Fifth Day of Writing

The Building of Religious Science and Research was impressively large. The outside of the building offered a first impression that was lacking in warmth. Brick, with stucco overlay and large fixed windows, the building made one assume that it was extremely old, or at least extremely expensive. To Comet, it reminded him of going either to the dentist or to church; looking at the building gave him the same uneasiness that he had felt as a child whenever he was dragged to a place where someone smiled, looked inside of him, and didn’t like what they saw. To Comet, the cleanliness of baptism wasn’t rejuvenation, but sterility. Even now, the memory made him shiver.

Leonard quietly enjoyed Comet’s discomfort. Looked like the little squat was out of jokes, for once. Comet said nothing as they entered the building, walked through a small atrium, and took a flight of stairs to basement level.

Comet’s gaze shifted about the hallway, taking note of the strange architecture. It was a mind-bending fusion of the modern technology of a laboratory, the contrived homeliness of a hospital, and the insulting elegance of a cathedral. There were very few signs, and many of the rooms had closed doors that did not welcome passerby. As they approached the end of the hallway, Comet whispered, “Who is this guy, Lenny?”

“He’s a quack.”

Confusion. “You mean he’s a doctor?”

“I mean he’s nuts. But he’s the right kind of nuts.”

Comet shrugged. He’d find out soon enough, anyways, and Kraft seemed to be in one of his non-informative moods. Then again, Comet wasn’t sure he had other moods to fall back on. Next to the door at the end of the hallway was a stainless steel door with a sign beside it that said, “David Andrews, Ph.D” Comet’s eyebrows went up. “So he’s a doctor.” It wasn’t a question, but a mental step. Comet couldn’t figure out why they were here to see an incompetent psychiatrist. Maybe Kraft thought he was crazy, after all.

Leonard’s only response was to swipe his hand through a scanner set into the wall by the door. There was a brief hum, and then a buzzer sounded, indicating that the door was unlocked. Leonard stepped forward to open the door. “Listen, kid,” he said with his hand holding the doorknob. “This might get weird, but remember: he’s the right kind of nuts.” With that, he adjusted his hat, swung open the door, and ushered Comet inside. Comet stepped through to see the Priest.

From behind the closed door, there were sounds of yelling, followed by a definitive thud. Then there was laughter.

—

On the Northeast side of the city, there was a large estate. It was classically Italian, with wrought-iron gates and a stone wall encircling the perimeter of the lawn. The manor itself was an old building that spoke of immense wealth, but its age was felt tastefully. The owners of this house had always been wealthy, and the house had seen many good years, its caretakers always spending time and energy on repairs and renovations. It was only in recent years that floodlights had been installed, the owners taking on additional work and suffering a few political setbacks that required extra precautions. The same reasoning was behind the cameras positioned along the top of the wall, as well as the concealment of certain hideaways and weapons around the grounds and buildings of the estate. The family that lived in this house was, above all, proud. They were the oldest Italian family in the city, and recently enough to be remembered with longing they were the most powerful. They were the Baccisti, and they wanted their power back.

Aurelio Baccisti was a young man of gravity. His dark eyes, dark hair, and smooth complexion had made him a favorite among the young women of the Italian Court. He had entertained some of their affections from time to time, but he viewed their advances- not to mention their scheming mothers, anxious to find advantageous husbands for their daughters- with a patient disdain that wore thin as he aged. Behind his dark eyes was a glittering intelligence that sought, above all else, power. He did not have time for women. The Baccisti were originally from the Southern regions of Italy, but their characteristic shortness was withheld from Aurelio. He was tall, and through his loose clothing it was easy to see that he was strong, as well. He was the third child of Boss Baccisti, but he was peerless among the family. Two years ago, only two weeks after his twenty-third birthday, he had stood in his Father’s office and listened to his father expound upon these characteristics. Aurelio had heard rumors that he was to be named the inheritor of the estate, but it wasn’t until this meeting that he had dared believe them.

Aurelio sat on the porch of the Baccisti Manor smoking his cigar, thinking bitterly of that day when he had felt such hope. Unbeknownst to him then, his hope was to be quickly routed by an even greater despair. He exhaled, watching the smoke drift off in the light Autumn breeze. His Father had not named him the inheritor. He had instead sent Aurelio to the illustrious Academy of Intervention. Aurelio had protested. The conversation had not gone well for him, and it ended with Boss Baccisti red-faced, pounding on his desk as he bent his son to his will. “You will be our arm within the government, Aurelio. There is no one else to do this, and you would be wasted on any work here at home. This will be done!”

Aurelio had, unsurprisingly, performed fantastically at the Academy. His natural mental alacrity coupled with his fierce determination and work-ethic allowed him to quickly catch the eye of instructors and classmates alike. As the recruits underwent intense physical training, competitive testing, and rigorous classroom instruction, Aurelio consistently performed at the top of his class. Despite that, his background caused quite a bit of suspicion to be cast upon him. The administration was dotted with officials who were on the payroll of the other families of the Italian Court, and these men did their best to discredit Aurelio among their peers. He had moved out of the estate, however, and appeared to have cut all ties with his family. There was, eventually, no real reason to not bring him in as a trainee. After six months of recruit training, Aurelio had been welcomed as an official member of the Academy, albeit at the lowest level. Still, it was a start.

Aurelio stood up and threw his cigar down to the porch. He ground it out with the toe of his shoe as the door opened behind him. He turned to see the disapproving frown of his mother. When he spoke, his voice had no trace of an accent. “Hello, Mama.”

The short, round, Italian woman rushed toward Aurelio with a hug. Gathering him up in her arms, he felt ridiculously small considering her head didn’t come above his chest. After a few seconds, she released him and stepped back, looking him up and down with a critical eye. The kind of eye that only mothers have. She made a displeased sound and shook her head. “Aurelio, it has been months since you visited. Now, you come home, and your Father is away on business. Why do you never visit, my son?”

