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Current Issue

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Issue #6, March 2005:

Death's Folly,

by K.B. Liomas

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A Bite of the Apple,

by Larry Centor

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Bubblegum Girl,

by James Monticone

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Witch Kingdom,

by Vera Searles

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Herman,

by Brian C.Petroziello

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The Kid Catcher,

by David Choate

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Previous Issues

Don't you know that on the very day my spring fever breaks- on the fifth of April- back in 1976
- this truant officer starts in talking about putting me in a home. So I say, all right, you go right
ahead, kid catcher, but you must catch me first. John Wesley does not go quietly to any home.

I decide at once to hop a freight, and it does not matter to where, just away from a city like
New Orleans with her parks overrunning with truant officers. Sweet Jesus, turn over a rock.

Stevie Brister does not come with me which gives me pause since Stevie is without fear--
he shoots catchers with his popgun, even when he is suspended, just for the love of the
sport. Stevie says maybe later when he is older, but he is sixteen, a year ahead of me.

I tell him he will get fat in New Orleans and grow up to be a catcher. I leave him stranded
there shamed purple. I walk away giving myself, what you call, your virtuous airs, but at
the same time I am offering up many prayers to my Savoir, Jesus, to keep me from being
torn asunder by old Stevie, who is a good-sized boy of an explosive temperament.

But I must admit a kid on the run is conspicuous. And I will be caught for sure without my
secret weapon which preserves me from my enemies. Sister Theresa, the school nurse, tells
me while back I have B negative blood which, turns out, is coursing through only two per
cent of the world. She throws this off real casual, offhand like. Personally, I find that these
holy skirts are ever so good at redeeming but otherwise are not so particularly smart.

The very first thing I do then is to determine how much you can get for a pint of B negative,
exactly to the penny what the market is bearing.

You will not believe.

You can walk away from any sick house in the sticks counting out two hundred big ones,
two hundred minimum. And if you do not mind the sobs and the outrage, you can get a
little more if you negotiate direct with the distraught relatives. On the other hand, you
can sometimes collect some nice change from the grief-stricken just to depart discretely.
I pick me up two grand one time. A kid catcher, however, is never costing over a flat
hundred unless he is a churchman who sometimes remain indignant up to two pints. I
pray to Jesus every night not to send a churchman after me. Churchmen make me faint.

I have me a tough break on the day I left. Each and every morning freights are crawling
out of New Orleans like a bunch of worms. But, don't you know, that on that
particular day there is not even one on the tracks. But, I must admit, I do not
mind too terribly. Each year the yard bulls are more ruthless.

So I drag my bag out to highway 10 intending to hitchhike to Bogulosa where my
friend, Bernie Fergerson, lives in luxury and comfort. Bernie became so prosperous
since he quits school and secures him a position as bagboy at the Piggly Wiggly.

But all of a sudden I remember what I am trying so hard to forget, and that is that
old Bernie is no longer the same. Due to his high rank Bernie is getting plenty of
respect. I guess if a kid is getting too much respect, he is seeing the catcher's point
of view. He no longer smokes cross vine and rabbit tobacco. He no longer makes
cypress crossbows for thinning out the calicos and machines for torturing lizards.
Yes, this descent is, what you call, abrupt.

So I find I cannot go on to Bogulosa because some things are just too hard to
watch; some things are just too sad. In his prime Bernie is the best, the best there
is. One time Bernie Fergerson sends away to a mail order house for a fifty nine
dollar gorilla mask and with it and his Mom's raccoon coat is the terror of the
Garden District. The Creoles are shooting each other before he quits. Bernie
is wonderful then, just wonderful. But something happens to good old Bernie.
If you are asking me, it is not just the job at the Pig. If you are asking me,
somebody goes in messing with his head.

So I am slowly crossing the road, all dejected. It must be Mississippi instead.
I have me some connections in Yazoo.

My luck changes right away. A family in a white '61 Cadillac stops for me and
carries me all the way to the parish line. Mr. Baily Simpson is driving, and his
wife is asleep in the passenger seat. Mr. Simpson's niece, Freddy Jane, is in the
back with me.

I am really liking old Mr. Simpson. He is an agreeable type of fellow. There is not
one thing in the world you can say he does not agree with one hundred per cent.
Mr. Simpson tells me his brother, who is shot in the stomach in downtown Saigon,
leaves Freddy Jane lots of Coca-Cola stock in trust until she comes of age next
June, and that she is going to make some lucky young fellow a good match. Mr.
Simpson introduces her to me three, four times.

