After the War (VI)

This is the last ten pages or so. Thanks

The window became a point of contention and for a few seconds there was a nearly imperceptible line in the sand. Dr. Prang and Stanley seemed set on opening it, providing the room with fresh (if humid and hot) air. Br. Quinn and his equally irrational cohort Dr. Jiles sat on the other side of the line. It was a poetic moment to notice their striking resistance to change. Wes paid no attention to the discussion and rubbed his aching hip with decorum.

“Listen,” said Stanley. Amplifying his voice to ensure importance. “We’re going to open all the windows and the doors and see if we can’t get some kind of cross-draft. If you two don’t think it’s a good idea, no one is begging you to stick around.”

At that, Dr. Prang, Stanley and I set to opening all the windows. We returned with a pitcher of water and Prang blurting unannounced:

“So, brother Quinn. What do you think God has to do with this?”

“God? Have you looked down on the people below us Prang. Their group is growing.”

“And they seem so,” Dr. Jiles struggled with her diction “They seem so agitated.”

I looked down to see that there were fists pumping and shouting in a few sections of the crowd. I felt a twinge of their outrage. Somewhere down there an impoverished man felt power in screaming the English translation of those same mantras shouted in a Sri Lankin factory, or a Mexican field, or a Soviet breadline. Someone was demanding to know when enough was enough, or counting down the dwindling list of things that were yet to be taken away. A hard listen may have produced “The time is now!”. But then again, I’ve always been a timid revolutionary. Even if this “agitation” was simply revelatory or boredom-induced the community pillars in my room were visibly nervous, save Dr. Prang. The lower class, hell even the middle-class, was not supposed to behave outside of the status quo, no matter the weather. A parade, a riot, a block party, whatever, the citizens were not supposed to congregate in the middle of the afternoon. They were not supposed to mingle in the streets as the day approached rush hour.

“This is not an act of God, Albert. Can’t you see that. This is the act of evil. The devil opening the doors of temptation by pushing people out into the streets. Encouraging looting, promiscuity, all manner of … “

“Wait, back up Quinn.” Responded Dr. Prang, his hair was wet with sweat, especially the front, and several strands matted to his forehead. His glasses slipped down his nose, and he pushed them up with a disciplined index finger. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“When something like this happens,” Dr. Jiles, fighting to stay relevant “people have a lapse of judgment, they may do things that they regret.”

“Olivia, please let me respond to this .. . “ rapidly staring Dr. Prang up and down. By capillary action his collar was now wet with sweat. He took a deep breath “this heathen. The devil has tempted you as well Prang, with science and lies. God has tested your faith and you have lost.”

“Amazing.” Dr. Prang chuckled. “Well I . . .”

Brother Bobby Quinn, now standing at the precipice between my kitchen and the room we sat in, shook with rage. I heard his teeth grind.

“I don’t know how to respond to that. Why don’t you take things for what they are instead of trying to fit your strict definition around it . . .”

“I’ve heard enough!” His yell threw both perspiration and sweat at Dr. Prang’s feet.

“That’s part of your problem too, Quinn. See, your beliefs were all well and good several hundred years ago when no one knew better. What’s supposed to happen, what would happen if people like you would allow others to come to their own conclusions is that . .well people might think about things. New information could come to light and. . .”

Brother Quinn leapt towards Dr. Prang with a knife; my kitchen knife from my butcher’s block, and stabbed him in the chest. Dr. Prang stared at him for a moment and then closed his eyes. He betrayed no pain.

There was no predetermined protocol for response. Dr. Prang fell to the floor and for a brief moment Brother Quinn stood over him, embodying all sin and temptation. Prang pulled the knife out of himself as he lay on his back and an instantaneous arc of blood shot up onto Quinn’s shirt.

“What have I done?”

There was the requisite screaming, two bodyguards rushing thru the door, a tackle to the ground. The guilty screamed louder than all of us, pain and anguish beneath Wes’s troglodytes. By that time I was on the ground at Prang’s wound, pulling his shirt off.

“Why .. .why .. .” Dr.Jiles tried to speak through tense lips and the beginnings of tears. “Why would he DO that? How can a person . . .oh jesus .. .how can a person kill another person?”

I was the first to tend to Dr. Prang’s wound. I hesitated for a moment, assuming I had none of the knowledge or that my status at the bottom of the totem pole precluded me from response in an emergency. In my periphery I tried to keep tabs on the movements of the rest of the group; this quickly escalating drama needed to be somehow retained for history. The pot had certainly come to boil. I took off my shirt and used it to apply pressure to Prang’s wound and looked up at Wes.

“What are we going to do Wes? We need to call the police . . or . . I don’t know. What do we do?!”

