Always You Part 10
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Just catching up? Read the previous installment here.
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The Lucky Star of Henry Collins
1.
That night, I drove home in something resembling a drunken stupor. Instead of alcohol, my primary source of reality-disillusionment was a curious sensation of out-and-out failure.
There comes a time when you ask yourself, how did I fuck this up so royally? Like what happened to John Kerry back in ’04? I was like, twelve or something when it all went down, but even I paid enough attention in history class to know that the then-current establishment needed a kick in the crotch. You’ve got half the country thinking the current leader is a moron, you’ve got such lovely quotes from said leader as “To NASA, space is still a big issue,” and my personal favorite, “You know what the problem about the French is? They don’t have a word for ‘entrepreneur’.” Not to mention the wars he got us in. Wasn’t there something about reinstating the draft around that time, too? Morons.
And yet, Kerry lost the election.
Imagine my twisted pre-teen face, watching the then-analog television say that America chose to ‘stay on the course’. We didn’t choose that. Some of the adults at the time were just some blithering idiots.
But I digress! My more pressing matter was finding a place for Paloma to sleep. The poor girl had about as much use in anything as Jeanette had in the water (none), but the Jack had left her with Carina and me, and that made the kid my responsibility. I let her in through the back door and rolled the sleeping bag out in the living room. When Mom woke up, she’d just think I had a friend over, and probably commend me on having her rest in a separate room. Aren’t I the sweetest?
I pulled out the couch cushion to turn it into a mattress and laid the sleeping bag across it. Paloma eyed it with an unreadable glare, and froze.
“Is something wrong?” I asked. You know, besides the overwhelming obvious.
“I need to change.”
“Oh! Sorry,” I started to leave when she lightly grabbed my arm. Paloma had warm hands.
She kept quiet for another moment, her brow furrowed. I assumed she was looking for words. As far as we knew, she had the vocabulary of a middle-schooler.
“We’ll get your brother back,” I offered in a soft tone. “There’s no question. Something’s just come up first.”
She didn’t react. Wrong assumption. She took a deep breath.
“Will Carina be okay? I’m worried.”
Crossroads point: do I tell her the truth, despite not knowing if that’s appropriate for a kid like Paloma? Or do I baby it up and say that ‘no, the world isn’t ending in twenty-four hours unless I do something to definitely get her hurt’?
What would the Jack have done?
We sat down.
“Paloma, the man who has Carina won’t hesitate to hurt her. He needs me to do things for him. Probably bad things, too. I can’t sit here and tell you that it will all be okay, because I don’t know that, and in all likelihood, it won’t be.”
She didn’t up and bawl like an autistic child. Score one for me.
“Still,” I used the sandwich technique, “I’ll do everything I can to make sure she comes out okay. It’s a promise, to her and you.”
For fuck’s sake, that’s what happens when Carina’s put in danger. I start talking like a love-struck Anime character.
“Then we’ll find the Jack, and it’ll all be good,” I added.
When she remained quiet, I debated getting up and leaving. She had said more in the last two minutes than she had all day. That might have been a sign.
“…Us.”
Come again?
“That man. He said both of us have to help Carina…right?”
I nodded. “Us and Kenneth. He’s a good guy; his priorities just haven’t been in the right places lately.”
“…Then I’ll help you.”
What, she hadn’t been enough of a help already?
That was unfair. Carina already knew she was useless, and so she became our Operator to avoid that. Paloma just needed something she was good at.
“Thanks,” I said.
I left, and Paloma got ready for bed.
That morning, I needed a change of pace.
It was five in the morning. Kenneth acted like it was against his religion to get up anytime before seven, and I had a hunch that Zack and his gang weren’t ‘early to bed’ folks. Paloma lay in the sleeping bag, jeans folded on the coffee table and hair pulled back, completely asleep. If she wasn’t aloof as all hell and the kid sister of a friend who was also aloof as all hell, I might venture to say she was cute.
This was worse than waking up first at a sleepover. At least when that happens, you get free reign of your friend’s video games until he wakes up. I didn’t have the stomach for that.
So instead, I brushed my teeth, washed my face and stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. Home for two days and the world ends in three. How do you feel about that, Mister Collins?
I feel like my hair’s too damn long.
And who knows? Yesterday I evaded the cops. Today I might be dodging bullets.