Old Freddie Jane never says nothing, but she never closes her mouth neither.
And her eyes are not getting together on where to look. I say a couple of things
to her, but old Freddie Jane just keeps right on looking in two directions, which
makes me a little bit uncomfortable since she never once blinks. When you stop
to think about it for any length of time, it gives you the shivers.

Before long I forget my manners and ask Mr. Simpson if there is anything at all
the matter with old Freddy Jane. Mr. Simpson gives out a long sigh, kind of sad
like.

"Mrs. Simpson wouldn't be letting me tell you this if she was awake, son. She's a
good Christian woman. But the truth is, Freddy Jane was running wild back in
Lafayette, where we come from. She took up with all sorts of Cajuns and oil
field trash. In time she lost all sense of shame and started in tempting Jesuits
and small children. She finally run off with a mulatto trumpet player even
though I told her I would shoot him if she did.

"Had to hire me a private detective, a Mr. Traveler, to bring her home. And
he messed with her head something awful."

"Messed with her head?"

"I ain't complaining," says Mr. Simpson. "Somebody should have broke her
little heart in two a long time back, the way she was carrying on, shaming the
name and memory of my brother who died to keep her free.

"Mr. Traveler brought her back all right, but it wasn't hardly no time before
Freddy Jane was altogether smitten by Mr. Traveler hisself.

"Not right off mind, and I can't say I blame her. Traveler was a big man, very
big, going on seven feet. Scared me a little at first. Funny kind of complexion he
had. Kind of pinkish, if you looked close, and a mouth you could have sworn
closed twice. Pleasant sort of a fellow though. And you might say he was well
spoken. He sure could talk English fast. I had an idea he wasn't from these parts."

"Yankee fellow?"

"Could well have been," says Mr. Simpson. "Yes, indeed. He took to Freddy Jane
right away. Said he wanted to marry her. And like I said, Freddy Jane took to
him too in time. Then one day she woke up kind of bleary, like she had had herself
a concussion. Mr. Traveler lit out soon after, but I can't say I blame him. Word gets
around Lafayette. Cajun tongues never stop wagging. He must have found out the
full and true extent of the kind of life she had been leading, that that little trumpet
player was just the leader of the band. That's why Mrs. Simpson and myself decided
on this move to Pensecola, to give Freddy Jane a new start in life."

I ask what is that bandaid on the back of her neck for?

"She must have fell on something crooked and hard. Dr. Andreponteaux said it was
the dangest cut he ever saw. Just your one entry wound, but it had all of five separate
channels to it."

When Mr. Simpson lets me off, I thank him very kindly. Then I go into a roadside
cafe and order me some soda pop and chocolate pie for vitamins. But when it comes,
I find I can not eat it.

The big colored waitress is coming back before long.

"You doing all right, sugar-pie?"

"Yessum."

"Can't get you nothing else?"

"Just my bill, ma'am."

"You ain't touched your plate."

"I guess I loose my appetite."

"Growing boys gots to eat."

"Yes, ma'am."

When she comes back, she is looking at me real hard like.

"You ain't from around here."

"No, ma'am. New Orleans."

"What's your name, honey?"

"John Wesley."

"Why you run off from there, John Wesley?"

Don't even try to hide nothing from a big, fat colored woman. Thank you, Jesus,
they don’t make them cops.

"Don't like the school," I say.

"How come not?"

"I am not wanting to grow up in no chair."

She takes some time to take this in.

"I gots me eleven youngums of my own; so I knows youngums. They ain't nothing about
they moods I don't know. So don't bother saying you ain't bad scared of something
because I reads eyes, black or white."

I am nodding kind of hesitant.

"Folks around here mind they own business, John Wesley. Ain't nobody going to
bother you here."

"No ma'am. It's nobody here. It's just something I am remembering that gets me all
upset. A friend of mine-- his name is Bernie Fergerson-- I am remembering he has a
funny little scar on the back of his neck. It is almost a perfect circle, you see--."

"Well, don't that beat all. Miss Margie Nan-- that's the daughter of Judge Philostrat,
the white gentleman I cleans for on Saturdays-- Miss Margie Nan come back with
one just like that after she run off.

"Lord, that child could sass, sass you into summertime. That girl was nothing but
torment.

"But the Judge, he don't mind. I never saw a white gentleman set such a store by a
child. Tore him up when she run off Good Friday with that circus clown. The Judge,
he hire this foreigner, call hisself Mr. Traveler, to bring her back. And when she come
back, she done quit the sassing altogether--."

I put my money down and am out of there before she notices. I am sorry to be so rude,
but I am too scared to care that much. What are folks coming to, I wonder, when they
are paying good money to a big, evil Yankee to poke holes in their children's heads?
I am going to Mississippi as quick as I can.

