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“America?” I nearly choked on my tea. “Keane, you can’t be serious. In all the wonderful and exotic places in the world, why would you choose America?” My companion glanced up from his enormous oak writing desk and lowered his pen atop a tidy stack of manuscripts. Ever since we had returned from visiting his sister, those papers had absorbed much of his valuable time. Hours were spent huddled over ink-splattered words; minutes moving past lazily as long pen scratches were etched into the unsuspecting page. But now . . .
“And why not, Lawrence? You yourself are an American and should be delighted at the prospect of returning to your homeland.” Unlike what his English clipped voice so perfectly assumed, I was not delighted. I was not even pleased.
England and America, two countries separated by the same language . . .
“First of all, I was born in the state of aviation and lightbulbs, not California. Second, you know as well as I do, being born in a place does not necessarily mean you wish to spend your entire summer there.”
“Really, Lawrence, aren’t you being a touch over dramatic? Yes, I am well aware of your, shall we say, distaste for your fellow countrymen.”
“Distaste?” I crossed my arms tightly over my throbbing rib cage. “Distaste is hardly the word for it. It’s as if the whole country speaks without their mouth ever shutting completely.”
“I agree Americans have always held an intimate affair with the exclamation point, but it would only be two months—three at most.” Wonderful. Approximately sixty to ninety days with an average of 1800 hours and God only knows how many minutes. “Besides, it is an invitation from an—“
“—old friend. Yes, Keane, I remember. I also recall the last time you received a letter from an ‘old friend’. He turned out to be your elder brother and we were almost murdered in a blizzard.” My companion had the grace enough to look at least marginally pained by my heated response, but still he held fast.
“I assure you this is not another mysterious sibling. The man is not so much as a relation. You have, I think, heard of the name James Harrison?”
“Isn’t that the director friend of yours?” Keane tugged on his ear.
“Indeed. I worked with him—briefly, mind you—back in the war, and now he claims he needs some sort of help.” There was, I thought, at least a grain of truth in the statement, for no human being who had ever taken upon themself the mantle of theatrical director was ever really sane. But all the same, the assistance the letter was requesting seemed hardly one of an overpowering madness as it was a soft cry of a child in danger. I rocked on my heels, mind and thoughts tossing about as waves leaping over a ship’s rail.
“Why the devil does a thespian need a professor of psychology? Not that it isn’t a noble profession, but—”
“—I asked James the very question, but he insists any information must wait until we step foot on the great state of gold and flickering lights.” I set my teacup against the saucer with a firm grunt of china.
“Keane, I heard a we in that statement. Would you care to elaborate?”
“You don’t think I would go alone without your splendid company, do you? Of course not. Besides,” He stood from behind his desk and grabbed a cigarette from one of the many bowls spotting the study, his back suddenly to me. “It would be good for you to see the United States again, even if it is a different portion than what you were used to.” The rope was beginning to slip from my fingers. I felt the threads weaken and tear in my palms. All that had been tightly woven as one was unraveling into a thousand bits of life; therefore, I allowed myself to succumb into one of the most animalistic instincts.
I dug in with my nails.
“Really, I can’t go. I have hundreds of appointments with my editor, not to mention the publisher breathing down my neck for another manuscript. I couldn’t possibly—”
“—Cancel them? No need, I already did. Your schedule is entirely free.” The feigned innocence on his face, the boyish grin which so often appeared when he knew he had won, often made me forget his fifty-something years. After all, it is often well past the borders of acceptable society to strike an older man.
But if he were younger . . .
“Keane, you really are quite impossible. Every time I wish to do something, you throw my life in another direction completely. It simply isn’t—isn’t gentlemanly of you.” A silver eyebrow leapt high on his forehead.
“Me? Not a gentleman? Lawrence, have I ever said you were required to come? No, I haven’t. I have merely made it possible to join me if you wish to do so. The choice is entirely your own. Of course, if your love of the theatre is not enough to tear yourself away from your work—”
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THE PLANE TOUCHED DOWN late in the evening a few days later, and I had still not fully forgiven Keane for the black-mail infested offer of a trip to my home country. Even so late in the day, a wall of festering heat nearly bowled me over as I climbed down the ladder. The dim outline of palm trees caught fire in the evening sun, the tips burning feverishly above the shadow of buildings a few miles away. Not since our trip to Mexico had I felt such stifling temperatures, and at least then there was some sense of mystery, a subconscious drive keeping our adrenaline at soaring heights and the sleep far from our eyes. Here, we were welcomed by a long stretch of boiling pavement, a polished brown car, and a short, fat, middle aged man with a few wisps of white hair, a gold molar, and a thick cigar dripping from his mouth. His voice was gruff, near raspy, and the hand suddenly pumping mine was no better.
“Hello, Miss. Mister. You’re the professor, right? I was sent to fetch you. Do you need a hand with those?” Those happened to be two rather depressed looking leather suit cases piled at Keane’s feet. The brass corners were well past tarnished, and the handles had been fixed more than what was perhaps acceptable, but the lettering was still faintly discernible beneath a layer of international dust and grime. Before my companion could answer, the little man had shoved the cases into the car’s trunk and opened the side door. Keane waited for me to clamber in before allowing his tall, slim frame to fold into the leather seats. Admittedly, American cars had always seemed far more forgiving to a man of his stature, rather than the cramped European automobiles; however, even with the extra space, I was made well aware of the almost sickening heat matted together with the incessant odor of cigars. Keane himself was a heavy smoker, but where his favored cigarette tobacco was crisp with almost a pipe-like vanilla, this was a strong, blinding stench with no other purpose than to claw its way into our hair and clothing.