I went back to my room and grabbed the scissors.
By the time I was done, Mom stood in the doorway and got a good look at my bare neck.
“It looks nice!” She said so cheerily as to deserve that exclamation point. You notice I use them sparingly. “What’s the occasion?”
“No occasion,” I lied.
“Come on. When you were little, cutting your hair was a fight. Your father had to bribe you to stay still.”
Of course I remembered. I still had the video game collection to prove just how mutually beneficial those years were.
When I didn’t make conversation and settled for rinsing my hair in the sink, Mom changed her tone. “Who’s your friend? The one on the sofa.”
Did you mean the one in the chimney?
Sorry, that was rude.
“She’s Paloma, Ma,” I took a towel to my new ‘do.
“Is she one of your friends, or…you know, one of your friends?” After two college degrees and eighteen years of parenting, my mother wasn’t a stupid woman.
“The second one,” I said quickly, “But it’s not what you think. I’m just doing a favor for a friend. The one who called the other day? That’s his sister on the couch.”
Mom nodded with a knowing smile. “Sounds like you’ve got everything under control. I’m going to head to work, then.”
Off to work and safely out of the way.
“Tell Carina to come by sometime, will you? I liked her. She’s a nice girl.”
I like her too, Ma.
I got dressed and came out into the living room. Paloma had already washed her hair and face in the kitchen sink. I hadn’t thought her to be a ‘can I suggestively use your shower?’ type to begin with, but still.
You know, I never got over feeling like shit when girls giggle at me? Chalk it up to unfortunate middle school years.
“What’s so funny?”
“Your face. It’s…you have a face, Henry. I never saw it.”
What was I before, a walking blob of hair?
“You were…all hair.”
So yes, a walking blob of hair.
I got Paloma to talk, but that doesn’t imply philosophy graduate-student level conversation, apparently.
We were eating scrambled eggs and bacon in front of the television (80’s Ninja Turtles was on!) when I got the call.
I looked at the clock. Seven forty-five.
“I’m heading over now,” Kenneth said over the sound of morning traffic. “Where are you?”
“We’re still at home. It’s a ten minute drive,” I lied. Kenneth wasn’t in the mood to hear a twenty-minute drive.
“Sounds good. I’ll go up and get our directions. Wait for me outside.”
“No. How about, we wait and get them together?”
“That’s a waste of time. I’ll get them. Meet me outside in fifteen.”
Click.
Quick, to the point, and always sounding pissed off; wasn’t there a part of high school when Kenneth was bearable?
I looked at Paloma. She nodded at me. I nodded back.
Jeanette woke up like I knew she would, and we took off for Zack’s building. Miranda Cove’s endlessly happy weather laughed at my life. Hey, clouds! Look at this kid. He’s not as happy as us. Let’s point and laugh.
Well, it could always be worse.
Zack could have Carina chained up and wearing that outfit Princess Leia wore in ‘Return of the Jedi’.
Who am I kidding? That’d be the only highlight to this.
We pulled up in front of the building with two minutes to spare. Kenneth already stood outside, arms folded, in front of his red Infinity. When he got it, he said the red was to give him some kind of a ‘presence’. Personally, I thought the thing was a big vagina for him to ride around town in. I mean, red? Really?
I parked and got out to meet him. He reacted about as well to the hair as Paloma did.
“Who stole your hair?”
“Laugh it up, Ken,” I groaned. “What’s the job?”
“…So you’re playing this casual?”
Of course I am. What, like acting like I’m having my teeth pulled will make this go faster?
“Then let’s get something straight,” he dropped his arms pocketed his bony hands, “I’m working with you, not for you. I’m not in your little crew anymore; we just have something in common.”
Please, please don’t tell me the Tides kidnapped Kenneth’s sister.
“What, Zack took over your crew?” I suggested. He flinched. Hence, that was at least part of it.
“I really just want to prevent the apocalypse,” he said jokingly.
“You know about that?”
“Everybody around that asshole does,” he made it sound like he wasn’t one of those ‘assholes’. “Twenty-four hours and ticking, right?”
“That’s about right, yeah.”
“Jeezus. You got a plan for saving the world yet?”
I shrugged. “I’ll come up with something.” It’s in my nature.
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Read the next installment here.
