Desert Words

I'm not sure what started it. One minute we're all sitting around the table, sucking down brews: staring at the waitress: playing cards. The next... well....

Pat doesn't have what you'd call a sense of fair play. I'm not carrying tales, man. He'll be the first to tell you. "There ain't no such thing as a fair fight," he says. He got that one from his old man, who was some kind of Special Forces badass in the Nam. Pat's dad spends most of his day figuring out who's gonna try and kill him next. Yeah, he's one of those.

Anyway.

My buddy Frank brought this guy out drinking with us -- Charlie. Charlie was a gook; his parents must have been cruel fuckers. Pat called him Victor Charlie, I thought of him as Charlie Chan.

Charlie said, "I am Japanese, not Vietnamese."

Pat said, "Shut the fuck up."

Now look. I'm not a Klan member or anything. Live and let live, I say -- just don't go dating my daughter. But, this ain't the place you want to start that hippie "Can't we all get along" bullshit. Most of the guys in this town feel the same way as Pat.

So anyways, Pat was needling the guy all night. Now, Pat's usually harmless if you let him have his fun, but I guess he wasn't feeling so harmless that night, hammering on Charlie like he was.

Out of the blue, Pat reached over the table to tweak ol' Charlie's nose.

I'm telling you, all I saw was a blur. I heard a couple of cracks and there was Pat, laying on the floor, bleeding and cussing and holding his arm against his chest.

Charlie kicked his ass. Bad. Busted Pat's arm and nose so fast, I couldn't tell how.

Well, that just ain't the way things are done 'round here. Most everyone in the bar got up to jump that little fucker from all sides. I scooped up all the beers from our table and headed for a corner. Someone had to.

Besides, I'm not a lover, but I've never been much of a fighter neither.

I'm not shitting you when I tell you, it was a massacre.

A couple of local fellahs, just off work from the paper mill, stepped right up to bat: One with a chair, one with an empty beer bottle -- we don't abuse alcohol by using full ones to club our neighbors.

Those boys came running at Charlie, threading the tables like some kind of fat, clumsy bar slalom. Mr. Chair got there first, it being a race to see who got to play "Give the Gook a Comeuppance". Batter up, he swung his weapon of choice in the classic overhead "You ain't never gonna sleep with my wife again" style popularized by Pat himself.

Charlie didn't seem to see it coming; he just stood there, looking down at Pat, with his back to Mr. Chair until the last second. That chair came swinging down and Charlie moved. He swung 'round to face the attack. His leg swept up from the floor. He did one of those chop-sake moves with his foot like you see in the movies and that goddamn chair blew up in the guy's hands, showering him with the fresh scent of broken pine -- extra splinters please.

Now he was Mr. No-Chair.

Charlie wasted no time on pleasantries, he turned and blocked the Bud bottle the other good ol' boy was swinging at the back of his head. Charlie flicked out a punch that looked like it couldn't squash a fly. The guy with the bottle sagged like he'd been suckered with a haymaker. Charlie's left hand grabbed the guy's wrist, the other slid quickly up the arm and clenched the elbow. Charlie turned a little with the guy's arm braced over his shoulder, squatted down a bit, leaned forward, and those two paper-makers ended up looking like something two pretty ladies might do in a tittie magazine -- "Dear Nudie Judie, I never thought things like this really happened...." Looked painful, as well as mortifying. They were gonna hear about that one for a while.

Charlie was kind of busy after that, I couldn't really see much of the action. He had at least five guys around him trying to do various nasty things to his person. I don't think any of them ever touched anything but his hands and feet. Most of them got flying lessons, though.

Try to look at the positive, I always say.

Charlie got tired of getting hit in the fist, I guess. He smacked a couple of the more persistent punching bags then did a neat little Mary Lou Retton move over the bar and headed out the back way.

No one was in any shape to go after him, so I headed out too. I kinda wanted to see if he was okay. Wasn't right, everyone jumping him like that.

I was just in time for a ringside seat to see the most horrible thing I've ever had the misfortune to witness, before or since.

Seems Pat wasn't giving up easy. He'd snuck out during the ruckus and got into his car. He'd been waiting for Charlie with his engine running. When the poor fellah exited the bar, he learned a hard truth about those chop-sake moves.

