Disclaimer: ummm . .  alright.  everyone knows what characters i do and do not own.  you know i don't own james or his parents, grandparents, or Jessebelle.  everyone else i do tho.  oh!  and i don't jesse as well.  disclaimer . . . done.

Written by:  hehe . . me, of course.

Rating:  umm . . i guess probably R cause of the gore and language and stuff . . sorry kiddies!  aw, what the hell . . you're gonna read this anyway . . just b/c you're not spossed to . . lol . .

WARNING:  mild cursing, violence, and gore are used.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:  why hello everyone.  i know the question , don't break a sweat asking it.  "Who is this Eddy Bosch and what are these terrible things she's doing to our minds?"  ah, well . . i don't have a site, so you're never gonna figure that one out.  i shall remain a mystery for the good of my humilation!!  this story ain't to good, as well (and you're probably gonna have to read Swamp Foetus to thoroughly understand what "birdland" is -- but this story IS NOT a continuence of swamp foetus.  please remember that or else you're going to get terribly confused!).  but i think it's a little better than the last one.  not by much . . but still . . i suggest you go ahead and read it and reflect on it later.  i think it will surely change you're perspective of at least some things by the time you're done reading it.  and if it doesn't then, well . . ah, just smile and pretend like you got the story.  okay?  enjoy!  

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To the memory of the dog, Art.

For it died in the clutches of the hungry tic, Hollywood.

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Nightmare in Birdland

    When James’ grandfather got married, he was probably one of the happiest men alive.  Love adorned them both like two halves of the same soul would one body and spirit.  Their minds were shared, their hearts beat in the same rhythm, and their souls were one, complete —  together.  The wedding ceremony was as holy as everyone wanted it to be, while angel dove blossoms embroidered the flowered doorway in which they stood under while sharing their first kiss as husband and wife.
    

But if anyone knew just what had awaited them three years later, would have guessed their marriage was the one and only happy time in their lives.  Because, as much as Grandfather loved Marilyn, he was that much devastated when their 3rd miscarriage rounded the corner.  All three times he had done the training available; all three times he had bought cigars; and all three times he had picked out names for their children.  The twins were the hardest to see go.  Not three, but for lives lost just because of a few defected DNA strands and syndromes that hadn’t even been discovered in their day and age.
 

   Such was his life up until their 7th year anniversary stumbled along, when Marilyn had finally had enough and was so distraught with the death of her four children, that she frantically bolted for an exit from the life she was doomed as, as a mother of the dead.  She hadn’t even wanted kids in the first place, anyway.  All the other girls did, so she thought she did, too.  But, when it came down to the pain and suffering she had to undergo just to have a little life created (whom she didn’t even love), then it wasn’t at all worth it.

    After Marilyn left, Grandfather had become so dark and melancholy that he wouldn’t work, eat, or even speak unless spoken to — and then only saying no more than one word at a time.  And the only thing he desired to do was sit in his study and smoke the hundred cases of baby cigars that were sent to him those three times the babies where declared stillborn.  He would sit back in his rocking chair by the desk, each passing second aging seven times faster than before, and breathe in the cancer stick’s sweet aroma, let their history soak into his lungs and mind.  Yes, the white, wispy clouds of death levitating like visible air around him, his chair, his room, was the only thing that was real to him anymore.  He was nothing more than the smoke, that chair, and memories.  And for the longest ten months possible.

    But, in those ten months, came the process of new life, and (unbeknownst to Grandfather) the silent torture he had once known ( and had almost grown to love) was swept away with tears one lonely winter day.  The happy times came in the late 1940's when Marilyn returned with one month year old twins and a nanny.  Grandfather was purely overjoyed to hear the voice of Marilyn ring throughout the house, happy and with company.  She told him, with tears, that both were healthy boys, and his.  They were his.

    And this was the start of James’ troubles.  When Bobby (James’ father) grew up along side with his twin, Cleve, they longed to go their separate ways and see what the other had turned out to become.  Life had always been a game to them, so said Grandfather, and both always wanted to play, but neither wanted to lose.  Good thing there isn’t always just one way to win.

    So, as a result, Bobby became mean-spirited, disillusioned, and drunk.  He was always seeking the impossible, throwing things out of perspective when things didn’t go his way, shattering his empty vodka bottles on walls and furniture, and speaking a language that only he understood, and that no one else wanted to hear.

    But, as much as Bobby was strict, orderly, and drunk, Cleve was just the opposite — a good-up doctor with a reputation as more of a clown than an MD.  Making kids laugh had always been his specialty, but as all talents to one day, his charm had faded out and he became lost and heartbroken.  Well, he had to be.  Because, every time James saw him — which he did, quite often — he was always ignoring Trevor and simply not speaking at all when spoken to, as if he were always in deep contemplation on his mere existence — why was he even alive anymore?

    (Indeed, Bobby and Uncle Cleve had very separate lives, but they both seemed to have just enough heart to remain in love with the other, and they stayed on friendly terms long enough to that James could spend a week or so with his uncle and his obnoxious three year old son.)

    And that’s where Trevor came from – his uncle, Cleve.  Trevor McGee Morgan.  He was a snot-nosed, drooly little kid with nothing better to do than scream, pee, or pull out of this world and drift off into his own, not even talking.  Those where the best times of the visit for James — when Trev wasn’t talking.  He hadn’t every really liked Trevor — but only because he was six at the time of Trev’s death and he didn’t care too much for kids younger than himself (or kids at all, even).  And guilt welt up inside of him as the realization that he hadn’t missed Trev as much as he wanted to believe.  How was it that he had known all along that Trevor would never grow up?

