The Devil and His Minions

Three months later, and I still could not get back my swagger. Three bottles of rum and tequila into the day and I had already forgotten about losing my swagger.

 

It was one in the afternoon and I was sitting at home, as usual. My apartment was pretty much a wreck. It seemed that I had lost the will to clean up, to make the place presentable; it wasn't like I was trying to impress someone, or like anyone would visit. There was simply no point in trying anymore.

 

In front of my couch/bed covered in sheets I hadn't washed for weeks, there was a small black coffee table. It had some bottles and empty beer cans on it, a few dollar bills, an open bag of chips and my unread mail. On the floor all around the table, making the area nearly unnavigateable, were many papers, empty bottles, many of my favorite candy bars and the remnants of a once used check book. The place hadn't always been so pathetic looking.

 

 When Chiara was around, it was actually very presentable, and without the smell of alcohol imbued in the couch, the carpet and my clothes. And I, Cole Lewis, was a very presentable man. Now I was nothing short of repulsive to most women.

 

The thought of Chiara made my throat burn, so I stood and started to walk to the window. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the small post-it note on which I had written the date that I would be required in court, and the phone number of my lawyer.

 

The car accident occured on one of my speed days. When the alcohol failed me, which was happening more and more often than it used to, I would grab my car keys and leave. Sometimes wearing nothing but boxers, sometimes without shoes or a jacket, even though the Boston weather was turning bitter as it slowly entered January.

 

I would drive and drive and drive. Acceleration helped. As I zoomed past all the places that reminded me of Chiara, all the places that reminded me of a past life, they were left in the dust and I pushed forward. All I could concentrate on was breathing. My speed days were the kind that left me with no problems. A clear mind. A successful speed day would start from my apartment, go through the cultural district, past the community college and end at a small bridge where I would sit for hours and let the loneliness wash over me again. Then I would drive home and spend the rest of the night with Jack.

 

My speed day had been going well, as far as I could remember. However, my mind wasn't really there. On speed days, I tried not to think. It wasn't my fault the other driver wasn't having a speed day when my Buick and his Chevy decided to crash. If he had been having a speed day too, all would have went well and I wouldn't have to attend court on Friday. It wasn't my fault that my mind was off on a tangent while I was driving, and it wasn't my fault that the other driver had been doing whatever he was doing as he drove. It was merely coincidence that our actions occured at the same time and in the same place. No one could help that, so why was court being held?

 

This baffled me once more as I racked my brain for ideas of what I could do today to get my mind off of Chiara. Unwillingly yet inevitably I thought of her parting words.

 

"I don't know why you're here," Chiara repeated for the fifth time that day. She had sent Cara to the car (the girl had only been too willing to leave), and was now standing with me at the foot of the grave. We were not touching, not even holding hands. Physical contact had been minimal this past week.

 

"I cared about her as much as you did," I responded in a cracked voice. Conversation had also been minimal.

 

"Yet she hated you. No, she hated us. Our relationship is what caused this." Her honey voice trailed off at the end, almost a whisper.

 

"How can you say that?" My voice was dead. These countless explanations were robbing my voice and face of emotion. "It was an accident."

 

"It wasn't an accident that I ignored my daughter when she needed me to be there for her. To be there for her, and not for you." The conversations had never gone this far yet, and that frightened me.

 

"But...it also wasn't an accident that we met each other. You know how good we are together."

 

"You call this good?" Her voice went up an octave as she gestured to her daughter's grave, fire in her aquamarine eyes.

 

"No! That's not what I was saying!" I was desperate for my case to be heard. "I just meant that...We need each other to get through this. We're getting married, Chiara!"

 

She shook her head. "No, Cole. Our engagement is what caused this. I chose to be with you, I chose to ignore my daughter, I chose not to listen to her warnings and not understand how she was feeling. I can not marry you, Cole." These words stabbed me like a sharp knife to my ice cold heart. "I can not wake up every morning to look into the face of the reason my innocent daughter is dead."

 

After another minute of staring at the tombstone, Chiara left me there, heartbroken, numb and lost.

 

I had heard reasons to break up with me from many, many women, but none hit me so hard as Chiara's excuse. Perhaps because she was correct. Or perhaps because I had finally reached a point in our relationship when I was ready to be married. When I thought it would all be tied together for me, finally. I felt that years of short, unfulfilling relationships would finally be resolved and forgotten at the alter, holding hands with Chiara, her daughters as bridesmaids.

 

Now, none of that wonderful vision would come to fruition, because one of the bridesmaids was dead. And that was my fault. I realized this now.