“If Father is away, I suppose it will be a short visit. Macellaio isn’t here, is he?”

“Yes, yes. He is upstairs, in your Father’s study.”

“Mama, I really must speak with him, then. After that I need to get back downtown. I promise that I will visit again, soon.”

“You can’t leave before we eat, Aurelio!”

“I must, Mama. I will stay longer, next time.” Truth be told, he had known that his Father was out of town. He didn’t much feel like talking to Boss Baccisti. He was actually here to check in with Macellaio. Despite his protests, there was a small pan of cannoli wrapped in foil and placed in his hands. Mama Baccisti wouldn’t hear of seeing her son come and go without being fed. Aurelio didn’t mind too much; his mother was an excellent cook.

When he entered the study, Dante Macellaio looked up from the files on the desk. He was sitting in the Boss’s high-backed wooden chair, and he looked as if he belonged in it. The cannoli in Aurelio’s hand drew an extra-long look, but Macellaio was, above all things, a professional. His eyes found Aurelio’s, and Aurelio once again had the feeling that this man missed nothing. He was sure that Macellaio had seen every one of his four knives hidden within his clothing, noted the cut of his suit, and even registered the slight redness about his collar from a combat exercise earlier that week. An ambitious opponent had clasped his neck in an iron grip, but Aurelio had loosened this grip by systematically breaking his opponent’s ribs. He had been chided by an idiotic instructor who didn’t realize the necessity of brutality. These thoughts passed through Aurelio’s mind as quickly as the shiver that ran along his spine. Macellaio had always made him a bit nervous, but the man was powerful. It was intoxicating.

Macellaio gestured for him to sit. “Young Baccisti. I didn’t expect you to report back to me so soon. Any word of how our arrangement sits with the Academy? Have you made the necessary inquiries?”

“Not yet, sir. But there’s been a complication. You told me to come to you if anything unusual happened.”

“That I did, but it certainly shouldn’t have happened so soon. You’ve not been found out, I hope?”

“No, sir. But…” Aurelio was not happy to be sharing this information. “Apparently, there is a better candidate for the procedure. My contact who is an intern for the developmental research group within the academy said that one of the labs in the Relics found a neurological match of eighty-seven percent.”

There was no emotion in Macellaio’s eyes. His voice was quiet when he said, “Who was this match, then?”

Aurelio frowned. “I’ve not been able to determine that as of yet, but I’m trying. The Academy has a mutually beneficial relationship with the lab from the Relics, but the lab isn’t releasing the information readily enough for me to find it.”

“Be sure that you try harder, young Baccisti. And do not come here again without taking precautions. The academy mustn’t know of your relationship to the family, or of our movements.”

“Yes.” Aurelio did not like to be lectured, let alone on how to do his job. The man had a point, though. It always paid to listen to Macellaio. “I will do my best. Does my Father suspect?”

Macellaio’s grin was remarkable, transforming his handsome middle-aged face into a perverse attempt at a smile. There was only malice, there. “Young Baccisti, focus on your own work. Leave the details of home to me.”

Fourth day of Writing

“Bad news, Comet.”

Comet sat across from Leonard in a diner a few blocks from the downtown district. It was close enough to the residential area to be well-populated but forgettable, none of the patrons exercising any kind of illegal activity. If any of them were low, none of them were on the job. That was the point.

Both Comet and Leonard insisted on principle that they never sit with their backs to the door. It’s too easy to miss someone coming in, and you could never be too careful. As they had approached the table, both men veered towards the seat with the better vantage from which to watch the door. They realized the movement at the same time, each recognizing in the other the same cautious instinct. Comet grinned, while Leonard scowled. It meant the same thing. Leonard sat down first.

Comet now sat with his back to the door, unfazed by Leonard’s ominous prediction. “Looks like the arm is healed up nicely,” he said after a moment. He stirred his coffee and looked out the window.

“Comet, honestly, how are you still alive?”

“Because I’m the best, Lenny.” Comet laughed, “I am the righteous fist of justice. Robin Hood, if you will.” He was still looking out the window.

“No games, kid. I’m trying to save your life, here. Help me out a little, will you?”

Only then did Comet turn to face him. “Alright, fine, I’ll humor you. What’s the deal?” Both men leaned slightly forward. Leonard began speaking in a slow murmur, his mouth barely moving. As he spoke, his eyes continually shot upward to check the door of the restaurant.

“Well kid, I think you’ve finally got your shot at the bigs. The only thing is, you were right about that job offer last week. It was the Baccisti. I heard from one of their buttons down at Minnow’s that some punk kid from River Street turned them down on a job. Heard Macellaio wasn’t too happy about it either. Didn’t know you were so well off, kid. River Street’s kind of ritzy. Anyways, that warehouse I was checking out? It’s abandoned. No records of any owner within the last year that I could find. When I went back, there wasn’t even a bloodstain from when Plank went under.”

Comet waved his arms was having a hard time following all of this information. “Listen, Lenny, hold on. Are you saying that the fourth largest Family in the city has it out for me?”

“No, Comet, I’m saying that the fourth largest Family in the city is so beyond your capability to handle that as soon as you showed up on their radar, you were already dead. What was it exactly that they wanted you to steal?”

“I’ll get to that in a minute. First of all, who’s Macellaio? I’m still new at this.”

In Leonard’s opinion, Comet was too new at this. The kid had all the makings of a good pad, but his gills were still too green by half. Leonard had a headache, again. Why am I putting my neck out for this kid? Out loud, Leonard said, “The one who manages affairs for Boss Baccisti. He’s the right-hand man. This guy’s not someone to take lightly, Comet. He used to run things for the Baccisti back in Italy, but he had to come here when things got too hairy. He was a liability, I guess. Too bloodthirsty.”

“I’ll be careful to not insult his mother then, I suppose. Next question: what’s a button?”

