2020-05-05 - Telling Stories

(TXT to Joseph) Itzhak : hey. you want I should bring you something to eat?

(TXT to Itzhak) Joseph : I'm okay. Just at home in the apartment, now. Sleep helped a lot.

(TXT to Joseph) Itzhak : yeah? okay. I worry

(TXT to Itzhak) Joseph : I mean, yeah. Getting better. Roen had me doing stuff mentally the other day. I didn't realize mindspeech had such a long range.

(TXT to Joseph) Itzhak : oh, yeah, i could probably reach you from here. where here is elm street

(TXT to Joseph) Itzhak : it's the only one that works like that. I couldn't lift something where you are

(TXT to Itzhak) Joseph : How strange.

(TXT to Joseph) Itzhak : used to be able to. then we put Gohl in the ground and things changed.

(TXT to Itzhak) Joseph : Who's Gohl? I keep hearing that name mentioned, and I realize I don't know that story.

(TXT to Joseph) Itzhak : man. it's a crazy fucking story. want to meet up? tell you all about it.

(TXT to Itzhak) Joseph : Sure. Where are you thinking?

(TXT to Joseph) Itzhak : you're the invalid, whatever's good for you. I can come over, or pick you up even. ...I was gonna say today's kind of cold for riding that ugly ass bike of yours, but then I remembered you rode em in Russia

(TXT to Itzhak) Joseph : I wouldn't mind not driving. Or you can come over and hang out and we can order in. Javier can join us later, or we can all go out. I'm not so bad off I can't go anywhere. Sleep and drugs helped. Though you're right, there is no day too cold to ride a Ural.

(TXT to Joseph) Itzhak : sure, I'll come over, we can order in. it's cold and rainy so late in the goddamn year here. in New York right now it's seventy two degrees and sunny. be there in a few

(TXT to Itzhak) Joseph : I'd like that. Yeah, it's warm and pleasant in Savannah. Days like this, I miss it.

Not too long after, Itzhak knocks. In deference to the weather, he's wearing a soft black knit sweater, and despite Joe saying he didn't need him to bring food he's brought a pink deli box anyway. And, of course, he's brought an instrument. Actually two instruments, his cherry-red violin case slung over his back and a similar sized case carried by the handle. "Look, I'm Jewish, food is how we say we care," is his excuse for the deli box.

Joe, at home, is in jeans, browline glasses, and a t-shirt bearing the image of a curvaceous cosmonaut pinup girl, fingers up in a V-for-Victory gesture, riding what can only be Sputnik I. The bruises are fading into softer purples and yellows. "Looks good," he says, as he ushers Itz in.

The apartment is one of the smaller floor plans - everything that isn't the single bedroom is a big open space that's a combination of living, dining, and kitchen at one end. New and plain and with no real sign of the current occupant....other than the books. For there are bookshelves and those shelves are absolutely crammed, with more books scattered on the coffee table.

Itzhak's eyebrows pop up as he sees that shirt--then he's laughing, snickering into the back of his hand as he piles in. "Love the shirt." The deli box he sets down. It has bagels, a tub of thick-yet-fluffy cream cheese, and a smaller tub of lox trimmings (the little scraps that don't look pretty). His attention goes to the books as he sets things down. "You guys are both so into books," he mutters, half to himself. "It's awesome."

His smile's a little wan, but genuine enough. "It's kind of too silly for me to wear in public, so I sleep in it. It was a gift from a friend when I was living in Russia and kept bitching about how the Soviets get so little credit for all they did in space."

Then he's getting plates and glasses from the cabinets. "Whatcha want to drink? I've got lemonade, sweet tea, coke, water, orange juice...." No offer of harder drinks, that's for later. A glance back over his shoulder. "Always have been," he says, simply.

"Me too." Itzhak's attention is still drawn by the books; he's looking at them, letting his hands do things on their own. "Left alla mine in New York, been too fuckin' busy to replace 'em, mostly. Water's fine, thanks."

But then he follows Joe, like a little kid getting underfoot in the kitchen. "Look. Maybe it's none of my business, but..." Itzhak gestures at his own face. "Why'd he beat you up?"

