Christmas story 2020

Blood Pudding

Chapter Four: As Bitter as Any Gall

Even constancy itself is no other but a slower and more languishing motion. I cannot fix my object; 'tis always tottering and reeling by a natural giddiness; I take it as it is at the instant I consider it; I do not paint its being, I paint its passage; ...I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently change... — Montaigne, Essays, 'Of Repentance'

I've gained some momentum. Maybe confession is good for the soul?

I read a line somewhere, once: When you hear a man confessing, you know he is not yet free. Something like that. I'm not free yet, not free of a lot of things, among them this mortal coil. I haven't yet shuffled it off, haven't yet gone, ungently, into that good night, haven't said good-night. Not yet.

Not yet.

Morning, noon, and night.

I guess I was at noon, wasn't I? My story. The middle. New York City — and after.

I told the Director I'd take any mission. But I also said I drew some lines. I'd told her I was not willing to do termination assignments. She never fought me about that, interestingly, not at all. I suspect my psych evals may have been involved. If I scrubbed my hands raw killing in self-defense…well, um, right, right.

Anyway, I hadn't and still haven't ever been assigned a termination mission. My ex had been assigned them before she entered my life. Whether she had after she left, I couldn't say for sure. I mean, there were rumors in Langley that she had. But I never followed any up. I didn't want to know. I figured that if she'd gone back to that, then she was gone from me, permanently, and I couldn't bear that thought. So, I left the rumors alone, I wouldn't touch them with a pole. Life is three-quarters hope or more; you can't just give it up.

I hope you're keeping all this straight since I can't seem to tell it straight. Everything's wound around everything else. But good hearers exert themselves, right? Pay attention deliberately, work at appreciating. Anyway, I know you aren't one of those Grunka listeners, the ones that need to be fed everything with a baby spoon, each item kept separate: peas, carrots, and applesauce. Open the hangar, here comes the plane!

— You made a face at 'Grunka', but you know that reference. — Sorry if I sounded sorta governessy.

The NYC mission wasn't a termination mission, that was my point. But it was like one. It was an abduction mission. The CIA had credible intel on Ruben Oseguera, leader of the Jalisco Cartel. That he would come to the US seemed crazy, but, then again, Oseguera, El Mencho as he was called, never had a firm grip on sanity, even if he was cunning. The US government wanted to take him alive.

He was coming to the US to see a woman. — No, really. One thing I know now: never underestimate what a lover will do for the beloved. Never. Look at me. — The backstory's too long to tell, the detailed history of Oseguera and the woman. She had visited Mexico, somehow she had met him, somehow they fell in love, but she would not stay with him — and he would not force her to stay, although he could easily have imprisoned her.

Even a monster can sometimes understand the difference between gifts and stolen goods.

Her birthday was coming up and he was coming north to see her. She didn't know he was coming; she thought they were over. It was to be a surprise visit. But the CIA got intel and I got sent in. I had back-up but no real team. I was sent in alone.

That may seem odd. Just me. I guess I've so far made it seem I was at best a passable CIA operative, Agent Me. But, truth be told, and no brag involved, none, I was very good, the best at the CIA (except maybe for my ex; she's the best spy I've ever seen). I had close calls but I had a perfect record. I'd never failed to achieve a mission objective. I was clockwork, almost mechanical, that way. I worked alone for a reason. I normally did not need any help. I was a team of one. I had a gift.

And I'll be honest: I'm now, and I've often been, ashamed to be good at this job. But that's a long story and complicated, and it involves my ex, and...I'm just not going to go that far back. I don't have time. Just know that, for the last five years, I haven't been kept at my post by job satisfaction.

I suppose that's been implicit, but I wanted to make it explicit. I have one of those jobs no one would have if that apple in Eden hadn't been eaten. A spy is a Fall guy. — Don't make that face. Okay, maybe that wasn't funny, or not much.

So, the Director expected that I would be able to get in, get close to the woman, figure out what was going on, and capture El Mencho. Take him alive. Other agencies, in a rare act, teamed with the CIA. Everyone wanted El Mencho. Head of the serpent. — Still have Eden on my mind.

I keep distracting myself, and I'm feeling weaker. I'll try to keep myself from wandering. No promises, though.

So, I insinuated myself into the building El Mencho's woman lived in, took up a night job at the security desk. I started several days ahead of her birthday; the hope was that she would get used to me, that I would be in place before any Jalisco advance team started scouting the building.