    And why was it also that Trev was buried here in New Orleans, but he couldn’t find Uncle Cleve’s tombstone anywhere at all? thought James as he stood in front of his cousins forgotten grave 12 years later, while dark, ominous clouds loomed over the graveyard with a fair warning, making the trees and the airy death of the aged, moldy, limestone statues of Mary and Jesus reflect on the beautiful gray sky.  
    James read the engravings on the tombstone for the millionth time,

R.I.P.
TREVOR MCGEE MORGAN
OCT 12, 1987 — JULY 18, 1991
BELOVED CHILD OF GOD,
MAY YOU REST IN PEACE

    reflected on it, and (once again) tried to forget when he had once known Trev, when he was alive and fresh in his mind and thought — tried to forget what happened 12 years ago today what he had been like.  He didn’t want to remember anymore.  He didn’t want to recall Trev’s drooling little baby mouth, the scent of his urine lingering in the open-windowed car, the gore of his smashed in face.  He didn’t want to remember *that* most of all.  Why did *he* have to be the one who found him in that car?

    Was that why he hated Trevor so much?

    Was that why he felt so guilty?

supposed to.  But he didn’t.  He had never worked well with rules, anyhow . . . so maybe he shouldn’t feel so guilty.

    He had more right to be petrified than guilty.  Yes, being terrified of Trevor would be more acceptable, more logical, even.  He hadn’t like Trevor, but the sight of his small body crushed wasn’t what he wanted, either.  He hadn’t wanted that.  Death had wanted that.  That was why it came to him and Uncle Cleve that night.

    Was that also why he didn’t know where his uncle was buried?  Why hadn’t they told him the location, so that maybe he could go and rest some flowers on his grave . . .?

    Of course, people despised the situation and the moral of it after it had happened.  

    “No one,” said Aunt Carol on the day of Trev’s funeral, “deserves that kind of death — especially a child!”  She had worn dry and cakey make-up powdered onto her face, with greasy, shiny lipstick spread across those lips with envy.  Why old people put so much make-up one, James never knew.  He thought it looked artificial and made them look really ugly.  And he remembered grimacing slightly when Aunt Carol placed a moley, wrinkly hand on his small shoulder while he stood by the coffin (caught somewhere between confusion and utter terror), telling him what pity she had on him when that day had arrived.  Her exact words, he couldn’t recall, didn’t feel the need to.  He had remembered enough things about her . . . things that terrified him when he was Trev’s age.  Surely, he would’ve cried the first time he’d laid eyes on her.  She always wore the biggest, humongous rings on her fingers . . .

    James laughed a little.  Yup.  That was Aunt Carol.

    Then the thought about Trev.

    What had he looked like before he had died?  Had he forgotten?  Oh, no . . . no, he remembered.  His face, both dead and alive, was burned onto his brain.  He could remember his looks, his smells, the sounds his often made.

    In fact, Trev was just learning how to read when he’s died.  James had been trying to teach him by reading him some old comic books and magazines he had found spread around the car, worn and history beaten. Those books had seen many seasons, and spent them in the car.  Of course, Trev never learned how to really read.  He would just stare off blankly into the pages’ animations and seem to go there himself, instead.  James sometimes wondered if Trevor even had a mind there.  What was he always thinking?

    Trev’s bright, sea-blue eyes seemed to hold nothing at all behind them, nothing at all but a skull that was soon to be doomed.  His skin was fairer than James’ — even though Trev caught more sunlight through those car windows than James had ever caught in his entire life.  Uncle Cleve was always dragging him outdoors to go fishing, or driving him around in that old ‘79 Station Wagon that he loved so much.  God, Uncle Cleve loved that car.  He spent most of his time in it, in fact.  Every time Uncle Cleve would come and pick him up for a monthly visit that he always half-heartedly attended (and just for the sake of saying that he had tired to love James), he always drove up in that same old, rusted Station Wagon that he had owned for about 12 years.  It had gone through at least three engines, but Cleve didn’t care.  He drove it anyway — in spite of the money he had to buy a new one.

    James laughed again.  Nope.  No limo’s for Uncle Cleve.  Memories on the road were his style.  Hm, perhaps that’s why he’d died in one.

    He had never wanted to stop riding in it, that’s for sure — and it was one thing James had learned on his third meeting.  Uncle Cleve was always driving him around in the car for a visit, and he rarely ever stopped — except to fish, get gas, or buy more fishing lures (even though there were no watering holes solid enough to fish from this far from the shore of North Carolina).  The swamps up in N.C. weren’t really a place to fish from, nuh-uh.  So, he usually hauled the boys in the old car and headed down south to New Orleans and fished there, in their swamps — even though he knew driving to the shore of North Carolina would have been much easier for all of them and the car engine (the trip itself took about eight hours).  But James didn’t like it when he did that.  He was always afraid that Uncle Cleve would go out there in his big, yellow boots and accidentally step in some bottomless swamp pit and fall forever.  He would leave him stranded there in that car — and with Trevor.  The drooling, three year old would be very hard to raise by himself.  But he would have don it anyway — if he had to.

    But, other forces had taken care of that.

    He should have known something was wrong that day.  He should have noticed the foul temper that sent out those electromagnetic vibes that James could feel so audibly . . . so vividly.  Because, even though Uncle Cleve rarely spoke a word (just like Grandfather had when he was without Marilyn for that period of time), he usually never snapped that loud, and that often.  At one point in the day, he had thrown an old comic book in the back at James’ head for kiddingly encouraging Trev to pee all over the car seat.  But James had just picked the book up, flipped it open, and began to read slowly and aloud for Trev’s ears to hear so that maybe he could grow some brains and talk to James like a normal kid would

    “Your Aunt Eliza would be turnin’ over’n her grave if she knew what you were really up to,” Uncle Cleve had said to James after the comic book-toss.  If James hadn’t been so used to people shouting and yelling at him, he probably would’ve thrown the comic book back, and sat there and cried, pitifully.

