The Tower of Il Serrohe (3 page)

Second, there were obvious stains on it from a rain leak matching stain patterns on the bare sheetrock ceiling directly above. “Good thing the summer ‘monsoons’ haven’t started,” Don told the mattress and ceiling.

Third, he had always theorized he was allergic to pedigreed New Mexico dust. Several quick sneezes and a runny nose confirmed it.

Actually, there was a fourth thing he realized. He hadn’t packed any sheets or blankets in his effort to erase his existence from Bess’s house.

It took about a dozen shirts to cover the naked mattress, plus a treasured Mexican poncho, bought in his college days on a trip to Juarez, to serve as a somewhat heavy top sheet.

The water pump seemed to work though it coughed and spurted bouillon-looking liquid for at least ten minutes before he could drink.  It tasted like warm rocks, but that was typical of Rio Luna well water. Once he washed up with a bit of old soap the artist had left behind, he realized his towels were with the sheets and blankets.

At least he found comfort when he remembered a Walmart had opened up west of Rio Luna a year or so earlier. Tomorrow he would cheaply obtain the forgotten supplies.

He couldn’t concentrate enough to read, so about midnight he turned off the light knowing full well he would lie there for about three hours before sleep could sneak up on him.

Sleaze-balls and naked Besses pulsated through his brain until he screamed profanities no one could hear since he was over a quarter of a mile from any human beings.

“
Dammit, brain, shut off! Forget it!”

More profanities, some newly created for the occasion.

Finally, he got up and wandered around trying to find his way outside while bumping into possessions that hadn’t found a home yet and the odd piece of furniture he hadn’t placed to his personal preference. There was no moon, so long shafts of feeble starlight revealed the windows and door.

Outside, it wasn’t much better. The cottonwood dominated the sky, each leaf holding its breath so not a single ripple betrayed its presence. The sound of rustling leaves in a breeze might have allowed Don to drift off to sleep, but no such luck tonight.

Restless, he looked south and noticed a few pinpoints of light marking scattered farm homes. One of those lights belonged to a cousin and her family. He had fond memories of her eleven-year-old daughter with whom he had felt an attachment much like the child he’d never had. But he couldn’t deal with that. He didn’t want involvement with anyone right now, especially family.

Escaping the oppression of the cottonwood and old memories, Don looked up and sucked in his breath.

“
My God, the stars!” he said aloud. How long have I been prisoner of streetlight-soaked nights? There are so many, it must be an illusion of dust particles floating in my eyes!”

He found this all very therapeutic. No Bess, no thoughts of finances, no dusty adobe house, no need for a beer, no feeling of pointlessness. Just wonder at how much there was in creation, the universe, the heavens; and here he was looking at it feeling not infinitesimal, but a part of the All of Existence.

It could have been two minutes or two hours, even two lifetimes, but at some point Don-no-longer-just-Don was pushed by the beginnings of a soft breeze back into the house, into bed, under the no longer heavy poncho, and into a welcome unconsciousness that lasted until the sun was up in the midmorning sky.

At some point in the night, he had taken off his shorts and, so, emerged from the bed newly-born ready to put on the clothes of a new life. It was Sunday, so he had the day to put the little adobe hut (which he had decided in his euphoric mood to call his “Casita”) to rights.

“
I can either piss on the walls to make it mine, or redecorate.”

Choosing the latter, he adorned his Casita with the rock concert and poetry reading posters of his past while setting up the shelves of books he never read anymore, but were the required library of an English instructor. The stereo, unloaded the night before, was better positioned, and clothes were stuffed into the oddly square-shaped closet.  Then, in a flurry of activity, everything that was a part of the hut was dusted, cleaned, or thrown out. There was no garbage service, just a rusted fifty-five gallon barrel to periodically cart off to the landfill west of Rio Luna. Meanwhile, Don started a growing list of items to be purchased at the local Smith’s grocery store and aforementioned Walmart.

“
Bess’s going to shit green weenies when she sees the checks I’m writing,” he thought. “This money should last a couple of months before I have to resort to my own meager earnings. Ah, the check-to-check existence! Keeping closer to reality, the edge of bankruptcy, cutting corners, it’s like being young again!”

Don hadn’t talked to himself much before and it was great rediscovering his little unknown personal quirks and predilections. Things hidden under orders of silence around Bess, things drowned in booze, things denied even to himself in the dark hours before dawn when waking up with thoughts that he would die one day and then who would give a shit whether he had lived or not? Maybe
he
wouldn’t even give a shit. But he
wanted
to give a shit, always and forever.

Some of that was unsettling to him, but somehow acceptable because all he had to do was say, “Hey, it’s OK, Don, I understand. Even if no one else cares, I do and maybe even God cares. I mean look at the show that goes on up there every night in creation. I mean ‘
Creation
.’”

Now that was a novelty. Don hadn’t thought about or said “God” and really meant God, in a long time. It was just a word he said when something startled him. That view of one little corner of Creation had startled him the night before and he thought “God” and really meant it. But now, making up his shopping list, it struck him consciously. Last night was a bonding with the All, no comment or language needed.

Daylight needed language. The shopping list required simple concrete nouns, the realities of life. And God was a part of that, too. The old-time religion. It was Sunday and that had always meant church when he was a kid.

