From Whence I Came

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Crown Vic to a Parallel World: From Whence I Came The second installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips

17

Bem, and Mary, and An Overripe Tomato

"Who is he, anyway?" Joe asked about Bem. "I know you went on the mission with him and he's your friend, but who is he? Is he really seventy-nine years old? What was wrong with him when you got here? Why is he such a goof?"

I was elated that Joe had changed the subject. I was willing to talk about almost anything that would keep Joe and his opinions away from my sex life. I shoveled the food into my face and piled more on my fork to follow it. "Where is everyone?" I asked around a ketchupy mouthful. I didn't want to start describing my relationship with Bem and wind up with an audience.

"Andy took the twins to the park a few minutes ago. Mary and Bem went to her place so she could get more clothes and things for her and the girls."

"ARE YOU NUTS?" I was instantly worried and angry at what I thought was a very irresponsible decision on Joe's part. "How could you let them go by themselves?"

"Relax." Joe held a hand up to quiet me. "Ezekiel is at work. I called his church to check. Bem volunteered to go with Mary. I asked him if he could handle Ezekiel if he came home, and Bem said it wouldn't be a problem. The way he said it, I believed him."

I blew out a long breath and calmed slightly. "You should believe him. Bem is an incredible fighter. That lean body of his moves like lightning and his fists are striking snakes. Landing a hit on him is impossible."

"That's what I mean." Joe said like my description of Bem's fighting prowess made Joe's point for him. "Who is he? When he's fooling around, which is all the time, he's silly and lewd, like I'd expect from someone Andy's age. When he looked me in the eye this morning and said he could protect Mary, I felt like I was looking down a deep well." Joe shivered as he relived the moment. "There was darkness in those eyes."

I went back to eating between questions and didn't bother to worry about talking with my mouth full. If Joe was going to dig into my life at breakfast, a lack of table etiquette was the price I exacted. "Honestly, I know very little about his past or background. He is seventy-nine. That darkness you saw is his professional side. I've seen that only a few times. He was a special-forces soldier and introduced himself to me as an expert on weapons and hand-to-hand combat. That's how I know him. I suspect there's more to the story, but I'll never ask. If he wants me to know something, he'll tell me."

"The silliness," I went on and opened a new topic in an attempt to explain Bem, "most of that is calculated. It took me a long while to figure it out, but Bem likes to keep everything just a little off balance. Whenever the situation gets too heavy, he knocks the gravity out of it. Look at what he's done in the few days we've been here. The first day he announced we've been known to share a bed, then there were the napkin sculptures..."

Joe cut me off as understanding struck him. "When he came downstairs looking for his pants, that was for effect?"

"That's what I'm talking about. He heard Mary screeching at Zeke, so he came down to stop it. He doesn't like conflict. He would never wade directly into the fray. That usually increases the tension. Everything stopped when he made his entrance. He reset the scene."

"That's an intense level of calculation." Joe said more to himself than to me. "What about the other two times? Why did he expose your relationship?"

"I think he wants you to know all about me, and us, so you can either accept us for what we really are or not. He doesn't want any of that built on half-truths or lies of omission. That's only a guess because I've never asked his motivations."

"Even the napkins?" Joe asked.

"Trying to embarrass me enough to let it all hang out." I explained, and as I did, I wondered about the `lead a horse to water' discussion. I wondered if Bem was screwing with me, or with Joe, or if that diversion was part of a calculation. I filed that thought away to chew over later and put my attention back on Joe.

"I need to re-evaluate everything he's said and done since you got here." Joe said quietly. "Alright, he's almost eighty, and you've known him for six years. You know nothing about the time before that. You trained with him, had sex with him, saved the world with him, moved him into the building that Shawn owns, and saw him off to manage this band that was started by the doctor and your other teammate."

I agreed with Joe. "That's a good summary."

"What happened to him? When did he get sick?"

I shrugged at my own lack of information. "He burned out living the rock and roll lifestyle on tour with `Divided Light.' Just living too hard. Like some of the stories you've heard about the bands from the sixties; sex, drugs, and rock and roll. He could hardly stand when he showed up on our doorstep in the middle of the night two days before we came here. We took him in, I gave him some power, and he slept for thirty-six hours, only waking up a couple times to eat. Something is bothering him. I want to help him if I can, but I haven't said anything yet. I don't want to push."

"What else do you know about him?" Joe pressed.