“Shit, seriously? How are you still alive?”

“Lenny, I just-”

“No, no. Listen. There is no justice in the world, because you are not already dead. You don’t take a single thing seriously, and you’re trying to make it as a pad. What the hell kind of name is Comet Cutless, anyway?!”

Comet took a cautious sip from his coffee, and beamed when he found it cool enough to drink. “Don’t be like that. It’s a family name.”

“… a family name?”

Comet took a long pull from his coffee, wincing sharply as he hit the hot liquid below the surface. “Ow! Yeah, a family name. I really hate hot drinks. Have I ever told you that? I’m not going to be able to taste anything for a week. So, you were saying about buttons?”

Leonard wiped a hand across his face, trying to find some reason to not lean across the table and try out his new neuro-circuits. He couldn’t think of one, but he resisted anyways. Barely. “Alright, Comet. Fine. Button is short for button-man, a low-level thug. They collect debts, tail targets, watch houses, the works. They do the bulk of the ground work in any operation, unless you’re doing something technical. Any thug who can afford to get work done is what we call a stick in the business. They’re higher up than buttons. A stick is stronger and faster than most men, but they’re limited by their reflexes. They represent quite an investment, too, so they’re rare. Buttons are the bread and butter of an outfit like the Baccisti.”

Comet nodded, his eyes actually focused for once. “Okay… and Plank?”

“Ah, Plank’s just a nickname. One of the guys who jumped me at the warehouse?”

“You don’t like him, do you?”

“No.”

Comet grinned devilishly, glancing at Leonard’s newly healed arm, “He really gets on your nerves, doesn’t he?”

“Comet…” There was warning in Leonard’s tone. And eyes. And body. There was quite a bit of warning, actually.

“It’s only fair, though. You probably did something to upset him. Did you… ahem… press his buttons?” Comet’s raucous laughter was cut off by the solid connection of Leonard’s right fist. Leonard noted that the neuro-circuits performed beautifully, adding just the right amount of velocity to the punch. You gotta enjoy the little things in this business.

—

Comet muttered something, but Leonard couldn’t understand it. It was too muffled by the rag that Comet was pressing to his nose.

“Can’t hear you, kid.”

Comet removed the rag, so saturated with blood that some of It was now on Comet’s upper lip, and said, “Looks like the arm is healed up nicely.”

“You’re too damn cheery, kid. I told you, I hate irony.”

“Puns aren’t irony! They’re-”

“Shut up, Comet! It’s the same thing.”

“I’m telling you, Lenny, it’s- Ack!”

Leonard slammed on the brakes, sending Comet’s face flying into the dashboard of the car. When Comet’s bleary vision cleared, Leonard was holding the steering wheel with both hands, something which hadn’t yet happened on their way from the diner to who knows where, and his knuckles stood out white against the rest of his scarred hands. Leonard was staring with large threatening eyes at Comet from underneath the brim of his second-favorite hat. Comet could tell that he was deliberately controlling his breathing; he was a little nervous. When Leonard spoke, though, his voice was controlled and low and menacing.

“Listen, Comet… because I’m only going to say this one more time. Same. Thing.” He emphasized each of the last two words with an additional flexing of his hands upon the wheel, something that Comet would have put money on being impossible. “Got it? No more sparking off with your irony. Or else.”

Comet sat holding the rag to his nose for a long time. Not having to think of anything to say allowed him to devote all of his mental faculties to considering the man next to him. Since they had met four months ago, Kraft had proved a valuable source of information. The man was irritable, but he was honest, something which was rare in the city these days. Kraft was certainly an imposing figure, and Comet now knew firsthand that he could back it up with brawn. Looking at Kraft’s physique, Comet had the definite impression that the pain in his face was not entirely due to technology. This was good. He didn’t trust people who depended on tech.

Kraft was a private eye, which meant he was good at information. He brokered it, selling it for the right price if it wasn’t dangerous enough to come back for him later. It wasn’t like in the old days, when private eyes sat in black-and-white rooms smoking cigarettes and chasing “dames”. Maybe those days never really existed. Anyway, Comet knew that the private eyes now were much more flexible than they used to be. After the police went corporate, being a private eye meant being a liaison between the low-lifes and the upper crust. The city even recognized them as ambiguous officials of something or other, allowing them to carry weaponry and even be outfitted with neuro-enhancements. Nothing custom, but it was certainly handy. Being insured meant too that Kraft was unlikely to suffer from shoddy wiring, something that certainly controlled the ever growing population of custom nano-jockeys on the streets. Hard to commit a crime when your spinal column melts.

Comet digressed a bit in his thinking, instead focusing on a few important questions. The first was simply this: why was Kraft helping him? What motivation could the man have? Comet was likeable, yes, but Kraft seemed immune to that quality. He suspected that Kraft might have some sinister motives, but his honesty was hard to ignore. Kraft wasn’t really a man who would betray trust. It was a hunch, anyways. Comet filed it away for later consideration. If the first question concerned the motive for helping, the second question was concerned with the mode. How would Kraft prove useful to him? Obviously in a fight, yes, but the man was a wealth of experience and knowledge. He would be useful in navigating the underworld of the city which was, admittedly, still something of a mystery to comet, even after the last six months of working as a freelance pickpocket. The third question was more immediate. It grew in its importance as Comet glanced out the window and realized they were in the Relics, the religiously saturated district just south of Downtown. The third question was, “Where are we going?”

Kraft looked at him through the aftermath of shattered silence. He had a headache, he was tired, and the coffee from the diner was already wearing off. “I’m taking you to see the Priest.”

Comet slumped in the passenger seat, inspecting his nose in the side mirror. “I wish you had told me before I got in the car. This won’t take long, will it? Deb is expecting me home before too long.”

“Haha, what’s the matter, kid? Afraid of confession? It can be as quick as you like.”

