The Pseudo-Chronicles of Mark Huntley

Coming Back - 11/11/04

Thursday, November 11, 2004

It's gotten cold again. I find myself much more aware of the daily temperature fluctuations these days, given that I don't have a home or even a temporary base. We’re always on the move. 

I remember how warm it was on Halloween—a distant memory, seems like, though it was only a week and a half ago in the structure of time in the real world. That world is one I'm steadily losing contact with as I dart from one hole to the next, gopherlike. My sanity is stretching thinner. Like a twisting rope that's my lifeline back to the world, like I'm rappelling out into space and the rope keeps getting longer.

Nice to see new planets and all, but…

If I were by myself, that line would have snapped by now. But Naomi is holding it together, patching it here and there. She’s protecting me from even worse extended metaphors that might pop out of my mouth should I ever fall down into the bad, bland crazyland. 

Like that ragged, blond, shoeless Viking who haunts L Street, who set a course for madness a long time ago in his imaginary longship. Did I ever tell you about him? I actually kind of miss seeing the guy—but I don’t want to meet him where he’s going.

It was Naomi, girl of the only sometimes useful bodily precog, who brought me back from the death thoughts, of course. 

Maybe I should have recognized in myself the hint of a scrap of a shard of willingness to turn back. Ending one's suicide note to the world with a haiku tends to undercut its seriousness, after all. I needed Naomi, though, to take me by the shoulders and shout at me. I needed her to hit me, to rough me up. Like a grotesque parody of the violence that had flooded into Rafael.

It was after that first awful long night and then the long morning that I teetered on the edge of killing myself. We were both dead tired from an extended, circuitous journey through dangerous streets, and finding a place that would take our cash and let us crash without asking any questions. But I stayed awake for most of that time, replaying the bloody scenes from Rafael’s kitchen in my head. Thinking about what I could have done differently, who I should have trusted, who I shouldn’t have.

All of those thoughts—and the bare fact, the reality, that I only saw one other person in that dingy hotel room with me rather than the full party from just half a day ago—it all slid me down the long, cold barrel of hopelessness. Toward whatever waited at the end of that barrel.

I found some beer at a place nearby. Got myself roaring drunk, as Naomi tried not to notice.

You saw my raw thoughts from that time. I don’t need to regurgitate them. But it seemed that we had already lost whatever war we’d idiotically plunged ourselves into. The Apocalypse was in motion—and the purples had proven how easily they could snuff us all out.

We watched a news report on the TV in our room in the morning. About the tragic, freak death of Congressman Roy Drexel, who’d apparently drowned in his own bathtub late last night. And the mysterious death of Capitol Hill power player Erick Wykoff, who was found along with several other corpses in the basement of an office building in Logan Circle. Officials had not ruled out terrorism in that latter case—in fact, they gleefully dangled it in front of reporters until that became the widespread assumption. The office of National Eagle Eye was following up on some leads at this very moment.

The news was full of death, in fact. It had not been a restful night for D.C. And I figured all of those other random murders, fatal accidents, and suicides could be traced to the same cause.

I thought it would be proper if I told Naomi about my intentions. Rather than, say, leaving her to discover a body when she returned to the hotel room with a greasy bag of fries or a couple of quesadillas. She would need time to prepare for life on her own, a solo life on the run.

I was hammered. I couldn’t quite string the words together the way that I wanted to. Everything just seems clearer in writing. But all in all, I said my piece. She nodded, and listened.

“And don’t try to talk me out of it,” I said.

She nodded, gave me an exaggerated look of understanding with her brows furrowed: Yes, yes, Mr. Huntley, very good.

Then she hit me in the jaw.

With no hint that it had been coming, no chance to brace myself, I fell back onto the bed, my face screaming with pain. She loomed over me. I flinched. I thought Naomi was going to hit me again.

“Three reasons, ya fuckin’ pantywaist,” she shouted at me. “Three reasons! Are you listening?!”

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move my jaw. The only thing I could do was make an unintelligible noise. Which would have to suffice.

“Number one,” she said, holding up an angry index finger. “That’s the worst kind of egotistical selfishness I’ve ever heard of. Like, like your grief outweighs everyone else's in the whole world.

“Two. You guarantee that the muchos win this thing. You just saw the news, right? The silvers are in trouble. They’re gonna be lost without their pet knife boy, and then we’ll all be fucked.

“And three!” Here she gave me her coldest, most terrifying look. “You’re spitting on Rence Robichaux's grave. And he hasn’t even got one yet.”

The feeling in my jaw had returned enough for me to start arguing back. I took issue with number 2: the silvers were screwed right now no matter which way we sliced it. I took outright offense at number 3, as Naomi could not know what would please or displease Rence-beyond-the-grave. He was my best friend. 

And I didn't accept the premise of number 1. My grief did outweigh everyone else's in the whole world.

However, after all that arguing with one of the most pigheaded people I've ever met, I didn't have the energy to kill myself just then. I resolved to do it a little later.

Somehow other things kept popping up, though. Mundane details to resolve and further bones to pick with Naomi, who wouldn't stop her yammering as we moved from one place to the next, seeking out a quiet corner to sleep and cheap food to grab. Survival became a full-time job, particularly on our budget. Cash to cadge. Bribes to pay. Precautions to take.

She wouldn't go away, and I didn't force her to leave me. I pictured all kinds of likely scenarios in which she got herself killed running from the purples on her own. I didn’t know what I could do to protect her, but I could at least drop a little common sense into the equation now and then.

So "a little later" turned into tomorrow, which became sometime later, which became sometime indefinite in the future. Naomi’s still here. I’m still here.

And as my head's cleared up a bit and there's been time for me to think, I reckon maybe I do still have some useful part to play.

posted by Mark Huntley @ 9:31 PM

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