 

My eyes raw and red with a surplus of tears and my throat aching, I snatched the car keys from the table and nearly ran to the door.

 

                   ~*~*~

　

It was a beautiful, cloudless day. The sky was open and accepting of all the insecurities of the world. I opened my mind but not my heart, to the gently listening ear of the sky.

My bare feet dangled in the ice cold water. There were actually small slabs of ice floating here and there. My bright, wavy blond hair was already flecked with snow. The small bridge was slippery and snowy, but it didn't really matter. The numbing helped as I laid on my back and stared up at the clear, light blue sky. The snow had not yet begun today.

 

Did Chiara honestly think that she could get rid of the hate her daughter had for me by getting rid of me? What would my absence do for her? The memory of her daughter's final moments were etched inside her mind as clearly as they were burned into my inner eye. I thought about them every day; I thought whether it was all my fault and also how close the knife had been to cutting my throat, when Cara had swung it around so carelessly.

 

And if the knife had slayed me instead? Would Chiara have disowned her daughter? Somehow, I don't think she would. She hadn't disowned Cara for being the murderer. It was more Cara's fault than anyone else's, but also, her fault was the least.

 

Chiara was the one who had ignored Gemelle. I was the one whose presence caused Gemelle's pain. Gemelle was the one who made such a big deal out of the situation in the first place. Cara had to have her place.

 

So in a way we were all to blame. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve.

 

The memory of Gemelle's death would not disappear. Chiara would think about it every day, whether I was there, dead, or off in some foreign country.

 

And here I was again. Back at this small bridge over this small stream. It was the place I would go when I needed time to think, and until Chiara left me, I hadn't had to come here in a long time. Since the last time I felt alone.

 

All my relationships before had been short and unfulfilling. With Chiara, it felt like I had finally reached a plateau far away from those other women. Now, I didn't want to come back down. I didn't want to go back to all those unfulfilling and unloving relationships. I couldn't trust them. I had to stay on this plateau.

 

The snow started to fall. Lightly, but beautifully. I felt the first flakes touch the corners of my eyes, joining my tears, and I sat up. Slouching, I stared into the water.

 

There was a small yellow leaf, with two holes in it, floating along in the water. It seemed rather sure of its course. Floating among the ice, it moved rather quickly. My eyes followed it up the small stream, winding and curving until it was almost out of sight. I stood up and followed it, running to catch up. My feet stung with the harsh contact of the ground; they were almost completely frozen from their submersion in the water, and the new contact with earth pinched at my soles and pounded my toes. But it didn't matter; the journey was short.

 

As soon as I caught up with the leaf, it got stuck to a peice of ice floating in the water. Half of the leaf actually stripped away and swam a few more inches before getting caught on another piece of ice. It was demolished, stripped in two and murdered.

 

The leaf had been so sure of its path down the cold stream of life until an unexpected iceberg crossed its path and destroyed it. So why had the leaf's life mattered? What was the point of its journey down the stream if it would just be ended anyway? What was the point of my journey, if at any point in time I could be slayed by a sharp piece of ice also?

 

I watched as another leaf, this time red, passed by the ice and the demolished leaf, and continued its own path down the stream. A part of me, a huge part, wished I could float along with it and leave all these problems behind, in the dust. My frozen feet were perched precariously on the edge of the eroding shore, dirt and ice mingling with my toes. I squeezed my fingers together and apart, debating if I should jump or not. I was so close, but there was the part of me that wanted to stay. I backed up two paces. That other part of me, small and thudding dully in the back of my skull, but forever existing, wanted me to stay here with the dead, yellow leaf, and scramble to pick up all the pieces of my scattered body. Pick up all the pieces and try to put them all together and recreate my path. Redo the damage caused by the ice.

 

The leaf had been on its own path, and so had the ice. Their actions happened to be in the same vicinity, and their paths crossed. "A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;" And a conclusion was decided.

 

Just as the leaf's fate had been decided, mine would also be on Friday, when I went to court. Our choices don't help us because so many other people, like the Chevy driver, are making so many other choices and they collide with our choices and my Buick and our fate is decided in the collision, which was neither of our faults. Gemelle's death had been a collision of choices, and who is to say that mine would not be either? So why did I try to make it better, and gain love from Chiara, or any woman at all, when I truly had no control over my fate and my choices truly were insignificant? And as I stand here on this shore, covered in broken promises, the sobs still cut my chest and steal my breath.

 

　

                     ~*~*~

　

"I plead not guilty," my voice sounded in the plain and brown court room. I heard the prosecutor, whose name was Brian Jones, a short black man with a beard, snort disbelievingly, and I shot him a venemous look. He'd been surprised to find out that I had never committed a crime before. Of course I hadn't. However, the shocked look on his face was still some small satisfaction for me. But a flame of red caught my eye as I saw the girl standing behind him. I almost stood up, I was so sure it was Chiara.