They don't work against four thousand pounds of moving steel.

No such thing as a fair fight.

"Move, you stupid fucker!" I yelled. "He ain't playing chicken!" Charlie just stood there, like a spotlighted deer.

I yelled again, and Charlie looked at me, like there was something he wanted to say to me.

He never got the chance.

Pat's Camaro slammed Charlie straight into the air with a loud, wet smack. I watched his body fly about thirty feet, and hit the asphalt with a crunch.

It's something I'll never forget, that sound; Charlie's breaking bones were actually snapped loud enough I heard them. It haunted my sleep for months.

For a couple of seconds, all I could hear was the sound of my breathing. I stared at Charlie, then at Pat as he pulled even with me and looked me over like he was trying to decide if he was going to have to do something to keep me quiet. I looked back at Pat, and I guess he could see the fear right there on my face. He knew I wasn't talking.

I looked back at Charlie. There was blood leaking in a puddle around him. I knew it was blood only because it wasn't raining, so that dark, moving stream of liquid could only be one thing.

Then, as if the evening weren't already full up on nightmare material, something moved around Charlie's dead body. Charlie stood up.

He stood up, but he was also laying on the ground in a puddle of blood.

He stood, tall and firm; he lay, cold and dead. He looked right at me, and my bladder let go in a warm flood down my pants leg. Again, he made as if to say something.

I must have passed out; I came to in Pat's car, cold, wet piss pasting the jeans to my legs.

* * *

Charlie's disappearance didn't raise any eyebrows. I wondered about that for a while. Guess no one who cared about him knew he'd been out with Frank.

Pat dumped Charlie's body about a hundred yards off the road, in the woods outside town on State Park land. Nobody would find him until hiking season, almost nine months away, if ever.

The only person as messed up as me was Pat. He kept moaning and wiping the blood from his nose and whining about not knowing where he was gonna get the money for a new quarter-panel. Frank didn't even seem to care.

Too bad, really. Wasn't right.

* * *

That was the first night I had the dream; I ran all night.

You know what I mean. A monster is chasing you. You keep running, it keeps coming. You never see it, but you know it's there, with its teeth and claws. Coming to eat you. At first, it was just like that. But, after a while, I saw it.

Charlie was the monster. No teeth, no claws. Just an empty Bud bottle and a question. Or an answer. I couldn't tell which.

* * *

"Frank, we gotta say something!"

Frank looked through the cloud of cigarette smoke rising out of the overflowing ashtray that'd been empty when we sat down at our usual table at Jo's.

"Look. Kid!" Frank shook his head, blowing a stream of smoke in all directions. He'd started chain-smoking since the "accident". "Do you have any idea what Pat could do to us? Anything gettin' through that thick skull of yours? Think he won't do us the same as he did Charlie?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I know!"

"Don't seem like you do, Danny!" Frank leaned towards me over the table and pointed to the long scar that looked like a thick piece of white twine running from his scalp all the way down his cheek and neck and disappearing under the collar of his turtle-neck sweater. "Pat did this, Danny. Pat. The guy you want to cross for some nip you didn't even know."

"You knew him, Frank! He was your friend!"

"I know, kid! I know!" Frank stubbed out his cigarette and stood up. He looked down at me and put his hand on my shoulder. "Everything's going to work out in the end, Danny. You watch."

Frank stepped over to the counter and paid for his coffee, no tip.

He turned back to me while the waitress worked the ancient register. "You just keep what's ours between us. You hear, Danny?"

I nodded, but I don't think he saw. He turned his back on me and headed out of the diner like he had hellhounds on his trail.

* * *

"Daniel," Charlie whispered to me in my dream.

"Leave me be!" I didn't stop running.

Charlie wasn't a big man in life, but in my dreams he towered over me like a father over a son. His eyes were always in the shadows, and he looked just as I remembered him right before the car jerked the life from him like someone cutting a string on a puppet.

"Just leave me be, Charlie! There's nothing I can do for you!"

"Perhaps it is what I can do for you that holds me here."