    (Aunt Eliza had died of the cancer when James was Trev’s age.  She had been so weak from the illness, that only five months after giving birth, she died and was buried in a coffin somewhere in Massachusetts.  That’s why Uncle Cleve moved down as far away from Massachusetts as he could, and ended up down here in Louisiana.  James thought that Louisiana was the prettiest place he had ever been to when he first saw the beaches: the gulf, the pelicans, the wide-spread vastness of the beach beside him as the car zipped through the wind on the road, crowded by tons of sand and “beach grass” {as Uncle Cleve had called it}.  But, as much as he loved the beaches of Grand Isle, the city of New Orleans was what he loved most.  Mardi Gras, Bourbon Street, and crawfish all called out to him in his dreams, made him feel like he belonged somewhere for a change.  He felt like he had always lived here.)

    But, James kept silent the whole way to Uncle Cleve’s house.  James had never seen Uncle Cleve’s house before, so when he entered, he just stood around very timidly, not touching anything that looked fragile or valuable.  He *did* spot a cookie jar however, and promised himself that he would sneak some later if he could be careful enough not to get caught.

    Turns out, Uncle Cleve didn’t live in a swampy, isolated forest like he thought he might, but lived in the quiet parts of New Orleans, in a town called Old Metairie — where the traffic wasn’t as bad as it was down at the heart of the city where the Superdome spread it’s roots and planted itself there like a tic latched onto a dog.  The house had even looked sticky and rusty on the outside, so the old beer and pizza smell from the inside hadn’t surprised James, but had, contrarily dulled his senses and had left him restless.

    He sighed with boredom.  The house was as small as an apartment, with three bedrooms, one bathroom, and a small sofa parked in front of a tiny T.V.  Beer bottles and cans were trashed around the little couch, making it so crowded that the first thing James had to do when he entered was kick a beer can out of the way for walking.  There were even recycle bins of empty beer and alcohol cans stacked on top of one another in corners, around the couch, T.V., and kitchen.  None looked ready to leave their places.

    James looked over to where he sensed Trevor and Uncle Cleve would be.  And, sure enough, Uncle Cleve had Trev perched up on his hip and was waiting for feedback on his dump one would call a home.  James realized now that Uncle Cleve had the blanket of a five o’clock shadow colored across his chin and jawbone.  He looked rugged, but handsome, nonetheless.  Aunt Eliza must have been in love with his looks.

    “Sorry it such a mess.  I haven’t had time t’clean.”  He spoke with a dry, horse tone and a northern accent.  It didn’t even sound like he was from around here.  But, maybe that’s because he was just a little woozy from downing a six pack while in the car.  James had counted and worried a little more each time he slammed an empty beer glass down in the sticky cup holder along with the rest.
   

 “Can I draw now?” asked James, gripping his faded green notebook a little more tightly.

    Uncle Cleve huffed and nodded, pointed to the ratty old kitchen table between the fridge and the wall.  And, as James had soon found out, that was also covered with beer cans and scattered pizza boxes stacked and spread throughout the room, and James ended up having to push some of the mess over and (some) onto the floor.  He plopped his notebook down on the desk without a care, sat down, flipped it open, closed his eyes and began to draw.

    He opened his eyes after he felt his hand come to a stop.  It was the car.  The old, rusty (and multi-colored from ten different layers of paint — mainly yellow and gray) ‘79 Station Wagon glared back at him through the page, seemed to speak to him about Trevor and Uncle Cleve — for they were it’s life.  

    The lid of the car wasn’t closed all the way — it never was, as a matter of fact.  It always looked like the engine had grown a mind of it’s own over the years and needed to peak out through the lid and look at the black ribbon of road Cleve drove it on, begging every few miles to be pulled over and fixed.

    Hm, he hadn’t noticed this until just now . . . were those hands on the steering wheel?  It looked like someone had fallen asleep at the wheel while parked in some old swamp James had seen some time ago.  Their hair was dirty and sloppy and it resembled Uncle Cleve’s.  At just the though, James became stricken with a bad twinge of dread in his tummy.  He didn’t know why, but his hands suddenly couldn’t keep completely still, began to shake, and his tummy began to twist and turn along with his mind.  He adverted his eyes from the sleeping man and found his gaze on Trev sitting in the back seat.  Trevor.  At first glance, it seemed like he was trying to look out of the window, but then James suddenly realized that his head was twisted at a peculiar angle, and Trevor wasn’t trying to look out the window at all.

    His head was bent that way.  The side of his skull seemed to cave inwards so that it would reveal his tiny brain.  He thought it may have just been the way the sun was shining on his face, but . . . no . . . no.  Something had beaten the poor boy’s head in that way, made it turn and look at the last light it was going to see before the tunnel (if there even was one to begin with).  James couldn’t see the boy’s eyes — some of his skin had overlapped that part.  It looked like all that Trev was, every bit of his soul that had existed inside of him, was rammed into his skull and was so overwhelming that it had killed him, left him to deteriorate and let the maggots eat away at his flesh.

    James felt his eyes and heart well up with fear and tears.  Death.  He slammed the book shut and threw his pencil at it, sliding his chair away as if to save himself from the morbid images that clouded his mind and vision.  He didn’t want to look at it right now.  He had never drawn anything so grotesque . . . so violent.  James had seen too much violence from Daddy and Jessebelle already.  Why had it haunted him in the only escape that he could find?  Why in his work?  Perhaps there was so much of it that it *had* to come out somewhere . . .

    Yes.  That was it.  That was all it was.  He had just been so temporarily overwhelmed that the subconscious memories evading his mind had simply found it’s way out onto his paper.  Uncle Cleve and Trevor had just been paper dolls to work on.  That’s all.  Yeah, that was it.