It is drizzling out and winding up to do worse. But just when it is really coming down
bullfrogs and colored babies, a man in a big Chrysler takes pity and pulls over for me.
I thank him again and again. When we are up to a good speed, he says:

"Good evening, John Wesley. My name is Traveler, and I've so looked forward to
our meeting."

I just sort of freeze. When they spring something like that on me, I never can rise all
majestic like to the occasion. If I see it coming, I'm all right, but not when they spring
it on me. And besides, I'm just a kid.

When he sees I am not going to say or do nothing, when he sees I am not going to jump
right out of the car or nothing, Mr. Traveler speaks up again before long.

"How are you this evening, John Wesley?"

"Getting .... getting along, I suppose."

By this time I am come out of it enough to start in slowly sneaking out my scout knife,
but my hand is so wet I can only just hold it, and I am trembling too bad to try to use it.
He does something now I do not even want to talk about because, to tell you the truth,
if anyone tells it to me, I do not know that I will fully believe them.

When he reaches a straightaway, he puts the Chrysler on cruise control. What he does
is-- cross my heart and set me on fire, Jesus-- he spits out this sticky stuff, real sticky—
more than you want to imagine—- great, awful gobs of it. Then he starts in weaving with
it, not with just his hands, but with his mouth too, and before I know it, he has me all
wove up to the seat. My shoulders and waist are pinned back like I am some kind of
bug. My arms are stuck together and to my lap. But I have my knife open inside my
two fists.

"You must not be alarmed, John Wesley," he says. "We will drive for a time. I must
secure us a little privacy."

It is funny how kindly he speaks to me after he has me all wrapped up for next Christmas.
I begin to chatter away trying to buy me some time to work on the web with my knife.
I am speaking right up, just as pleasant as you please, when I am drowning out the noise
I am making.

"Now, Mr. Traveler, sir," I say. "If I may, I must explain something to you that you might
not know nothing at all about. In the state of Louisiana we live in a democracy. We have a
thing down here we call the Napoleonic code. In other states, where folks are not as
advanced as we are, they have other codes, I guess, with foolishness that is not reformed
out of them. For example, one of the things that they are not letting you do down here, that
you may do every day of the week back where you come from, is to go around drilling
holes in the heads of folks who never did you nothing. And if you do not believe me, I
am happy to direct you to the capitol building in Baton Rouge where they keep the
constitution, and you can see for yourself."

"Another time, John Wesley."

He kind of smiles like. But it is real strange. I can swear he smiles twice,
the second time on the inside.

I keep working on the part of the web that is holding my arms to my legs. I am talking a
blue streak, but he never says nothing until we are deep into Mississippi, about a quarter
ways up the Natchez Trace.

"It is unfortunate for you, John Wesley, that you have somehow uncovered the nature
of my activities. I shall be forced to make a more dramatic cranial entry to avoid
detection."

"Tell you what, Mr. Traveler," I say. "You take me back to New Orleans, and I am
not saying a word to no one about what you done. After all, you are not from around
here, and you do not know about our democratic ways and all. So I really don’t see
how anyone can think to blame you anyway."

"You alone have discovered my methods, John Wesley, but you have no conception
of my purpose or origin. I am from the North, but farther north than you can imagine.
In my world a great cataclysm will soon begin. Our sun will supernova forcing us to
find another home immediately, if only a temporary one.

"We mean your race no harm, John Wesley. We wish to remain here only a decade
or so until we can find a place more suitable to our needs. Despite our good will,
however, we know that we will encounter resistance because the human personality
is both predatory and xenophobic. We could be forced to consider exterminating
the inhabitants of the Earth, a project both morally indefensible and financially ruinous,
and perhaps impractical as well. For our civilization is only some two hundred years
in advance of yours. At this distance we would be very nearly your military equal."

I am about half way through the part of the web holding my hands down and can just
see the end of it, but I am not about to let the conversation lag.

"I know you folks up North are having hard times, Mr. Traveler. It must be awful
when you are pushed out of the trough almost overnight and all. My heart goes out
to you, truly it does. And if y’all are coming down here for a better job and a little
sunshine, I say power to you. In fact we warmly welcome each and every one of
you. But it’s no call I can see to go around drilling holes in folks who are to be proud
to be your hosts."

"You misunderstand, John Wesley. Let me clarify: there is a time differential. The
population of my world will arrive on this continent some twenty-nine years hence.
At that time you will feel differently. You will be forty three years old, and your
potential for leading an organized resistance movement against us will then be
greatest.