“No… question, though: why are we going to see a priest? Is this some kind of streetwise superstition?”

“I said the Priest, kid, not a priest. Capital ‘P’. And as far as the superstition goes, well…” Leonard had parked the car, and was now gesturing out the windshield. “… not exactly.”

Third day of Writing

The third man, short and unassuming, was urging his allies to their feet and helping them limp away. Leonard watched them walk away, furious but also confused, his mind muddied by pain and something else… something familiar. He was for some reason unable to move beyond a slight twitching. It wasn’t until the man looked back at Leonard that he realized that the man’s face had a light blue etching on it, just visible under the surface of his skin. A mental, then. That would explain it. Leonard hated mentals.

After a few minutes, Leonard’s limbs relaxed. He found himself able to stand up, but it was a slow process. He tried to check the time, but realized the circuits in his arm were still broken. He stood up just in time, apparently, because just then the pain from his arm began overriding his body’s shock. He began shivering as the adrenaline left his system to be replaced by pain and fear. His broken arm sent waves of nausea through his system, which insisted quite politely that he should throw up. Leonard’s stomach agreed, and he found himself retching despite his feeble protests. When he was done, Leonard stumbled out to the street, looking around for his attackers. There was nobody in sight, and it took Leonard another forty cautious minutes to stumble back to his office. It wasn’t until he had driven to the hospital across town that he realized his ears were cold. They were cold because he wasn’t wearing a hat.

“Those bastards stole my favorite hat… Comet, I’m going to kill you.” He entertained himself in the hospital by replaying in his mind the image of Plank getting knocked out, of what he would do to Comet, and of how he looked in his favorite hat. Like a bona fide Private Eye, he thought. Even that happy image, however, couldn’t quite block out the pain of getting his neuro-circuits reconstructed. Leonard realized as the current ran through his arm and his nerves were bridled to impulse wiring that, surprisingly, he was happy. He realized that the laughter he had heard during the fight had been his own, and once he walked out of the trauma center later that night, a small quiet part of him thought that maybe Comet didn’t owe him quite as much as he’d thought. Not that he’d ever tell the little brat, but at least he made life interesting.

—

Comet had always hated rain. For one thing, all it ever did was fall down. To Comet, it seemed as though a disproportionate amount of his childhood had been spent staring out the window at the listless crashing of thousands of little water droplets. It was depressing, really, when you thought about it. Certainly depressing enough to ruin an otherwise perfectly good Friday.

“Comet?”

Comet turned his head lazily, letting his gaze drift around the room until it came to rest almost randomly on the face of the woman next to him. Snapping back to reality, his eyes darted about the room and quickly alerted him of a few important facts. The first was that Deb was upset. The second was that nobody else was in the room. The third was that she had been talking for a not inconsiderable amount of time, and he hadn’t the foggiest idea what she had been saying. These facts all combined within his mind over the course of a brief moment, and he realized that in order to defuse the situation, he had to say… something.  It had to be selfless, courageous, and maybe even a little foolish if it was delivered correctly with the proper amount of desperate concern. Comet exhaled to steady his nerves, and tried to put on his most winning smile. Here comes the brilliance, he thought. What came out was, more or less, “Hrngh?”

Deb blinked, but didn’t answer. The silence between them thickened. As Comet waited to hear her reception of his attempt at communication, a storm cloud passed over Deb’s face. Comet realized that he may, in fact, have been less than successful. Her voice was accusing when she said, “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”

“Er…”

“Er?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that, exactly. Or, at least, not in as many words.”

Her eyes rolled impressively. Deb couldn’t understand how Comet could be so… so… flippant. He could listen with the wisdom and intensity of a much older man when he tried, but so often his mind was completely absent. It hurt. She knew he loved her in a general sense, of course. She even believed that she often crossed his mind. But the Deb that found her way into Comet’s thoughts was only superficially related to the real person. It was something she had become resigned to over the year they’d been romantically involved, but he could be incredibly frustrating. It was worse when he was in one of his moods.

She sighed with extreme patience and tried once more for conversation. “What’s the matter, hon? Your mind has been on vacation quite a bit over the last few days.”

Comet sighed back, and turned his gaze back out the window. “It’s this business with Leonard. I can’t get it out of my head. I feel responsible, you know?”

Deb, a little upset that Comet would care more about Kraft than her, laughed softly. “Is that all that’s bothering you? Kraft is fine. His arm will heal up within the week. He’s seen much worse than he went through for you. In fact, he mucks around with the scum of this city all the time. You can’t feel guilty for him.”

Comet looked sideways at her, his head still propped on his hand. “What happened to my humanitarian girlfriend? Listen to yourself, Deb: ‘The scum of the city’? How is it that you care so little for Lenny, anyway? I didn’t think the two of you ever had any reason to interact.”

“I just don’t like him, that’s all. He always seems to get you into trouble.” Deb felt a little guilty at this point, but she took a breath and pressed on. “I think that in light of what happened, though, I have the right to ask this: what is it that you do, Comet? I know you don’t like talking about it, but-“ Deb was cut off by Comet leaping up off the couch.

Comet ran his hands through his hair, a look of pain on his face. “Deb… you know I can’t tell you. I told you that when I went into the academy, I’d need to keep certain elements of the work I do secret. I swore.” He began pacing back and forth, no longer even looking at Deb. His arms flailing wildly as he tried to explain himself. “If I break my word now, they’ll never clear me for…” He stopped mid-sentence. “Er… for completion,” he finished lamely. “Plus” he said, once more picking up speed, “it would be wrong.”

Deb stood up as well. “Comet, look, I know you care about your work,” a lot, “and I know that you wouldn’t lie to me,” very much, “but I’m worried about you. What if you had gone yesterday instead of Leonard to… wherever it is he went? Regardless of what I think about the man, I’m convinced that anyone who did that much damage to him paid for it to the pound. At least. If it had been you, you might not have come back at all.”