* * *

Pat caught up to me in the parking lot at the Quickie Mart. I came out the doors holding the sacks with my groceries and just as I was getting in my truck, Pat's Camaro screeched into the lot and headed right for me. Images of Charlie flying through the air flashed through my head as I saw that grill coming at me, still stove in from that night. I didn't expect Pat to stop, and was surprised when he did. He didn't seem the type to get too worked up about killing someone in daylight. When the car stopped, just a few inches from crushing me against my truck, I couldn't do anything but stare at that big dent Pat still hadn't come up with the money to fix.

I didn't even realize Pat was out of the car until a big fist jerked me around by my shirt and there was his face just inches from mine. I could smell the onions on his breath and I knew he'd been eating at Jo's, probably with Frank, since Pat never had any cash when the check came to the table. Frank had plenty of cash.

"Frank says you're having some problems," Pat stage-whispered in my face. "Says you might be thinking about telling someone our business."

"No. No! I wouldn't talk, you know that," I wanted to stand up to Pat, maybe take a licking, but at least stand up and be a man. Looking in his crazy eyes, I couldn't do it. The man was a killer, and I just didn't have that kind of courage.

"I don't know if you're lying to me, Danny. I don't know if you don't need a lesson in how to keep your mouth shut about business that shouldn't be spread around and taken to the cops," he looked deep in my eyes, like he could measure my thoughts with his stare. "Is that so, Danny? Do you need a lesson?"

"Pat! You know I won't talk! C'mon. It's me!"

Pat held my shirt for a couple of seconds, just staring at my face, thinking. All of the sudden, he was all smiles and patting my shirt back into place with the one hand, and it was only then that I saw the big buck knife he'd had in the other.

No such thing as a fair fight.

I stared at that piece of steel as he put it away then looked back up into his eyes, but he wasn't looking at me anymore, he was gazing over my shoulder at something else. I turned around and saw Sheriff Pounds sitting at the stop sign across the street just staring daggers at Pat. Unfortunately my truck blocked most of the Sheriff's view, and he didn't see Pat's knife, so it just looked like two friends talking in the parking lot. Sheriff Pounds couldn't help me.

I knew Pat's secret wasn't as safe as he'd thought, probably word of the brawl had gotten out, and I knew I probably wouldn't live out the week if Pat thought the cops had any idea what he'd done.

* * *

Pat killed my dog that night. He nailed it spread-eagle to my front door and slit it from neck to crotch so all the innards just poured out onto my porch.

I came home and there it was. Guess Pat didn't know I hated that fucking dog. It took me two hours to clean it up.

* * *

I kept running, every night. For some reason, I knew he could never catch me if I didn't stop running. But it was getting harder to keep it up. It felt like I was running for real, now. I woke up with my lungs on fire and my legs shaking with exhaustion every morning. And, finally, I'd had enough.

* * *

They say I was acting funny all the next day, like I was in a daze. See, I work at the bowling alley outside town. Used to work the family farm, but my Pops died and the bank foreclosed on his mortgage. After all the fees, interest, taxes and whatnot, I got fifty-six dollars and seventy-three cents for the thousand-acre farm my family had worked for almost two hundred years.

They even acted like they really didn't want to take our land from under us. A real shame, they said. What with your great-great-grandpa being the founder of the town, and all. But we're just a branch, now. We don't make the decisions like we did when your grandpa died owing us. We'd sure like to help you like we did your daddy. Hope there's no hard feelings.

Fifty-six dollars and seventy-three cents.

No hard feelings.

Anyways.

I passed out. Right there at work while I was re-arranging the loaner balls, I just folded up and went to sleep on the floor. The boss flipped his lid and called the ambulance and they took me to the County Hospital.

I slept through my first ambulance ride.

* * *

When I came to, a week later, things were different. They said I had to stay in a special ward for "observation." That means they thought I was crazy.

Apparently I'd been talking in my sleep. Common enough, right? I'd been talking in ancient Japanese. Fluently. They said that was a bit "disconcerting". I said they were full of shit and I wanted a lawyer.

* * *

"You can't have a lawyer, Daniel," said my visitor.

They'd wheeled me into one of the conference rooms they used for group on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The place looked like one of those interrogation rooms you see on TV, small and cramped and painted that puke green government types are so fond of.

They wheeled me in like I was some invalid, crippled instead of crazy. They did let me get up on my own once we were in the conference room, but only so they could handcuff me and sit me in a less comfortable chair.