I discovered soon after I was put in place that a member of the advance team had arrived before me and was working as the manager of the security desk. That was a bad thing and a good thing. It increased the chances I might be discovered, but it gave me a chance to observe the preparations for El Mencho's birthday surprise. I did.

The night came and I was ready.

I had ferreted out the computer security overrides the manager had put in place to cover his boss: the moments at which locks were to open, video cameras to go black. I was able to use that information to plot El Mencho's arrival time, his path to and from the woman's room, his departure time.

El Mencho was optimistic: he was to arrive a little before 10 pm and to leave at 8 am the next morning. He expected to get lucky for her birthday.

But the plan became complicated.

Working at the desk, I got to know the woman. Janey. Small, brunette, pretty. She suffered from insomnia, and often, at night, she would come downstairs, go outside and take a walk, get some fresh air before trying to sleep again. I don't know what was on her mind — but I had a guess. I can imagine what it's like to love someone you shouldn't love, to love him or her past reason, past hope. I felt for Janey — a little. My old curse rustled in me; I participated in her plight, not fully, but enough.

It didn't help that she fell into the habit of stopping at the desk to talk to me. It was clear — she was a thoroughly decent woman. She never mentioned Oseguera but it was obvious he was on her mind, that she was struggling with him, her feelings for him.

Janey desired not to love him and the desire was robbing her of sleep.

We chatted. Light talk, nothing serious, not at first. But after a couple of nights, she started to share. No details, no names, but her mood, her struggles. Generalities. Boyfriend troubles. It all would have touched me even if it hadn't been distressingly similar to my plight. I knew better — but I started to care about her, about what happened to her. I tried not to. I tried to numb myself but I couldn't, not completely.

The night came for the visit. Janey had no clue and I hated myself for having to leave her clueless. I told myself I would protect her, make sure she was okay.

But I should have realized that El Mencho was a man in love, eager, rushing, pushing — achy. (Um...if you know what I mean.) He showed up early before I was able to get into place, and he made it to Janey's room. I had intended to be in an empty apartment near hers, on the same floor, before he arrived. I would tranq him, drag him into the room, put a harness on him, signal a helicopter waiting atop a neighboring building, and hitch El Mencho to a line, 1, 2, 3. Fishing expedition. Easy plan, easy peasy. Everything was set — but El Mencho showed up early. Plans. Of mice and men, right? Oft go astray.

Really astray.

The security manager changed the programming for his boss and I missed it. My sister had called earlier in the day and I had not answered, but the call rattled me. The similarity between Janey's situation and mine, not the same but alike, her desire not to be in love, had been preying on my thoughts, emotions. — Anyway, I missed it. By the time I figured it out, El Mencho was in Janey's room.

I ran up the stairs silently, cursing myself, cursing the security manager, cursing El Mencho, cursing...well, God. Cursing. Not my habit but…

I slowed a couple of floors below Janey's, panting but trying to do it silently. My tranq gun was in the room upstairs; all I had was my regular sidearm, silenced. I slipped it out and crept up the stairs with great care. I could hear my breathing but I prayed no one else could. I got to the landing between Janey's floor and the one below her and I saw El Mencho's guard standing by the door to Janey's floor.

He saw me too. Simultaneous.

My gun was out, in play, but his wasn't. He grabbed for his and I — I just shot him dead. Mechanically, robotically, unfeelingly. That didn't strike me at the moment, but it did as I ran past his body and to the door. I ignored it and I opened the door. Two more men were in the hallway. They rushed me. My gift kicked in and, in the melee, I killed them both. I didn't have to, but I did. Tick-tock, clockwork. I could see other options but I didn't care. I was in some altered state — enraged and numbed all at once.

I saw your eyebrow lift at 'enraged' — I know, it's surprising. It doesn't seem like me. It's not like me. Out of character. But it was real, out-of-character or not. Everything just boiled up and boiled in and boiled over me. The job, my wife, my ex, years of lonely silence, my sister, that damn notepad sheet, Janey's heart wrestling with itself, an image of mine wrestling with itself, winning only to lose, pinning itself only to be pinned. Rage. It released the programming in me, let it just take over. I was inside myself, wailing, while I delivered precisely machined deathblows to the two men.

It was only after he was dead that I realized one was the security manager.

