Fractious Read online

  Fractious

  By

  Carrie Lynn Barker

  Uncial Press

  Aloha, Oregon

  2010

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events described herein are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-60174-097-7

  Copyright © 2010 by Carrie Lynn Barker

  Cover design Copyright © 2010 by Judith B. Glad

  All rights reserved. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the author or publisher.

  Published by Uncial Press, an imprint of GCT, Inc.

  Visit us at http://www.uncialpress.com

  chapter 1

  Typical story; guy walking home from work one day gets jumped by two big goons, gets knocked on the head, rushed to the hospital, slips into a coma for a day or two, appears fine with only a mild concussion and a few bumps and bruises then goes home and takes it easy for another day or two. Now, minus wallet, including ID card, maxed out credit card and various but still mighty important business cards, guy begins to think that this ordinary knock on the head, two day coma and resulting concussion might not be so ordinary. Guy begins to see things, things that are far out of the ordinary, things that people normally don't see. Even worse, things begin to see guy.

  This guy is me; and calling myself a guy is just me being silly. That's actually my name; Guy. But not like "a guy," meaning a male of the species. Like "gee" but with a hard "g" sound, as in "grog" and not like "golly gee whillikers." Rhymes with see? Get it? I hope so because I do not want to go about trying to explain how to pronounce my name for the rest of my story. It's the French pronunciation and since my mother was French, it all makes sense. So let's stop talking about how to pronounce my name. There are more important things to be talking about.

  I'm twenty years old, not even old enough to drink in my home state, and my story is as true as they come. In September I was on my way home from work, right after depositing my measly pay check in the bank when I was mugged. I had no money on me, not even a buck. I wasn't wearing nice clothes, just a really cheap suit I bought when the Mervyns department store went belly up a few years ago. The price tag read $150.00 and I paid $29.99. Good bargain, if you ask me. I don't know what the men wanted from me, aside from the typical want of money, or why they picked me, but being mugged is what led to where I am now.

  You probably won't believe my story, but there are still people who don't believe we landed a man on the moon or that kissing a frog will give you a prince. Of course, nobody tells you that princes only get turned into a terribilis frog, also known as the golden poison frog, which, just as its names suggests, is poisonous and will kill you if you kiss it, which is why nobody believes in the legend of kissing a frog and getting a prince. Nobody has ever kissed the terribilis frog. Don't ask me why I know this.

  * * * *

  I was walking home from the bank with zip in my pockets and less in my bank account, having spent the majority of my money on bills, bills and more bills. My shoes were scuffed, my stomach was empty, and my mind was telling me it was time to either get yet another part time job or ask again if I could get full time hours at the bank I worked for. Being the only child of two dead parents who were also only children, I had no one to fall back on, to beg money from or borrow from. I had no relatives, friends or the like in any other way, shape or form. I had no one and nothing. Perhaps that's why fate chose me at that moment to get mugged.

  Two men stepped out of an alley right in front of me. One of them was holding what looked to be a pretty realistic plastic gun. "Give me your wallet," the gunman said.

  I actually laughed. I put my hand on my chest and said, "Me? You want my wallet?" I dug it out of my pocket and tossed it to him. "Take it. It's all yours."

  The gunman caught the dollar store wallet in midair and tossed it right over to his buddy. His buddy opened it up and rifled through it. "It's empty."

  The gunman turned, keeping his gun aimed at my chest. "Where's the money?" the gunman said.

  "Ain't any," I said. "I'm as broke as apparently you two are."

  "No funny business," the gunman said. To his friend, he said, "Does he have any credit cards? An ATM card?"

  "One credit card." The buddy pulled out the MasterCard that was at its limit.

  "It's maxed out." I indicated the card. "Good luck with it."

  "Shut up!" the gunman screamed at me, obviously becoming just a little annoyed. "You just came from the ATM, mister. Where's the money?"

  "Paid the bills," I said. "I put money in. Didn't take money out. Sorry I did it backwards."

  Now, I'll admit I wasn't completely unafraid of these two. Having a gun, plastic or not, pointed at your chest isn't exactly my idea of a super duper fun Wednesday night. But what had I to lose? I had no money or anything else these two would value. They could have my wallet. All that required was a couple of phone calls to let MasterCard know I'd lost my card and a trip to the DMV for a new ID. Not that anyone wanted to spend a day at the DMV but I didn't mind all too much. Oh yeah, and a call to the cops to report the crime. No big deal. Yet these two were not thinking this was all fun and games. They wanted money, and if they didn't get money, they were going to take something else.

  The gunman was a big guy, approximately five-eight with brawny shoulders and a fat head. His eyes were dark and spooky but that was probably because he was standing under a street light and the glow kept bouncing off his pupils, making his eyes look creepy and crawly. I'm only five-six so he had a couple inches on me. Plus, I'm not exactly the Arnold Schwarzenegger muscle man of the year. I'm more like scrawny minus a few pounds. No muscles whatsoever. My tongue can hardly be classified as a muscle; it was so out of shape. So I wasn't planning on fighting. I didn't have anything to fight with.

  When the gunman came at me with the gun raised, I saw my life ending right then and there. Nothing flashed before my eyes because there was nothing to flash. But I did what I could to save my measly life. I ran.