"It would surprise you to learn how few of your generation have both the
temperament and ability to oppose us, only a few hundred in fact. Your political
leadership will lock itself in debate long enough for us to demonstrate out
peaceful intentions. Only a few skillful fanatics will resist. It is only they who could
draw a mutually destructive bath of blood.

"You, John Wesley, have been positively identified as a future rebel."

"No, sir," I say. "I don't believe I am. I really do think of myself more as a citizen of
the whole U.S.A. They only teach us about the Mason Dixon Line last year, and, to
tell you the truth, it does not mean a whole lot to me since they draw it so long ago."

"Identification of potential rebels was actually quite simple," he says. "It is an intriguing
human paradox that those of you who rebel most violently against authority in their
youth are best able to command it in adulthood.

"It was my task to identify those children, often uneducated with subnormal IQ, who
possessed that odd mixture of common sense and fanaticism which is associated with
leadership."

"Wish I am one of them, Mr. Traveler, wish I am. But if I can lead a horse to water,
then paint me black, Jesus. No, sir, cannot do it, cannot make a baby mind.

"If I may say so, Mr. Traveler, you are getting me all wrong. If you folks want to
move down here, it will not disturb me in the least, not in the least. In fact I am
loving to meet them.

"But fair is fair, Mr. Traveler. Since I am not interfering with your plans none,
you are not wanting to be interfere with mine, now are you? And one
of my biggest plans, the one I am honoring above all others, is not having no
holes drilled in me-."

I am finally cut through the web. At least I can move my arms even though
they are still stuck together.

"The effect upon the other children I have visited is only a temporary one,
John Wesley. You have my word on that. Within a month after the brain
probe, the intellect reestablishes itself with all its former power."

About this time I go drop my knife on the floorboard. So very excellent,
John Wesley.

"This is possible," he says, "since the human brain is conveniently specialized.
Even your emotions and personality will remain largely intact, with only your
irrational defiance of authority absent. You may even find-- and I have twice
observed this-- that with your mind freed from its compulsion to defy that you
can more objectively approach intellectual problems--"

A fellow sits still for so much. But when somebody starts in telling you it is
making you smart to poke holes in your head, he's, as Sister Theresa says,
way short on your basic moral instincts. I reach over with my bound together
arms and push the automatic shifter towards reverse for all I am worth. It is real
hard to do pinned back to the seat the way I am, but I hold on tight.

Sparks fly up from the gears like they are from a welder's torch. The Chrysler
pulls up sharp and slams into a tree, and old Mr. Traveler goes straight through
the windshield, crashes down on the Trace and lies still on the center line. The car
spins into a ditch close to a lake. The crash frees my shoulders, and I can reach the
knife. The car clock is saying 2 A.M. And I reckon I can cut myself free by morning.
Getting one hand loose is a severe hardship however. It takes me an hour and leaves
me all raw and bleeding.

It is about this time I notice old Mr. Traveler has not stayed put, and where he has
been is looking like kind of a violet smear in the moonlight. I start in looking for him
everywhere. I am going beyond berserk. But I am not seeing a thing until he opens
the driver’s door reaching up from the blacktop-- he has crawled his way over like
a great, big bug who is not dead enough for you.

He pulls himself in and takes my knife away from me in a real smooth parry. Then
he spins my hands together again and weaves them to my knees. He has a little more
trouble this time since his cheek is busted and the sticky stuff keeps coming out of the
cracks. But I am still back to square one. There is one thing different though. Mr.
Traveler is not looking so spry.

"You are a most ingenious ... boy ... John Wesley ... to have used your own bonds
as a safety harness. I shall not ... underestimate you ... again."

I am praying real loud now, praying to my Lord and Savoir, old Mr. Traveler gives
out before he starts in drilling on me.

"Not to fear, John Wesley ... there will be ... no pain. You must understand. My
people ... will come. Nothing can alter that. I do not wish to do ... this, to
change you in any way. For .... I revere ... intelligent life."

He seems like he was almost pleading. Believe it or not, I am feeling a
little sorry for him.

"My mission here ... is nearly ... complete now. For you are the last ... John
Wesley, the last of those ... who could oppose us. I must do this ... John ...
for the sake of your race ... as well as mine. Forgive me. I regret ... its necessity ...
most bitterly."

Funny what you think of at times like that. I am thinking: he is saying them last two
words in almost a Southern drawl. But mostly I am talking for all I am worth.

"Now, Mr. Traveler, if you are wanting to think on this thing for a while, I mean if
you are the least bit unsure, believe me, I got all the time in the world. I know you do
not want to rush into nothing you might regret later, no, sir.