Comet raised an eyebrow, and his mouth shut with an audible click. He wasn’t angry, exactly. He looked… frustrated. The muscles in his jaw worked as he considered her words, once again breaking eye contact so that he could think. After a silence that stretched towards a minute in length, Deb bit her lip. About to apologize for what she had said, she started when Comet suddenly nodded and turned back to her. “I think I understand what you’re saying, Deb. I apologize, but I’m not willing to go back on my word. All I can tell you is that I don’t want you to worry. I wouldn’t put myself in a situation I couldn’t handle. I sent Leonard because he’s able to get the job done.” His voice turned a little bitter. “I need to rely on people in order to accomplish my goals, and I’m being careful. I just don’t like using people, that’s all.”

Deb stood up on her tip toes and kissed his forehead. “Okay, Comet. I understand”. The thing was, she didn’t understand. In her experience, men and women both tended to have a very different relationship with duty. Women saw it as something to accomplish, something tangible and gut-wrenching that was fed and molded throughout the day. Men, however, seemed to take duty and wrap it about themselves like a blanket. They seized it, desperately at times, unwilling to relinquish it for any amount of words. It was what drove and sustained them, but it also ruined them, in her opinion. She didn’t want a lazy scrub like Kraft, of course, but she would appreciate it if Comet were a bit more romantic, a bit more willing to sacrifice his commitment to duty for her. Very little of this thinking registered consciously for Deb, but she certainly felt it.

“At least you’re focusing on what’s important now, Comet.” Deb said, referring to herself.

“I’m glad you think so,” he said. “Work means a lot to me.” His eyes darted to the door, and his words adopted that hesitant quality that made Deb think of dismissal. “Speaking of, I need to head downtown pretty soon here. I’ve got some things I need to take care of, but I’ll be back later tonight. Will you… uh… Deb? Are you okay?”

“Comet Cutless… I’m going to kill you.”

“I know?”

Comet wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong, but Deb seemed to only be half-kidding. He dodged the first punch with a yelp and dove over the couch. He ran from the room laughing, saying “Be back later!” As Comet put on his coat to head outside into the Fall weather, he called out a “Love you!” over his shoulder before he opened the front door of their apartment. Once he was safe on the other side of the door, his face quickly fell. Instead of continuing outside, he briefly leaned his forehead against the door, the wood unusually rough against the spot where Deb’s lips had been. “I’m sorry, Deb,” he said.

He backed up from the door and walked outside, the overcast sky grey from both natural and manmade clouds. He stopped to consider them. The slightly darker grey of the chemical emissions dissipated quickly in the atmosphere, leaving no trace for the appreciation of the casual observer. The clouds continued that way, perpetually dying and being remade within the same space, serving no purpose except existence. It was still raining, and Comet had always hated rain. His thoughts of what had been troubling Deb were already a distant memory, now. He lowered his eyes and continued walking, grim determination framing the outline of his body. “Soon, this won’t be necessary anymore, Deb. I promise. No more lies.”

As he reached the end of his block, Comet looked to the West. If he turned that way, it would take him across town, right to vaulted doors of the Academy. It was a twenty minute walk. He turned instead to the East, huddling his shoulders against the weight of guilt that settled upon him. He turned a bit out of his way to walk by Leonard’s office. The man wasn’t in, so he dropped off his wallet in the mailbox outside the building. Another day on the job, he thought, as he continued on his way.

Second Day of Writing

Leonard had woken up that morning with a headache. This wasn’t terribly unusual. The headache was caused by a permanent mild hangover that seemed only to wax and wane, never come and go. He rubbed his hand over his face, drawing it away to check the time. He was late, but he set his own hours. With a groan, he sat up slowly, looking around his dirty bedroom for a reason to get up. He couldn’t find one. He spent a few minutes looking down at his aging body in the light filtering through his dirty window. He was a large man in his late forties, thickened by years of alcohol and too much protein in his diet. Nobody would call him fat, because he wasn’t. He had one of those body types that simply converts fat into more muscle. His disregard for his physical health was catching up to him, however, and the body that sat in the dim light seemed to convey, more than anything, fatigue. Leonard was tired, and sleep couldn’t help.

“Lights,” He managed to croak out.

He stood up as the bare light bulb on the ceiling flickered to a dull wakefulness after a few seconds of humming. Leonard looked up at the light. “You too, huh?” he said. Leonard stepped into the shower, rusty water coming out of the head that smelled like sulfur. At least it was warm. The apartment wasn’t very pretty, but it was functional, and in Leonard’s book functional was the only characteristic worth considering.

It was almost noon by the time Leonard walked into his downtown office. On his desk was a to-do list from yesterday. It was painfully short, but work hadn’t been terribly busy lately. That was part of the reason he’d agreed to help Comet check out the warehouse over on the East end. He had been too tired to go the day before, but he figured he might get to it today. Tossing the list back on the desk, he walked over to his answering machine and palmed the scanner. After a beep, Leonard said into the empty office, “Messages.” He reached into his desk drawer for a bottle of liquor and a dirty glass while he listened to his messages. The first was a reminder for upcoming rent payments. His landlord was one of those unpleasant people who only ever said nice, unassuming things, and yet you always felt curiously insulted after speaking to him. The second message was a wrong number, some guy who was most likely drunk trying to order a pizza. There was no third message.

Leonard found the room stifling with nothing to do. It was a physical relief to him when, a half hour later, he shrugged into his long brown duster and his favorite hat as he walked out of the room. He called out “lights” as he walked out, shutting the door behind him with its frosted glass etched with: “Leonard Kraft, Private Eye”. He wandered through his building, taking the elevator down to the ground floor and walking outside. He cut an imposing figure as he strode out of his building into a chilly Autumn day. He turned up the collar of his duster, lowered his chin, and put his hands in his pockets to counter the cold. It was going to take him the better part of a half-hour to walk from his office to the East end of the city.