"Very little." I finished eating and wondered if there was any toast to mop my plate with. There didn't seem to be. I carried my plate to the kitchen to rinse off and continued my answer as I went. "He has an enormous sexual appetite and is hugely experienced. I know he's a good person and he's sensitive under the clowning. He's done more for me than I can ever hope to repay."

Joe's phone rang. He answered it in the normal manner, but his voice changed after a few words, growing urgent. Shawn, clean and dressed by now, felt my rising concern and hurried downstairs to be with me while we waited to hear what had put the intensity in Joe's voice. Joe held the phone away from his face and issued some orders. "Get over to Mary's now, both of you. Ezekiel showed up. Bem beat him up. I don't know the rest."

I didn't ask any questions or even issue the `I told you so' that Joe had coming. Shawn and I ran outside and dove into the car. I had the thing running and in gear before Shawn had his door shut. I ignored every traffic law along the way and got to Mary's fast enough that she was still on the phone with Joe when we parked in front. Shawn and I ran across the yard toward Mary. She stood stock-still on the porch while the front door hung open behind her.

She spoke to us and Joe at the same time. "Ezekiel came home. I was upstairs packing a bag. Bem was in the kitchen. He came in shouting, tried to stab Bem with a carving knife from the block on the counter. There's so much blood."

Shawn ran in the house. I noticed that Mary seemed to be in shock. I sat her on the step in an effort to keep her still, and I followed Shawn inside. The scene that greeted me inside wasn't one I expected. Mary was right, there was a lot of blood, but none of it was Bem's.

Bem was washing his hands in the island sink; the basin was half-filled with pink water. Zeke was lying on the hardwood floor, his face a mass of bloody swelling. Shawn knelt next to him. He poured power into my brother-in-law and set about repairing the most urgent damage first. Bem finished washing his hands and wiped the sink out with a paper towel. "I got carried away." He said, his voice dark and hollow. "I'm sorry for that...unprofessional."

I watched Shawn put Zeke back together before I made any moves to process what I'd witnessed. I noticed that Shawn seemed to be using a lot of power and went to stand with him. I put my right hand on his shoulder and made my magic available to him while my left hand sought my watch in my pants pocket. I felt the magic flow down my right arm and into my husband. It must have helped because Zeke's brutally beaten face took shape faster than it had before. In moments, Zeke's face looked like a face again instead of an overripe tomato.

"Finished," Shawn sighed and rocked back on his heels. I kept my hand on his shoulder and let the magic flow until he looked up at me and shook his head that I could stop. "Thanks," he said, "that helped." Shawn glanced wary eyes at Bem then brought them back to me. "I kept him unconscious until we figure out what to do."

Bem gave some orders like he was in charge of the scene. "Clean him up, put his PJs on, and tuck him in bed. When he wakes up, he'll think it was a bad dream. Even if he doesn't, he won't have a single injury to prove anyone touched him."

Bem's stance wasn't familiar as he said it. It was like a stranger had inhabited my friend's body. I saw the eyes Joe described and felt a chill of fear. In spite of the way I felt about Bem at that moment, the logical part of my brain saw the value of his ideas and turned them into action items for us. "Shawn, you clean up down here. Don't let Mary in the house until the blood is gone. Use paper towels and bag them up separately from the house trash. I'll take Zeke upstairs. Bem, you help me." I carried Zeke upstairs with my telekinesis, stripped him, and dressed him in a set of pajamas that Bem found in a drawer. I kept the bloody clothes to add to the trash bag that Shawn had started. We tucked Zeke into bed and went to check on Shawn.

He'd cleaned the kitchen spotless and corrected the minor disarray caused by the fight. Even the carving knife was back in the block. We double-checked that everything was perfect and gathered the trash.

I sent Bem to the Town Car with the trash bag while Shawn and I went out front to get Mary. I escorted her inside and made her look at everything. The slow tour of the house, from the clean and orderly kitchen, up the stairs, to the bedroom where the fully healed Zeke slept peacefully, seemed to bring her out of her shock. "How?" She asked as she leaned over to inspect her snoring husband.

"Shawn fixed him like he fixed your cheek." I explained.

Mary raised her eyes to Shawn. "Amazing." She said. Modest pride swelled inside Shawn, and he lowered his eyes away from her praise.

I guided Mary back to the task at hand. We helped her to finish packing the things she'd come to get, carried the suitcases downstairs, and put them in Joe's car. I borrowed Mary's keys to lock up the house and got her into the passenger seat of Joe's sedan. She objected that she was fine to drive, and maybe she would have been, but I decided to err on the side of caution. Shawn took the wheel of Joe's car with Mary, and I kept Bem with me in the Town Car.

