The Tower of Il Serrohe (43 page)

He strode up to the thunderstruck group. Reaching around her, he pinched Raquela’s nicely shaped butt harder than he had intended. She let out an odd little grunt of pain and surprise.

“
Oops! Too hard, Little-Miss-Sweet-White-Spotted-Butt!”

Her eyes flashed white-hot anger, which was quickly replaced by a hurt look. A large tear ran down her cheek. This wasn’t her sweet, passionate lover of the night before. It was a loudmouth creep acting like a Soreye.

More tears began to flow, but she refused to utter another sound. She stared at him, angry and hurt. Nersite sniffed.

“
What’s that strange, rotten smell? What has happened to you?”

The others stood open-mouthed, wary of this friend who had become an angry, crazy man.

The Loopohmin reacted differently. He looked at Don so intently his light green eyes appeared gray. He made a rumbling sound like gravel running down a metal pipe and stepped between Raquela and Don, daring him to touch her again.

Don was energized. “So, the big bad Loopohmin wants a fight? I’ll give you a fight you f-f—”

Toroth
stepped in and head-butted him so hard the universe exploded into a million galaxies, distracting him during the split second it took to pass out.

It seemed hours later when Don was startled back into consciousness by a rude dousing of cold water. His head hurt on a scale of nine and a half where ten was the worst hangover he had experienced after finals in his freshman year of college. He tried to sit up, but was overwhelmed by the vapors of the toxic Barbamin brew.

Flopping down on his side in the mud, he wondered if the Taurimin could hit him again harder and put him out of his misery. Just beyond his shortened range of vision, he saw the beautifully fuzzy image of Raquela’s prone body, her eyes staring at him.

“
Are you all right?” she asked.

“
Never better,” he mumbled. “Except for a headache, I feel like a million dollars.” He laughed so hard he almost mercifully passed out again.

He coughed and hacked so hard he should have examined his intestines spilled out on the muddy ground, but strong connective tissue in his gut prevented that. He was almost disappointed when he could breathe again.

Everything hurt but with Raquela’s help he was able to sit up. He saw Nersite to his left near four big blobs that must have been the rest of the group.

“
What’s the big deal? Don’t you have anything better to do than watch the shitface dry heave himself to death?”

No one stirred. Raquela grunted softly, more like a whimper. Don sighed, releasing the foul air in his lungs which made him feel like he might survive.

“
I just want out. I want out of the whole mess. I can’t help you; I don’t know shit about fighting, battle, or what the hell the deal is with that damned Tower. You all get together and go for it. Maybe you’ll all die, and then it won’t matter about the asshole Soreyes because they’ll be the only ones left. Maybe then they’ll leave because they won’t have you to kick around anymore… funny, seems like I’ve heard that somewhere before—”

Nersite blurted. “Shut up! I don’t know what we did to make you this way! We have tried to fight them, and we won’t back off again. With or without you, we fight! Even if it’s just the Nohmin.”

Toroth
added, “It won’t just be the Nohmin, Nersite. It’ll be all of us; even those who aren’t fighters will do
something.
”

“
There, see, little guy. You won’t be alone. You’ll all do better without the stupid idea that
I
have something to contribute.” He looked at Raquela, her face still close. Suddenly, he felt really bad. “Jesus Christ, Raquela, I’m sorry, but I’m not what you think I am. You must have smelled something else when you came up to me and thought you’d found a mate. Not me. No chance in hell.”

He struggled to get up, fighting off her efforts to help him. “No, dammit! Don’t help me. I don’t deserve it. I’m getting out of here—”

He flailed around trying to clear his vision, looking desperately for something. “Where’s that damn Portal—”

Raquela shushed him.

“
Don’t shush me! Just point me in the right direction.”

No one moved. Raquela looked like she was determined to keep him there but wished she never laid eyes on him.

Through the fog, Don saw that Bernie still held the bucket he’d used to douse him. There was a glint inside it. W
ater!

