Billy Austin (A Gathering of Lovers Book 1) Page 4

  Still, it was Yelena's experience that most young people paid scant attention to their own mortality, living life as if it would go on forever. She had been no different in her youth. She'd spent years living with a thankless man who she called husband in name only never feeling even a slight pang of love for him.

  "You said that I think I'm god's favorite but I'm not."

  "What does that mean to you, Billy?"

  "I used to think that god spoke to me, Yelena. I hear voices sometimes. I know it's not god though. I'm taking medication for it now but it doesn’t help all the time."

  "What did this god say to you, Billy?"

  "I don't remember, exactly. I had treatments in the institution where they placed me. Most of my memories were erased. I remember things from when I was a boy. In fact, when I woke up in the hospital I thought I was ten years old. Everything from my adult life is gone though. It's like it never happened."

  "What else did I say, Billy?"

  "You said that I have a choice: I can die easy by my own hand, or die in agony."

  "I do not understand why I would say such things, Billy. Was there more?"

  "You said I have the chance to save someone's life... a little girl."

  "Do you know this girl, Billy? Do you have a daughter, perhaps?"

  "No... they tell me I was married once but from what I understand we didn’t have children. I have no idea what girl you were talking about, Yelena. I don’t know any girl."

  "Was that all I said, Billy?"

  "Yes it was. Can you see the future, Yelena?"

  "Oh no, Billy... I can see nothing. Only god sees. Sometimes She speaks through me but I never remember what She says."

  "I never heard of a woman god, Yelena. Are you a witch?"

  She chuckled at memory of the face Billy had made, like he was ready to flee something too horrible to consider. It was true she'd been accused of witchcraft plenty of times, even here in America.

  "No, sweet boy... I am no witch. I have the gift of foresight, as my Grandmother Zoya called it. I have her eye. See?"

  She had winked her left eye at Billy in the way she sometimes did when she liked someone a lot. He had smiled, his worries mollified for the time being.

  Now, if only she could soothe her own feelings as well.

  Chapter 8—Remembrances of Things Future

  Oscuro dreamed he was the wolf… or rather, a shadow of the wolf.

  He didn't see it so much as he sensed the darkness of it looming over him urging him to exact his pain on others… they deserved it. At times though—when his dreams were particularly lucid—he realized the wolf was a changeling, a magician, a man but unlike any other man: insane, feral, without any moral compunctions at all.

  This dark and mysterious conjurer was cold inside… harboring no good feelings for anyone, not even for himself… he was destined to become this man, always traveling from place to place, never finding a home of his own. Rather than filling him with dread and foreboding, however, these thoughts filled Oscuro with feelings of power and lust, knowing he had abilities far beyond those of mortal men.

  They were troubled by that thing they called their conscience. Other men, even another wolf, would have moral compunctions that forbade them to plunge into the hideous world that lurked just beneath the surface. Oscuro had no such qualms.

  While lingering between dreams and waking he remembered a conversation he had with a strange man, the only man in the world who scared him. He felt compelled to talk to this man even though he understood how it might come to incriminate him as his attorney told him to talk to no one. What's more, even though he knew better, he used his real name.

  “My name is Alex Johns… do you want to know why I’m here? I cut a woman up.”

  Oscuro remembered bragging about his exploits. It was while he was at that dark place between the county jail in Jackson, Mississippi and Didi Hearsh in southern California. Slowly it dawned on him.

  It had been at Eastern Oklahoma State Institution... a mottled collection of concrete and iron pillars that smelled of diseased minds and rotting flesh. He had been taken there in an armored ambulance with big burly guards who kept him sedated the whole way. The building was filled with drooling imbeciles.

  For some inexplicable reason Billy Austin blazed like a lighthouse on dark seas. Oscuro was both drawn to him and repulsed by him at the same time. He had to talk to the man... to explain himself as if he stood before his creator.

  "I like to hurt women, but they have to be special. They have to remind me of someone... otherwise they're useless to me. Are you like that too? What is your name? Why are you here?"