I told Shawn to take off and waited until he was well on his way before I started the Town Car to follow. I wanted time to think about what happened and planned to use a slow drive back to do it. Along the way, I saw an abandoned drug store on the opposite side of Maple Avenue and thought it looked like a good spot to stop and think and talk.

I surprised Bem with an illegal U-turn and pulled into the weedy parking lot in the shade behind the store. I parked where we wouldn't be visible from the road and shut the car off. I turned to face my friend and tried to meet Bem's eyes. He wouldn't lift his gaze out of his lap. I started talking anyway. "Thank you for protecting my sister. You shouldn't have had to. I gave Joe hell for sending you with Mary instead of me."

"It's fine." Bem said to the floor. "I offered."

"Will you tell me about it?"

Bem's answer came in the same hollow voice he'd used in Mary's kitchen. "He came in yelling, and I beat him until he stopped."

I knew there had to be more to it than that, so I waited for the rest of Bem's explanation. It came in due course. "He...Zeke, he said things. He accused me of `porking his wife under his own roof.'" Bem said with air quotes. "I told him it wasn't true. I told him to calm down. He just kept yelling, ugly, terrible things. I didn't know that thing on the counter had knives in it, or I wouldn't have let him get near it. He tried to stab me. I took the knife away from him and hit him until he stopped struggling. Mary came down and saw. Mary saw and she...she ran out front. I guess she called you and you came. I'm glad you came. I didn't know what I was going to do."

Bem's story sounded OK to me, except it didn't explain quite everything. I asked the one question that remained. "What did you mean when you called your actions `unprofessional?'"

Bem didn't speak. I waited patiently, but uncomfortably until he said, "Church...don't ask."

"But..." I started when he cut me off.

Bem finally looked up at me with eyes that begged. "I like the way you look at me, you and Shawn. I like the opinion you have of me. I hope I didn't ruin that today. I haven't always been this person," he pressed his hands flat against his chest, "this person you know. I don't ever want you to meet the other me. Please, don't ask."

I wanted to demand answers. My first impulse was to do just that, but I didn't. I realized that, even with what had just happened, I trusted Bem completely and didn't want to hurt him. I decided to rely on the trust I had for the man.

"OK." I relented with a nod. "You're very important to me, to both of us, but especially to me. You're the first friend I made on Solum, the first real friend I made in a very long time. You trusted me, believed in me, you helped me when I needed help. I want to help you. If you have trouble, any kind of trouble, I hope you'll let me share it. I have broad shoulders. If something is weighing you down, let me carry it with you. I'm not going to ask you about it, but if you want to tell me, I can listen."

"Thanks." Bem said and sounded more like himself. "Maybe sometime...but not now."

I looked around. We'd been in the lot for a few minutes, and I hadn't seen anyone. The place seemed secluded enough for a little display of magic. I popped the trunk, grabbed the trash bag that contained the paper towels and Zeke's bloody shirt, tossed it on the cracked pavement, and vaporized it with a quick, wide pattern, sweep of white magic. Bem watched without a word. "I trust you." I said to reinforce the message of my actions and got back in the car. "I hope you know that."

I drove us to Joe's while I was lost in thought. Whatever Bem was hiding, it had to be big to worry him.

Bem and I arrived at Joe's to find Mary describing the events of the morning to Joe. Joe's posture told me that he was listening carefully. He leaned against the kitchen counter, his arms crossed over his chest and his cane resting at his right side. Mary stood in the center of the square room, so she had space to gesture. Shawn was at the dining room table eating the breakfast he'd missed out on earlier.

As Bem and I walked into the kitchen, Mary retreated to stand next to Joe. She eyed Bem like he was a dog she'd been told wouldn't bite, but she wasn't convinced. She held her hand out to me without taking her wary eyes from Bem. "Let me have Ezekiel's clothes so I can wash the blood out of them."

Bem seemed to feel Mary's scrutiny and remained in the doorway. His left hand kneaded his right shoulder, and his right hand was in his pocket. His eyes were on nothing.

I answered Mary from my position next to the other counter. "The clothes are gone. I got rid of them."

"Where did you throw them away?"

"I didn't throw them away. I erased them like I erased your hard candy."