    As he was trying to convince himself of this, he began to make himself feel guilty about picturing and using them like that, for making them his release.  What if Uncle Cleve found his notebook and thought that James had wanted himto die?  Or that he wanted to kill Trevor?  (Which he did sometimes — but not like he had drawn tonight.)  No.  He wouldn’t let that happen.  He would sleep with his notebook in his arms tonight, so that nobody could touch it or remove it from his grasp.  He would hold it tight against his chest.  Nothing was going to rip it out of his arms.  He was going to sleep with it tonight . . .

    And, sleep with it, he did.

    The only reason why James woke up the next morning was because a towel was thrown in his face from Uncle Cleve’s wet hair.  James had figured that if Uncle Cleve hadn’t awoken him, he would have slept on forever and a day.  He hadn’t had any nightmares that night (like he thought he might), but had dreamed the sweetness of the nothing that is not Birdland, but something completely different.  For once, he had dreamt to dreams — and he felt better than he had in a long time.

    He coughed as he came into consciousness, shook the rag off, felt first the warm notebook still cradled in his arms, and he looked down at it, silently greeting his hidden drawings behind that faded green shade of the cover.  He wanted right then to open it up and search for that horrible picture he had drawn — because, as much as he was repelled by it, he was that much intrigued by it, as well.  He hadn’t known he could ever draw things like that and it made him feel different with a sense of dignity.  Not only was the drawing completely brought out in every  simply detail, but he felt it also defined a new sense of release for himself (little did he know that it was only the beginning of a fad his mind and hand had created that would last until he was very old).  His *manner* had been the promise of a good day.

    When Uncle Cleve called him to the car only a few seconds after he woke up, James recognized the anger and impatience in his voice and obeyed accordingly, suffering a head rush as he ran out of the room from the mattress in the corner, and sped through the door, into the day.

    The drive was long.  Uncle Cleve still hadn’t told him and Trevor where he was going today, and James hadn’t bothered asking.  It was most likely one of a hundred of Uncle Cleve’s favorite fishing sites.  So, James sat obediently in the back, reading aloud to Trev from a comic book about two runaway slaves’ dreams about crucifying “honkies”.  James thought the pictures of the police forces nailed to burning crosses with the slaves laughing below were scarey.  It made him scared just to hear those kinds of laughs, much less see the faces of them.  He stopped reading that one and slowly put it down on the car floor as if it were going to jump back up and bite his hand off.
 

   But the comic book soon slipped out of his grasp when the car suddenly halted to a stop so sharp and abrupt that it made him fall from his seat and hit his soft head on the leather of the car seat in front of him, making him a little dizzy and worse when he heard Trev start to cry.

    “Jay died, Daddy!  You killed Jay!”  (Trev always had this thing about not being able to pronounce any word that came out of his mouth.  Uncle Celve had tried to teach him to speak properly — or even tolerable — but Trev’s mind wouldn’t let his dad’s words filter through him and he was persistent on calling things his own way.  So, as a result, almost every word that Trev was introduced to, he made up a little nickname because his mouth was too lazy to form real words.)  Uncle Cleve chose not to hear his son’s cry and stepped out of the car and strolled over to a big lake at the end of a swampy bay.

    James sat up from his fall and grunted as he lifted himself back onto the seat.

    “Shh, Trev.  I’m alright, see?  Look, I’m alright.  Your daddy didn’t mean it, okay?  Stop crying!”  Trev sniffed and slowed his breath to sighs that made it irresistible not to hug him, but James didn’t fall for it and sighed from frustration.  He rubbed his head where he had hit it, took one last, annoyed look at Trevor, and once he found the car door handle, stepped out to find Uncle Cleve.

    He was leaning against a tree with his arms crossed and eyes settled on the pretty pink and yellow horizon that painted the sky with the shade of impended darkness.  The sun was int eh west and seemed to guide over the swamp it reigned over, counting the crocodiles and the exotic birds that thrived there.  The sound of crickets and bullfrogs chirped through the warm, muggy air that was New Orleans’ own.  

    If Cleve had hear James approaching, than he chose to tune out the noise his footsteps were making and try and go back to focusing on the lake before him.  He didn’t answer when James called his name.

    “Uncle Cleve . . .” James spoke again, as if he hadn’t heard him the first time.

    When James arrived at his side, Uncle Cleve just turned and looked down at him, studying his small figure, his sweet innocence — innocence that he had lost long ago.  James noticed Uncle Cleve smiling, but just thought that he was really happy to be with him and out here on this lake.  He didn’t even realize that it was going to be one of his last times seeing Uncle Cleve smile.  

    “Lemme’ show ‘ya somethin’, kid.” said Uncle Cleve, and he gently pushed himself from the tree trunk and cooly strode over to the car to pick up Trevor (who hadn’t uttered a word since James had left the car).  When Uncle Cleve had Trev in his arms, he nodded his head in the direction of the swamp forest to his side, and James began walking towards him, following him into the forest.

    The first thing James noticed when he entered was how the sun seemed to completely set in under six seconds — and he really thought it had, too, because it all of a sudden became very dark and murky.  But enough light traveled in so that he coudl see the wild ferns and kudzu sprouting and strangling weak, baby trees, wrapping around ancient ones and traveling up the tree trunks, higher, higher, higher, and into the spitting twisted branches whose saliva was the old Spanish Moss drooling and dripping down, down, down, but never seeming to touch the swamp floor.

    It was wet, and that’s what James hated.  Because, it wasn’t fun, splashy-pool-wet; it was dark and inky and smelled like swamp gas and centuries rolled into one.  The trees were so high that they seemed to stand on their tippy toes, letting the spaces through their roots make little caves or forts for any child that wasn’t afraid of the dark — and James practically lived in the dark.  He’d rather see and be in nothing, than stare upon everything that he was terrified of.  He even kept his curtains overlapped a great deal to avoid both sun and moonlight from entering through the lonely windows in his bedroom.    

