Read Online The Night Marchers and Other Strange Tales by Daniel Braum - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Daniel Braum
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leave it. I threw on some clothes, grabbed my passport, phone and wallet.
I opened the bathroom door and thought I was going to yell at the top of my lungs. She was in the shower. The water streamed down on her silhouette behind the smoked glass. We’d never be happy together. Or at least she’d never be. I was happy in my looping patterns. Circles of misery moving closer to and farther away from happiness with every encounter with Morty, with every affair, with every unfinished then completed beat, track, and project. She’d feed into me, like the endless tide, and I’d be satisfied in a way she’d never be. She was beautiful, mysterious, complex as the boulders at the beach, as the reef. I was drawn to her as she was drawn to me, like earth to water as she would say. But ultimately, I’d wear her down, slowly but surely batter her to sand. She didn’t belong with me.
I took one last, long look at the water cascading on her slender form and closed the door. The last fish would find their way. Just as she would. Maybe they wouldn’t. But I was going home. This was where our paths branched, for certain.
In the cab on the way to the airport, I called my assistant. Morty had called.
“I’m coming home,” I said.
He asked me about the weather but I was watching the propellers of a seaplane in the channel along the road sputter to life.
“If Morty bothers you again, tell him to screw himself. I’ll deal with it when I get back.”
Morty being pissed at me suited me just fine. I was going to be real busy for the next few months with the album.
I looked around for the lionfish. That feeling I was being watched was gone. It’d probably be back again. I had a lot to do yet before I joined Jack in rock star heaven and was sure I’d mess up plenty.
The plane leapt from the waves into the sky. Soon it would be me up in the air and I’d be out of here. I could already feel myself rising.
ACROSS THE DARIEN GAP
“Where Central and South America comes together lies a 54 mile stretch of rainforest, the only missing link in the Pan-American Highway—the 16,000 miles of continuous road stretching from Alaska to South America.”
—from Butler’s Guide to the Darien
Distorted reggae chords blare into the jungle from a tiny Marshall amp in the corner of Johnnie’s Video Bar. I watch a blond-bearded, dreadlocked American chuck chords on a beat up, blue, Fender knock-off guitar. His buddy, crammed in the corner behind him with his drum set, hammers out a sparse but steady beat.
Alexa shuffles on the dance floor with the seven others we’re traveling with. Her long black hair is coated in sweat and Costa Rican grime. She smiles and for a moment I can believe she is carefree, despite all our running and fear.
She keeps her distance from a short Indian man who is spinning in circles with his arms extended and eyes closed. A big, almost toothless grin spreads on his wrinkled old face. He’s definitely had a few shots of guaro too many.
I picked up the seven others between here and San Antonio to bring us to nine. Makes us easier to mask. Harder to scrye. Now we look like just a bunch of nobodies heading to the gap, leisurely. Not in a beeline. Nothing that will call attention to our pursuers.
Alexa laughs and drinks beers and guaro with the rest, the bunch of them oblivious to the burnt-out look on the faces of the musicians, a look born of too many years of living lean. I know it too well. They don’t notice how the bass player, a Costa Rican, stands away from the transplanted gringos, probably once hippie students from Boston, avoiding direct eye contact as they play. They don’t yet have the wisdom to realize that every face, in every place we have passed, was not placed there for our amusement or education. Except for Alexa.
My old pal Johnnie himself stands behind the bar smiling as he serves a beer. A video screen behind him plays an American
I opened the bathroom door and thought I was going to yell at the top of my lungs. She was in the shower. The water streamed down on her silhouette behind the smoked glass. We’d never be happy together. Or at least she’d never be. I was happy in my looping patterns. Circles of misery moving closer to and farther away from happiness with every encounter with Morty, with every affair, with every unfinished then completed beat, track, and project. She’d feed into me, like the endless tide, and I’d be satisfied in a way she’d never be. She was beautiful, mysterious, complex as the boulders at the beach, as the reef. I was drawn to her as she was drawn to me, like earth to water as she would say. But ultimately, I’d wear her down, slowly but surely batter her to sand. She didn’t belong with me.
I took one last, long look at the water cascading on her slender form and closed the door. The last fish would find their way. Just as she would. Maybe they wouldn’t. But I was going home. This was where our paths branched, for certain.
In the cab on the way to the airport, I called my assistant. Morty had called.
“I’m coming home,” I said.
He asked me about the weather but I was watching the propellers of a seaplane in the channel along the road sputter to life.
“If Morty bothers you again, tell him to screw himself. I’ll deal with it when I get back.”
Morty being pissed at me suited me just fine. I was going to be real busy for the next few months with the album.
I looked around for the lionfish. That feeling I was being watched was gone. It’d probably be back again. I had a lot to do yet before I joined Jack in rock star heaven and was sure I’d mess up plenty.
The plane leapt from the waves into the sky. Soon it would be me up in the air and I’d be out of here. I could already feel myself rising.
ACROSS THE DARIEN GAP
“Where Central and South America comes together lies a 54 mile stretch of rainforest, the only missing link in the Pan-American Highway—the 16,000 miles of continuous road stretching from Alaska to South America.”
—from Butler’s Guide to the Darien
Distorted reggae chords blare into the jungle from a tiny Marshall amp in the corner of Johnnie’s Video Bar. I watch a blond-bearded, dreadlocked American chuck chords on a beat up, blue, Fender knock-off guitar. His buddy, crammed in the corner behind him with his drum set, hammers out a sparse but steady beat.
Alexa shuffles on the dance floor with the seven others we’re traveling with. Her long black hair is coated in sweat and Costa Rican grime. She smiles and for a moment I can believe she is carefree, despite all our running and fear.
She keeps her distance from a short Indian man who is spinning in circles with his arms extended and eyes closed. A big, almost toothless grin spreads on his wrinkled old face. He’s definitely had a few shots of guaro too many.
I picked up the seven others between here and San Antonio to bring us to nine. Makes us easier to mask. Harder to scrye. Now we look like just a bunch of nobodies heading to the gap, leisurely. Not in a beeline. Nothing that will call attention to our pursuers.
Alexa laughs and drinks beers and guaro with the rest, the bunch of them oblivious to the burnt-out look on the faces of the musicians, a look born of too many years of living lean. I know it too well. They don’t notice how the bass player, a Costa Rican, stands away from the transplanted gringos, probably once hippie students from Boston, avoiding direct eye contact as they play. They don’t yet have the wisdom to realize that every face, in every place we have passed, was not placed there for our amusement or education. Except for Alexa.
My old pal Johnnie himself stands behind the bar smiling as he serves a beer. A video screen behind him plays an American
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