Mary's tone worried me. She sounded like she wanted to blame someone for something. I also didn't like the questions she'd asked. She went on and asked more questions that I didn't like. "You mean it's all gone?" Mary asked as she dragged her eyes from Bem to me. "The stains on the floor, his bloody clothes, even his injuries, you made all the evidence disappear?"

"'Evidence,' evidence of what?" I asked.

Mary pointed at Bem. "His crime."

Bem bit his lower lip, something he only did when he was utterly defeated, and ran from the room and the house. The glass storm door swung wide as he pushed through it and slammed shut with a metallic clang. As I watched my dear friend flee from my accusing sister, my temper caught fire inside me. I was pissed. "That was shitty, Mary!" I shouted in her obstinate face. "What should he have done? Maybe Bem should have welcomed Zeke in, let himself get stabbed, and stood by while your lunatic husband stabbed you for good measure."

Mary shook her head and stamped her foot on the kitchen floor. "Ezekiel would never have done anything that violent to me."

"HE TRIED TO STAB BEM WITH A KITCHEN KNIFE!" I shouted some more. "He's off the fucking rails! Bem admits to getting carried away, but the bottom line is, he...protected...you." I pointed my finger in Mary's face with each of the last three words. "He never should have been put in that position, even if he did offer. I blame you both for that." I included Joe in my finger pointing. "Now, I'm gonna bring him back. If anyone makes him uncomfortable or accuses him of anything, they'll deal with me."

I strode toward the front door but was halted by a shout from the dining room. "Do you need help?" Shawn called to me.

I paused to meet my husband's eyes with mine. He hadn't risen from the table, but I could tell from the determination he felt that he was ready to leave his breakfast again to be there for me and Bem. I considered Shawn's offer but dismissed it. I worried that too much support would drive Bem away. I also worried about whatever it was that I wasn't supposed to ask Bem about. He hadn't said anything in front of Shawn, and I didn't want Shawn there if the mysterious topic came up again. "I think I'd better do this alone."

Shawn nodded and relaxed into his seat. "I'm here if you need me." He reminded me in a gentler tone.

"I know, thanks." I said and strode out of the house. As I left, I shoved the glass door wide and let it slam in an angry repeat of Bem's exit. I paused on the front walk long enough to debate with myself over taking the car. I didn't take it because I figured that Bem couldn't have gotten far in the few minutes that he was ahead of me. I wondered which way to go until I remembered the development was a loop. No matter which direction I picked, I'd either catch Bem going one way, or run into him going the other. I picked a direction and hurried up the street.

Two blocks away I heard the joy-filled squeals of little girls. I followed the sound with my eyes and saw Andy and Bem and Hannah and Leah in the neighborhood park. The boys, as I'd started to think of my nephew and my friend, were pushing the twins on the swings. Andy and Bem were making a contest of who could launch their twin higher. Andy laughed as he pushed, but Bem's expression was blank. I joined them as the contest ended with no clear winner. "Hello Uncle Church." The twins said in singsong harmony.

"Hello girls." I greeted my nieces and did my best to be upbeat for the youngsters. Then I tried my best to get rid of them without being too obvious that's what I was doing. "Why don't you go back to Uncle Joe's house with your cousin so Bem and I can have a turn on the swings?"

The twins hopped off the swings and came to stand in front of me like living bookends. "You're silly, Uncle Church. Big people don't play on the swings." Hannah (or maybe Leah) replied brightly.

"You're wrong, dear. I'm a big person and I love to play on the swings." I sat on one of the rubber strap seats and started swinging and singing. "La, la...I love to swing. La, la...I love to swing." The girls laughed at my silliness.

Andy, bright young man that he is, took the hint and herded the girls out of the park. As they left, I dragged my feet in the sand to stop my swing. I shook the chain of the one next to me and called Bem over from where he stood near one of the galvanized, swing-set support posts. He looked completely forlorn, like a friend he'd wanted to swing with had failed to show up. "Come on," I said to him, "pull up a swing and rest your feet. We've had a busy morning."

Bem sat with his hands on his knees and his head hanging down. I tried to reassure him. "Don't worry about Mary. I think I put the incident in perspective for her. She'll be OK."

"Do we have to talk about that?" He asked sullenly.

"We don't have to talk at all." I said but didn't mean it. I'd chased Bem down to talk about what happened and his lack of engagement left me at a loss. I wracked my brain until a silly idea popped into it. I cranked my swing up again. "I bet I can swing higher than you." I baited Bem.