    Then he felt his tummy turn with a feeling caught between home-sickness and fear.  He suddenly felt terribly unsafe around Trevor and Uncle Cleve.  He wanted to be in his room, drawing and expanding his imagination.  He did not want to be in this place . . . for, he felt a strange, unwanted energy pounding against him — as if Uncle Cleve were leading him to a place very demented and scarey.  He slowed down his pace a little, not wanting to continue with the trip Uncle Cleve had planned.  He didn’t feel safe anymore.

    Keeping his eyes on his uncle, James slowed even more and then completely stopped when he saw his uncle to the same.  He followed Cleve’s gaze to a large tree, and in it, a small, perfectly worn in cave through the trunk.  James was immediately intrigued bu it’s perfection and roundness, and he tilted his head to the side a hint (for, that’s what he did when he was thinking).  A small smile spread across his lips as the thought crossed his mind of Growly and him under there, playing and laughing.  Growly would love it under there, too.  The wetness, the shade, and all the exotic birds and tree squirrels to chase, he knew, would delight the young Growleth and make him roll over on his back with his tummy sticking out in ecstacy.  Another thing he missed most right about now.

    “When we were drivin’ over here, I looked off to my right and spotted this tree trunk here and knew you would love playing in it, so I decided to park somwhere where we weren’t too far off so that you wouldn’t get lost.” Uncle Cleve explained.

    James laughed in more of amazement than in humor, and he slowly made his way over to the tree trunk after getting the approving nod from his uncle (who still stood with his boots stuck in the murky waters, cradling Trev like he had done many times before).  “Wow . . .” he stated simply.

    He turned back at Uncle Celve and noticed that he seemed to be thinking hard about something.  He waited until he was finished.

    “You know what, kiddo,” started Uncle Cleve, “Trev and I are just going to be a few yards away . . . and we’re gonna be fishing the entire night, so . . .”  James’s eyes widened.  “You wanna stay here for tonight?”

    James paused in his mind for a moment.  This place really gave him the creeps, but it was his chance to be alone without Trev, or Momma, or Daddy, or Jessebelle or anybody around to barge in on him.  The only privacy he would be sharing was with the creatures who already dwelled here.  He glanced back at the hollow tree trunk and studied it more closely.  It looked perfect for his size — as if Uncle Cleve had picked it out especially for him out of a large variety of them all lined up on the shelves of a toy store.

    “Can I?  Really?  You’d let me?” he implored, just like the child he was.

    “Sure, why not?” said Uncle Cleve, coming over and kneeling down next to James by the hollow.  “You know, when I was growing up, your father and I used to always go to this one, tiny cave out in the woods a few miles from our house, and play, and play, and play all afternoon until the sun set.  And we were crushed when we came home from summer camp one day and found out that we’d grown so much that we couldn’t fit inside!”  Uncle Cleve laughed slightly.  “Dad mad it into a dog house for our Growleth when we eventually got one.”  He then seemed to go off into an universe that was nothing but stayed time in itself.  He looked down at the swamp floor for a second, but then looked back up and tired to beam a happy grin at James.  “Anyway . . . I thought, ‘hey, what the hell,’ and decided to let you have the same amount of fun.”  He stopped himself.  “But, ahh . . . I’m sorry, kiddo.  I’m gonna have to take Trev with me.  I’m teaching him how to fish, you know.”  He smiled.

    James smiled back and switched glances from his new fort to his uncle.

    “Yeah, I know.  Thanks, Uncle Cleve.  I’ll see you in the morning.”  James said quietly (for, he was still a little astonished and uneasy at the same time with this new surprise he was given.  He couldn’t remember the last time someone gave him a present that was worthwhile and from the heart — he didn’t even think he could remember one at all).

    Uncle Cleve smiled again.  “Roger that, kiddo.  ‘Night.”  And, with that, he reached out and pulled James into a clumsy hug — and James embraced back.  James’ temples were pressed against his uncles as he tightened his grip on him, not rally wanting to let him go.  He had this funny feeling in his tummy as he realized that Uncle Cleve had never hugged him before . . . hand barely even touched him.  But he knew it wasn’t just that.  He felt this really bad vibration pounding at his brain that he just didn’t want to ignore.  It hurt . . . it hurt so bad, that James let out a little cry.

    Uncle Cleve pulled away immediately.  “Oh, it’s alright, kiddo.  We’re just goin’ over there.  I’ll see you in the morning.”  He didn’t offer for James to come back, and James’ feeling grew worse.  It felt like all of this had happened before — he just couldn’t remember.

    All James could do to answer was simply nod and cast a quick smile at him, half accepting, half afraid.

    “Okay . . .” Cleve smiled and tousled his moppy blue hair playfully.

    “Night-night, Jay,” called Trev from Uncle Cleve’s hipbone.

    “Goodnight, Trevor.”  He wanted to study his features for some reason, take him in.  Remember him.  He didn’t want him to leave, either.  Neither of them.

    “Uncle Cleve,” James called just as both of them were out of sight.

    Cleve stumbled backwards towards the entrance of the territory that belonged to the tree.  “Yeah?”

    James caught his breath, wanted to say something to make him stay.  “Um.”  James gulped.  “Why don’t you stay here with me?  So you won’t have to stay in the car tonight.” he added quickly.

    Uncle Cleve just sighed and cast a sad smile and James.  “It’s really alright, kiddo.  I like sleeping in the car anyway . . . don’t be afraid.  Nothing bad is going to happen to you.  I promise,” he said, looked James in the eyes as he said these words, then turning and focusing on the inky, slimy floor of the swamp, pretending to concentrate on where to place his boot.

    James looked down at his clenched hands.  He didn’t realize that they were squeezed so tightly, that when he opened them later, he found crescent moon nailprints where they had dug into his fair skin

    “Why do you like the car so much?” James asked next, without thinking.