Don grabbed it before the big man could tighten his grip. Finding strength in the soles of his feet, Don broke in a dead run toward the outskirts of the village.

As he ran he looked for a window with glass. Finally, in a passageway he came upon a hut larger than the rest. Perhaps the residence of Toroth.

Who knew? Who cared? He found a tall window glazed with wavy Kastmin glass. His vision cleared, he admired the swirling pattern of waves punctuated by tiny bubbles.

Nice vintage touch. Needs cleaning.

He slung the remaining water from the bucket and watched as it sheeted down the glass with glistening wetness.

Here goes a good slicing and dicing or—

Taking two awkward steps back, he dove through the window head-first.

sixty five

No crash, no tinkling of a thousand pieces of glass, no cuts to the hands or face. Only the sensation of gliding through chocolate pudding without the flavor.

Then a nasty tumble onto hard ground, dirt in his mouth, and the realization he was cold and naked in a moonless night. He heard a soft ripple and smelled the distinct odor of muddy ditch water.

He was also cold sober, but his head still hurt, and he felt the lingering impression of the Taurimin’s head on his face. He rolled over on his back, having landed face-first, as usual. In the darkness he could see the outline of bushes, a smattering of stars in the sky, and an open field like a flat, black hole.

Next he heard the rumble of an American V-8 engine. Struggling to sit up, he saw the ghost of a light colored car with its lights off slowly making its way toward him.

Shit! I’m going to get run over!

Rolling to his left, he fell down the edge of a ditch bank into a bramble of willow bushes, its sharp branches whipping and poking him.

He tried to stifle a yelp, and heard a car door open. The feeble glow of the interior light washed over the ditch bank as two sinister figures looked down on him.

He heard a derisive laugh. “Cabron! Look at the naked white boy! What’chu doin’ out here, gringo? Trying to jack off in the dirt?”

This was followed by a chorus of horrifying laughter as three more figures approached. There was no point in trying to explain he wasn’t a “gringo.”

This will not be good. Why the hell didn’t I stay where I was? Letting Raquela nurse my hangover while Nersite looked at me with beady-eyed disillusionment would have been a hell of a lot better than getting my balls cut off by sadist gang-bangers!

As he tensed for the shit-kicking to come, he heard the sound of another car further down the ditch bank. Not creeping along stealthily, it was heralded by what seemed like a dozen spotlights that flooded the countryside with a light brighter than daytime as its siren whooped and wailed.

The five onlookers, now in a torrent of cussing, jumped in their car and tore off, showering Don with a cloud of flying sand. Its sting hadn’t abated when the police car ground to an abrupt stop right next to Don.

Oh great: out of the frying pan into the fire!

A flashlight played over Don’s grimy body, driving painful spears into his eyes. “Home boys having a little fun with you, fellah?”

At least the cell was warm with adequate light, and he felt better after a shower and donning an orange jumpsuit. He wasn’t sure how he could be locked in the so-called drunk tank because he should be free of any Barbamin alcohol after passing through his impromptu “portal.” But there he was.

His story must have seemed odd and incoherent, so they concluded some kind of illegal influence had to be coursing through his veins. Not having time to think up a story explaining why he was naked and dirty on a ditch bank in the South Valley, he willingly gave a blood sample, knowing it would show no alcohol or drugs.

He would have to wait. Maybe he should call someone, but whom?

Who can I call at this time of night? My dad wouldn’t give a shit what kind of trouble I was in and the people at the college don’t know me that well. Drinking buddies are just that; they aren’t interested in your troubles, just sharing a drink while pissing and moaning about girlfriends and wives who don’t understand.

Bess!

It wasn’t the best time to call her, but who else? We’re still legally married; isn’t she required to do something for me? I’m her responsibility. Besides, it’s her damned fault I’m in this mess. If she hadn’t screwed around with that sleaze-ball, I wouldn’t have left home.

Then Don realized it wasn’t really her fault. If he hadn’t drank so much, he could have been a better lover, paid more attention, and so forth.
Dammit, she didn’t have to be such a bitch about it. If the shoe had been on the other foot… I would have done the same thing! Dammit! Oh, to hell with it!