Science fiction and fantasy, historical fiction and science: Cherryh and Tolkien and Le Guin and Effinger, Sabatini and Sagan. Space, of course, first and foremost: Collins and Kelly and Lebedev. Saint Exupery, not merely Le Petit Prince but his adult works, too. Some of them very old indeed: Carrying The Fire is a yellowed paperback, much repaired with binding tape. "I had them send them to me," he says. "I know I could buy more or download 'em, but I wanted mine."

Then Joe's looking back over his shoulder, from where he's pouring water into a glass. "Because we were fighting and he's a lot better at it than I am." No pretending they don't both know who he is.

Itzhak is at least practical enough to let Joe finish pouring, before he reaches out and sets his hand on Joe's face. Thumb under his chin, long fingers delicately investigating the yellowing bruises, not pressing to hurt. Then he makes a face at him for giving a non-answer, and lets him go. "Fine. But ya look like hell."

He might be a little caught between warring instincts: protect Joe, but protecting him from de la Vega isn't a thing, for so many reasons.

That way he has of going as still as an effigy on a tomb, blue eyes closing. Shadowed, there, the lines starker than ever - the last few weeks have been wearing, that's clar. He lets Itzhak touch him without flinching, without protest. "I know," he says, handing off his glass. "I heal quick, though."

Protect Joe from himself, really. For there's no protecting him from de la Vega, that's for certain.

"Guess you'd hafta." Itzhak accepts the glass of water, promptly downs half of it. "He hasn't slugged me in the face in a while. I'm due." That's said with a flash of a crooked smile, like he's looking forward to it. He is. He's as much of a brawler as Ruiz, as thirsty for the fight as he. Then he busies himself schmearing-and-loxing a salt bagel. "Okay, so, William Gohl. Dead guy. Been dead for, I dunno, eighty years, somethin' like that."

A flash of his brows, worthy of Itz himself, and a grunt. Probably are, it says. He....he is not, save as he needs to be. A distance killer, not accustomed to dirtying his hands or bloodying his knuckles, the princess.

Following Itz's cues, he picks out out of the box and starts treating it. Good food is always welcome, and it helps overcome that lack of appetite, especially when his drug use is higher than usual.

"He was a serial killer. In those days they didn't have a word for it, but that's what he was. Awful, nasty guy." Talk of serial killing doesn't seem to diminish Itzhak's own appetite; he chomps into the bagel half, swallows, gestures at Joe with the bagel. "They called him the Ghoul. He got taken down by the sheriff's posse. Real Wild West shit. Then, and I dunno exactly how this happened, he wasn't buried. Instead he got taken to the Other Side and his bones left in a box."

Joseph has settled down into a seat at the dining room table, all glossy pale wood, smooth as glass. "So, his corpse was....I assume he was hung? Or was he shot to death? Or did they just box him up alive and leave him there?"

His expression is utterly intent, unselfconscious....and again, there's that way his accent has of fading out almost entirely, when he's asking questions.

Itzhak shakes his head, chewing. He doesn't sit yet, just loiters disreputably, weight mostly on one leg. "Dunno. Pretty sure he was dead when he was left there, though. So fast forward to last year and some people were across the border and they found his bones. His ghost begged 'em to take him back, put on like he was a victim. So they did." Now he's given pause, his gaze emptying. His tone is flat when he says, "He killed a lot of people. Jews, we call that a dybbuk, an evil ghost wants revenge."

"Barred from heaven and hell won't admit them, either. I saw that movie a long, long time ago in college," Joe's voice is musing. "And now that his bones are back here....or rather, when they were, what then? Since this seems to be a place that ghosts have profound power, where the dead don't rest easy, if at all."

"He wanted to get buried. Get a proper funeral. Said he'd keep slitting throats till he got what he wanted." Itzhak glances at Joe, then away. "One of the people he killed was Bex's little sister. Said he'd do her next. He never tried, thank God, but I didn't leave her side for weeks." Reminded of his appetite, he polishes off the bagel. "He got de la Vega fucked up pretty good by pulling him and a bunch of other people into a Dream. I didn't know him then." Pronoun confusion; Itzhak means Ruiz by that last sentence.

That makes him look up from his plate, where he's spreading cream cheese over the bagel. "Jesus," he says. "Did he get buried? Was there a funeral? Hell, did y'all call in a priest?"

He blows out a slow breath at that. "Fucked up in the sense of physically injured? Or....." He trails off. They've both seen what else They can do to Ruiz.