I kicked open the door and found El Mencho standing in the center of the living room. His eyes were huge; he had a kitchen knife in his hand. His file flashed before my mind. All the deaths, the destruction, the drugs. The lives he had ruined. My rage burned white-hot. I lifted my pistol to execute him, squeezed the trigger — just as Janey ran between us. My shot went through her neck and into the chest of El Mencho. Janey's blood spurted high, red as any blood, staining the ceiling, the room. El Mencho sank to his knees, over her, as her life fountained away. Then he slumped across her body.

It was over in seconds. I stood there panting. Then I holstered my gun, checked them both — dead — and methodically dragged the guards into the room. No one interrupted my grim reaping. I piled the guards around Janey and El Mencho and I called for backup, a cleaner team.

Then I lowered myself into a chair and realized what I had done.

Janey's eyes were open, staring visionless at her ceiling. I couldn't bring myself to close them.

How's that for a lowlight? I don't know what to say either.

New York wrecked me.

I couldn't shake it off, come to terms with it. I retreated from everything. Refused psych help. I asked for an extended leave of absence and I vanished into my apartment. I pulled down the blinds and shut the lights off. I lived, if that's the term, on a liquid diet, bourbon with melted mint-chocolate-chip-ice-cream chasers.

I should say something here. I never drank on the job, not unless the cover required it, and then never enough to lose my edge. While working, I could mostly keep my mind focused, busy. But between missions, as time went by, I came to drink more and more. Like Sherlock Holmes' seven-per-cent solution. Between missions, my heart folded in on itself, became a singularity of hopeless longing.

But after New York...I needed something... I was lost between the muck of misery and the waste of numbness — each sucked. And I lived in fear of returning rage.

I needed sunshine, sunshine, and umbrella drinks. Don't smirk. It's not that I thought they'd cure me, but I needed to keep myself somehow both distracted and engaged. I needed the rage to cool. I had money saved, quite a lot of it. My only real non-reimbursable expense was alcohol. The ice cream I could find cheap.

So, I threw a few t-shirts and some board shorts into a duffle and I flew to Miami. I'd never been there and I wanted a new place, one that invited no memories.

I arrived at my hotel and checked in. The clerk had just handed me my room key. I reached for it.

"Chuck?"

A voice from behind me.

My heart somersaulted and my stomach knotted and my knees weakened; my name in her voice seemed to run the length of me, head to toe, a christening. I turned to see her — my ex, my wife — standing behind me.

She looked almost the same. The years hadn't dimmed her beauty, only seasoned it. I gawked wordlessly at her. — I'd like to say I managed a better response, but...no, gawk is exact. — See how far I am from Bond, James Bond?

Her face showed surprise; I knew she hated surprises. I could see that she regretted speaking, alerting me to her presence. It must have happened spontaneously, the speaking. But, as I stood there, my tongue brass-bound, Samson in Gaza, her regret softened into an amused, small smile.

"Hi, Chuck."

She moved her left hand from view but not before I saw no ring. I could feel mine on my left hand like a circlet of fire. I felt embarrassed to have it on; I saw her see it. Her amusement was immediately hidden behind illegibility. Her eyes became inscrutable, opaque. But she did not step back or leave. She just stood there, looking at me with increasing intensity.

"Sarah," I finally mumbled, as if her name were a word in a foreign language, one I did not know. I shoved my hands in my pants pockets, feeling helpless before her much as I had the first time I saw her so many years ago.

We stumbled along in conversation. She asked how I was. I lied: "Fine." She was fine too. Then the small talk became so small it disappeared. We stood in a clumsy, fraught silence.

The clerk broke it. "May I help you, ma'am?"

Sarah stepped to the desk, her shoulder brushing mine as she passed. I nearly passed out. I could smell her perfume and it brought back a whole world, a whole different life. Burbank. Our apartment. Our honeymoon. It all came back to me like a bouquet of scents, scented happiness.

She got her key and turned to me. She looked at her watch. "Um, I have an appointment, Chuck. I have to go drop my stuff and leave. But, maybe, I hope...I'll see you around?"

I nodded, still having managed only to say her name once.

And then the doors of the elevator closed on her and she was gone.

I picked up my bag and got on the other elevator. I got to my room and tossed the bag on the bed. I collapsed into a chair. My wife, Sarah, my ex — she was here. I had seen her. Three years. And she walked away from me again. See me around?