  Oscuro remembered how he had struck up a conversation with Billy more to discover why this man should stand out like he did than out of any sense of camaraderie. He wanted to brag to Billy, to scare him as much as Billy scared him. But the man was unflappable.

  “They tell me that I tried to kill my wife. And then I cut my wrists. I suppose I wanted to die. My name is Billy… Billy Austin.”

  "I have a sister, Billy. She is the perfect woman… no one else in the world compares to her. When I get out of here I'm going to go get her… I am going to make her my own… she belongs to me, you know."

  "But she's your sister."

  "I know, Billy, but that doesn’t matter."

  Oscuro remembered murmuring the words as he walked away down the hallway, shuffling like the others shuffled. The medication made it hard to pick up his feet.

  "I know she's my sister but we are really nothing alike. I think she might have been adopted."

  Oscuro didn’t like the way Billy Austin looked at him when he told him about his sister. There was something in Billy's eyes that rattled Oscuro's normally complacent nature enough to cause him nightmares.

  Billy Austin... the name brought a chill to Oscuro as he came fully awake. He could feel that the RV had come to a stop. It was as dark outside as inside. Reaching out he felt for the cup of water sitting beside him and drank it off before attempting to sit up.

  He had an overriding need to urinate.

  "Is anyone here?"

  He called out to the darkness as movement sounded from somewhere in back of the vehicle. A moment later a light came on and the old man appeared.

  "So you're awake."

  Kirk emerged from behind accordion style doors separating the space where Oscuro slept from the rest of the vehicle.

  "How do you feel, Oscuro?"

  "I have to piss something awful and my ribs hurt like hell but at least I can sit up, Kirk. If you help me to my feet I think I can walk."

  Kirk offered an arm for Oscuro to pull himself up. He led Oscuro to the bathroom and opened the door for him while flipping on the light.

  "Thanks old man. I'll be right out."

  He had an enormous hard on. He could only dribble his piss into the toilet so it took a long time to void. Looking into the mirror as he stood there urinating he noticed massive bruising around his pelvis. He remembered the old man telling him his hip might be broken and it felt like it. It seemed as if his cock was broken too. As he shook the last few drops of piss from his cock he waited for the erection to subside but it didn’t. Instead a dull ache ensued running from the tip of his penis all the way down to the crack of his ass.

  "Are you all right in there?"

  The old man called out as if he too needed the facilities.

  "Yes, I'll be right out."

  Oscuro was so erect that it make things difficult to tuck his dick back into the sweat pants that he wore.

  "It's called priapism."

  "What are you talking about?"

  Oscuro sat down at the table across from Kirk. A plate of food was waiting for him. Until he began eating he didn’t realize how hungry he was.

  "Your erection that won't go down; I believe you received a blow to that area causing tissue damage. It's beyond me to treat an injury like that. There's a drug called methyl blue that might help but it might not either. Yo
u need a specialist to look at it, otherwise..."

  "Otherwise, what?"

  "Your pecker will turn blue and then black. Finally it will fall off from lack of circulation."

  "I can't risk going to a doctor, Kirk. I'm a wanted man."

  "I know that. I read the papers. Let's try the methyl blue and hope for the best."

  "So you know who I am?"

  "Yes, son, I know who you are. You have nothing to worry about. I am the last one who will turn into the authorities. I have my reasons which you'll come to see soon. We're kindred spirits, you and I, dark angels on our way to hell."

  Oscuro wanted to assure the old man that they were nothing alike... that only a complete psychopath could even assume they were alike. But then again, there was something about Kirk that said he might just be dangerous.

  Chapter 9—Tavern by the Sea

  He had been there forever.

  Over the years of standing behind the bar serving drinks Roger became a good judge of character. Most of his customers had none. He accepted it as a matter of course that as soon as the liquor loosened their tongues they began confessing their each and every sin to the quiet bartender who acted as a penitent priest absolving their souls while always keeping their glasses full.