"Hey! I have me an idea just now-- right this second. Why do you not do this? Why
do you not go on off by yourself for a spell and meditate real hard on this thing? Why
do you not take this thing to the Lord in prayer? Why do you not do that?"

He smiles double again, goo dripping all over. Cross my heart and bite off ever toe,
Baby Jesus.

"You are right ... John ... to attempt to delay me. I haven't much time ... but, I still
have the strength ... for this."

He is through talking. I see that. He bites my shoulders free and catches hold of the
back of my head and pulls it down to my lap. I am struggling like a horse but am not
stopping him. He is all tore up, but he is still a customer.

I am praying out loud to Jesus and crying like a baby.

"First .... I shall ... inject an enzyme ... to soften the stem and ... deaden the pain."

He lays open my neck. Since he has thrown my knife into the bushes, I must believe
old Mr. Traveler has bit into me. Pretty soon I am not feeling nothing from
my neck up.

"I shall now make my entrance. You will feel ... a great pressure ... but no pain ....
no pain at all."

He leans over again and presses his mouth against the back of my neck. Talk about
horrible—- goo dripping down all over me like molasses. I am thinking that
if this is the way he treats his kids, no wonder his son, Will Supernova, run him and
the rest of his people off. I am really starting to feel the pressure then. I am
feeling him going in every which way. I am a goner. I am sure of it.

Then I am hearing him take a big gulp of B negative.

But from the way he carries on, you think it is gasoline. He spits it out, grabs hold of
his throat, tears out of the car and starts in running every direction in the world all the
while weaving like a madman. He weaves the car to pine trees. He weaves the pine
trees to pine trees. He finally ends up out in the lake in about three feet of water with
nothing left to weave together but his own arms and legs. When he finishes completely
wrapping himself up like a mummy, he stands there for a minute real still like. Then he
keels right over and splashes out of sight.

Old Jesus comes through like a pro.

I reckon I am stuck where I am until someone cuts me loose. But I am bleeding real bad
-- and strange but true-- my B negative is dissolving that web like acid.

I have me another good break. The Chrysler still runs in low; so I dig out of that ditch
dragging a few small pines tethered by the web behind me and crawl on back to New
Orleans on the back roads. I am just beginning to feel my neck sting as I cross the
Ponchartrain Causeway.

After I am back, it is a long time before I can work out why Mr. Traveler goes so
fundamentally wild over a little B negative. I am always confused until Old Stevie
Brister shows me a story they have in the Dixieland Bugle about this
colored man, a scientific colored man.

Now considering what this scientific colored man is up to, I am saying that this was
no ordinary colored man. I am the first to admit it. But he has himself one glaring
shortcoming. He can never say a thing in plain English. He talks way too purple for
you. He will say things like, "Certain members of the order Aracneae when injected
with the blood of paranoid-schizophrenics weave webs of nightmarish patterns." But
what he means to say is something not that hard if I explain it to you.

Let me back up a bit. To begin with we are dealing with a colored man as sly as they
come. Somehow or the other he talks folks into paying him good money just to sit
around all day and torment little spiders. He will do this to them, and he will do that,
but he is never completely satisfied until they break out with cancer or something awful.

One of the things he does is go over to Charity where they keep folks, who are low
down and perfectly miserable, and makes them give their blood to him without paying
them a dime even though I am believing one of them is a B negative. Then he feeds their
low down and miserable blood to these poor little spiders that at once are running six
ways amuck, just like Mr. Traveler done.

Now do not think for a minute I am saying old Mr. Traveler is part tarantula or
something. It's no one in the world who is believing me if I do; so I am saving my
breath. I am just offering you this for, what you call, your logical completeness.

All that's really important is that old Mr. Traveler can not abide B negative. By the
way, Stevie Brister can hardly believe I am no longer selling it. He's thinks I am crazy
to take out a pint each month and just store it in my attic. He says it is going bad. And
I say I want it evil.

But that is not all that puzzles him. Every Tuesday and Thursday after school (they
back off on that home business), I take the trolley down to Jackson Square. I stand
up on the steps of the St. Louis Cathedral and tell folks about what is coming to pass
in the year two thousand and six.

Usually only the street singers and colored boys, who tap dance for change, pay me
any mind. But every so often a seersucker suit stops for a minute-- amused by my
message but disturbed by my conviction-- because I am getting good at this talking. I am always bearing me the same witness. I am telling folks about these pink characters
from way up North, who are plotting again. And this time they are not content just to
destroy our crops and salt our wells and carry off every undiseased debutante in
Evangeline. This time they are coming with a vengeance. This time they are coming
for blood.

And I’m going to see they get all they need.

The End


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