II. The Dude entry.
Sarah was unstrapping her shoes as she sat on the sofa’s edge. Her long red hair concealed most of her face as she bent forward and reached down. Always hiding behind something, Murdoc thought. It made him want to swipe it violently away from her face. It also made him want to kiss her after. He didn’t know which she’d prefer. He never knew. Neither, he thought, did she. She either knew nothing or everything. Some heaven sent street prophet that had been to the mountain top and come back to have it’s truths beaten out of her, or a sexual savant too stupid to realize how inscrutability made one seem wise. Even covered in bruises.
He couldn’t believe how nonchalant she was being. They were coming to kill her and she was making herself more comfortable. Wise or stupid? Right now he was leaning towards the latter with a bullet. Except the bullet was pointed at her.
“You need to get out of here.”
She looked up and smiled as if he had made a cute suggestion too childish to reply to verbally.
“I mean it. Things could get ugly.”
She stood and ran her hands over the length of her dress to smooth its newly formed folds and wrinkles. She did it slowly too. Purposefully. Was she moving in slow motion? Sometimes it can seem that way when the adrenaline is pumping. Athletes have said so. This was life and death. Much bigger than a game. Certainly he could be forgiven for such a rush. Except that everything else was moving normally. Him, the car lights passing her apartment down below, the flicker of the muted T.V. All of it real time. No she knew what she was doing. And he suddenly took a step back into the omniscience camp he had spent much of his life regarding her from.
She said, “Can we not pretend we don’t know what’s going to happen here?” She walks to the kitchen alcove. “We’ve done this enough already.”
“There’s still danger,” he says ineffectually as she starts making herself a mixed drink.
“Not with my big bad protector here.” Her voice was without inflection. There was no teasing. The voice of a woman who had just woken up.
“I don’t even know why I’m here anymore.”
“Sure you do. you just don’t have the guts to admit it.”
“What does that mean Sarah?” She added some ice cubes, ignoring him. “Really! What the fuck does that mean?”
“Shut up and kill somebody for me Decker.”
He knew what she meant. It hurt coming form her. But he did feel like a robot or android sometimes. One who was programmed to kill. But he felt lower than that. Not as noble as the summation of centuries of science. More like a dog bred to kill. But selectively. Charles didn’t like killing anyone. He had never killed before that first time in 86. He only killed after for her. He wasn’t an angry person. Hadn’t been one of those violent kids you get an idea about because they liked to torment small animals. He had seizures as a kid. He didn’t remember them, but he had been told about them. Pretty nasty apparently. They had made him hurt himself a few times. But he’d never hurt anyone else. He was frail then. They always told him that. A frail kid that couldn’t hurt a fly.
Now he even thought of himself as being a kind man. And he wasn’t the only one. But when Sarah was in trouble it was like someone flipped a switch in his head and made him a killer. When he got a scent of her he became like a hounddog anticipating the hunt. He was bred for it. Genetically wired to destroy anything that threatened him. It had become one of the great enigmas of his life how this usually constituted anything that threatened Sarah. He had to defend her like he had to hate her. This was alot like the way he had to love her too. He wasn’t proud of it. In fact he hated himself for it. He’d tried to cut it out of himself. Tried to drink it out. To smother it like a bastard that should not have been. There was almost something god about the habit though. More than a hound on the hunt, though still a dog. Sometimes he felt like a dog licking his balls. He didn’t do it because he liked the taste, but rather because showers were not an option. He had not been bred for it. He was made to serve her and would do so for as long as he walked The Path.
The buzzer rang and a new thought occured to murdoc. “let’s go!” He shouted at her. She looked stunned for a moment before putting up her middle finger. “I’m through with this Sarah! I’m getting out of here before someone gets killed this time.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Nevertheless.”
“You can’t leave me baby.” She saw he was serious. “That’s not you Charlie. That’s not your Path.” He could actually hear the capitilization of that word.
“Says who?”
“Marcus.”
He hesitated. Marcus had brought him into the Path Of Fire, had raised his consciousness, given his life purpose. He was the promise that all this would end and he could have Sarah. Or be free of her. Either way. “You don’t know dick about Marcus.”
She smiled sympathetically. “Poor Charlie.”
“Poor Charlie is going down the fire escape! With or without you. He opened the kitcheen window and looked down. It was an alleyway, as he knew all too well it would be. He’d gone down it enough. But never like this. Never in retreat. He made sure no one was below or coming up the 3 stories. He lifted a leg over the sill and reached a hand out for her. “Coming?”
“You’re serious,” she said incredulously. “Do you have any idea of what you are doing? This isn’t how things are done on Easy Street.”
He felt a sudden desire to wait for laughter and shook it off. ” Could it be any worse? For either of us? I’m serious Sarah. Legacy serious.”
She saw that he was.
He heard a knock at the door. She looked back, wide eyed and with an unsettling touch of excitement tracing the outlines of her eyes and mouth as if expressions were stage props and she had reached for the wrong one.
“I don’t want this Charlie.”
“So let’s do something about it”
“I mean you. I don’t want you.”
If he was less accustomed to her hatefulness he would have shown the hurt he felt. But he had been in the bag of bad face props himself. That was the thing about Easy Street. Everyone seemed to be wearing something innapropriate. At least innapropriate for a place called Easy Street.
They were smashing the door. Loud thumps. She looked back, then to him, hair splashing cinematically about her. She took his hand and he helped her over and out into the night. As he lowered the window he heard the door give way, hit the wall beside it and bounce off. He heard two voices. They were not the ones he was expecting to hear. His mind was primed for the monotonous, deadpan tones of the minions for The Change. But the voice that he heard yell Sarah was more familiar. Familiar even after 19 years. He wished he could stay to be sure but they had to move. It wouldn’t take long for them to check the fire escape and Sarah was already half way down to the next flight.
One of their shadows started to breach the kitchens entrance, its long silhoutte almost as familiar as the voice. He saw the cigerette dangling from the mouth. The wide brimmed hat. No time! He turned and chased Sarah down to the next flight at once wanting to throw her off and embrace her in exultation.
Could it be? Could it really be Ackerman!
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