 

But of course, it wasn't.

 

The girl was standing between who I was almost sure were Brian Jones' wife and son. Maybe she was the son's girlfriend. I wondered whether Chiara had found someone new.

 

The girl's hair curved around her cheeks and shoulders with little flicks and curls, the way Chiara's had, but this imposter's hair was too light. Chiara's was blood red, and it made you think of love and heat, heat and passion.

 

I gave my version of the story, after swearing on the Bible to tell the truth, which I thought was just a big waste of time, anyway.

 

"On November first, I was up early in the morning, and I was kind of having a really bad day. I couldn't sleep, and when I have a bad day, I get in my car and I drive. I kind of remember coming out of the intersection at 2nd and Waynesworth, and then we crashed. I don't really remember the crash."

 

My "kind of"s and "I don't really remember"s didn't seem to be impressing anyone. But they were truth. All I could remember now was nursing the cut on my head from where it hit the windshield, and standing there politely as I transferred my information on a napkin from McDonald's to an infuriated Mr. Jones, who had been yelling at the top of his raspy voice.

As Brian Jones stood to give his words, the Chiara look-a-like smiled at me. A nice, pitying smile. Her boyfriend's hands tightened around her shoulder. I ignored thier actions, and watched instead the mysterious girl's smile, not fully showing her teeth, due to embarrassment of an overbite, just as Chiara had always done. This girl's nose was a little longer, while Chiara's had wider nostrils but the tip was more turned up. But they both had the small bump on the bridge of their noses. Chiara held herself a little more confidently, at least before Gemelle had died. Now their postures were probably more similar; hunched shoulders, head tilted down a little bit, as though expecting to be berated at any point in time. Ready to flinch away from harsh words. Chiara's ears were smallar. Also, when I walked by the impersonator, I caught a scent of some flowery perfume I was almost positive Chiara had worn to dinner one night the week before the girls had gone back to school. Brian Jones was speaking.

 

"Well, I'm very flustered, you see. So if I speak badly of the accused, I'm sorry in advance." He was sweating quite a bit. Must be pressure from lying. "I was on my way to the airport to pick up my son," he gestured to the boy with his arms around the red head, "and I was going through 2nd and Waynesworth, as the defendent rightly said. And it was really foggy that day, you know. I didn't see him coming. He was driving under the influence, I was told later. He looked like it too. His eyes were all glazed and he smelled like alcohol. I had some pretty bad damage on my car and I was taking out my anger on the boy. But then out of nowhere he starts calling me a "black piece of s**t", among other racial slurs."

 

I heard whispers from the jury, who surprisingly did not seem to have features on their faces, which ranged from pearl to onyx. I certainly had not used any racial slurs against Brian Jones. I hadn't had any energy to do so, and I wasn't angry at all, as he should have remembered. I just stood there and gave him my information. As if backing me up on this, the red headed girlfriend of Jones' son shook her head, while Jones' pretty wife placed her hand on the girl's shoulder, staring at the floor, as though embarrassed to be associated with the man speaking against me.

 

In the end, it was decided I should pay the cost of repairs and that we all forget this had ever happened. Jones kept shooting me smug smiles, and I almost wished I had a gun with which to shoot him. I saw his son be excused to go to the restroom, and the red haired girl walked over to me, cautiously, with a friendly smile and open arms, as if to tell me she would not hurt me.

 

"Hi, I'm Catherine Rogerson. I'm Leland Jones' fiancee," she said this with a deeper voice than Chiara's, not at all attractive.

 

"Engaged? That's great." My voice didn't sound like I thought it was great. Would Chiara someday be engaged to someone else? The thought made my stomach twist up.

 

"Listen..." she began slowly. "You look like you're having a really tough time. You should come down to Holy Angels Church sometime. I think it would help you, with whatever you're going through."

 

I snorted. This imposter didn't know the half of it.

 

She seemed slightly offended, but recovered almost immediately. "Well, if you ever choose to accept God's path for your life, you can come any Sunday of the year. We'll be there."

And as Catherine walked away, red curls bouncing on her shoulders, I was reminded so forcefully of Chiara that I almost wanted to punch Leland Jones in the face when he came from the bathroom and kissed his fiancee on the cheek.

 

"What was the name of that Church, again?" I called out before they turned the corner to leave. Catherine looked back at me, all smiles, a familiar overbite getting in the way.