Leonard typically walked for work when he could. The repetitive action of putting one foot in front of the other engaged his body enough to leave his mind unfettered. Leonard did his best thinking while he walked, his gaze focusing a fixed distance away, sliding over the grey shapes of buildings and passerby. His thoughts turned, as they often did, to his extinct love life. He remembered how frustrating it was to have conversation demanded of him. Each of his three wives had complained largely of the same issues. Women all wanted the same thing from men, but no way could anybody talk that much. The years of struggling to figure out how to say what women wanted to hear stood in sharp contrast to his life now, where he struggled to find meaning in single-word conversations with his household appliances.

Leonard was tired.

He was lost in such thoughts when he realized that he had overshot his turn. He turned back into the wind, lowering his face as he trudged the few hundred feet back to the entrance of the warehousing complex. It was because his face was lowered so that he missed the emergence of three men from the alley behind him. As he entered the complex, he began to search for warehouse B3. There were no personnel in sight, so he decided to do a quick scan of the warehouse and head back to the office. It was as he was approaching the loading doors on the side of the warehouse that he realized there was someone behind him.

He had only the warning of his intuition before he heard the sharp noise of someone putting all their weight on one foot, and he turned with an arm raised just in time to intercept a wooden plank aimed for his head. There was a sickening snap within his wrist as well as his forearm, and he knew from long practice that his arm was definitely broken. There was also a tingle that ran from the point of impact to the base of his skull, and he knew that the neuro-circuits in that arm were cut. Damn. Leonard was cold, he was in pain, and now he was frightened. He didn’t like being frightened.

The thugs facing him hesitated as the look on Leonard’s face quickly shifted from surprise to pain to fury. They seemed reluctant to make another move, and Leonard realized it was because they were afraid. Of him. Leonard wasn’t carrying a gun, because he hadn’t needed it for a while, and business was slow. Trust Comet to put him in a situation over his head. Still, despite any kind of weapon, Leonard exuded all the danger and bulk of an enraged bear. Leonard never decided on any option between fight or flight; he knew without wondering that he stood a fair chance against these amateurs. What did go through his mind, however, was a quick consideration of his enemies.

He didn’t recognize any of them, which was odd. All the pads and sticks in the area worth knowing anything about were known about by Leonard Kraft. It was his profession. Their clothing, too, which was a bit rough and out of style, suggested that they were from out of town. On the other hand, they had recognized him. That didn’t necessarily mean they knew him, though. They probably thought he was a cop, unless their orders were to apply a bludgeon to the head of anyone who walked into the complex. Unlikely. That would draw the attention of the law very fast, and obviously these men were protecting something inside the warehouse, otherwise they wouldn’t have attacked him outside in broad daylight. They wouldn’t want the law brought down on their heads.

He also noticed that the only one who was visibly armed was the one with the plank. Leonard grinned.

“You first,” was Leonard’s only warning before he was among them, his right arm tucked in close to his body as his knees connected with the chest of the one holding the plank. Leonard figured Mr. Plank was the leader, since he was the only one who had done anything besides shiver. His left hand clamped around Plank’s throat as the descended, and there was a satisfying thud as the back of his head connected with the pavement. Keeping his momentum, Kraft turned the landing into a clumsy roll, trying to keep his broken arm from hitting the ground as he stumbled up to his feet. Turning wildly, his left arm flailed out a few times before it connected, sending the second man sprawling to the ground. Leonard heard someone laughing, but ignored it. The third man had recovered from his surprise and threw an arm up to block Leonard’s punch, and Leonard felt the momentum of his body get violently redirected. He saw open sky roll before his eyes, and the next thing he knew he was on his back, the wind knocked out of him.

First Day of Writing

It was on a Thursday evening that a battered and unhappy Leonard Kraft, private eye, walked out of the trauma center and through the parking lot with a look fixed on his face that suggested he had eaten something disagreeable. Anybody who knew Leonard may have been alarmed by his fresh bruises and scrapes, but most would agree that his typical mood was less than polite. He swiped the back of his hand along the door of his car, waited for the scanner to register his techprints, and climbed into the driver’s seat. Instead of starting the car, Leonard sullenly considered both the irony inherent in the term trauma center and his sudden distaste for irony. He examined his broken arm set inside its sling and sighed, his anger dissipating almost entirely, leaving behind only exhaustion and a wish for some good food. Leonard fished a cellphone out of his pocket, put it to his mouth, and snapped out an irritable “Comet.”

After a bit of ringing, the jocular voice of a young man came through the receiver and said, “Leonard Kraft! My old friend, what can I do for you?”

“Shut up, Comet.” So maybe his anger was still intact after all. “I just got out of a lovely visit with the doc. He says the arm will be fine in a couple weeks, but that I should avoid arm wrestling bulldozers in the future. You know how much it cost me in premiums to replace the damaged neuro-circuits?”

Sudden concern was evident in Comet’s tone. “What happened? Are you alright?”

“I was checking out that site you told me about a few days ago. Got jumped by a couple guys. I didn’t have a chance to ask why. This is mostly your fault, kid, but hey. It was no big deal. Are you even listening?” The last part of Leonard’s statement was caused by the sound of a woman’s laughter filtering through the phone.

“That’s terrible, Lenny. Of course I’m listening. Deborah’s just watching the TV.” Gone was Comet’s seriousness. Apparently the kid only expressed seriousness in seriously limited spurts. “Now, what did you need?”

“What the hell is going on?”

“Well, Lucy Ricardo is explaining to Ricky that he can’t be in the apartment for some reason. I haven’t really been following the plot, but I could ask Deb…?”

“Comet…” Leonard’s voice had more than a hint of warning. He was tired.

“I’m sure I have no idea, Lenny. There’s been a lot going on. Some people are saying the phones aren’t reliable. Say, why don’t we meet for dinner at Minnow’s? My treat.”

