The Redemption of Marvin Fuster by Patrick Sean Lee (best affordable ebook reader TXT) 📕

“This is where my friends left me,” she said, and he found her full voice quite as lovely as her eyes and hair and lips. The sudden awakening of the world of sound surprised him, but no more so than the world of color and smells—the low crashing of waves somewhere in the distance, the smell of salt air, the fragrance of some exotic perfume flowing from her as she walked along the edge of the dune with him. There was the chattering and chirping of brilliantly foliaged birds flying from tree to tree, branch to branch. There was sunlight playing off the motion of leaves that moved to and fro in a breeze coursing inland from the distant sea. There was an air of magical wonderment, as though he’d stepped inside a wondrous painting.

He imagined the feel of her skin, as fine as Oriental silk.

For a fleeting instant he became aware again of his decrepit, hideous wreck of a body when she stopped and looked upward toward the top of the hill of sand. This thing he was cursed with was just a ragged case holding a heart, but in that instant the heart hammering in his chest was ageless, and it split into a hundred pieces for love of her.  He spoke in a faltering voice.

“I…won’t leave.”

“Oh, I know.  I know that very well, Marvin Fuster,” she said matter-of-factly.

“You…how do you know my name?” he asked.

She smiled, and then left him to climb the steep dune without answering.  She moved upward easily, like a shadow slipping over the white sand disappearing beneath her feet. He clamored after her, joining her when he got to the top, and what he saw amazed him—though it did not seem to affect the young woman at all. Below them ran a wide ravine, and in the ravine was a river, rushing upward, away from the sea far to their left in the south. Were this not enough to make him scratch his head and wonder at his sanity, a parade of cars floated along in the swift current, like sheets of colored paper being whisked along.

“There they are,” the woman remarked casually. “No telling where they’ll wind up.”

“They? Who’s they?”

“My friends,” she said.

“Cars?”

The woman laughed at his silly question. “No, Marvin Fuster. My friends…they’re in the cars, and God only knows where they’ll finally stop.”

Marvin squinted at the caravan of flattened, wavy cars rushing up the cataract.

“Well, if they’re inside those things, they’re deader than cats in a gunnysack. I can tell you without lookin’…”

“Come on,” she said, leaping back down the steep side of the dune. “We’ll go another way and find them."

                                    ***

He heard voices high above him, coming from the clouds—strange voices.  Olympian. Thundering for sutures, or maybe it was dentures. One moment they were whispering something about blood—hematoma? Heraclitus?

Something.

He felt no pain.

                                ***

“What’s your name…if ya’ don’t mind me askin'?  I mean, you know mine and all.”

“Amy.”

“Oh. Well, Amy…”

They were on a pleasant dirt path now, under a teal sky, walking along a country lane. On their right a wood-railed fence straight out of a pastoral painting ran up a small hill along the side of the path. On the other side of the fence tall trees grew in deep rows and followed the contour of the hill. Amy seemed enthralled by all of this, left his side, and ran across the path. She stepped up onto the bottom rail, which enabled her to reach out and pluck a word from the branches. The tree shook as though it had suddenly been awakened.  A pair of eyes, and then a mouth materialized far inside the foliage.

“Redemption,” the woody mouth said. “Very good! Pick another.”

Amy stood with her thighs pressed against the top rail, her back to Marvin. He scratched the thin hair on his head and watched her in wonderment. Hundreds of words like so many pieces of fruit appeared where seconds before there were only leaves. She reached out again and plucked another.

“Fear,” said the tree. “Interesting.”

Amy giggled. “No, interesting is too high up in your branches. This word,” she said holding it high for the thing to see, “is the only other I could reach. Bend forward a little, please. I see one I like much better.” 

The tree rustled and obeyed graciously. Many limbs that had been twenty or twenty-five feet above the ground bent toward her, almost enfolding Amy. She picked one, then another, and another, and placed each in the cradle of one arm near her breast until she could hold no more.

“Thank you, kind tree! Now I’ll sit and compose a lovely poem just for you. Right here beneath you branches.”

Marvin watched. The tree shook itself again.

"Not for me, child. For him,” it said motioning across the path at Marvin. Amy turned, dropping the word Desire into the dirt beneath her as she did. She looked over at the man who could have been her grandfather Sebastiano. Sebastiano, who had died five years ago, but had climbed out of the grave today.

“Hah! For him? What on earth for? He’s ready to die, and he’s horribly filthy and ugly,” she said. 

Marvin’s countenance fell, like a soldier shot through the heart. Yes, he was old, he thought despondently, and yes, he was filthy and horrible for her to even look at. He knew he loved her in that terrible moment of rejection, but he knew also that no power in heaven could make her love him. He hobbled as swiftly as he could across the distance separating them and knelt down before her, scooping up Desire. He looked up, holding the word much as if it were a jewel resting on a velvet cushion, and she was a queen. Amy reached down and swept it from his hands.