Fuckers.

They made me wait so long, I fell asleep, only to have this dipshit shake me awake and nearly kill me with a heart attack, I thought it was Charlie come to collect his due.

There sat before me another goddamn gook, this one even less considerate than Charlie... at least Charlie let me sleep.

The guy was sitting on the edge of the wooden table before me. Dressed in tan slacks and a matching sports jacket, he looked like a cop. He had what looked like a sword, of all things, sitting next to him on the table.

"Huh?" I asked, wittily.

"You can't have a lawyer, Daniel," he repeated.

"Fuck I can't. I know my rights, cop," I said, after I could breathe again.

"I'm not a cop, Daniel," he smiled like he loved knowing something I didn't. Who didn't? "I'm what you'd call a diplomat."

"Then why am I handcuffed?" They were real ones, too. Not like those cheap pieces of crap they had down at the porn shop in back of the Quickie Mart. "And while we're on the subject, what're you doing with that sword? How'd you even get the thing in here? This is a nuthouse, you know. Some of these freaks jack off thinking about getting their hands on something like that."

"You might say I'm immune to normal rules," he steepled his hands and stared at me like I was a bug. "One phone call from my agency and the director of this institution gladly acceded to my... special needs. You'll find there are no orderlies within earshot of this room, as well. Just you and me, Mr. Sharpes."

I stared at him and decided maybe I ought to keep my mouth shut.

"Why don't you tell me about these dreams you've been having."

"What drea --?"

"Mr. Sharpes! Let's talk about your friend, in your dreams," he didn't seem to notice me start to suck wind like a landed fish. "He's real, you know."

"Your elevator don't go all the way up, fellah. You know that?"

"I'm not the one in a mental ward, Mr. Sharpes," he said, fuck-you-round-eye written plainly in his smile.

"What you would like to know is: why you're here."

"Uh-huh."

"His name was Charlie Masayuki, Mr. Sharpes," he said, rising off the table and fingering the sword's handle.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Shit!

"The man you killed, Mr. Sharpes. Or are there more than one?"

"Naw, man. You got that wrong. Pat fucked that dude up. I never touched him."

Words suddenly drifted through my head like someone was reading, just to me:

[The birdsong
A note of despair
What is right?]

'kay. Seems I was going crazy inside and out.

"A good man in his inaction does more evil than the perpetrator, Mr. Sharpes. Irrelevant, either way," Mr. Diplomat walked away from me, his hands clasped behind his back. He reminded me of a teacher I had once. Mr. Phillips. What a dickhead.

"He was the current embodiment of one of ancient Japan's most revered heroes, Shinmen Musashi No Kami Fujiwara No Genshin. The Sword Saint. Founder of Niten Ryu Kenjutsu."

It took me a minute to think about it, but I came up with a witty reply, "You're one crazy motherfucker!"

"That's right, Mr. Sharpes. Be flip. It's what you do, isn't it?"

"Bite me."

"Men like Sensei Musashi aren't truly men at all," he said, ignoring me. I got this weird feeling he wasn't really talking to me at all. It seemed more like he was trying to convince himself. "They're more like concepts -- the spirit of their people. They don't always die like you and I. If the people they inspire believe enough. If the effect they have upon the populace remains strong enough, they come back."

"Naw," I shook my head.

Mr. Diplomat just kept talking. "George Washington, Genghis Khan... They're all alive today. My job is to keep it quiet. Keep them quiet. Even... happy, if I can."

"This isn't happening. They say I'm nuts then they put me in a room with a real psycho."

Mr. Diplomat didn't seem to have heard me, "Could you imagine the panic if it got out that Adolph Hitler was tooling around Berlin, right now, in a Volkswagen Beetle? The furor if Hollywood discovered William Shakespeare was writing plays for a small drama club in Ocean Shores, Washington? No? Well I can, Mr. Sharpes. It's my job to make sure that does not happen."

"What kind of drugs have they been giving you, boy? Come on, Mr. Diplomat. Sharing is a virtue."

"Sensei Musashi could have allowed his spirit to move along its natural course. Somewhere -- probably Japan -- a newborn baby died the night your friend Pat killed Charlie. Stillborn, the death certificate will say. Lost soul, it should say. That's the way it works."