“
I’ve been harping on being young again, so I guess I’d better get ready and do my shopping after church.”

Driving into town, he stopped at the first church he saw, which turned out to be a small nondenominational congregation, housed in an old converted saloon. They welcomed him as if they known him all his life. The preaching was a bit fundamental, but the parallels to the previous night’s sky experience kept Don entranced.

Once he had wiggled out of offers for Sunday lunch of fried chicken, he made his shopping rounds.

The day came to an end all too quickly. And only upon turning off the light did Don remember he had classes tomorrow morning. It seemed centuries since he had left the school Friday afternoon.

Finally remembering the term had just ended and he had about a week before the grind started all over again, he relaxed and drifted off to sleep.

Had it been only twenty minutes, or was it now around 4 am?

There was the sound he had heard in the darkness when he’d nearly crashed into the cottonwood tree. Yet it was now silent.

Still half asleep, he started to drift off once more. Then it came again, and now he could identify it.

Leather wings flapping.

Solid whapping—not the wheezy, whistling sound of feathers. Leather. Skin.

A bat!

four

Fully awake, Don reached too far for the lamp and knocked it off the table.

“
Sonuvabitch!”

He rolled off the bed onto the floor and desperately felt around. Finding the lamp behind the table, he fumbled for the switch. It came on driving a thousand needles of light into his rapidly dilating eyes.

“
Damn! Stupid shit!”

He squeezed his eyelids closed, turning away from the lamp, and slowly opened them allowing his lazy irises to contract.

It was quiet now.

Using the lamp like a searchlight, he pointed the open top of its shade around the seemingly cavern-like room. There, up in the far corner by the outside door, was a black mass. He could see it quiver and then noted the fine black fur on the back of a thumb-sized head, large pointed ears, and little claws holding onto the rough dirt plaster of the wall.

“
You little sonuvabitch! Who the hell let you in? I’m no flying mammal fan, little buddy, so you’ll have to get the hell out of here.”

He cautiously approached the door, opened it, propped open the saggy screen door, and backed up against his bed.

“
Now get the hell out. Those grasshoppers are out there just waiting for your eating pleasure.”

The bat didn’t move but continued trembling, evidently trying to become invisible.

“
OK, bat. Let me turn out the light.”

A bit of silence, then the leather wings flapping. Don hit the floor not wanting to be in its flight path. “Stupid! His sonar is not going to let him run into something as big and brainless as me.”

The whapping quickly receded and then—quiet.

“
Bon appetit,” Don wished his former houseguest.

He got up, closed the doors and lay down to the same disturbing thoughts that had prevented sleep the night before.

Then a voice, sibilant, slightly husky broke the uneasy silence.

“
So, human, do you want to hear my proposal?”

five

Don screamed in a most humiliating manner, whirling in bed, which pulled apart his carefully constructed bedding. (He hadn’t gotten around to making it with his new Walmart sheets.)

After whacking his ears and trying to control his breathing (a small compensation since he had lost some control of his bladder, but—thank God—maintained an iffy authority over his bowels), he could concentrate on listening for the slightest sound.

There
was
something. Like maybe fleas crawling over fine bat fur.

Since he’d lost his dignity, Don decided to speak.

“
All right, who’s there? I’m not a violent person; I’m unarmed, so if you want to steal my wallet, go right ahead. There’s nothing else of value here, and I’ll keep the lights off so I can’t see or identify you.

“
Fair enough?”

One or two more fleas scurried over a bat ear, but, otherwise, there was an unnatural silence. Even the breeze outdoors held its breath.

“
OK, so I dreamed that creepy voice, and I’m just here by myself talking to the bedbugs, right?”

“
Well, no, not quite,” said the sibilant voice.

“
Oh—shit!” was Don’s highly intellectual response.

“
Please, no more theatrics. I’m not here to do you harm or to take anything. Quite the opposite. I’m here to offer you an opportunity to travel, to see great wonders, and give you a chance to do something useful. To save lives. In fact, to save a whole way of life.”

“
What is this? Some missionary recruitment ploy from that church I went to this morning? I think if you’ll look at the visitor’s card I filled out, I said nothing about volunteering to—”

“
No, no, no. This has nothing to do with the church; although, I must admit, it did speak well of your intention to turn your life around.”

“
I haven’t much of a life to turn around.”

“
Actually, this is perfect. You now have nothing to prevent you, nothing holding you back from accepting my proposal. Unless you are afraid. Or lazy.”

“
Does uninformed count? What the hell are you talking about?”

“
Basically, you are needed to help some easy-going laid-back peop—uh, folks get organized to deal with something that could not only end their way of life, but end their lives, period.”

“
And you want me to do something about it? You don’t know how laid-back
I
can be. Could you be more specific?”

“
To do that will take a while, requiring me to provide vital background. Do you really want to hear this?”

“
Look, you scared the piss out of me. I’m not a bit sleepy, so I would consider it the least you could do.”

“
What is the
most
I could do?”

“
Let me turn on the light so I can see who’s talking because I feel odd sitting here in the dark having a conversation with a total stranger.”

“
I think you might prefer to feel odd for a while, so let’s just keep the lights off.”

Don sighed. “This is only
my
Casita, but go ahead. Be my guest.”

“
Good. Now, lie back down and I’ll tell you a story.”