I pumped the swing for all I was worth. Bem didn't take the bait right away, but I wasn't done teasing him yet. When I didn't think I could swing much higher I started to smack the chain of Bem's swing each time I went past. "I can swing higher than yo-ou. I can swing higher than yo-ou." I repeated in a taunting chant that I'd timed so that the `yo-ou' was said each time I passed him on the upstroke.

It took a few moments of swinging and taunting, but I noticed I was starting to get to Bem. The color rose in his face. He was getting mad. His anger couldn't overcome his sense of humor though. He grinned and snapped at the bait I'd dangled in front of him. "CAN'T!" He shouted as he pushed off.

"CAN!" I upped my game to swing for all I was worth.

"CAN'T!"

"CAN!"

"CAN'T!"

"CAN!"

We teased back and forth like children and pushed as hard as we could to swing higher and higher. The old, galvanized metal swing-set creaked and groaned under the weight of our contest and the chains rattled as they slackened at the top of each stroke. Another idea popped into my head; an idea so wonderful, I almost started to laugh before I could use it. I started to purposely get out of sync with Bem's swinging. When we were in opposite rhythm, me all the way back when Bem was all the way forward, I put my plan into action.

I stopped myself by standing up on the backstroke and used my telekinetic magic to send Bem and his swing up and over the top bar in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle. When he came around to the bottom again, he jumped off and ran across the sand to spend the momentum. He stopped running and turned. He was laughing like a nut and clutching his heaving stomach. "I've always wanted to do that!" Bem cried between cackles.

He came to sit on the swing while he laughed himself out. "Thanks." He said when he could speak. "How do you always know the right thing to do?"

"I never know the right thing to do. A good friend of mine taught me to do the silliest thing I could think of in any situation. I'm just following his example."

A small, appreciative smile flashed across Bem's face and disappeared into the blank expression from before. "I guess Mary's afraid of me now." Bem grumbled into his chest.

I thought that might be the case, but I didn't want to tell Bem that. I tried to minimize the situation. "Maybe, but it doesn't matter what she thinks."

"Yes, it does." Bem argued with no heat in his disagreement.

I looked at Bem to see why he said what he did. He must have seen the question on my face because he tried to explain. He didn't seem to know how to at first. "Uh...it matters because...because...because she's your sister."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"She's your family. I don't want your family to think of me like I'm some kind of...like I'm something to fear. I don't want to be feared, Big Guy. I don't want that. Having people afraid of me...that would be terrible."

The way Bem said it, it seemed like something he'd thought about before. I wondered why. I wondered why anyone would fear the small, fine-boned man. He didn't have an imposing physical presence. His professional face was unnerving, but that wasn't something we saw very often. Bem was so lewd and silly all the time, I couldn't imagine anyone being afraid of him, ever.

I wondered about that and sat with Bem in silent reflection until some neighborhood kids came along. They wanted to swing, so Bem and I vacated our swings to the younger generation and strolled into the neighborhood. "What do you think of this place?" I asked to get Bem talking again.

"Earth?" He confirmed my question as we loafed along the sidewalk. "It's stressful. Filled with stress. It's noisy and packed with so many people all on top of each another. It's too much. I don't know if I could live here."

"Everywhere isn't like here." I pointed around the residential neighborhood, but I meant the larger region of `the greater Philadelphia area.' "Some places are so densely populated, they throb twenty-four hours a day, but some are so spread out that you couldn't see your neighbor with a telescope. This area bustles though. It's busy."

"It's more intense than home." Bem observed and put an experienced finger on the main difference.

"Yeah, it is that." I agreed and ran out of things to say. We didn't talk after that. We strolled along, each absorbed in our own thoughts, until we got to Joe's and saw Mary sitting on the front steps.

Mary ran down the walk to meet us when we got close. She stepped right up to Bem and apologized. "I'm sorry. It's been a nerve wracking few days. That's no excuse, but it's a reason. Thank you for protecting me. Church was right, we shouldn't have put you in that position."

"It's fine." Bem graciously accepted her apology. "I'm sorry to."

All friends again, we went inside to escape the heat. I sat at the dining room table to collect myself and drink a cup of cold coffee. As I did it, I caught snatches of Bem as he thanked Shawn for `cleaning up his mess earlier.'

I felt bad for my friend. It seemed to me that his burnout was still affecting him, altering his reactions and his judgement. I hoped he would come around with time and resolved to keep a closer eye on him. I decided to intervene if I had to, not that I knew what I'd do if I did, but I'd do something. If nothing else, I'd ask Shawn what he thought, and then I'd do what he said.