    Cleve stopped once again, turned around and smiled.

    “Well, you know what they say, kiddo.  Old habits die hard.”

    He shuffled his way back through the forest then, with James unnoticeably looking at him from behind.  He felt like they were going away forever . . .
    
    The next morning came in a blur, a dizzy, like he had fallen out of a dream that he couldn’t remember.   He was momentarily confused as he opened his eyes to the sight of the side of a hollow, wooden tree trunk blankly staring at him as if he were new, but welcome.  He squinted his eyes and sat up quickly.  Where was he?

    Oh . . . yes.  Yeah, now he remembered.  He inhaled the new, dew-filled air around him, smelled other animals and tree shit.  It was new . . . different.  But he liked it, a lot.  He smiled as he studied an early morning squirrel fidget nervously around him, looking for a cracked, rotten shell to chew through so it could devour it’s seed.  A crack in the distance by another animal, and the squirrel disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, scurrying up a tree and out of sight.

    And his mind, as tired as it was, seemed to buzz with a new inspiration that he had never felt before.  He felt the sudden urge to draw and never stop.  What was this sudden release?  This abrupt push into his imagination?

    The swamp grass crackled and shuffled under him as he shifted his weight from the ground and crawled out, dusting himself off, and headed back to the car, alive and refreshed with new ideas.
    
    Before he saw the car hidden behind a grove of Spanish Moss, he could smell the blood tickling his senses.  It would say later in the autopsy report that Uncle Cleve had used a jack on Trevor’s face — and even though he had killed h im within the first blow, he had hit him three more times after that.  Then Cleve had taken the pills.

    As he approached the secret place where Uncle Cleve had parked the car, the only thing that could properly function within hi mind was the question, “What is this?”

    He saw the slumped figure of his uncle in the car, hoped he was still sleeping.  He was resting . . . he had to be.  There was no way he could let this picture remind him of the drawing he had created two days ago.  No way.  But his skin looked paler and cold even from far away.  James didn’t notice that he had stopped in his tracks when he first saw the pathetic, folded body hunched over against the steering wheel, his hands in place as if he were about ready to drive out of there and leave James under that tree.

    James could barely hear the soft, whimpering moans coming out himself as he scurried over to the rear car door, shaking his head as if he were denying the whole situation.  The car smelled of blood and urine, he noticed as he opened he heavy car door as much as he could before peeking in his upper torso, just to come face to face with an enlarged body like the one in his drawing.

    Trevor’s eyes were glued shut, crusted with crumbs of blood that was still sticky and moist at the side of his head.  His little hands were clenched together around his lap where a big, yellow stain had soaked into his clothing.  And James almost instinctively looked down to find the jaded, bloody jack on the floor, right by Trevor’s feet.

    One more look at the unrealistic features of the boy’s death and James just couldn’t . . . he gasped and backed away and let the tears slide down his cheeks.  He couldn’t move.  The only thing he had enough energy to do was let every joint in his legs buckle and let him crumple down to the floor and cry, cry . . . shake his head no . . . let the sobs shackle his body, tiredly.

    This wasn’t happening . . . James tried to laugh . . . none of this was real.  He was just having a bad dream, just another nightmare in Birdland . . . it was nothing more .  Hell, he was in Southern Louisiana . . . this just had to be Birdland.  Just Birdland . . . just a dream.  Dream . . . no . . . dreaming . . . no . . . no, no, no, no . . . he shook his head.  Closed his eyes for a moment . . . the only thing there was the picture right in front of him.  Dammit . . . he shot his eyes open and looked away, spotted a rock a little over to his left, crawled over and curled up in a fetal position before realizing that he had settled right in view of Trevor’s body.  He didn’t care . . . he would be seeing it later anyway.  Parents . . . too tired to think of what they would do.  Didn’t want to think . . . curled up back again and let his head fall between his legs, closed his eyes and tried to imagine blackness . . . just the old darkness that he loved so much . . . the dark was the only think that was comforting now . . . anything without colors would do fine . . . just fine . . . don’t think, James.  Just sleep it all away . . . please, just . . . sleep . . . away . . . away . . .

    The police had found him there eight hours later, still curled up.  They thought, at first, that the poor boy ad died of fright (before he finally did come to), because he wasn’t responding to their shoves into consciousness in the beginning.  Somebody had conveniently been driving along their way when they noticed what looked like an abandoned car and a figure inside slumped over the wheel like a stuffed dummy.  The call had come in about an hour ago and the figures of Cleve and Trevor looked even more morbid than when James had first discovered them . . . Trev already had maggots nesting in the remains of his soft, decaying flesh, while Cleve’s face just seemed to sleep through his decadent.  James remembered seeing Trev’s face one more time in the sick, sweetly lit light of the police flashlights as they shined directly at the corpse, a camera flash pulsing momentarily on those shut eyes like a heartbeat.  Flash . . . flash, flash . . . flash.

    He couldn’t keep his eyes off him.

    The only ting that he really remembered in perfect detail after that was being isolated in his room for almost a month (except for one day when he was allowed out to be taken to the funeral).  He didn’t, and wasn’t, allowed out for the sake of his poor soul being terrified of every voice that whispered, every pin that dropped.  And for that month, darkness evaded his room like bats would a cave.  It hung over him, screeching in his ear, shitting on his head, dwelling in his mood.  James didn’t like the bats.  They were something to turn the lights out for, something he wished be gone from his mind.

    But he remembered the hats, eventually, one by one, digging little holes in his ceiling and walls and escaping the barrier of his prison that, for once, he didn’t mind being locked away in.