Wes thought about it for several seconds; looked at the wound, looked at me now smeared in blood and looked at his own clothing for specks of the same substance. After a moment’s pause for deliberation he promptly stood up from the stool and left. He sidestepped his bodyguards (now trying to bring a zip-tie wristed preacher to his feet) and presumably headed back toward his room. As he closed the door behind him he looked back once at us; no emotion, no concern, only a stiff hint of self-preservation and the inaudible click of the door closing. He either did not want to disturb us or did not want to hear himself close the door on this tragedy.

Dr. Jiles, meanwhile, was admonishing Brother Quinn. I heard only a little of it over the din, and Wes’s exit. She scolded him for not being in control of his anger . . . for not realizing that he actually loves Dr. Prang.

This all happened in a matter of seconds, mind you, and I was responsive to Prang’s first words.

“Take me to my apartment, Julius. Don’t let me die here with them.” There was a great deal of blood in his mouth, and it bubbled over on the word ‘die’. Viscous blood ran down his chin and back towards the daunting wound on his chest. I couldn’t find the words to discourage his fatalism.

“Alright.” I said. “Up we go.” I pulled him up onto his feet and leaned him against me. Dr. Jiles was babbling something in our direction, a diatribe she’d probably recommended to listeners for recital at their loved one’s death. She reminded him, as some ineffective tack-on to her unlistenable dreck, to find his peace as he went.

“Listen,” Prang found strength to turn around and speak as I opened the door. Nearly all of his weight relied on me, his feet shuffled clumsily. “A man’s life is irrelevant . . .his mission in life is to . .” and he hacked up a deep red globule of his very essence onto my floor.

I struggled to get him to his room, him bleeding profusely the whole way, wheezing for air. He let go of my shoulder in the doorway and fell halfway into his room. Any doubt I had about the mortality of his wound had been erased. He moved his hand around uncontrollably and tried to swallow.

“Julius. I’m going to die.”

“Yes. Yes you are.”

“And I’m afraid. Very . . .afraid.”

“I understand. We all die. . .”

“Julius, I only got a hint of what you beliephhh. But I ..I don’t believe . I don’t know what I believe.”

“I don’t know either.” I was horrified and upset; a man I’d befriended only that day was dying in my arms. Even still I lack sentimentality and said the wrong things. He looked at me for the first time in vulnerability and I tried to respond. “Maybe it will be exciting to find out what happens.”

“Nothing happens. What iphhhhhhh . . what ipph that’s it? I lived this long to be knived. Ehm I a martyr or a fool?”

“I .. . “

“Don’t answer. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.”

“But it. . . “

A tremendous sorrow passed over his eyes and a tightness in his chest released.

I walked back towards my apartment angry. Prang’s blood, still warm, dripped from me in various places. There was an extant surrealism, and despite the irony I must say, cinematic ambience to the day and the building. It was a unique and now tragic sequence of events to be sure and yet the most surprising footnote was that Prang had died in terror. Of all the wisdom he claimed, all the philosophical tenacity and confidence, death intimidated him. He had never really answered the question and, as I saw it, realized that it was the only one that really mattered. My heart racing, I could now hear the sounds of the street through my open windows as I returned.

“Ya’ know this whole thing . . .it’s a . . it’s my fault!” I heard Stanley say, sitting on the floor now rubbing his forehead and his eyes aggressively. Dr. Jiles was prostrate before him, waiting to console whatever garbage came out of his mouth. I was covered in a dead man’s blood, my eyes likely bright with some ember of vengeance. Quinn had killed the only person in this building that I could stand.

“Are you looking for sympathy?” I yelled. “What are you, a fucking victim now? I just watched Prang die in my arms because . .. “

“Julius!” Dr. Jiles stopped me with a surprisingly authoritative voice. All manner of unmentionable childhood memories came back, the way a woman in charge says my name runs to my very spine. “Stanley is feeling that he wants to open his heart to us, and I think we’ve had enough argument for one day. Go ahead Stanley.”

I got a warm beer out of my refrigerator, out of which wafted the sickly-sweet smell of spoiled food, and sat on my counter to hear Stanley’s confession and kill a few dozen brain cells. Not the ones that recalled the vermilion collapse of a life dedicated to knowledge (that memory in all it’s disruption was mine to keep), but perhaps some of the rage inducers accompanying the snake charmer’s meltdown or a former world-leader’s sheepish retreat. Apparently, Stanley’s was next.

“You see,” Stanley started, and then looked at me as if unsure whether I should be sitting in my own kitchen or not. “A significant portion of my investment goes into the utilities. Power, natural gas, that kind of thing. Electricity, in these last few years, hasn’t been profitable. So . . umm .. . we’ve taken steps to increase demand.”

“By shutting it off?” I asked. Olivia seemed nonplussed. I’m not sure if she understood what he meant, of course a famous psychologist would have no understanding of economics or how they affect an individual’s life. Surely that is someone else’s job.

“Yes. We . . . .because people aren’t willing to pay high costs. We have to . .. .we have to make them willing. We shut it off for a few hours in a crucial region and suddenly businesses and individuals are willing to pay more.”