He started banging on the door of his cell. Finally, a guard came. “I want to make a phone call. I get one, don’t I?

“
Now?” the guard asked, incredulous. “It’s three o’clock in the morning.”

“
That’s why I need to make a call. I don’t want to wait to get a roommate before I decide to call someone to post bail.”

It gave him the creeps just thinking about some big, mean bastard coming into the cell, ready to add Don to his list of “bitches.” He was too sober to kid himself that he wasn’t a target for a prison rapist.

“
It’s my right,” Don insisted.

“
Yeah, yeah.” The guard escorted him to a bank of phones in the commons room and waited nearby while Don dialed his home number.

A raspy voice answered. “Yeah?”

“
Hi, Bess, it’s Don.”

“
Yeah, I know your stupid voice, why the hell are you calling me at…
three o’clock in the morning!
”

“
I know this is a horrible time, but I don’t have any choice. I’m at the Metro Detention Center, and I need you to bail me out.”

Dark laughter came from the other end of the line. “You stupid bastard! You go get drunk, get stupid, and into trouble with the law, and
I’m
supposed to bail you out? This is a new one; you used to only get drunk and stupid!”

“
I know, I know. But it wasn’t my fault, and I’m not drunk.”

Bordering on hysterical, her laughter turned into a shade short of evil. “You’re not drunk? How stupid do you think
I
am? Of course, you’re drunk or, at least, you were.”

“
I can’t explain everything now, but I wasn’t. I got caught on a ditch bank with some gang bangers getting ready to kick my ass when the police came along. The punks ran, but I was caught. They just assume I’m under the influence because of the… situation—”

“
Why would getting your ass kicked make you under the influence unless you—”

“
Because I was buck naked! I can’t explain right now. I will when you come. I know you hate me, but I’m still your husband, and I need you now.”

There was a long silence at the other end. Don wondered if she had hung up when he heard her talking quietly to someone else. He heard another voice: a man’s.
Dammit, that sleaze-ball is right there in her bed. Of course, where else would he be? Just getting a piece of ass while he can. It’s no longer my business whom she screws.

“
So,
he’s
there in bed with you, is he?”

“
Yeah, so?”

He had no answer.

She went on. “Look, I don’t
hate
you, but I’m not happy with you, haven’t been for some time.” Her voice was softer almost like when they were each other’s partners in life and there was no one else or a bottle to come between them. It made Don sad to hear that tone, remembering how it was before the heavy drinking, the endless hours of grading papers, Bess’s days and days of pursuing her career without time to share a hug or watch a silly, romantic movie on television.

Don tuned back to what she was saying. “I guess I owe you one last favor. Have you gotten the divorce papers yet?”

“
I haven’t been available to check mail,” he said coldly.

“
Whatever. Anyway, I’ll be there as soon as I get dressed. Bob is going to drive along behind me, but you don’t have to see him. I don’t want to go out alone this time of night.”

“
Fine,” he sighed. He cared enough for her to not want anything bad happening, especially on account of him. “I’m not going anywhere, so I’ll wait. And bring me some underwear and clothes, anything I left there will do. Bye.”

“
Bye,” she said, as he heard a catch in her voice like those times she would hang up quickly, so he wouldn’t hear her cry.

Only this time I’m not drunk!

He hung up and studied his hands resting on the graffiti-covered table. He wanted to stay there for the rest of his life: caught between the jail cell and freedom, behind heavy doors locked to the outside where gang bangers, Soreyes, and needy clanspeople lurked.

“
OK, Vargas, you had your phone call. Now, it’s back to your room—”

“
That’s not a room, it’s a cell. Sorry, I’ll wait here. It’s a big, empty place, and no one is going to jump me here.”

“
They won’t jump you in the room, you are all alone.”

“
For now. But the night is young, and the block is getting full. Almost time to start doubling up.”

