Like the vast majority of my plans, it was long in thought and very short on words. As I write that, it doesn’t make much sense. Suffice to say, it basically boils down to an ambush, followed by the death of a bunch of her henchmen. If we’re really lucky, Eliza catches one in that tainted melon of hers.
“Mike, as the only black member of this dysfunctional group, I’m truly amazed that I’m still alive. I mean I’ve watched almost every horror movie ever made, and without fail, if a man of color is in the movie, he dies first. In recent years, however, it has gotten somewhat better. Now, we sometimes make it to second killed, after the ditzy blonde, but I’ve got to imagine that a brother’s life expectancy in any horror setting is generally a couple of hours, at most.”
“I agree with your movie assessment, BT, but how does that apply right now?” I asked him.
“Alright, hear me out… So me still being alive bucks that trend, right?” I nodded in agreement. “But damn, Mike, you keep breaking the cardinal sin of all flicks.”
“The splitting up, I know, I know. I feel like the idiot that says, ‘Yeah I’ll go down to the basement alone to check out the breaker box, and I only have this one wooden match to light my way. Oh, and did I mention that we heard suspicious sounds down there only moments earlier?’”
“Yeah, like that, so you know what I’m talking about.”
“Sure I do. I’m usually the one asking the characters on the screen what the hell they’re thinking.”
“Well, what are you thinking?”
“Well, it is dark and the basement does house the breaker box and my match is the extra long, barbecue-style.”
“I wonder if I could catch up to Alex?” BT wondered.
“I want my family out of here, BT. If only I could I’d send them to some lonely outpost on the moon to get away from this crap. Their safety means everything to me. They’re the air I breathe, the food I eat, the…”
“I get it, don’t go getting all soft on me.”
“Too much information?” I asked him sincerely.
“I’m starting to see under all that Marine Corps veneer. Are you sure it wasn’t the Peace Corps? Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
“I wonder if Alex would come back and get you.”
“You think he’s alright?” BT asked.
“I don’t know, buddy, but he keeps breaking that cardinal rule too.”
“He sure does,” BT said as he walked away.
“Paul, are you sure about this?” I asked my best friend for the better part of three decades. Damn! That makes me sound so old. And then the realization of my eternity slammed into my chest. My best friend, with whom I had shared so many experiences, would be a distant memory as I strode through the world, unencumbered by love. Would I bother with humanity at that point? The only reason I still interacted with people now was because of my wife and kids. If she were to be gone, then what? Would God forgive me? Would it even be considered suicide? I had already made my bed when I traded my soul for my family’s safety. I was pretty sure I was on the top of God’s shit list and I can guarantee that is not anywhere you want to be, just ask the ’04 Yankees. They’ll tell you the same thing.
But what of Nicole’s baby? I would have to stay alive long enough to make sure he or she was able to find their way through this world. And then if he/she had kids, what then? When would I stop? Would I follow them through millennia, much like Tommy had followed his sister? Each passing day would push me that much further away from the inevitable death I was so seeking. Banned from the Garden, the alternative was excruciatingly painful, if only because I had glimpsed the beauty of it all.
“Talbot, we’re leaving,” Tracy said, stroking my cheek, and wiping away a tear. “You alright, husband?” she asked tenderly. “You haven’t changed your mind on this, right? No Rambo stuff?”
“What?” Gary asked from the entrance to the Big 5.
“Rambo!” Tracy yelled. “Not Gambo!”
“Gotcha,” Gary repeated with the tongue clicking and finger pointing gesture.
“I’ll be glad if just to get away from his new mannerism,” Tracy said, smiling.
“I’ll miss you, wife, but I promise this will be only for a couple of days, max.”
“She’s that close?” she asked. “She’s relentless.”
“That’s one word. Mine would be much more colorful and would end up being all those funny symbols you see in the Sunday comics when Al Capp swears.”
“Al Capp? Nobody reads Al Capp anymore, Talbot. What’s wrong with you?”
“You’d think you would have figured it out after all these years,” I retorted.
“You know you’re nuts, right?” she asked me.
“That may be, but what does that say about you for staying with me this long?” I asked her snidely.
“Oh, I plan on publishing a thesis about you when this ride is over,” she told me seriously. “I’ll be famous, I’ll be up for Sainthood.”
“Tell God I said hi when you get there,” I said in jest, but its meaning had so much more depth than the way I had originally intended it. Tracy’s smile evaporated.
“Oh Talbot,” Tracy said, falling welcomingly into my arms. “What are we going to do with you?” she said, burying her face into my shoulder.
“There’s always the rodeo,” I told her. It was the first thing that came to my mind.
She wiped a tear from her eye and looked up at me. “You rarely think before you speak, don’t you?”
“What? I think I’d be great, those guys that get in the barrel and everything.”
“You know those are rodeo clowns, right?” she was telling me.
“Clowns? I hate clowns. They are the root of all evil in this world,” I answered.