Itzhak finally sits, folding his arms on the glassy tabletop. "Filled full of ghost bullets. The weird thing about ghost bullets is, you come out of the Dream, if you're not like me and can move stuff, the bullets don't come with you. Hospital was full of people with bullet holes but no bullets." He smiles a little, humorlessly. "Was the sheriff's ghost posse shot up the place. I think that was the Twofer, actually.

"Anyway, so, I had nothing to do with this, but people lost Gohl's bones, or set 'em on fire, or I don't fucking know what, but he was missing a lotta his skeleton by the time we agreed to bury him."

"That's really fucked up," Joe's voice is flat. "I mean, all of it. But...." He spreads his hands. "You're not crazy and you're not lyin', and that's life in Gray Harbor, I guess. Okay, so. He got buried, but he was missing parts...."

"Jesus, it's so fucked up." Itzhak shakes his head again, laughing in disbelief at just how fucked up it is. "Well, that's the thing. He was missin' parts, so we had to replace 'em for him before he'd go. We found out how to do that from, uh, our case worker. On the Other Side." Itzhak squinches up his face funny. "Look, I don't know, just we had a case worker. That's also how we found out we hadda exorcise him. He was possessing Old Man Addington. And that's how I found out I was gonna be doing that. I was the only one in town strong enough to do the mover's part. So that's how I got roped into this mishegoss."

Joe's got that ability to take things at face value. He's an engineer - either the thing works or it doesn't. The plane flies, or it doesn't. But there are times when the effort to assimilate something is visible, like the snake patiently unhinging its jaw to get particularly large prey down.

Which it kind of is, at the moment. "A case worker. .....does its agency have a name? And I take it you don't mean an exorcism in the usual Catholic sense, bell,book and candle, all that."

Itzhak pauses, thinking about it, eyebrows going up. "Yeah, there was a name. Don't remember, but we were at City Hall, only the Upside-Down version. No candle or bells but we needed a mover, a reader, and a shaper. So that was Hya Addington for the reader, Erin Addington for the shaper, and me for the mover. You ever seen me do the trick with the bag? That's what I had to do, once the girls cut Gohl loose from the old man."

Which expression is mirrored by the loft of Joe's own brows. "Okay, so it needed a power for each flavor of trouble, huh? And they got you. No, what's the trick with the bag." Might be distraction, might be the drugs he's still on, but he's forgotten his food, for now. Laid knife down on the table, the bagle only missing a bite or two.

Itzhak glances around, clearly thinking about something to demonstrate on. But Joe's apartment is pretty sparse, so he settles for saying, "Bag of holding." Cavanaugh's enough of a nerd to know what he means, right? "I stuffed him in my goddamned fiddle case. Not that one," he nods to the glossy cherry-red case resting on the coffee table, keeping books company. "That's my new one. Old one I had since I started playing." He whooshes out a sigh, and looks at Joe like, what a hell of a thing. "Show ya sometime. But anyway, once we did that, we hadda make up for his bones." A muscle in his jaw tightens. "We gave him sacrifices. Case worker told us, the more it hurt, the better it'd work. So half the town who shines turned out to pay homage to the putz."

"That fuck," he says. His voice is mild, with that matter of fact note to it. "I didn't know we could do that, people like us, I mean. Jesus. What'd you have to give 'im?" What would Joe give, to lay a murderous ghost? Eyeing Itz levelly across the table.

Itzhak stares down at his folded arms for a moment or three. Then, abrupt, "My fiddle. I played 'Ave Maria' for him. Then I smashed it." And oh how he hates that memory. If the sacrifices needed to hurt, that one hurt him. "Wasn't nothin' so special about it," he goes on, softer. "Was just a standard kinda violin. But the program I was in donated her to me. I played her all my life. She was mine." Quiet, again...then he sighs, rubs his face. "That one I got now is just a rental."

What would he have given, if he'd been there? The silver Snoopy pin that is the most treasured decoration he ever received? The cheap plastic rosary given him by the first man he ever loved? The embroidery from his fiancee? Hard to know. He has them all. Has them here in town, in fact. "I'm sorry," he says, softly. "I'm sorry for the loss. That's this town, though. It brings in those who've lost and survived."