“Don’t call me Lenny, kid. Only my wife and my mother are allowed to call me Lenny.”

“So I’ve heard. I’ve always been curious, though, as to which wife that privilege belongs. And isn’t your mother dead?”

Despite himself, Leonard grinned. He growled a bit and said, “The second one. She took the nickname along with everything else.”

A laugh came through. “Estelle always was such a charmer. So was Mrs. Kraft, if memory serves. Come on, just say yes to dinner. I’ll show you a night on the town, we’ll get a couple of beers at Minnow’s, and I won’t take advantage of you if you end up drinking too much. Promise.”

And so, despite his better judgment and the doctor’s orders, Leonard found himself intently examining the bottom of a glass mug at Minnow’s bar in tabtown, the poor district. He was silently nursing both his injured arm and his fourth drink, enjoying himself despite his mood. The bar was a favorite of Leonard’s because the peanuts were free, the beer was cheap, and the mentals tended to avoid it. The other reason for Leonard’s patronage was strictly professional; pour enough beer into a man and his secrets will float to the top. Ted Minnow was a good barkeep who knew how to keep his mouth shut. Comet Cutless sat on Leonard’s left, making jokes and buying rounds until everyone around him was laughing from one thing or the other. Everyone but Leonard, naturally. Leonard was a wet blanket. Comet leaned over conspiratorially and informed him, “Lenny, you’re a wet blanket. Cheer it up a bit, yeah? From how much you’ve drunk and how little you’re smiling, I’d say you’re successfully both the least and most sober person in this hole of an establishment!

Leonard blinked up at him slowly from where he hunched over his drink. “I hate irony.” His slurred tone matched his bleary eyes.

Now it was Comet’s turn to blink. “Since when?”

“Thursday.” Leonard said.

“Isn’t today Thursday?”

Leonard nodded his head in agreement. “Thursday.” Satisfied with the profound experience of successful communication, he tipped back his head, dumped the rest of his mug more or less into his mouth, and then burped quietly before asking, “Why aren’t the phones safe?”

Comet’s eyes grew sharper. After a brief period of focus, the young man shook his head and was once more in possession of his mental faculties. “I think they may be monitoring me. I’m not sure who, so I’m going to stay necessarily nondescript. You understand?” Leonard nodded for him to continue. “A week ago, a man working for a certain organization approached me and asked me to do a little freelance work. Naturally, I declined. If you knew who it was you’d know why. Then he offered more money, so I naturally accepted on the condition that I be paid up front and in full. When he agreed immediately, I once again declined, registered his retinals, and asked him politely to leave my house.”

Leonard’s eyes grew even narrower during this iteration. When Comet had finished, shrugging in false helplessness, Leonard lifted up his mug and, using his finger for a pen and condensed water for ink, wrote out a name on the countertop. He looked up at Comet with an eyebrow raised. When Comet nodded, Leonard smoothly wiped off what he had written with his forearm.

Leonard waited for another drink to arrive before saying, “I can understand now why you wouldn’t explain anything over the phone, but nothing you just told me explains what happened at the warehouse this morning. They had a mental, Comet.”

“Sorry, Lenny. I have the unfortunate addiction of having other people do my dirty work.” He gestured down at his slight frame helplessly. “Sulking around in warehouses just isn’t my forte. I’ll try to find out what I can, but we both need to be careful.”

Leonard shook his head, wincing as the room kept shifting once he had stopped. “I hate you, kid. You owe me for this arm, and this conversation isn’t over. The beer is a good start, though.” There. Let anybody say Leonard Kraft didn’t have gratitude. He pressed his middle finger into the meat of his own palm, feeling the familiar hum of successfully connected neuro-circuits as a digital projection of the time appeared on his hand. “Shit, kid. You’ve taken advantage of me after all. Later.” Leonard left a five on the table and brusquely stood up, putting on his second-favorite hat as he walked out of the bar. It wasn’t until he was halfway home that he swore, realizing how appropriate his last words to Comet were. His wallet was missing. “That damn pickpocket. Damn warehouse. Damn trauma center…” Leonard swore at anything that came to mind, and the swearing continued until he collapsed fully dressed on his bed in his apartment. “Damn irony.”

If only he knew.

Beginner’s Luck

Abrasive burn the brightly tapered braziers casting shadowed capers of

Our masked adventures: wilder days when age had not our limbs yet claimed

Sparks and shimmers lend the tales dimensions of our drunken vapors

Stupor has not dimmed the recollections of our lives.

_________________________________________________________

Loss does not imply a victor in the sense of what we’ve lost. The cost

Incurred: to be indentured, servants ‘til the day fortunes or death our bodies claim

A treasure map of sixty six offers hope. The dice are tossed,

Loaded as a gun is to ensure that someone dies.

_________________________________________________________

One round chambered in this chamber, rounder do my eyes grow still. To kill

Inside this atrium, the start of my demise inside so very long ago: a change.

To put to death the stated law until my heart’s old covenant is prone and lying still.

My tale is finished, on my face resides a smile small and wry.

_________________________________________________________

 

Lunatic, Liar, Lord.

This one is a little bit different. It’s in a format called a pantoum, and it took me quite a while to write. I wanted it to be awesome, but it really isn’t. It’s based loosely on C.S. Lewis’ concept of Lunatic, Liar, Lord. If you’re not familiar, that’s okay. Look it up. Here ya go.