I let my head sink into my hands, the outward expression of my heart's sinking. And then I heard a knock at the door. I got up and opened it without really thinking, expecting someone from housekeeping.

But it was her, Sarah. The small, soft smile was back, although there was uncertainty in it. I looked at her.

"Sarah?"

She kept looking at me.

"How did you know my room number?"

She raised one eyebrow a smidgen. "Spy, remember."

Before I can say I do, did, she was in my arms. Or I was in hers. And then she was wrapped around me, kissing me like a woman ending a lengthy fast. Absolute certainty. She feasted on me and I feasted on her. My mind dimmed and my heart was a consuming fire.

We tumbled onto the bed and we made love with four-alarm urgency, breathless, unable to stop, to slow down, — the room seemed crowded with our past, — until we screamed together and then lay panting on the bed.

Sarah entwined her fingers with mine and we both fell asleep, utterly spent.

This is the middle of the middle, you see. I'll get to the end of the middle in a minute. I just — I just had to stop for a second. Remembering that hurts. Worse than my head. Worse than my middle, my stomach, the blood pudding. That time in Miami was the best of times and the worst of times. Best and worst. For better or worse.

I can't feel my legs now. Not a good sign. The room's colder, isn't it? Darker?

No? Oh. Well. I'm getting close to The End.

Why are you looking at me like that? — No, it's okay: your sympathy I do trust. I do. I'm just upset. I'm...

Sorry, I lost you for a minute. Me too. — But I'm back.

Where was I? Oh, I was asleep, we were asleep in my story, just before I blacked out.

When I woke up, Sarah was gone. No note, nothing. I called her room — I knew her room number, I'm a spy too — but there was no answer. I put on trunks and went down to the pool. I swam, then got a drink, sunning myself in the afternoon sun, seated on a deck chair. I sipped the drink for a while and then she sat down beside me in a parallel deck chair.

"Hey, you." She said it like we had never been apart. I gave her a look, questions. She glanced away. The waiter came by and she ordered one of what I was having. She looked back at me then, her eyes milky blue, soft yet opaque. We sat in a long silence as the shadows lengthened around us.

When we finished our drinks, she took my hand and led me back upstairs, back to my bed, our bed. The bed.

I cried when we finished. She did too. I'm not ashamed to admit it. She held me, and at one point, I felt her fingers on my wedding ring, as if she was confirming its reality, its presence.

We didn't leave the room after that. We ordered in and made love. Between, we watched television or listened to music on my phone. We were rarely out of physical contact. But she said nothing and so I said nothing.

Do you know how hard it is for me to say nothing? I guess you do, don't you? But I was determined not to rush, to push. I was determined to wait. Her presence, even silent, was a present, a balm. The rage I'd been carrying subsided, I felt more myself than I had for years. Reanimated, resurrected, risen.

Better, not worse.

Say, you know that idea, of course, Deus Absconditus — that God is hidden, remote from human suffering? I mentioned Samson in passing. Think of him in Gaza, eyeless, weak, bound. The God that had favored him was gone, all because of a haircut. Take the rich man to the cleaners, the strong man to the barber.

I'm drifting again.

But I mentioned Deus Absconditus because it sorta captures how I felt about Sarah, maybe it sheds some light on the wife/ex thing. She was my love absconditus. Gone. — I'm not calling her Delilah, don't misunderstand. That's not my point. But she always seemed present and absent at the same time, omnipresent and hidden. At least to me.

When she was with me, everything revolved around her. When she was gone, everything revolved around her absence. — Have you ever seen that Triegle painting? Yeah? I shouldn't be surprised.

— I don't know. Maybe I'm hallucinating significance. I would've probably been better off without that Religion class, that solitary Gideons reading.

We went on like that, Sarah and I, for another day. Then, on the morning of the third day, she was gone. She left a note on my pillow.

I love you, Chuck.

But she was gone. Absconditus. I was alone in Miami. Bitter as gall.

I didn't see her again until the other day, here in LA.

It's about time for me to end the story, isn't it? Even though you know what's coming.

God, I'm thirsty.

I turn my head a little to look into the dark, hoping to see the Christmas tree, and, as I do, its lights flicker dimly, then come on, fully on. They start blinking, an array of twinkling colors, reds, and greens. Lights ex nihilo.

It's them blinking, not me. The tree lays there, on its side, blinking. The lights reflect in my spilled blood, and on the broken pieces of the angel.