simon says silence

fiction

the inevitable by joe hesketh

“And then we judge about what does not exist as if it existed; hence we err through the senses.”–Joannes Buridanus

I caught an invisible sound, a silent melody. It was faint, like the absence of pain attached to a headache. It came as a hum inside my head. We played our own music yet—Jaffette started to whistle it. An old lullaby: Dont go in the water, Warawa is in the waves, he’ll get you—Drown you, chew you and spit away your head—it went, in part.

That day was my last day working for Victor. Money: in the bag.

We called the app The Door. You had to give access to your location and your camera and microphone and it would show a map and in the map one could tap into other people’s phone camera. Hundreds of live feeds. It had links to other sites filled with more links that led to niche sites and one of those niche sites centered their content in our city. We were looking for a video. Jafette wasnt specific but said, That video could change things. In the video we watched : A man wearing a black hood hacks with a machete a thick gash between the shoulder and neck of a kneeling man whose hands are tied. The camera’s shaking and blood squirts and erupts out from the raw pork looking gaping pinkish-white wound; the executioner opens his arms, ¿Ahora qué? Hijo e puta. The eyes of the unfortunate man are darting like a fly against a window, and his mouth’s open enough that you can see the tongue palpitate and the red rushes out—and we heard the gurgling and the sound of air and blood spluttering—and the man chokes, slow—one, two, three slashes and his head hangs by a small thread of either skin or muscle but the flies are dead. His body thumps on the dirt. Fua, fua, you said. I said, Click on that one. Werent you going to do something –you asked– I dont think I want to stay up too late. The thumbnail on the video showed a blast of fire bursting outside from inside a car’s window; someone cooked potatoes or chicken or both. Smelled like rosemary and garlic. A noise of clattering plates came from the kitchen but we were alone so we ignored it. Far away someone played an arabic or indian or maybe neither but similar sounding guitar music.

When I clicked on the video it showed five men chatting and drinking in front of a bar in what seemed to be a lush green mountain. Theyre on the top of the hill: the road lined with oak and mango trees: tamarind and carambolas, and right next to the far wall of the bar an acerola bush with its branches entwined between the wire fence; you can see three cars parked directly in front of the establishment and at least five more across from where they are—only their halves are visible from that angle. Camera’s fixed. No audio. Yeah, I have to hand out rent to Victor –I said–. I heard the computer’s fans rev up like an engine, but no car moved.

Sun’s low and Jafette looked out the window as if to check the sky matched the one in the frame. We blew air out our nose and acknowledged the fact in silence; men ramble on, theyre between a white Corolla, and Jafette said the other one’s a CRX and I thought he was right. I checked and it could be the 87 model. When I asked Jafette how long was the video and he looked at the timestamp: one man wearing a black baseball cap walks out one of the two doors of the bar holding two cans of beer. He raises his face and says something to one of the five men outside, or maybe he’s addressing the whole group.

Someone played the guitar, its music crept inside the room. Probably a neighbor.

The man with the cap walks left of the frame. Shortly after, one of the cars reverses and stops next to the group, stays there for thirty-two seconds and drives downhill and away inside the crest of the mountain. Sky’s purple blue.

I opened a new tab and searched: Songs from the Second Network Live.com.co—no feed. There’s always someone streaming. Strange.

You said something like, Is something going to happen? Who’s going to die?

I dont know, but Ima bounce, I said.

On the way out Jafette’s sister was coming in; Shari’s weirdo sister Rowan was with her. Laura said, Open your ears out there, pay attention to your surroundings, please. Go straight to your house. Just be careful, she said. I told her our hood’s safe. Nothing weird ever really happens here. She turned to Rowan and handed her a bag and told her to bring it to her room and wait for her there. Moses, be honest, is Jafette okay? Ever since… He’s been distant. I know. He keeps to himself. He’s always been like that. Look, what Im trying to say is he needs to get a job. You too. She said this with a soured face, probably annoyed by the reverberating guitar. Cut through Battle’s yard –Laura said–. How’s your mother doing? Quacking and other animal sounds blared from Jafette’s room. Heard him lock the door.

Okay, then. Be careful on your way back.

Once outside Moses adjusted his backpack and followed the string-notes down the road. Battle, he muttered. She lived in the neighborhood before Moses’ family moved in.

