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41 Ty's Story

“The dreams started about a year ago. Not quite, more like seven months. Shortly after Ty’s birthday. He turned twelve… When he first came to us—me and my wife, that’s Trisha—I should have realized something was wrong.

“We— I should have paid more attention to what was happening, but I was a fucking idiot, so obsessed with work. I am, or was, a political analyst. You know, it was the start of the homestretch to the election. A lot was at stake, and everybody wanted to know where they stood with the public. During the day, I conducted focus groups for a few state seats, even a couple national seats, and then at night, I worked until two or three in the morning analyzing polls. The rise of the Security Party spooked the fuck out of me. I kept telling myself I was doing it for my country, for my family’s future. And the money was good too. Political types pay in gold for a peek into the psyche of the electorate.

“I never had much growing up in the projects. So, once you find a vein, you mine that for all it’s worth. Know what I’m saying?

“We needed it cause we’d just bought a house in Raleigh, and Trish…”

Bridger paused and looked down at the steaming cup in his hands. His eyes were wild, tracing the visuals of the memories crashing through his mind.

“She always wanted to be a doctor. Christ, she was brilliant, you know, but a lot of brilliant people fucked up and sipped the violet nectar… She was starting her residency when she relapsed. They say once you hit L3 there’s no going back, but we got her in a program. So, yeah, money. That shit’s topping ten grand a vial back east.

“Back then, my biggest fear was a street sweep by the cops. Knutson was supposed to be a Lib, right? Well, even the most affluent neighborhoods in Raleigh aren’t safe for a Black kid. I knew I was letting him run around too much, hanging out with the wrong crew. They all want to be little Gs, tough little shits. I guess I justified it with the idea that we were living the American dream—fuck that was all in my head. Career blindness, right? Upwardly mobile. Take life head-on and to hell with everything.

“I missed all the signals. Fuck me. Just fuck me. He tried to talk to me. Tried to let me know what he was dealing with. But…

“I remember one night, I’d been at the center. They had Trish strapped down, so I was all fucked up in my own goddamn soup. He came into our room and wanted to sleep with me. He said he was scared of something. So whatever, right? I let him sleep. And then the next night was the same. And the next… The school shrink…” He looked at Alan. “Sorry, I mean the counselor, hair as blue as a motherfucking Smurf. She said it wasn’t a good idea, that letting him sleep with me could really mess him up. That he needed to confront the monsters under his bed. That cunt looked at me like I was the monster. She had herself a little chat with Ty.” He laughed and shook his head, staring, unblinking. It looked like he could slap or spit on the face of the school guidance counselor.

“Where do you guys pull that shit from? Sorry. I’m sure you’re a good one.”

“I quit,” Alan said.

“Good for you. So, the next time, I made him stay in his room. I heard him screaming, but I didn’t go to him, and I didn’t let him come to me. He had to confront his monsters. The screaming got worse. It got into my head. Then it stopped. He got quiet. His whole life got quiet.

“After that, he didn’t beg anymore. He didn’t call out to me. He barely ever spoke. I should have talked to him then, because I knew. Knew in the back of my head that something wasn’t right. A dad knows when his kid is in danger, that gut feeling.”

Alan rubbed his face and looked across the truckers’ lounge. The Greta was staring at him.

“But the primaries were coming up fast, and Allgood and the SP just kept getting stronger and stronger.

“And that’s when it broke. I was at work when I got a call from his school that he’d been in a fight. So I rush down there, and the cops are there, and the paramedics are there. They call me into the school nurse’s office where they have him on the table. His chest is covered in bandages, bruises all up and down his side. We asked him what happened, but he didn’t want to talk. We finally got something out of him. He said he was jumped during lunch but wouldn’t say by who. When we tried to get names, he just clammed up and shook his head. I knew he was being bullied a little bit. He’s not into the macho thing, you know… soft-spoken, but I didn’t think it had gotten that bad. When I would drop the names of kids I knew were the assholes, he’d just shake his head and say, ‘Not them.’ That was months ago, and as you can see, it looks like it just happened. They don’t heal. The cuts still bleed. Can you believe that? After six fucking months, the cuts still bleed.

“And then the nightmares really got bad. Every night, the screaming would start. He refused to sleep. I’d find him at the window, staring out at something I couldn’t see. That went on… It started happening during the days, too. I didn’t have a choice. I had to partially quit my job. I’d do what work I could from home. Every time I checked the cut on his chest, it wasn’t healing, even with antibiotics. But then I started to notice more cuts, the ones on his legs, and the burns. Like someone had taken a cigarette to him. He would just sit by the window looking out. I couldn’t take it anymore. I shook him. I needed answers. He started talking about this Maji. He’d say, ‘The Maji, need to find the Maji.’ He said he dreamt about him, said that he could find him, that he was showing him the way. He said that he had to find him, before they found him.

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“They, those things, came for his dreams. I didn’t know. I tried to get him to talk to people, but he wouldn’t. I thought maybe… that maybe, it had something to do with his mom.