  Roger had found the old tavern by the sea in horribly dilapidated condition, weathered and tattered by years of torment from the elements that lashed its outer walls as well as the clientele who abused its interior. The bathroom floors were rotted out from men pissing there instead in the urinals, the bar was so caked with sweat and grime it couldn’t be salvaged, and the windows were cracked from shot glasses and empty beer bottles thrown at them.

  It took three years to rehab the building, maybe longer. Though he had purchased it with an eye on selling when the renovations were completed, once he surveyed the completed establishment something changed his mind. He was never sure just what it was.

  One thing he didn’t reckon on was how owning and operating a tavern consumed his every waking moment. Help was hard to find and when he did find good help they were hard to trust when it came to running an all-cash business. The newness of being an inn-keeper wore off inch by inch until there were mornings when Roger could hardly drag himself from bed knowing he faced another eighteen hour day. Though he said nothing to anyone he had made up his mind to put the tavern on the market, to get out of the business of tending bar and back into the work of his youth.

  "My car no start."

  Yelena Ivanoff showed up at the tavern four years after he had opened for business. Her car gasped its last breath just before rolling into the parking lot. The beautiful Russian woman seemed like a gift from God at the time. Her cooking rivaled the best Roger had ever tasted and though she drank gallons of vodka she always paid for her drinks, never pilfering so much as a sip, unlike the cook who she replaced.

  "You will meet dear of a man."

  Yelena spoke to him in a strange voice the day they accidentally bumped into each other while he was going into the kitchen as she was exiting at the same time through the swinging saloon-style doors he had installed as a way of putting the tavern back to its original state.

  "He will be great help to you. You must remain here. Do not sell your tavern. Your destiny is here."

  Yelena had swooned the moment Roger touched her. He thought perhaps he had injured her in some fashion, grabbing her in his arms to keep her from falling to the floor. Her eyes rolled back in her head until only the whites showed, her movements jerky as if she was having a fit.

  "Are you okay?"

  Roger had by now laid Yelena on a couch after carrying her into his office.

  "Should I call someone for you?"

  "I am fine, thank you. Why do I lay here?"

  Yelena seemed mystified to find herself lying on the sofa.

  "You passed out when we bumped into each other. Did I hurt you?"

  "No, Mr. Roger... you do not hurt me. This happens to me when I touch people. I am so sorry. Did I say anything?"

  "You said I am going to meet a dear of a man. Don't you remember?"

  "I never remember these things I say. It is the way of my gift."

  "Your gift?"

  "My Grandmother Zoya was a fortune teller in Russia. When I am but a young girl she says: Yelena, you have this same gift of foresight. But what you see is hidden from us both. I did not understand. Grandmother Zoya says: only god sees future. Like me, you are Her voice."

  "I don't understand what you're saying, Yelena. Are you some kind of prophet?"

  "No, nothing like that, Mr. Roger... what I mean is that I never remember what I say. You must listen carefully to my words and decide for yourself what they mean."

  "How do you know I am planning to sell the tavern?"

  "I did not know you are selling the tavern, Mr. Roger."

  "You told me not to sell the tavern. You said my destiny is here. What do you mean by that?"

  "I am so sorry, Mr. Roger. I do not understand these things I say. It is god speaking, not me."

  A storm raged across the ocean pummeling the tavern and anyone who ventured forth into the night. He wasn’t surprised to see Mouse walk into the tavern on such a night. He was one of the few good-hearted regulars and the two of them had struck up a fast friendship just after Roger reopened the tavern. Mouse drove an enormous pickup truck designed for tempest nights jacked up high and with exhaust stacks exiting from behind the cab like the big trucks.

  A stranger walked into the tavern with Mouse. His long black hair in twin braids, he introduced himself as Tom Three Deer, of the Oglala Lakota tribe from Pine Ridge in South Dakota. He had moved to California as a boy. He and Mouse were cousins. He explained that he worked security at the Indian Casino a few miles down the road.