______________________________________________
The king of the Jews? The world and my heart
Say he’s a lunatic.
He is the one who was lying,
So the Pharisees hated him.
______________________________________________
Say he’s a lunatic;
Why was he followed by fishermen, doctors, and kings?
So the Pharisees hated him-
He threatened their power, after all.
______________________________________________
Why was he followed by fishermen, doctors, and kings
For millennia?
He threatens their power, after all.
He is obviously a liar.
______________________________________________
For millennia
Men have followed the liar, and
He is obviously a liar.
He has duped the creation he claimed to create.
______________________________________________
Men have followed the liar, and
Yet, would they follow him believing
He has duped the creation he claimed to create?
One cannot say they would.
______________________________________________
Yet would they follow him, believing
His claim in the face of death.
One cannot say they would
Do these things for a liar.
______________________________________________
His claim in the face of death
Stirred men’s passions to
Do these things, for a liar
He was not.
______________________________________________
Stirred men’s passions to
Form new faith.
He was not
False in his dealings with man.
______________________________________________
Form new faith!
God sends this savior, not
False in his dealings with man.
The Lord of men lay in a tomb.
______________________________________________
God sends this savior not
After the hearts of righteous men.
The Lord of men lay in a tomb
When Satan sought to claim Christ with all his power.
______________________________________________
After the hearts of righteous men,
The adversary could not prevent a maker’s offering!
When Satan sought to claim Christ, with all his power,
The Lord of men broke death and arose!
______________________________________________
The adversary could not prevent a maker’s offering!
He is the one who was lying!
The Lord of men broke death and arose
The king of the Jews, the world, and my heart.
______________________________________________

Bittersweet Reforms

This is one I stumbled across while looking at some of my older poetry. I can’t quite recall when I wrote this, but I remember it coming together really slowly. I do know that fragments can be found in two of my old notebooks as well as two different computers. And now, of course, the finished product is on the internet. Enjoy!

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Even church buildings cast a shadow

Trees must be cut down to put up a cross

Every martyr dies in the end

Army casualty, family loss

Bittersweet is the betterment

Of society by the gentlemen

Does it seem right that sweat is shed

By the better men for the bitter men

Like me?

_________________________________________

If all the great men died for me,

Should I then die for them?

If I answer Calvary’s call,

Then who will I condemn?

My excuses, though excellent, do not excuse me

From answering Calvary’s call.

I must not stand In another man’s gap

If we’re to be making  a wall.

_________________________________________

I am expressive, bitter like espresso,

Especially so in the context of soul.

Is this the demeanor of many more martyrs than

I’ve had the pleasure to know?

Something must change, must be rearranged

To arrive at a new status quo.

Lord take my heart, parse it in part

So that I may be able to go.

_________________________________________

So Be It

This is not something I’ve done before. I have a huge respect for the art of storytelling, for its structure and its nuances. Delivery and timing are just as important as content, right? Well, poets who can tell stories with their prose astound me, so I decided to give it a shot. It’s a pretty simple format, but read it slowly. The Dr. Seuss rhyme is constant throughout, so if you could ride that through the poem a few times and let me know what you think, that would be sweet.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

The man walks quickly through the park while the hour fast approaches dark. Vast before him lies a plain that’s waiting to flood from the rain. He races against light and flood, his feet are churning dirt to mud. The rain picks up and he may drown so he shelters on the park’s playground. Having surely lost the race, he folds his hands and turns his face to gaze upon the rushing torrent, wondering at what could warrant such a violent flash of flood to turn the world from earth to mud. The light is fading, he’s alone atop a slide he calls his own. Having time for anything, he chooses to become a king. This lonely man who minutes prior was a scoundrel and a liar sits upon his monkeybars and fancies that he owns the stars. In his efforts not to drown, the lucky beggar claims a crown and then decrees in haughty tones that he’d not trade it for his bones. And so the man is in a plight, his efforts wasted in his flight. His future is in dire straits the longer he chooses to wait. For look, he does not race against the light or flood or circumstance, but might and blood and both their pleas are what the crowned beggar flees. The blood was spilt so long ago by men deciding not to know that they were killing a scapegoat as designated by turncoats who thought collective filicide would make them righteous in God’s eyes. The guilt and shame was split between the beggar and those Pharisees who never knew that they entombed all guilt within the savior’s wounds. So, back to present day again, this king has realized his sin and so he snatches from his crown the threatening weight of self-renown. He helped to kill the son of man! He finds somehow the strength to stand and scream a challenge at the night which rushes in to meet the fight. Boldly onward toward the dawn our staunch once-royal staggers on, struggling against what he made in hopes that his debt might be paid. At last, dawn breaks, the trumpet calls! The King has claimed the Beggar’s walls! This kingdom covered in a flood had found its might within the blood. And though it once was but a slum, the Son has seen his kingdom come. As for the man, he walks away, his life beginning with the day. For in that park where night was spent, the last word uttered was “amen”.

Look upon my works, ye mighty; my despair

This is one of my better poems. If you don’t understand some of the references, most of them can be explained by putting “Ozymandias” into Wikipedia. Enjoy!

________________________________________________

Pit yourself against my senses! Your will versus my defenses.

I am tangled like the webs I weave that leave me here defenseless.

Discordant as a damned amen, Lord split me like a Gordian.

Not knotted like sir Nottingham, although I could afford it then.

I sabotage my very stance due to destructive circumstance.

I blanche at chances twisted past what I could hope to owe at last

There lying in the bed I made that lies upon the founds I laid:

The lies I told myself would stay after the lies I told were aged.

But here I lay, strange to myself and raptured by a mirror’s mask,

Wondering what I would beget if I could pull myself to task.

___________________________________________________

I ask, “Am I afraid?” For though your will is still not mine to own,

I wish in part to fully know my strength is greater than your throne.

My works are my despair you see, ye mighty men that look at me

My trunkless legs upon the sand that still survey a sandy sea.

Hamartia is hard to make dispelled, yes it is hard to break.

The tragedy in tragic flaws is in their trade of lust for law.

So sick am I, though not like you, the sick at heart, the sick in truth,

Diseased so that I barely stand ‘gainst anything except your hand.

Take all your power from me now, replace it with a solemn vow.

Proceed, Lord, with my heart in tow so I may see the seeds I sow.