"The next time Mrs. Bannon sent me out to find her son, it was because she and he had lost touch. Frank Parnelli when I found him was a minor Village character. Mark no longer looked out from behind his eyes. He had no idea where you were. Your grandmother was a confused old woman wandering around her apartment in a nightgown.
"I had to go back to Mrs. Bannon and tell her I'd failed. It wasn't until a couple of years later that Svetlanov turned up."
"Mark and I were in love for a time," Ruth said. "He suggested jokingly once or twice that he leave Parnelli and come to me. I didn't want that and in truth he was afraid of someone he wouldn't be able to control.
"Finally being around Parnelli grew thin and I stopped seeing them. Not long afterward Mark abandoned Parnelli and we both left New York for different destinations. A few years later, I was living in the Yucatan and he showed up again. This time with an old acquaintance of mine.
"When I lived with Grandmother as a kid," Ruth said, "she was in her prime and all kinds of people were around. Political operatives, prophetesses, you name it. One was called Decker, this young guy with dark eyes and long dark hair like classical violinists wore. For a while he came around with some project on which he wanted my grandmother's advice. I thought he was very sexy. I was ten.
"Then he wasn't around the apartment. But I saw him: coming out of a bank, on the street walking past me with some woman. Once on a school trip to the United Nations Building, I saw him on the subway in a naval cadet's uniform.
"I got home that evening and my grandmother said, 'Have you seen that man Decker recently?' When I said yes, she told me to go do my homework and made a single very short phone call. Decker stopped appearing in my life.
"Until one night in Mexico a knock came on my door and there he stood looking not a day older than when I'd seen him last. For a brief moment, there was a flicker in his eyes and I knew Mark was there but not in control.
"Decker could touch and twist another's mind with his. My grandmother, though, had taught me the chant against intrusive thoughts. Uncle Dano had taught me how to draw, aim, and fire without even thinking about it.
"Killing is a stupid way to solve problems. But sometimes it's the only one. After Decker died I played host to Mark for about an hour before I found someone else for him to ride. He was like a spark, pure instinct unfettered by a soul. That's changed somewhat."
When it was time for my ferry back to the city, Ruth rose and walked down to the dock with me.
"I saw his sister on TV the other night when they announced she would be appointed to the Senate. I take it she's the one who's looking for him?"
I nodded and she said, "Before too long idiot senators will be trying to lodge civil liberty complaints after martial law has been declared and the security squads are on their way to the capital to throw them in jail. Without Mark she'll be one of them."
Before I went up the gangplank, she hugged me and said, "You think you're looking for him but he's actually waiting for you."
After a few days back in New York memories of Vibeau Island began to seem preposterous. Then I walked down my block late one night. It was crowded with tourists and college kids, barkers and bouncers. I saw people give the averted celebrity glance.
Then I spotted a black man with a round face and a shaven head. I did recognize him: an overnight hip-hop millionaire. He sat in the back of a stretch limo with the door open. Our eyes met. His widened then dulled and he sank back in his seat.
At that moment, I saw gray winter sky and felt the damp cold of the ice-covered Neponset.
On old familiar ground, said a voice inside me and I knew Mark was back.
9.
Some hours later passengers found seats as our train pulled out of New Haven.
"Ruth said you were waiting for me," I told Mark silently.
And Red Ruth is never wrong.
"She told me about Decker."
I thought I had selected him. But he had selected me. Once inside him I was trapped. He was a spider. I couldn't control him. Couldn't escape. I led him to Ruth as I was told.
He showed me an image of Ruth pointing an automatic pistol, firing at close range.
I leaped to her as he died. She was more relentless than Decker in some ways. I had to promise to make my existence worthwhile. To make the world better.
"If angels fight, weak men must fall."
Not exactly an angel. Ego? Id? Fragment? Parasite?
I thought of how his father had something like an angel himself.
His body, soul, and mind were a single entity. Mine weren't.
I saw his memory of Mike Bannon smiling and waving in the curved front windows of his house at well-wishers on the snowy front lawn. Bannon senior never questioned his own skills or wondered what would have happened if they'd been trapped in a brain that was mildly damaged. Then he saw it happen to his son.
Once I understood that, he showed me the dark tower again with two tiny slits of light high above. I found hand- and foot-holds and crawled up the interior stone walls. This time I looked through the slits of light and saw they were the eyeholes of a mask. In front of me were Mike and Marie Bannon looking very young and startled by the sudden light in the eyes of their troublingly quiet little boy.
When the train approached Boston, the one inside me said,
Let's see the old neighborhood.
We took a taxi from Back Bay and drove out to Dorchester. We saw the school we'd gone to and the courthouse and place where I'd lived and the houses that stood where Fitzie's had once been.
My first great escape.
That night so long ago came back. Larry Cullen, seen through the eyeholes of a mask, stood with his thin psycho smile. In a flash I saw Mark Bannon slack-jawed and felt Cullen's cold fear as the angel took hold of his mind and looked out through his eyes.
Cullen's life was all horror and hate. His father was a monster. It should have taught me something. Instead I felt like I'd broken out of jail. After each time away from my own body it was harder to go back.
Melville Avenue looked pretty much the way it always did. Mrs. Bannon still lived in the family house. We got out of the car and the one inside me said,
When all this is over, it won't be forgotten that you brought me back to my family.
In the days since then, as politics has become more dangerous, Carol Bannon has grown bolder and wilier. And I wonder what form the remembering will take.
Mrs. Bannon's caregiver opened the door. We were expected. Carol stood at the top of the stairs very much in command. I thought of her father.
"My mother's waiting to see you," she said. I understood that I would spend a few minutes with Mrs. Bannon and then depart. Carol looked right into my eyes and kissed me. Her eyes flashed and she smiled.
In that instant the one inside my head departed. The wonderful sharpness went out of the morning and I felt a touch of the desolation that Mark Bannon and all the others must have felt when the angel deserted them.
The Clay Party by Steve Duffy
From the Sacramento Citizen-Journal,
November 27, 1846
Disquieting news reaches the offices of the
Citizen-Journal from our correspondent at Sutter's Fort, where the arrival of a party of settlers embarked on an untried and hazardous new crossing has been anxiously expected since the beginning of the month. November having very nearly elapsed with no word of these prospective Californians as yet received, it is feared by all that their party is become stranded in the high passes with the onset of winter. There is a general agreement among mountain men and seasoned wagoneers alike that the route believed travelled by these unfortunate pilgrims is both unorthodox and perilous in the extreme, it being the handiwork of a Mr Jefferson Clay of New Hampshire, a stranger to these parts with no reputation as a pioneer or a capable navigator. We hear anxious talk of a rescue party being recruited, once the worst of the snow has passed…