    James had never recovered (or even had a nice way of dealing with it for that matter), but had been kept quiet with monocracy of the voices and the gifts inside of him.  James was forced to open up his mind more, let his hand do the talking — most of the time drawing out the slaughtered figure of his cousin, or the sleeping silhouette of Cleve.  He dew them so much that he didn’t think about it anymore . . . he just drew.  He drew even after it was forgotten for the most part, and never spoken of until that one day a year where James dreamed up the sequence of it all happening again.  The funeral had been too much for him already . . . was there really a reason for him to see it all over again, and again, and again, and again . . . ?

    He hadn’t even started coming to the grave until just six years ago.  He had been too scared up until then.  Jesse had gone with him the first time, and the second . . . and third.  But not the fourth, or the fifth, and now, at the sixth, he was still as alone as one could be, standing with a rose in one hand, the other in his pocket.

    He dropped the rose on the grave.  Yellow: for apology and peace.  Funny thing was . . . he didn’t feel sorry.

    He felt a rain drop sting him on his nose, and he automatically looked up to into the gray clouds and knew they had waited long enough.  It was time for him to go, an time for it to rain.  And it was then, Mother Earth decided the same thing.  So, as if to protect James from the confusing twist of pain he was causing himself, she released her warning over him, drenching him almost immediately in her hard tears of empathetic terror.  James turned around and started heading back through the cemetery, passing noisy and unrestful graves along the way.  He quickened his pace to avoid the voices he tried not to hear, to escape the past and runaway from everyone else’s.  he didn’t feel like dealing with another nightmare tonight.  He decided to advert his mind from the unreal and illusion-ed voices he heard coming from wet, fresh graves, and tried to enjoy the rain he was given.

    He passed the cruelly twisted iron gate which had the name in gothic font, “Adams Eve Cemetery” scribbled almost carelessly in-between the entwined metal strings that coveted the ancient exit of the Realm of the Dead.  He felt an uneasy release as he dashed through the egress, not looking back, but anxiously keeping his eyes on the road, wondering whether or not Trevor and Uncle Cleve would appear before him (and part of him wishing they would).

    It wasn’t Uncle Cleve or Trevor he saw come out before him, but instead, an old ‘79 Station Wagon with rusted, gray and yellow chipped paint smothering the exterior rolled up o the curb and sent him stopping in his tracks immediately.  It rolled down it’s window, but James could still see n one in the drivers seat, even as he stepped closer to it and peered into the window as far as he could without having to crouch down  he felt a pang of uneasiness as a voice roared out of the darkness of the car’s interior and kindly asked, “Hey man, need’a ride?”  The voice sounded light and stressed under the sound of the rain, and James began to get the feeling that it wasn’t Uncle Cleve at all.

    James bent down and leaned in through the passenger side window, and studied the figure at the wheel.  He had messy black hair all shuffled out of shape like Edward Scissorhands’, and his compact, sturdy appearance reminded him of what Trev might look like all grown up.  His expression seemed to be a little impatient, yet compassionate at the same time — as if he knew precisely why James had gone in there, or at least had a pretty good idea of how depressed he may be feeling as a person who had just walked out o a cemetery, completely drenched in rain, could feel.

    James took his eyes off the somehow familiar face and stared at the back of the Station Wagon.  Old comic books were still spread out over the leather seat and he recognized the title of one, “Incident in Jackson,” it read.  A giant stain of what seemed to be Trevor’s blood was splotched on the bottom of the seat, soaking into the back, remaining there forever.  The car smelled old — like memories.  It smelled of old beer, blood, urine, and the undying, wind-captured air of the beach of Grand Isle all mixed together.  James looked up and to his right into the car rearview mirror; and before he saw the angry hazel eyes of Uncle Cleve flash and disappear in the rectangular figure of the glass, he spotted a green pine tree hanging carelessly from a string.  He felt like he was six again.

    “So?” came the voice again.  James took his stunned eyes from the mirror and planted them on the man he seemed to know so well.  “Where to?”

    James inhaled.  “Uh . . . anywhere in Old Metairie.”  He suddenly remembered Jesse and that he was supposed to meet her at a charming little café they had seen entering the town.  He had means of telling her something very important today . . . and now he wished he hadn’t come here.  If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have just lost the nerve to go through with what he was planning.  For, he couldn’t possibly do it now.  He had grown all shakey and sick in the past 15 minutes and he now had no intention of telling her at all how he felt.  He thought about the coffee, instead.

    James lifted the rusty, old handle and swung the car door wide open, seating himself on the passenger side, realizing that he had never sat on this side of the car before.  He looked to his side for the sake of seeing, again, the soul who he couldn’t seem to keep steady around.  But, instead, of seeing the dark-haired man, he was within arms reach of old Uncle Cleve, his hand gripping the gear stick and his eyes fixed on James.

    James gasped, leaned back, slowed his heartbeat, smiled slightly.  “You never could give up the car, could you, Cleve?” he spoke quietly.

    Uncle Cleve just smiled.  

    He turned and fixed his eyes on the road and jerked the gear stick in a direction that James could vividly remember him doing on several times before.

    James gave a huff caught somewhere between laughter and amazement.

    “What, man?”

    James flashed back to the dark -haired mans’s black eyes and blinked several times before he decided to speak again.  “Huh?”

    The man shrugged.  “Uh, I was just apologizing for the mess inhere.  Just found this car out by the bayou, covered with kudzu and everything.  Engine still worked though, so I decided to take’er with me.  Runs like a kitten.  I don’t know why anyone would wanna trash’er.”  He paused.  “What’s your name, kid?”

    Once James found his voice, he answered timidly, yet surely at the same time, “Trevor.”

    He nodded.  “Zac.  Um, where to again?” he queried, stretching his neck out to peer into James’s eyes.  James thought instantly of an inquisitive giraffe.

    “Old Metairie.”

    “Any street in particular?”

    “No.”