You know, a sword makes an evil sound when you draw it, like a pissed off snake just itching to strike. It sounded even worse than that car hitting Charlie.

"I spoke to Sensei Musashi at length, while you were sleeping. He wants you to know he doesn't blame you for what your friend did. He says he has looked into your heart and knows you for a good man." Good for him. I was more interested in that fucking oversized steak knife Mr. Diplomat was holding.

"Hey now! Whatcha' gonna do with that pig-sticker?"

"I see no other way, Mr. Sharpes. Sensei Musashi has grown attached to being you. A redneck asshole that would let an innocent man's murderer go unpunished. This is unacceptable. The Sensei is one of Japan's greatest heroes. I must kill you and free his soul to renew the cycle." He reared back like a golfer winding up for a long drive."

"Now just wait! What if I'm what your Musashimi-whatever... what if I'm what he wanted? You'd be going against his will, wouldn't you?" I'm no psychologist, but it seemed like a good idea to work with the guy, negotiate a bit.

He looked at me funny for a minute. "Why would he want to be you?" He asked. "Could it be true?"

"Well, you just said he's attached to me. Maybe he just wanted to try something new. You know, kinda like how guys always wanna screw a black chick or people who like food will eat snails. People get bored," I was stalling bigger than life, but I got this weird feeling I was on to something.

"Sorry, Mr. Sharpes. I just can't take that chance. Even if it be his will, the Sensei could never control you, and that makes you a risk. Don't take it too hard. It happens. No hard feelings."

Why does everyone with a hankering to bend me over say that? Is it some code they teach in high school? Did I miss something when I settled for the GED?

I closed my eyes and waited for him to do his thing.

I'm not sure what exactly happened next. I mean I know what happened. Just not how.

I felt "Charlie" for the first time. He was very close to me, inside my head. He was mad as hell, and cool as ice. He came to me and I couldn't look away because he was so close. I couldn't run, he'd already caught me. He asked the question I'd been avoiding in my sleep for all this time. He asked me if I wouldn't mind sharing myself with him.

I didn't mind at all; let him feel that fucking sword cutting me, this was his party anyways.

[Arigatakuitadaku, thank you,] Charlie said.

My permission cut loose something inside me. I felt a wind inside my head, pushing me aside.

I then watched myself start doing the oddest things.

My feet came up from the floor and did a little tap-dance number on Mr. Diplomat's tum-tum, throwing him back a few steps and knocking me over. Before my chair hit the floor, I rolled backwards off it. I convulsed in a way that made me wince. I did a backwards somersault. I came up on my feet. Up in the air I jumped. I tucked my legs in tight and put my whole body through the ring of my arms. My hands were now cuffed in front; I was standing with my back against the wall facing my opponent. I also hit the goddamn wall pretty hard, but Charlie didn't seem to notice.

Mr. Diplomat and his sword wasted no time coming back at me. But now, he didn't look so sure of himself. In fact, he looked scared.

He advanced in a strange crab-walk with the katana [katana?] held in both hands, the tsuka [What the fuck?] [Handle, dickhead,] came Charlie's answer, a kind of echo in my head] held at navel level. Chudan-no-kamae; the middle attitude. Mr. Diplomat was a classical kenjutsu practitioner. Outdated.

I -- by that I mean Charlie -- needed a weapon. Problem was, the only things in the room, besides me, Mr. Diplomat, and that damn sword, was the table and chairs. Charlie took one look at the chair, while keeping the table between our skin and Mr. Diplomat's fillet knife, and dismissed it out of hand. But the table made him feel all warm and fuzzy, for some reason. I -- still Charlie -- circled around until I was at the head of the table, with Mr. Diplomat at the other end. You ever see one of those chop-suey movies where the guy breaks things with his hands? I did just that. My fists came up to about the level of my eyebrows and I got this funny, tingly feeling in my gut. All of the sudden, I brought my hands down, real hard, on the table. You should have seen that sumbitch! It fucking exploded! Mr. Diplomat was as shocked as I -- me this time, not Charlie. Charlie sure as shit wasn't shocked. He bent down and grabbed one of the table legs on our side.

