Only the Message Mattered 2

If this were that kind of book, the messenger would have run up to Meria and given her they envelope at his dying moment. Cue the overly dramatic, symphonic music. Meria would look at the envelope, at the dead messenger and understand, somehow, that this envelope was her life now.

But real life was much less dramatic.

The messenger was a boy, eleven or twelve with shaggy hair and an earnest expression and a manilla envelope held in both hands like a pane of glass. The scene: a flourescent rest stop in South Carolina, Meria and Quincy devouring subs as people moved around them.

The boy approached nervously. Can it be them? O, he'll kill me if I'm wrong, he'll kill me... "Excuse me, I think you dropped this?"

Quincy Maria, ever blunt: "Nope."

Meria: "Sorry."

The boy shifted weight, shifted again, his eyes here and there, on this and that. Quincy shooed him with her hand but he remained. "Are you sure?"

"Whatever." Meria took the envelope and the boy sighed heavily, his big eyes still earnest but happier. "Don't you have parents or something?" and the shaggy messenger nodded (liar) and went off. Would be be alright, Meria wondered in spite of herself.

"Let's get this show on the road," Q said, slapping her thighs and standing. "We got places to go and people to see." Eyebrows went up. 'Too many cliches?"

"Hold on a sec." Opening the envelope, sliding out the piece of yellow legal paper which would change her life.



"Quincy? How far is New Orleans?"
...........................................

Much later the boy fished Santo's quarters out of his pocket and paid for his call. "I gave it to someone," he said without preamble.

"And will they follow?"

"I don't think so."

"Good boy. How about the other thing?"

"Not yet."

"Well, hurry up then!"

"Yeah."

"And Dominic?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you." Santo laid the phone on the receiver ever so gently and lay back on the bed, staring all the while at the noose hanging from the panelled ceiling. It was good to know that it was there, in case he needed it.

Time passed in a sort of jagged line for a while, which was all right. Santo considered calling home, but decided against it, considered calling Dominic but - how then, idiot, he's a street kid with only the bus money you gave him.

Crisis in my soul, crasis in my speech,
crazy in my veins

The words rose unbidden in him and he rolled to one side, flipped to a new page in the yellow legal pad and scribbled at the right hand side of the page. Then:


...............................................................................

Charleston, South Carolina. Hot hot streets, marshes, bridges, lulls. Meria, she of books and loneliness, wished only to stay in the air conditioned car - cue the new-age relaxation music - but QMT the brave insisted -

"When in the south, Meria, do as the... who do?"

Uh

"As the confederates did."

"Promote ratial inequality?"

"Drink! I'll be back. Road trip will continue after merriment."

Oh but the poor girl, she'd get drunk and fall over and die, so Meria slid out of the car (whom she secretly thought of as Pope Innocent, Quincy's mistrust of Christianity notwithstanding) and followed the brunesse Q into the city. Damn it.

Santo on her brain.

Seven days graduated, her diploma still in a little roll on the kitchen counter at home, thoroughly without future, alone. And fascinated by the tight scrawl on the legal paper, fascinated by the boy (had to be a boy, didn't it). What had he said?

Stare into the twin barrels of my future

Now that was poetry, better than Emily fucking Dickenson.

A bar! Q whooped, and they went in to Silberfisch, Q flashing her fake ID like a pro and Meria fumbling with hers - she'd only ever used it to buy cigarettes, before she was eighteen - and then she was in a dark, quiet, low space with music barely audible coming from some hidden speakers.

"Keystone," Q ordered at once to the black man behind the black counter. To Meria: "What's your drink, Two-shoes?"

Uh,

"And a Corona for the Luddite."

Meria: Incorrect use of the word Luddite, but still, Q even knew the word! The bartender slapped the beers down on the counter and Q and Meria carried them over to a table; Meria held hers at a distance.

"It's not gonna eat you, loser, it's actually supposed to go the other way around."

"Why are we friends again?"

"Bottoms up, bottom feeder."

Cheers; them Meria's mouth was full of fizzy, limey, sour beer - ick - and o shit her mouth was empty and the beer was on Q's blouse instead.

"What the fuck?"

"Q, that's disgusting?"

"What, beer or the fact that you just spewed beer all over me? Try this one." Keystone proffered.

"Like hell."

Q stood and signaled the barman. "Yeah. Can we get a caiperinha, too? Lots of sugar." The man laughed.