As I gathered my thoughts, not easy in the heat, determining whether to cuss the businessman out or perpetuate the cycle Brother Quinn had started, Olivia asked him a question.

“Why does that make you responsible for Prang’s death?”

“Are you kidding? Seriously, Olivia, seriously. Even if Prang hadn’t died this man. This tool that I shouldn’t even allow in my apartment. Would be an asshole. Look out that window Olivia. How hot is it? How many people out there are walking home in the heat, not getting paid for a day’s work, coming home to rotting food. And why? Because this guy, this whimpering. . ..”

Olivia, seemingly hopeless at bisecting my seething, gave out an indistinguishable noise and sat down. She put her knees together and looked down.

“Stanley . .. leave” I said. Why was he in my apartment anymore? It was well over one hundred degrees and I was sweating bullets in muggy, shared air for no reason other than happenstance. Stanley’s admittance of some kind of guilt, whether actually responsible for the day’s events or not, made him amongst the last people I wanted to share my heat stroke with. Olivia began to cry; not, of course, with resistance or in remorse for Albert but in loud, attention grabbing sobs. Stanley, a bit slack-jawed, collected his wool sport coat and a few items; he looked briefly at Olivia, admittedly stark and curious in her sudden lack of comfort and control, and walked towards my door. He was on a course to be painfully close to me and as he approached Stanley cast down his eyes.

“Olivia!” I said, her childishness now annoying. “You leave too, but don’t go far. The cops will want to talk to all of us.” They both looked at me, likely savage and ethereal in Albert’s drying blood.

“I don’t know how the hell any of you people made it to where you are, but all it took was a little bit of pressure and you cracked.”

Stanley opened my apartment door and nearly fell as he caught an obvious prostitute screaming his name. She flailed on flimsy legs that wobbled as if atrophied. From my vantage point I could see the dense bubble of foam at each corner of her mouth, the dark, rheumy eyes of overdose or addiction. After her scream, sores on all legs, exposed midriff, fish-belly white forearms, she again gargled some approach at “Stanley”.
“Stanley . . . is this your wife?” had I earned the pretention to speak that way? He slid from her embrace and grasped her hands at the wrist as she fell. He was more concerned about being swatted or having his eyes raked with her jagged coke-nail than preventing any damage to her skull as it hit my kitchen floor. She spoke in drug-sick tongues and hacked.
“Stanley . . who is this? What is going on here?” Olivia said. Equally confused about the OD’ed whore’s age-old profession, it’s modern association with dangerous drugs, or the faculty of a “respectable” businessman to indulge in her temptations as she had been about Prang’s murder, or the throngs on the street below.
“This woman is . . .”
“Tell the truth man. Who cares?”
“I pay this woman for services . .” he gulped, she was unconscious now on the floor. This emergency did not call me to action as had Quinn’s attack, Stanley had to take care of this. Besides, the police were already on their way; I imagined their push down our crowded street being met with beer bottles and trash. “I pay for her services and she is supposed to stay in the goddamn room until I tell her she can leave.” His anger was building, the whole fabric of his clothing now soaked with sweat, his glasses foggy with condensate.
“And she’s obviously a drug-addict, Stanley. Shit, she might die right here.”

I got off the counter and walked to the window, Stanley turning over his prostitute, emptying her pockets of contraband, looking for identification. Despite our presence, he had to be thinking about throwing her in the incinerator. Down below, as I’d imagined, two police cars nudged through a crowd of now thousands. I could hear paramilitary announcements and commands through the PA, and I could make out the faint hollers of resistance. The people below believed they’d been sent in to corral them, not respond to legitimate crime. Where was the damn ambulance? I had a flush of pride.

A squad car stopped at the foot of the building, they would be up in moments.
“Stand your ground” I whispered to the masses “No one is better than you, believe me.”
“What?” Olivia asked.
“Nothing. Let’s go out into the great room and wait. The police will be here shortly.”

I walked back across the apartment, Dr. Jiles followed closely behind. We stepped over Stanley’s prostitute, now certainly pushing death, traipsed thru Prang’s blood and once again I felt the cool marble floor on my feet.
The ex-president’s body guards and a hog-tied, former televangelist waited there as well, in the dark. A minute behind us Stanley dragged the prostitute limp and lifeless into the room as well. We were a neighborhood pacing around for the police to show up as though someone had crashed our hootenanny or one of our drunk cousins had wrapped himself around a telephone pole. Dr. Olivia Jiles cried not unlike the stiff-lipped cry of a drug-dealer’s mother as her son is taken away.
As several police officers shuffled into the room, the lights came back on. Guns drawn, bulletproof vests on, the leader looked at me first. There we were again in the grandiose hall; gaudy, traditional decorations, a bust of someone important in each corner. And the crooked sword or bloody remnants of five who failed at the critical moment, illuminated brightly enough to burn off my writer’s block.