Bokken -- wooden sword. [You see what that boy's got in his hands? It sure as shit ain't wood, Charlie!] I was damn near to screaming inside our head.

Mr. Diplomat recovered from Charlie's little show, saw that stick, held in the lower attitude and -- I'm not kidding -- pissed himself right there standing; Charlie seemed to have that effect on people. Kinda made me feel all warm inside, knowing I wasn't the only one.

Charlie barely noticed.

"Forgive me, Sensei! I did only my duty!" Our opponent stammered in a foreign language. Apparently I could now understand Japanese, even awake.

"For one so cloaked in duty, you hesitate. One can never avoid one's Karma. Or is it true, what I suspected of you from the first. Your duty is to yourself, only," Charlie drew us up straight, I could feel the muscles in my face tighten in a crazy, shit-eatin' grin. "Come and die, chikushoume!"

I don't even think I could describe to you how low Charlie's opinion of Mr. Diplomat was. That word "chikushoume" meant "son of a bitch", and it ain't something you say too lightly.

Now, I'll give it to Mr. Diplomat, he tried. He came running in and thought he'd split us down the middle with the old "Fire and Stones Cut," a big sweeping overhead swing that Charlie -- then Musashi -- had invented over four hundred years ago. Charlie waited for what seemed to me, way too long. Then, he stepped aside. Really. He just shuffled to the side about four inches and that blade came near enough to my face, I could feel the wind from it. A little less and I could have finally lost those unwanted pounds I'd been carrying since New Years. I was definitely going to give Charlie a talkin' to. He didn't seem scared of getting us cut at all.

Charlie swung that table leg 'round, aiming for Mr. Diplomat's wrists, but he was too slow. I felt a wave of disgust from Charlie, and realized he was mad at me! My body wasn't the trained specimen he'd traded in when he died, and, though I ain't fat, my muscles just weren't cutting it.

[Better make do, Charlie!]

I started to notice an awareness of everything. I could have closed my eyes right then and run through that room all day without barking a shin. It was like I had invisible strings running from every piece of furniture in the room directly to my belly button.

It was pretty cool, really, but also a little weird. Then again, I had the spirit of a samurai using my body to swordfight with an inscrutable Japanese "diplomat" in a mental ward.

My cup runneth over.

Mr. Diplomat shuffled back a pace and swung that sword at my ribs, over the top of the bokken. Charlie stopped his swing in mid-strike and lifted his hands sharply, blocking the incoming steel while digging the handcuffs into my wrists in the process. The wood chipped pretty badly, and Charlie cursed in my head again. Table legs ain't meant for sword fighting. Go figure.

Charlie ignored the counter Mr. Diplomat offered as too obvious, and re-centered his stance. Mr. Diplomat feinted another cut at our ribs, then swung in a short diagonal at our left hip. Charlie barely managed a quick deflection, a desperate twist that brought the table leg out of position but lined us up for something more lethal.

Charlie stepped inside Mr. Diplomat's reach and executed the "Body Strike", hitting Mr. Diplomat square in the chest with our right shoulder. Hit him so hard the poor fellah flew a full five feet in the air and hit the wall with a smack that made me hurt. He slumped down the wall and didn't get up. Probably 'cause of the ribs that stuck out of his skin like thick, yellow porcupine quills.

Just a thought.

Charlie dropped the table leg, reached down and picked up the sword. He stared at it for a long time, strange thoughts running through our head, thoughts of kami and karma, family spirits and endless wheels. Images of a similar incident, somewhere in the distant past, flashed in broken streams through his mind.

He sighed, a forlorn, broken-hearted sound a country-western singer would envy, then broke the katana against the wall with a shattering crack!

The sense of sadness was overwhelming. I didn't understand it, but I felt it all the same.

Retrieving the handcuff keys from the wreckage of Mr. Diplomat wasn't the pleasantest experience of my life. He was still alive and trying to talk through all the blood he was coughing up. Charlie didn't bat an eye at the blood, but said a short prayer to somebody named Shinto that seemed to calm the fallen man. We uncuffed ourselves walked over to the door, found it unlocked and left.

I didn't have to ask where we were going. It was time to give Pat an accounting, and this time it was two on one.

There's no such thing as a fair fight.

The End.