“Trish, she started her spin before we met. I knew she was using it when she was pregnant. Maybe it really hurt the baby, right? Like crack babies, spin babies, huh?

“She… she didn’t make it.”

Tears started to come. The man wiped them away. Little Joe handed him a red and white checkered napkin.

“She’d been home for a while at that time. The symptoms of the spin, they trick you, makes you think they’re on the mend. Nah, they’re just hiding, waiting for you to let your guard down. That fucking drug. That fucking goddamn drug! It came from hell, you know? It was made in the Devil’s laboratory.

“It had been a really bad night for Ty. We were both up all night, trying to calm him. We had a fight that morning. She thought he needed to be institutionalized. I disagreed, strongly. She left the house, and I didn’t care. I never saw her again until the cops showed me… the video.”

Bridger Washington started to sob. Little Joe gave him a box of tissues.

“She took the long walk into eternity. That’s what they say, all those spinners. Oh, Christ. She was on the tracks. Of course, the train couldn’t stop. She just opened up her arms…”

Gwen put a hand on his shoulder. Nash walked away, rubbing his neck. Alan sat there and looked at him. The Greta was still staring at him. The boys were playing the big arcade game in the far corner, out of earshot.

“I stopped blaming myself for her. I loved her, but she chose her path the day she started to spin. They take and take, but you got to let them go. I had to worry about Ty. He’s my everything.

“The cops actually questioned me. They thought I was hurting him. How do you explain wounds that never heal? I’m not a religious person, but I started researching things, like stigmata. Every day, I’d study his body, and every day, there was another scar, a jab, a little nick, a burn. I’d bathe and dress his wounds.

“On top of it all, the panic, the fear, pacing by the window as if something was coming. Not often anymore, but from time to time, he’d mention the Maji, this Maji. That boy came to him in his dreams. I’m convinced he’s the only thing that kept Ty going.

“Fuck, he’s only a boy. He was getting quieter with his suffering. He was giving up. I could feel it. Giving up on me. And I was afraid, like his mom, he was giving up on life. I never told him about her Escape habit or her suicide, but he found out, or he knew. I don’t know how.

“He scared the hell out of me one time at the window when he was staring out there into the darkness, looking for whatever was after him. He said, ‘Dad, Mom found a way out. She stopped the pain.’ Fucking Christ, what was my child thinking?

“I searched online, nothing. I asked an old friend who was an English professor into old languages, you know? She told me Latin and Greek mageia, which referred to Persian priests known as the Magi, sorcery, conjuring, illusion. She traced it even further back to ancient Babylonian magush, and from there to Proto-indo-European magh, which meant ‘to have a power,’ used to mean wise man, like the root of magician.”

Little Joe suddenly spoke up, “It’s older still, and not of this world.” He looked disturbed by Bridger’s story. Maybe he’d been crying, too. His eyes were red.

“What do you mean?” asked Gwen.

“It comes from the other side of the Veil.”

“You know what you’re suggesting, Little Joe?” Alan asked.

“I know exactly what I’m suggesting. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Shakespeare said that one, so it’s got to be true. You can follow the history all the way back to when it was first uttered by human lips, but I tell you, it’s not of this world.”

“What does it mean?” Gwen asked.

“Maji is a story of suffering,” said Little Joe

“A story of suffering,” echoed Bridger. “You want to know what fucking suffering is?” His eyes fell on Ty across the room. “I’d give anything, anything, so that my son could sleep for one night without the dreams. He just kept saying, ‘I need to find the Maji. I need to find the Maji.’

“Throughout all this, I always maintained that there was a perfectly rational explanation for what was happening to him. Then, one day, about a month ago, I was driving him to the hospital. I was going to do it. I was going to put him in a padded room and beg them to sedate him—anything to take the pain away, to stop him from trying to end it himself.

“I noticed a car following us. I’m not exactly sure what alerted me, but whenever I turned, there was this same black car behind me. And Ty gets like really nervous, looking behind us. And he looks at me, and he knows I see it, and he says, ‘Dad, it’s them.’ So I kill the self-drive and speed up a little. As soon as I do, it speeds up too. So I think, shit, what is this? Then I turn and try to get onto one of the busier streets, and a few cars back, it gets on the same road. I decided to go home, and if they showed up at the house, I’d call the cops. But little Ty grabs my hand, and he says, ‘Dad, we can’t go home. They found me. They finally found me.’

“The tone in his voice, unlike anything I’ve ever… The sound of your child with fear in his words, every hair on my body stood on end, and I knew what fear was. He was looking at me with his beautiful big eyes, eyes just like his mom’s, eyes I could stare into forever, and something happened. Something in my mind just busted, and I felt what he was feeling.

“That car behind us, I was able to see the danger it posed. I didn’t know what was in it, or who was driving, but I knew. I knew it wanted Ty. It was then I decided—fuck it! Fuck it all. I’d lost my wife, I’d lost my job, I was not going to lose my son. I decided to try something different and trust in him. So I asked him, ‘Ty, where do we go?’ and he said, ‘We just have to find the Maji.’ I said, ‘Okay, tell me where to go,’ and he told me, and I drove.

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