The guard couldn’t dispute that.

“
Please.”

“
Look, I can’t let you stay here…”

“
Could I mop the floor or something? Aren’t prisoners supposed to do menial labor? I wouldn’t mind.”

The guard apparently felt sorry for him. Obviously not the usual type of inmate, he must’ve seemed educated, had some class, though it didn’t take much to look good in comparison to the rest of the jail’s usual population.

“
I donno, it’s not your assignment…”

“
Please.”

“
All right, pretend like you’re making another phone call. If anyone comes in, you’ve got to end it and go back to your room. If no one comes… then who gives a shit?”

“
I don’t, but I want to stay here. Thanks.”

So Don picked up the phone and listened to the dial tone for another hour and a half. No one else appeared until another guard came from the front area.

“
You Vargas?”

“
Yes.”

“
Your loving wife is here, and she’s posted bond. You’re free to go.”

Don sighed.
H
ow am I going to explain this bucket of shit? I can’t con her; she can tell when I’m lying.

That entire time he’d sat there with the phone on his ear, he’d been blank. Mentally exhausted. He should have been planning a story. He had about twenty minutes getting processed out before he would sit in that car and tell her… something.

The night was deep and empty. It was like one of those movies where humanity had come to a quiet end with only two people left to contemplate the future in light of a long, tragic past.

Don totally ignored him but was aware that the sleaze-ball followed along in his car at a discrete distance.

Devoid of traffic, the streets were populated with only the occasional husk of a car, streetlights serving no purpose.

“
Well?” Bess
asked, after several minutes of silence.

Again, the hopeless sigh; it was show time. “I’m not going to tell you a story. It’s pointless. I can’t think of anything but the truth.”

She waited, obviously forcing herself into noncommittal stoicism.

Here goes!

“
When I left our—your place several days ago I rented a little place in the South Valley. I needed time to think and forget. Then there was this bat. He talked to me. He told me about a valley, Valle Abajo, located right here, but in another dimension or something, I don’t know. It’s some kind of alternate universe or quantum thing that I have no idea what it is.

“
Anyway, he showed me through this Portal, and I was there in this
other
valley. It’s big as hell; everything is wider, taller, gigantic. And there are all these clans of people really different from each other, and some of them don’t get along too well, but they try to stay out of each other’s way the best they can. Some even eat others—I don’t get it. Anyway that doesn’t matter.

“
What matters is that there’s this one bunch that are tall and skinny and meaner than hell. They kill and enslave the clanspeople, and they have this tower, the Tower of Il Serrohe. They seem to see what the other people of the Valle are doing… even anticipate what they’re going to do. There have been battles over the generations.

“
Now here’s where it gets really weird,” and at this he dared not look at Bess’s face because he knew whatever she was thinking about this so far, it would only get worse.

“
My great-grandmother, Teresa. She went there for years and helped these people knock down an earlier Tower. But it’s been re-built and they want
me, of all people,
to help them defeat the Soreyes—that’s their name for the bad guys—and destroy the new Tower once and for all.”

Bess
could no longer contain herself. Because she was almost blue from holding her breath, her voice came out low and thin. “What in the hell does this have to do with me having to get you out of jail at this time of night because, according to you, you haven’t been drinking, just running around naked on a ditch bank?”

“
Actually, it has everything to do with it. The clanspeople don’t… or didn’t have beer or wine or liquor there, and even then, when I pass from one valley to the other through the Portal, I come out naked and stone cold sober. Nothing alien to my body can pass through. Just
me!”

Bess whispered, “Jesus Christ, Don.”

“
So, anyway, I got a little… upset at the situation and those people, well, not all the people, but they expected too much from me, and I couldn’t take it anymore and came back here ending up on a ditch bank past midnight—it was a little after noon in Valle Abajo because, apparently, everything there is sort of the opposite: time of day, season of the year, and so on—and there I am on the ditch bank. It’s pitch dark, I’m naked, and there’s this carload of punks who come along and want to kick my ass—”