“Thank you, Marvin Fuster. We simply can’t do without desire, now can we?”

Marvin’s eyes began to tear. No, we cannot. 

He fell back onto his rear and brought his eyes to rest on her feet. He knew his place. He did not look up again until Amy left him and the tree to continue along the path alone. Marvin stared at her back as she moved away, climbing the hill effortlessly. Her image would haunt him and follow him from that instant onward through every dream. After she’d gotten to the crest and he lost sight of her on the other side, he looked over at the tree.

No words.  It was just a tree.

He woke several times from broken dreams. A beautiful young woman dressed in white, smiling at him in a bleak and cavernous room, motioning him to come to her. A little girl with dark, curly hair sitting beside him in a tiny house high up in the trees.  A demon snorting puffs of white, steamy breath, standing before a fence in a snowstorm. A mansion, with a retinue of servants, and another young woman at his side, her hand on his shoulder. Stacks and stacks of books lying on a polished wood countertop. A land inhabited by strange creatures garbed in spiral gowns, calling to him to enter their dance. A tree that spoke. Searing bright lights, and in the lights, a creature with wings outspread peering down at him. His mother sitting in the corner of their kitchen, covering her battered face with trembling hands. But most often, over and over, he dreamed of the young woman dressed in white, beckoning him to leave all of this and come to her.

His head ached.

He reached up to touch the spot where it hurt most and felt gauze. Gauze wrapped around his head, beginning just above his eyebrows in thick, padded layers. Marvin opened his eyes, confused for an instant until consciousness slowly began the deliverance of stable images. This place was real. It was a hospital room, and he was lying in a bed with a gleaming chrome frame. He was covered with a clean sheet. He was cold. A tube snaked from a half-empty bottle dangling from a stand, down into his left arm, and he instinctively wanted to yank the needle out.

He had been injured—but how? When? He wanted a drink.  Anything. Whiskey, wine, even cough syrup. Did they still lace cough syrup with alcohol?  He couldn’t remember.

A nurse breezed in, dressed in polyester blue, carrying a clipboard. When she saw Marvin with his eyes opened she dropped her arms to her sides and broke into a smile. “Well, good morning sir!  Welcome back.”

He said nothing, merely stared at her. She glanced quickly at the chart fixed to the foot rail.  “We don’t have a name for you.  How are we feeling this...”  she went on as he tried to bring her face into focus. A young woman with indistinctly colored eyes, slightly squinting as though she couldn’t see the chart or her patient very well.  Her lips were thin, and barely moved as she spoke. 

His head hurt.

“Why am I here? How long? What happened?” he interrupted her.

The nurse laid the chart she carried onto the sheet and then walked to the bottle, touching it with her stubby fingers as if to assure herself that the clear liquid hadn’t frozen or congealed into a solid form.

“Good.” She looked down at Marvin with that thin smile.   “We’re so glad you’re finally awake.”

Who is we?  He saw no one else. Why did she continually refer to herself as we?

“Why am I here?”

“You were injured.”

She gently rolled his arm over and looked at the IV, then seemingly satisfied, left it and brought her fingers to his eyelids and lifted them. Marvin watched her eyes dart left, then right.  They were pale brown.

“Good.  Good,” she said releasing her grasp.

“Good?  Good?  I feel like someone hit me with a goddam’ hammer!  What happened?  How did I get here?”

“We don’t know for certain what happened…”

We again.

“You had a nasty accident somewhere,” she said. “You split your head open, two…” she glanced at his chart again, and then continued. “Two nights ago. It was very serious. You lost a considerable amount of blood.  We put you back together, and here you are.  Do you remember anything?  Can you tell us your name?”

“You. Well that’s better at least. It’s Fuster. Marvin Q.  Born May sixth, nineteen thirty-two…or thirty-three. Thirty-two, I think. Whatd’ya mean I split my head open? How? I don’t remember nuthin’.”

She jotted the name down.  “I’m not surprised. Basilar skull fracture, Mister Fuster. A considerable amount of bleeding in addition. Some brain swelling. The doctor will explain it better when she arrives.”

“I know what a basilar fracture is.”  I do? 

“That’s nice,” she said in a patronizing tone. “We were unsure whether a man of your age would even survive. As you can imagine—we’re sure you can understand.” She winked at him.  “But, we’re glad you’ve awakened. That’s a positive sign.”

“We’re glad we’re awake, too. When do we get outta’ here?”

She laughed. “When you pay your bill. Otherwise, you’re our prisoner.” She posed the next question more seriously. “Do you have a home address?”

“’Course I do. 1830 Wazee. Central Packing Company. South end of