Her son Jean’s dream of attending Berkley—triturated. Some speculate it was the drop that overflowed the cup, the reason he about-faced into misery. Jean Battle moved out of his childhood home and into the city. Chasing the bohemian lifestyle that enamors many inner city misfits and outcast suburbanites alike. He played in a band, usually got paid in alcohol or drugs, sometimes both, a few times the band would get some cash but it was usually: Im doing you a favor kid, Im giving you exposure. In his opinion Steve Vai was less naturally talented than Yngwie Malmsteen but more versatile and dedicated to pushing boundaries with his craft. Plus Vai’s humbleness in contrast to Malmsteen’s absence made the former standout as a messiah. He did other jobs to sustain his art; he once babysat a doll with an owl-like face. An old man asked him to simply watch for the child, as he called it, and most importantly make sure to not feed them. Them. Although he barely remembers that night he does remember being remunerated quite handsomely and in the end isnt that all that matters. The price. Another time he played a gig with his mathcore band in a remote manor nestled in the Poconos. That night remains a haze but the flavor of an iridescent blue coated Jean’s mouth long after it ended. Sometimes he would pick shifts as a waiter at a neighborhood pizza shop. Other times he would bartend at private house parties. Masked functions, gatherings of affluent ego powered people and wannabe socialites. It was in one of these gatherings that Jean met Victor Fuentes. A name he shouldve known.

Jean’s father, Hector Battle, was a news reporter with an adrenaline addiction. As a young man he made the Tres Fronteras area a frequent destination, more than once entering Colombia on his own dime to report on FARC’s children recruitment tactics. Hector developed an attraction to natural events: random tornadoes would form in Brasil, he saw one whose winds ripped and tossed a silo like flicking a .22 pellet— so in the US storm chasing naturally became one of his hobbies. It kept the unpredictable factor. Jaime Fuentes shared that interest, although his was purely a love of synoptic meteorology. I know youre not a coward, am I right? –asked Jaime–. They sped through hail and rain, thick thudding drops smacking the Montero’s windshield, swerving to avoid the flying projectiles. Avoiding a spinning road sign that the SUV flipped over and ejected Hector Battle out like a spat sunflower seed. Jaime was the driver, somehow unscathed and conscious: he observed silently as God’s finger lifted Jean’s father away into the blackened sky. Jean sometimes mulled over which god the finger belonged to.

Jaffette’s tears streamed steady. His hands trembled, fingers hovering over the keyboard; glued to the monitor glow he switched from the browser to the music app and heard his sister and her friend laughing out loud in her room. He raised the volume. Their laughter was oil to the music’s water echoing inside his head.

A reduced figure of a man or woman is chained to a metal bed-frame inside a dim lit space. It could be a warehouse or a basement; whether one or the other it’s an industrial location and the grayness stood out among the blackness. There seems to be no sound until the derelict figure crawls towards the camera and the clank on the chain against the leg of the bed echoes inside the large room.

Outside of the house Moses slowed his pace, taking in the bubblegum blush sky with its fading thin cotton candy clouds. He took his headphones out of his backpack, put them on–Battery forty percent, connected to Myphone–and searched for Pause The Movie but the guitar from earlier grew louder and clearer. Recognizable. Moses pulled his headphones down around his neck and strained his memory to the tune of the music. The rosemary waft came with the wind and he remembered his mother, his stomach growled, and the music of the guitar grew louder. Somehow the sound and the smell clashed with each other. Like opposing winds.

Klenin Terval did microtonal composition, complex live looping; his solo projects strayed from paid gigs, where he played under his real name, Jean Battle, in more ways than them being unrewarded. Concealing his identity freed him.

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His scratched hands held onto the steering wheel like muscle does to bone. Red and blue swirling behind him on the side of the road. Thick sweat drops trailed the side of his pale face and a whistling wind sneaked inside the vehicle through the driver’s side window.

Klenin Terval? asked the officer. You have an I.D with you, Klenin?

I dont, sir. I just went to the gas station to get some gas for the mower, see?

–I see. You cant be driving around without a license. It’s my job to stop you from doing so, see?– The officer scanned the car in a way that made him seem like an android. From about four blocks south a car revved its way north. Klenin reached for the volume dial—Put your hand back on the wheel, now!

Youre looking nervous, Klenin. Are we worried about something?

A black Camry dragging longer than expected barely sped past them.

Youre in luck, Klenin. Next time you better have everything in order.

The cop ran to his patrol, got in, turned on its siren and drove like the devil knew where Jesus slept.

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