Evacuating the Jackal

Evacuating the Jackal

  “Dr. Tim... Mama’s almost ready.”

  A muffled shout comes through the door; it was my turn in the rotation to use the drill. Today I am talking with Travis. Travis would have been a millionaire, A philanthropist, an island owner, an adulterer, an amputee, a sweatshop manager in Nigeria, and directly responsible for the murder of thousands of children. Travis will be evacuated.

  I open the door to the pale room. There is no scenery, no décor, there is only a bed, a milk crate, and an empty mason jar of grape jelly. A window in the corner brings in overcast.  Thaddeus immediately gives me mama’s odds of survival, a routine that we have adopted to loosen the layered mucus pounding the air. Travis moves to the corner closest to the window, this is probably for the best.

  “…based on size, weight, hair color, breast size, color of socks and number of times she has said ‘goddammit’ in succession, she’ll be dead in… 45 minutes”

  I barely hear the number…

  “You took that square didn’t you bastard…  Barry’s gonna be pissed… you took his money the last two times” I say this in a deepening preoccupied trance, my eyes fixed on the task at hand.

    Travis is beginning to yell, his ghostly frame beginning the slow disintegration process, soon his screams will rival a jackals’, I try very hard not to listen to the jackals.

  I now see through his pancreas. The window frames a horizon that I have pictured in a puzzle, two tiles in a brittle mosaic butting against each other waiting for the slightest change in pressure and the shattering sounds of starting all over again.

  The door opens with a creak and the language is a new one. The mansion settles back into the Earth. Barry and his large crucifix dangle in front of the mother, behind me.

  “What’s up?” Barry had his hands in his pockets, he very rarely showed them. Startled, I make the transition to reality as smooth as possible.

  “Thad, over there, took the 45 minutes square.” I said this to provoke an argument. I am good at provocation.
Barry made a small sound with his tongue clicking it against his teeth. Thaddeus knew that he was gonna get hit. Barry loved to show his hands when he hit Thaddeus.

  “How much was the pot?” Barry sounded like a metronome.

  “Well…Thad here said that it was enough to buy your sister for the evening.” I held out the last word and chopped up the syllables, Thad’s mouth flattened into an explosion of malice.

  Travis’s mouth has disappeared. He is trying to convince me that he is flesh and bone…with no opening in his face.
Travis’s mother has her socks on. Have you ever seen anyone writhe in pain with their socks on?

  Barry takes his hands out of his pockets and smacks Thaddeus with an open palm as if they were in a duel and he was impersonating Alexander Hamilton, his large, arthritic, carpenter knuckles leaving an extra sting. An open palm was totally unexpected.

  We have no time for this.

  There is no time for anything.

  I pick up the drill and put Hendrix on in my head. I close my eyes and begin a reluctant meditation, gently rubbing the mother’s cheek with the back of my hand.

  We throw prayers on her, we are cryptic on her, and in this world God should not exist.

  She stops moving and opens her eyes, a tired slurring is directed at me.

  “Where did you come from?” She is Spanish and her skin is the color of earth.

  Barry and his open palm quickly move front and center to redirect her eyes.

  “We’re here to collect a debt”

  She settles back down on the pillow in a frump, features relaxed, the tensing in her body has melted away. Our touch is not malicious; our breath is not a cushion for evil.

  My eyes curl and I become one with the mother. Those jackals devour Travis alive from the inside out as life is divorced from life.

  Travis is a shadow on the sun.

  Travis is a glacier in the desert.

  Travis has never been born.