and she'd recognize those--she'd have to. And he'd tell her he loved her, with honest eyes.

If it was a play, then, he'd kill Giseppe, but that didn't really happen. Not in Temecula.

So Otis would be standing there, his gazed locked with Penny. Jerome wouldn't have a thing to say. Too weak. Mack. Mack would be the one to break the silence. He'd be abrupt, but honest. Mack would confront him and Otis would just have to take it; and take it down a notch. "Yes, I left," he'd say. "But I didn't mean to." And then he'd tell Mack the story, with Jeff standing on the side. But really, he'd be telling it to Penny.

He'd leave out the beginning, at first. Why mention the whores, right? Jules didn't need to know about them. He just needed to know Otis was back, that Otis had never really left.

Mack wouldn't trust him, sure, and that was fair. But Penny would want to, at least--she'd want to trust him. She'd want to believe the happily-ever-after regardless what she had with Jason. Those dreams were stale compared to what she'd had with Otis. Otis was sure of that. He was something special, she was something special, and it all just had to work out--that's the way Penny worked.

That's how it had to work.

He opened the door, killed the engine. Silence echoed in his ears, making him more self-conscious. Did he really need to intrude on her life? He could just walk away. But it was his life too, dammit! A small amount of pain on both their parts, and then redemption. He couldn't imagine anything better.

Motion pulled at the edges of his vision. Otis grit his teeth--no, he wasn't jacked in. This was real, walking up to the door; the streaks were his imagination, his fears.

Otis stood at the door, trying to decide whether to knock or just walk in. He tried to imagine--no, he had to walk in. Knocking didn't set the scene. He opened the door, but the house was wrong--no, that was natural. A house would change in twenty years. He closed his eyes, then looked again. Everything seemed right. Maybe his memory had changed in twenty years.

He imagined they were in the kitchen. Otis walked through the livingroom, conscious of the noise made by every step he took, his shoes scuffing slightly against the pergot floor. Pergot? That was new, anyway. But they'd talked about it.

He walked into the kitchen, and there was Penny--beautiful as ever, hardly aged, in his mind. Some wrinkles that distinguished her, and she'd changed her hair--maybe her clothes were a bit more modest than they used to be, but it was her. And Mack--Mack had grown into a formidable young man, everything Otis could have wanted him to be.

And it played out just like he imagined: penny hugged him after his tale, tears in her eyes. Greg just disappeared, he didn't care how. Otis was getting stronger, getting better at that. He had his life back.

This round, at least.