By Gaslight Chapter 3 The Bridge

 

Over the Columbia River,
Portland, Oregon, 7:50 pm

 

T

he air was cold now and he shivered, more so from what lurked within than what chill vapors crept down from those distant, unseen mountains to remind men why they clung to the coasts and valleys.

Twilight was here, darkness descending, and his dumbass had failed to find the quickest route up across the river to the other side.  The ugly hospital grinned on the mountainside behind him—a kind of place he deeply feared, ever since his wife had him committed to Shepherd Pratt back in Maryland.  He would never go to a hospital again.

The people with the Nazi masks and shields, hunting Nazis had scared him slightly.  But for some reason, the modern style opera house right on the river galled something deep inside—as if a higher self who gave a shit about such things cared deeply for the aesthetics of this soulless place—and impelled him to walk as fast as possible across that mighty bridge.  He could still see the dim outlines of the hills above and ahead he saw the house lights blinking on, drawing him upward and out of this rat’s maze of a city—he so hated city centers with their cops, other homeless and the empty ways that made him feel all the more alone.  He wanted to find a residential area where he could camp behind some bushes near a park and not be drawn into the camp scene or worse.  He wanted to at least live where families existed even if all alone.

Shoot, look at this coming.

Two young men, late teens to early twenties, with surgical masks on their faces and clown masks worn as hats were coming down the sidewalk on skateboards towards him.

Hope they pass.  They’re tall.

They pulled up in front of him, both kicked their skateboards up into their hands, and the tall one with the pink hair accused from behind his mask, “You gonna breath on us?  Social distance out in the road, or mask up, bitch!”   

He just kept marching past, hoping they would let him go.  He moved nearer to the railing and scooted sideways a little and the pink-haired guy, who kind of had an afro, swung on him inwardly with his skate board.  If not for the handle of his aluminum bat sticking up out of his rucksack, he would have had his head knocked in.  But the ringing bat handle saved him and he stepped right towards the blond kid, ducking his head as the taller, pink-haired guy swatted down with his skateboard wheels and they became stuck in the torn top of his torn-up rucksack.

Then, as the blond kid seemed to try and block his way with his board, as if he had no stomach for hurting bums, Dox pulled his five-inch knife out from the sheath on his front right hip and thrust upward.  The blade sank up to his fist and he cut inward, across the kid’s belly as the kid wheezed and he dragged the kid leftward as a shield to hide behind from the pink-haired freak swinging the board again.  That board came down on the head of the blond kid and Dox shoved with hand, shoulder, and elbow as his knife ripped clear out of the belly, sending the gutted and head-banged kid over the railing and into the darkness.

The pink-haired kid opened his eyes wide.  Dox drew his bat out and sheathed the knife, not wanting any motorist to see it.  As he did this, facing the now-terrified youth, the blue eyes under the pink afro seemed drawn to his right hand and a panic swept the mouthless face and he laid down his skateboard and pushed for all he was worth down the way Dox had come.

Dox beat feet for the high end of the bridge and those welcoming houselights twinkling in the fresh night.  He ran with remarkable dexterity and lack of fatigue, possessed as he was with a deep fear for the police and the hospital they would surely take him to.

“Yaas,” echoed the voce in his head as he returned his bat to his rucksack and wiped the blood from his hand off in the pockets of his black hoody under his denim jacket, running again like a young fellow without a fifty-pound load on his back, running for freedom into the gathering night from the freaks and fools that infested this sick city.

My hand tingles like it is alive.

The unblinking stars above seem so near and the twinkling houses on the hill so far.

Am I really losing it?

Was Becky right—that wicked bitch—for shutting me away, having me comitted?

How did I get discharged?  I don’t remember.

Then I am losing it.  The memory of my freedom from those mind-fuckers, that should be etched in my mind.  Where is my mind?

…Your consciousness spreads like a sail before the breeze of Infinity, Drood.  You sail forth within the Boat of a Million Years.

Drood? I am not Drood.  I am—I was Ted—now I’m Dox.

…Yaas Drood, yaas…

Get out of my head!  Stop talking to me.

…Onward, Drood, into the night, beyond peril and below the reach of the petty officials who would foil our purpose. 

The hand began to ache again instead of tingling and Dox jogged along at a sharp pace in a mania to achieve distance from his just-lived past.

I killed a man?  I’ve never killed a man.

I should be sick, throwing up, crying, turning myself in—that’s what they always said.

He began to sweat and grow angry at the kids back there, could feel his heart pounding in his chest, probably headed for his first and last heart attack on account of those rotten kids who had turned him into a killer.

He ran, surprised at the resilience of his bad back.

I feel good.  I feel strong.

Dox’s hand ached but his chest heaved high, his wrecked back did not spasm and his duct-taped boots trod the concrete with confidence he had never known, not in any of his failed lives: bullied kid, spurned husband, order picker, mental patient, bum.

He felt somehow different, taller, wider, deeper, yaas, deeper.

To hell with these people!  Let the cops come.  That is my ticket to punch, to checkout time…pull out the knife and they’ll light me up and this miserable fucking life is finally over forever.

Dox left the bridge and headed uphill, wanting the highest ground for a spot he could get in this rainy climate.  The stars smiled down in this young night.  But by morning they could be raining their wrath and freezing his ass.  Not for little Teddy, not for loser Ted, and not for the bum named Dox either, life had never had a luster to lose, but freezing to death was not the way he wanted to end his sentence in Hell.