  From the looks of him, the man could handle himself. Roger thought how Tom seemed an ancient warrior with a voice of thunder and eyes of lightening. It was as if the storm itself had brought him to Twenty Nine Katz.

  The three men spent the evening drinking fine brandy and good ale that Roger had sent to him special from Ireland. Since Roger's wife and son were off visiting family in San Francisco he was in no hurry to go home to an empty house. By the time the two men took their leave Roger sensed the three of them had formed a lasting bond.

  "I will meet a dear of a man."

  Roger breathed the words as the door shut behind his friends and he wiped down the bar before closing up for the night. The storm still lashed at the windows with hurricane force fury and the thunder rattled the floorboards under his feet.

  "I'll be damned if I didn’t misunderstood what she was saying. Yelena meant a Deer of a man."

  He wondered again how the woman could know he was planning on selling the place when he hadn’t even told his wife about his decision. Perhaps she had overheard him talking to himself the way he sometimes did while polishing bar glasses. He didn’t even realize he was doing it. It wasn’t until his wife mentioned it, laughing at the incongruity of someone not hearing what they were saying to themselves.

  Roger never desired much out of life, but he did miss his wife and son, especially on stormy nights.

  Chapter 10—Secrets

  “Are you sleeping, mister?”

  The whisper issued from the seat in front of Billy.

  “No… I’m just thinking.”

  Billy opened his eyes to see the little boy named Johnny looking over the seat at him. The boy reminded Billy of a puppy… inquisitive but attention-starved and not overly bright.

  “I slept earlier and now I’m not tired. I have to be quiet so I don’t wake my mom or she'll holler at me again. What are you thinking about?”

  “About a wolf… I'm thinking about a wolf locked in a cage. I remember seeing it when I was younger. I used to feed it table scraps. I felt sorry that it had to spend its life in that cage. Its eyes seemed so bright… so intelligent. But now I think how it probably would have eaten me if it had gotten out.”

  “Why was
it locked in a cage? Did it hurt someone?”

  “No, I don’t think so. It was a wolf, that’s all. So they kept it in a cage.”

  “That seems kind of sad. Did you try letting it go? I would have.”

  “I did… but the lock on the cage was too strong. I couldn’t open it. I was only a boy… probably about your age. My mother told me to stay away from it but I climbed through a hole in the fence to feed it anyway.”

  “Did your mother tell you not to talk to strangers, too?”

  “No… she was too busy speaking to God… she thought God would take care of everyone. Your mother seems nicer than mine, though. You should listen to her.”

  “Want to hear about my dreams, Mr.?”

  The boy whispered and shrugged his shoulders at the mention of his mother.

  “You know…like when I wake up screaming the same way you did a little while ago.”

  “I would love to hear about your dream.”

  “I’m riding on a horse with my dad… my real dad… He's gone now. He had something important to do and so he had to leave but in my dream he's back. I don’t know where we’re going or where we’ve been. We’re just there. He’s holding me in his arms and we’re in a meadow. I know it’s a meadow because of the tall grass all around us. We’re riding on a brown path—brown like the horse—that curves through the field and up over a hill.

  "There are no trees. A wind is blowing through the grass making it into a green wave like we're skipping across the top of the ocean. I like watching the grass. I think I’ve been there before but I’m not sure. Out of the corner of my eye I see something that looks like a person in a shadow on the path ahead of us only when I turn to look at it, the person disappears. I think it might be a ghost watching us. I ask my dad if he sees it too.”

  “What does your father say?”

  “He tells me it is only the fog. But when we ride closer I know it isn’t fog. I feel cold and I get scared even though I’m in my dad’s arms and I know nothing can hurt me there. I see something moving along side of the horse but when I look directly at it, it disappears like before. I feel a shiver going up my back like something is watching me. So I ask him again, didn’t you see the ghost, dad? It was right beside us. It was looking at me. And he says not to be silly… there are no such things as ghosts.”