    “Well, alright then.  Old Metairie it is.”  Zac drew his gaze over and seemed to admire the slippery, dark surface of the wet cement road.  And James saw him (out of the corner of his eye) knock the gear stick into the familiar sequence Uncle Cleve had, felt him back out, and speed off on the gravely, deadly black road that resembled a murky vein pulsing near the death of the cemetery’s memories — memories that had died long ago, but still spoke to James in dreams.

    James turned and looked out of the car window.  His eyes fell lost as he realized how well he had remembered everything.  Ever since he was six James knew what it was like to visit a grave once a year.  It reminded him of turtles — how they would always travel to this one island (no matter where or how far away they were at the time) just to lay eggs an get together like a family reunion (and this explanation made it seem like the turtles were mingling with the other over dinner and a fine wine, trading events in detail like civilized humans).  But, unlike most reunions, his never changed.  He still got that hunched, closed-off feeling as he entered the cemetery, trying to ignore all graves but the one he had traveled so far to come before — just like a turtle with it’s islands.  But, he also remembered the same sequence, over and over again in his mind, as it repeated itself as if there were no tomorrow.  Every year he saw the swamps again, every year he saw Trevor’s smashed in face again; and every year he saw that car again.  That car that had so much revolving around it: the life and death of a human being.  A whole life.  

    And he remembered how tired he was of it.  All of it.

    But, as the feeling of being in an old memory sunk back into his state of mind )and even began to comfort him in the oddest ways), James found himself reflecting back on his Grandpapa and all that he had said about Grandmother.  She didn’t love James like Grandpa loved him.  He and Grandpa were special and had been the same person since the beginning of time. Grandmama was always sitting in her rocking chair, gaping out of the window and onto the streets of the quiet likes of Sunnytown where she had stayed all her son’s life and James’.  Had she been waiting for Cleve to return to her someday?  Or was she remembering and trying to literally *be* at the place where she had once given birth at?

    *Did she miss that place more than she loved Grandpapa?* James had often wondered, as he stole glances at her from the corner of his eye while he listened half-raptly at the stories Grandpa had told him of her and their marriage and his life before then . . . what it was like afterwards . . . hat he must’ve done wrong to end up with son’s like the one’s Marilyn gave him — if they were even his.  James hadn’t believed the look in Grandfather’s eyes when he told him the story of how wonderful it felt seeing his kids for the first time — because he didn’t think that those where his son’s at all.  They were created from some un-willful egg and hungry sperm who just wanted a good fill.  And they knew it.

    Grandfather had never told James why Marilyn had come back.  Truth be told, he knew nothing of it more than James did.  He hadn’t asked.  He would get nothing but lies for an answer.  “Because . . . I missed you . . .” was what he would hear.  But, perhaps it was *really* because she had nowhere else to go.

    A tear slid down James’ cheek, but he stopped himself for fear of being found out.  He didn’t feel like crying in front of anyone as long as Jesse wasn’t with him.  For some reason, it made him feel safe being under her wing (which, deep down, he knew wasn’t really going to make the tears go away until she kissed him . . . which hadn’t yet happened).  He told himself he could hold it in until he arrived at the café.

    He felt eyes resting on him, and they were bothering him because he couldn’t stand it when people stared at him for that long at time.  People had always stared at him funny (maybe it was because they knew how f**ked up he was).  He slowly and timidly turned his head and torso to face the driver who he had thought was too good to be true.

    “What is it?” James asked him, his voice dry and cracked from trying to hold back as many tears as there was rain.

    “You don’t look like Trevor,” was what he heard come out of that mouth.

    “What?”

    “I said, you don’t look like a Trevor.”

    James sighed.  He needed to stop thinking about this for right now.  He obviously couldn’t carry on an intelligent conversation with those things stuck in his head.

    “Well, then, what do I look like?”  He tried to sound cool.

    Zac ginned and let his tongue clean the teeth behind those lips.  He tool one more glance at the road before turning back to James to answer.  “I’d say . . .”  James kept silent.  Waited for an answer.  “Eh, you really look like an Andrew or a . . . a Cleve.  Yeah . . . a Cleve.  You look more like a Cleve than you do a Trevor and Andrew put together.”

    James scoffed almost silently and fixed his eyes on the road.  “A Cleve, huh?”

    “Yep.”

    “Well, um.  What about a . . . a James?”

    Zac turned to face him for a moment and seemed to take him in, to study him.  “Ehh . . . nah.”

    “No?”

    “Nope.  You look like too much of a wreck to be called a James.”

    James laughed.  “Oh . . .” he trailed off with a healthy voice.  “I see.”

    “So, what happened, man?”

    James turned to him after taking in another dose of the sleek, snakey road.  “Huh?”

    “Out there.  Who’s grave were you visiting?”

    For a moment he partially hyperventilated, catching his breath quietly and making his heart skip a few beats, then quicken as he tried to think of what to tell him.  What should he say to this stranger he knew so well?

    “Uh . . . no one’s really.”

    “Just lookin’ around, man?”

    James looked down at his lap.  He had been wearing a gray suit the entire day out of respect, but at the moment looked more like a dumped prom date without a boutonniere than a well mannered relative coming back from a visit in a graveyard.  “Yeah . . .” he answered in a haze.

    Zac frowned a little, knowing he had lied.  But then he reminded himself how little a time he’d known this guy.  What else was he to do? . . . He would have done the same think, and he knew it. “Yeah, well . . . we all do that sometimes.”

    James laughed slightly, waited.  “Will we ever stop?” he asked curiously.

    He looked up almost hopefully at Zac’s face to search for a sign of understanding, or at least some trace of sympathetic feelings, but Zac had his eyes on the beloved road in front of him.  He inhaled and shrugged.

    “Uh.  Well, you know what they say.  Old habits die hard.”  He threw the stick into first gear after a red light.

    James smiled again.

    “Sure do Cleve.  Sure do.”
    

The End

AUTHOR'S NOTE: told ya'