America had always been said to be a civilized nation, but, as the roads jerked the car unceasingly, I began to have my doubts. Twice I was bashed against the metal door, and, had it not been for the providence of Keane’s presence on the other side, I could have sustained injuries far worse than a few darkening bruises. As it was, I suspected by the hand clasped behind his neck, Keane had already begun to suffer the inconveniences of his height.
Between the jolting, thrashing road and billowing stench of cigar smoke, my stomach wrenched itself into a tight knot and made me extraordinarily thankful for a lack of dinner. I folded my arms securely across my ribs and pulled my elbows violently toward my ribcage. I was not prone to weak bouts of inconvenient femininity, I thought reassuringly. I would not be sick.
However . . .
“Lawrence, are you alright?” I laughed, a dry, grating noise that did little to improve the ringing in my ears or the throbbing knots in my stomach.
“I swear, Keane, if you trade in your cigarettes for cigars, I will personally see to it you are abandoned at the home of some extremist puritans who drink milk and eat stale bread.” My companion's rich chuckle was cut short by the painful slamming of teeth as we were thrown over yet another hole in the road. From somewhere in his jacket, Keane produced a small hip flask and offered it to me. I quickly unscrewed the top and took a long swig.
Brandy.
Once the tightness in my abdomen subsided ever so slightly, Keane himself took a hefty draw of the liquor before carefully returning the flask to his pocket. He had his faults, but, in the end, his character far surpassed those shortcomings. His stubbornness was both a sword and shield; defeat was never an option unless it led to total victory. In my innocence, I had foolishly thought he would never lose a fight, no matter the odds piled high against him. It was only when I was older—those drawn out moments spent wallowing in silence—that the truth occured to me.
He couldn’t lose.
The darkened night enclosed the windows, and I felt increasingly aware of that sense of dread that presses upon your eardrums until a shrill ringing erupts through your head and shatters all memories of comfort. Where the lights of a rampant society ought to have been swelling and growing, they had fallen to little more than misplaced stars upon the horizon. The emptiness; however, merely worked to entrap us further.
“Keane, we’re going the wrong way.” My companion did not flinch at my words. Of course he didn’t.
He had already noticed.
His long fingers slipped silently to the door handle and gave it a violent tug.
Locked.
Wonderful.
Had we been in most any other country in the world, his position would have been perfect; however, Americans had always seemed bound and determined to make life more difficult. Keane, ever the gentleman, motioned me aside, but it would have been a foolish move—a complete waste of precious time—to switch seats. There was no time for masculine chivalry. There was never time for chivalry. There was only time; time to choose between right and wrong. Death or life. Minutes or seconds. Today or never. There was only time.
I leapt forward and swung my arm around the driver’s neck while Keane desperately tried to steady the wheel while staying well out of the way from the driver’s thrashing hands. I could feel ever so clearly the pulsating of the man’s throat in my forearm, the surging heat of life gradually challenged and drained in desperate measure. In a matter of sheer moments the car was no longer driving at a respectable pace, but careening dangerously along the edge of the road at speeds no sane man would ever tempt. A meaty fist met my face and sent me hurling back against the seats. I was instantly pinned to the leather, stunned and dazed as the world whizzed by. A deafening scream grabbed desperately at my ears as a hard left turn threw me into Keane’s side at the same instant a near inaudible click peppered the chaos.
Then there was a great rush of air compressing my limbs as something strong grabbed me by the collar and gave me the unexpected sensation of God’s hand bodily dragging me through the air and dropping as a mangled mass in the hard dirt. There was an enormous flash of light. The roar of a thousand cannons as singing fingers brushed over my twisted legs.
Silence.
I lay there motionless for a long while, taking a mental survey over my various pieces and limbs. Everything was present. Nothing seemed broken. Bruised and battered, definitely. Sprained, perhaps. But not, thank God, broken.
When at last I felt sufficiently at peace with my sorry state, I rolled onto my back and sat up to discover Keane in much the same position. His immaculate trousers had succumbed to a death of scorched threads dangling just above his socks. The knees were brown with glimpses of pale, bleeding flesh in between. I had thought him entranced by these, the long forgotten pains of a school boy who had skinned his legs and muddied his clothes. And then I too saw Lucifer as Keane’s dirt-streaked face was set grimly upon a campfire down at the bottom of the steep hill. Rather than a sense of joviality at the prospect of a cheery flicker of flames, I found myself repulsed by the scene at our feet. The brown car had been so horribly mutilated one might have believed it a relic from the war so recent in our minds. Hot, burning shards of metal groped upward from the hellish ground in long, sharp fingers. The horrid smoke of burning rubber and petrol far outweighed the stench of cigar tobacco still present in my nostrils. It was as though Hell had reached its claws into our world to swallow us away, fires eating the earth greedily until the teeth were barred against us
And, somewhere lurking within the fire and ash, there was a skeleton.