"All of us, we gave and we fuckin' gave. Roen cut down a tree he loved. I helped him. Hya made the coffin out of it. De la Vega gave his old wedding ring. Bex gave the pendant her dead little sister gave her after her divorce. Chef Vyv, and Alexander, and Isabella, and Marshall, and God, the list goes on, I didn't even know everybody there. We heaped that fuckin' coffin with treasure." Itzhak's fingers linger on the bridge of his magnificent nose. "Yeah. Exactly. We all here lost so much. And we gave more to fix our fuckup. People tell me I didn't have to do it, that it wasn't my job, but Christ, Cavanaugh. It was my job." Dropping his hand, he looks at Joe, unhappy, resolved, hazel eyes meeting blue in rare direct contact. "As a Jew and a man and just somebody who fuckin' lives here, it was my job."

The wedding ring. He kissed that brown hand before ever it had that ring.....and poisoned that marriage before it ever began. Relentless as frost in a new garden. Gohl has a portion of his own guilt as a sacrifice.

There's that sojourner's weary sadness in his eyes, as he looks back at Itzhak. "Tikkun olam," he says, quietly.

Up go those eyebrows, tipped towards each other in the middle. Surprise--though perhaps he shouldn't be surprised. Joe knew what his sleeve meant, after all. Itzhak studies him, and smiles a little, wintry himself. "Tikkun olam. I done a shit job of upholding it, mostly. It's fucked up, but this town? Here, I can do the work. The thin spot gives me that. The shine gives me that."

A hint of a smile in return. "It is not for you to complete the work, but nor are you free to desist from it," he says, almost whimsically. Where does a lapsed Catholic get off knowing these things? "Exactly. And because you can, you will."

"New York, I'm nothin' but an ex-con, can't hold onto a real job. Here?" Itzhak shrugs, spreads his hands as if offering Joe to look. "Here, I'm the strongest mover in town. Some people think we shouldn't use the shine. I say God gave it to us, and it's a mitzvah to use it, to push back the Nothing."

"Naming is the great defense against the Echthroi," Joe's still got that pleased, bemused light in his eyes. "Maybe we are steered to where we're meant to be," he muses. "What's the argument against using it, other than attracting Their attention?"

Only now does he recall the bagel, pick it up, take another bite.

Echthroi. Itzhak laughs a single huff of recognition. "A Wind in the Door. That's my favorite of those books. Ain't that precisely fuckin' right? The Ech..." he pauses, not super sure how to make his mouth pronounce that word. "The Xes. The Enemy. Makes you wonder what L'Engle knew. She was from New York, yannow. Well, that's pretty much the argument, that it brings Them sniffin' around. To be real honest, I don't think that's a thing we can stop.

"Okay, so," unfolding his arms, he starts gesturing, talking with hands and eyebrows. "The thing is, when we put Gohl in the ground, it worked. He left. But he did something when he left. He--" out flash those hands, fingers splayed, then gripping nothing in Itzhak's attempt to get across to Joe just how serious this is. "He closed the doors. I used to be able to reach for miles. I'm not fuckin' joking, miles. Maybe, I don't know, twenty or so. I could sit in my cell and pick up a porno mag in a bodega in Queens. After Gohl went?"

The fingers flick out. "Bupkis."

That smile, dazzling, certain. "I feel like our younger selves woulda gotten along," he agrees. "'s my favorite of hers. Swiftly Tilting didn't hold together so well, though I liked the unicorn. Echthroi," he adds, helpfully. "Hard ch, like in L'Chaim, almost. I know what you mean. Lotta authors, I feel real sure they shone, that they saw and understood. But I don't think that not usin' the shine will stop 'em. Like you done it once, the scent's on you, and They can find it, like sharks with blood in the water."

Then he's frowning, just a little. "So what you're sayin' is.....when the rules changed on things, that ain't the first time? Beings of that world can change things on us? It's not merely, oh, I dunno, cycles of the moon or somethin? Sounds like he turned off the pipes at the main, y'know?"

Itzhak sighs, slumps back in his chair. "Seeeeeems to be the case. What happened recently was...I don't know, but after it? Gohl's grave was gone. Not like, dug up? Just gone. Like it never was." Joe's smile teases a hint of one out of him, in return, his hazel eyes shy suddenly under the black lashes. "I coulda used a friend like you when I was a kid."

"Yeah?" Joe's voice is sympathetic. "I was a real nerdy kid, but I was....good enough at gettin' along with people I didn't get picked on too much." That charisma in a clear-eyed child, all innocent enthusiasm. "Good enough at physical stuff, though I didn't care much for sports that didn't have to do with water....."