 

                 ~*~*~

 

What the hell was I doing here? I thought, without being able to come up with an appropriate response, for the hundredth time. I was parked in front of Holy Angels Church, a tall, white and ominous building with counltess stained glass windows, standing high above the road with a stone cross and many angel statues pinned to the roof and the walls. It was about twenty minutes before the start of mass. The parking lot was already full, and the sky was gray, clouds full to bursting, waiting to rain on all the Church goers' heads. I was smoking a cigarette before entering, a new habit I recently developed.

 

I don't know what had made me come to Church that day. Actually, I knew very well what drove me to this madness. Catherine. Her features so resembelled Chiara's, I longed for a second glance. I knew this was stupid.

 

I hadn't been to Church in over thirty years. My entire life, that is. Yet here I was, risking complete boredom and nonsense for an hour just to catch a glimpse of Chiara's--Catherine's beautiful face. An hour that could otherwise be spent at the bridge, debating what to do with my life.

 

I cursed myself over and over again for coming here, and even more so when I opened the tall wooden doors.

 

I was standing at the end of a row of pews, and all the faces turned to look at me. I felt my ears grow hot and I walked to the very back row. That was the only place any seats were left, anyway. The cieling was tall, imposing statues of good doers were standing all around the walls, like guardians, ready to shoot down the first evil doer who walked in the building. They must have blinked when I opened the door.

 

It was rather chilly in here, and I wondered if they would turn the heat up. The lights flickered on all of a sudden, and the choir started rehearsing. Singing of God's gifts and praising the lord for His goodness. Would I be praised, if I showed some goodness? Answer me that.

 

The floors were carpeted in deep blue and there was a big white altar in the middle of the room, raised, as though to protect itself from the commoners. There were white marble armchairs a few feet away from the altar, and a white podium to its right.

 

Music was playing. Slow, religous music, and the choir got up and started to sing. Everyone else was standing, so I followed suit. As soon as I found the right song in the book they had sitting in the pews, I saw three people, breathless, run to join me in the pew. Some people in front of us looked back disapprovingly.

 

There was a girl leading them, a girl so beautiful I did a double take. Her long, dark brown hair cascaded around her shoulders and lifted itself up with waves and shaking off little snowflakes. She smiled at me, her brown eyes on fire, as she took a place next to me. Two men followed her, equally tan and good looking. But they all seemed very friendly, and laid back, if they were coming to Church so late and so carelessly, as was the opinion of the disapproving Church goers in front of us. The priest, a large man in a long white robe with a picture of a light blue fish and a gold cross on the front, stood in front of the middle white marble chair and two altar boys stood in front of the other two, hair slicked back with black dress shoes on their feet and dressed in white robes with green sashes tied across their chests, and tied at the waist.

 

"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," the Priest spoke into the microphone. I tried to follow everyone else's movements as they touched their forehead, chests and shoulders. The girl standing next to me did so perfectly, her blue painted fingernails glistening in the light.

 

"I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do; and I ask blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord, our God."

 

These words shocked me so much. Did these people truly expect to just tell God they were sorry, ask for forgiveness, and expect it to be recieved? What say did God have in forgiveness?

 

The girl next to me was extremely focused on mass. It had seemed chilly before, but now I was warm. She caught me staring at her perfect pink lips and she smiled.

 

Now, everyone was saying a lot of words I didn't know. But I listened to the soft voice of the girl standing next to me and the words flowed from my mouth as easily as if I'd been speaking them every Sunday, too.

 

The readings and the Homily went by pretty quickly. I hadn't expected that. Maybe this was something I could do every Sunday to let my voice drone with all the others, until I knew the words by heart and they rolled out of my mouth, perfectly on cue, and my mind was completely blank as I said them, but I would still attend mass every sunday. It was all I could hope for.

 

When we shook hands and said "Peace be with you," to each other, I locked eyes with the mystery girl, and I felt the first smile on my face I'd felt in a long time. I'd like to think it was just a polite one, but something in me told me it was more. Maybe it was the jumping feeling in my stomach that told me so.

 

"The mass is ended, go in peace to love and serve the Lord." We responded amen, and I turned the mystery girl next to me and introduced myself. Her name was Jessica.

Reviews

[snopadelic]

I like the change in direction from the first chapter. The description of Cole's house is really good and i gotta feel sorry for the poor guy. Really want to slap her mum though lol. I like the whole speed day explanation, lol I do speed days. I like the way he tries to brush off responsibility by saying a its a twist of fate, it comes across realistic and entertaining. The only thing i'd change would be the ending. it seems like its a important character but we don't know who it is so kinda lacks the impact of the ending of the first chapter.