"Christ." Itzhak's expression goes faraway. "I was the nerdiest fuckin' kid and I looked ridiculous. Like a baby flamingo, yannow? All leg and beak. And I didn't get along with anybody." He snorts, shaking his head. "Some of the pictures of me in concert blacks from when I was fifteen or so, man."

The image makes Joe bite his lip, suppressing laughter, the blue eyes alight with it. "I bet you were solemn as hell, too," he says. "Like a li'l owl. I c'n just see it now." Then he chuckles, despite himself. "Man, I was so determined to be the good kid, too...."

Laughing too, Itzhak says, "Nah, I was mad. All the time. Gave my family tsuris, didn't do great in school, all I wanted to do was mess with engines and play violin. Ain't so much has changed." He grins back at Joe. "Oh, I was definitely the bad kid. My little sister's the good kid."

"I mean, we were all a bunch of goody-two-shoes," Joe says, after another bite of bagel, and some meditative chewing. "Jesus, we were fuckin' insufferable. I went to a Catholic military school, for fuck's sake. Jesus, it's like my dad wanted to be absolutely sure I'd be as queer as a three-dollar bill."

"I fought. Like. A lot," Itzhak admits, a little ruefully, and rakes long fingers through his mass of black curls. "I was too autistic to just go along to get along, yannow? And the neighborhood was rough. Lower Manhattan in the 80s, 90s. Once I got a violin I had to fight to keep it, wasn't nothin' some kids liked better than picking on some beanpole Jew with a violin." He quiets, listening to Joe, and snorts laughing, going red. "I mean!" he kind of gasps, and waves a hand like yeah of course, Catholic military schools turn out queers. It Is Known.

Now Joe's laughing that soundless laugh back in turn, red to the ears. "I bet. It's fuckin' hard. I know a lot of autistic engineers, lotta guys like that at MIT." A swallow of his drink, so he can talk. "Right? Like, I don't know how he thought that was gonna work. Now, I never had any priests do anything wrong, 'spite the horror stories you hear. That said, first man I ever fell in love with was a priest. He was twentyfive, I was fourteen and I was absolutely out of my goddamned mind where he was concerned. My family thought I'd just suddenly become very religious, they were real proud of me."

"Aww," Itzhak says, one side of his mouth going up, eyebrows tilting. "That's kinda adorable. Good on him for not takin' advantage." He snorts again, over Joe's parents thinking he just got religion all of the sudden. "Heteros. First guy I ever messed around with was another Jewish kid, after services. For a while there I was real interested in synagogue."

That makes him chortle aloud, that rarely heard throaty laugh. "Right?" he says, eyes dancing. "First guy I ever actually got anywhere with was the brother of one of my sister's friend. Didn't know this kid well, but he was old enough to drive and he'd bring my sister's friend over so they could hang out. Sometimes he'd stay a while and my mom'd press me to be the one to play host, keep him company. Name was Andrew. We eventually ended up bein' friends of a kind, and he'd come over....and he started kind of...movin' in on me. Little by little. Lots of places to sneak off to, where I lived."

Smiling like that, part nostalgia and part amusement at the foolishness of ignorant parents, Itzhak leans back, hands on his knees. "'Cause two boys, couldn't possibly be gettin' up to anything like that alone together. My parents were just glad when I didn't wreck anything or get into a fight. Little did they know I was soul kissing another guy with my hand down his pants." There's the blush, and he rubs his whiskery cheek selfconsciously.

"Exactly. They thought Andy and I were livin' out some Huck Finn fantasy in the woods, fishin' and hikin' and swimmin' in a spring. Which we were, but half the time we were also fucking like weasels the moment we were out of sight of the house." Joe's expression is equally reminiscent. "It's amazing when you discover you can do that, right? I mean, it was to me. Like 'hot damn, here's someone else who wants to touch other guys that way'.....as opposed to having to keep your eyes fixed on that one tile in the locker room shower."

Itzhak wheezes a laugh and collapses beet-red-face-down over the table, arms around his head. "Oh my God," he mumbles into the surface of the wood. He laughs helplessly for a few minutes. Eventually he's able to peel himself off again, looking flustered. "Yeah. It was amazing. Especially lookin' like I did. I didn't sleep with a girl until I was eighteen, I was fuckin' ridiculous looking. Ma liked to say I was a late bloomer."