  The gunman followed me, like I knew he would. Gunmen can be so predictable sometimes. We weren't exactly on the busiest street in town, so there was no one to see this pursuit. Not like it lasted very long. The gunman caught up with me and grabbed me around the middle, taking me face first to the ground. My chin hit concrete and jarred my brain into pudding. Dazed, I lay there, my lip bleeding into a little puddle on the ground. The gunman got off of me and kicked me hard in the ribs, causing me to double over in pain.

  Through a groan that had to have come from me, I heard him say, "Get up. Now."

  I couldn't so I just lay there, my arms wrapped around my stomach, thinking he'd broken at least two ribs and maybe even my jaw.

  "Get up, asshole," the gunman said. "Get up or you're gonna end up with a hole in your head." I was beginning to think that maybe the gun wasn't so plastic after all.

  At that point, I didn't really care. He could have shot me and all it would have done was end the pain in my midsection and put an end to the miserable excuse of my life. I would have been okay with that. Instead, I began to hear voices; strange nearby voices. Then I heard footsteps running along the pavement.

  "Let's get out of here," I heard the buddy say. Then he added, "Al, we can't even steal his identity. He's got the weirdest name I ever heard."

  As the gunman stood over me, he said, "Yeah, What's that?"

  "Guy Fractious," the buddy said, pronouncing my first name as if h
e were calling me a male of the species. I was glad he left off my middle name. Those two names were bad enough.

  Both men laughed, which they were entitled to do. Then the voices began to get closer and closer and the two men beat it. But not before the gunman brought the butt of his weapon down on the back of my head with all the force he could muster, sending me into a less than enjoyable darkness.

  * * * *

  I woke in a hospital room two days later. Three good Samaritans had come around a far corner and seen me being tackled and had come to my aid. The gunman and buddy had gotten away but the good Samaritans had given descriptions that matched mine. Along with the name I'd heard, "Al," the police had good leads to go on. All I had was a splitting headache and a loss of a couple of days.

  The doctors said the gunman had hit me just right to cause me to slip into a mild coma, but I'd be okay in a day or two. All I needed was a good rest and possibly some aspirin. The first thing I did as I lay in my own bed later that evening after being released from the hospital was to call my job. Much to my dismay, I no longer had a job.

  "What?" was my first exclamation upon hearing that I'd been fired. "I got mugged, knocked unconscious, put in a coma for two days and you fire me?"

  "Sorry, Guy," my boss said with no hint of the sympathy his words conveyed. "You didn't call. For two days. That's considered job abandonment. We had no choice but to fire you."

  I clenched my teeth, wanting to reach through the phone and strangle him. Instead of doing the impossible, I said, "I was comatose." I made sure to say the words slowly so he'd be sure to understand. Apparently he didn't.

  "Then you should have had someone call for you," my boss said calmly and seriously.

  "Are you kidding me?" I hollered, now wringing the phone's neck.

  "Sorry, Guy," the jerk repeated. "Your last check is in the mail." Then he hung up.

  The phone landed on the floor on the other side of the room, no longer in only one piece. Bits of wiring and computer chips scattered all over the place. I didn't care about the sudden broken state of my phone. Now I had a splitting headache, no job, no driver's license and was still flat broke. AND I had who knew how much in hospital bills to pay. Sure, I had insurance at the time of incident, but that didn't cover much more than the basics. I won't even go into detail about the details of that stupid HMO.

  So, feeling more than a little lost, I sat in a corner of my beat up old couch with a Barry Manilow record playing. Yes, I know we've moved on from vinyl, but it just has this scratchy quality that CDs can't duplicate. I sang along to the songs I knew and hummed the ones I didn't, but not even Barry could pull me out of my funk. I didn't know what to do. Finding a new job was the first priority but I couldn't think much past the pounding of my head. I downed a few aspirin with a cold glass of water and decided to go for a walk.

  It was cool outside and the air felt good, even did a little to clear my head, but as I rounded a corner, headed for the park, I got a sudden feeling of agoraphobia. How could I escape if I was suddenly attacked again? I began scouting escape routes, looking around for open doors and glancing at people out of the corner of my eyes, lest they jump out and grab me.

  Could I go into the grocery store and find someone there who would protect me? Was it easier to run back to my apartment or take off for open spaces? Where were there to be found the most people so there would be plenty of witnesses if it were to happen again? And if there were witnesses, would one of them come to my aid if I was attacked? Or was one of the witnesses going to be my next attacker?

  I was outside for no more than a minute before I turned and bolted back to my apartment, taking the stairs two at a time until I reached safety. I locked the door behind me and put a chair beneath the knob. You know, like they do in the movies?

  Had you walked into my apartment just then, you would have found me curled up in a ball in the corner, my head buried under my arms with my eyes closed as tightly as they could be. You probably would have laughed, but I most certainly was not laughing. I was post-coma, post-mugging, post-job-loss terrified. There is no better word to describe my breakdown. Ter-ri-fied.

  I stayed inside my house for two weeks exactly. I didn't try and find a new job. I didn't take my last paycheck to the bank to deposit it when it finally appeared in the mail. I didn't go buy groceries. I lived off what I could find in the apartment, even going so far as to mix flour and water and eat the paste when I completely ran out of food. I think spending that night vomiting that gunk back up is what yanked me out of my slump.

  The next day, pale and pasty from my grotesque night, I ventured out of my apartment. I took two things with me; my keys and a glass bottle filled with water. The keys were for getting back inside my well-locked apartment. The water was for when and if I got thirsty. And the glass bottle was my weapon. Just in case. I went to the park and sat on a bench, making sure that I was in sight of as many people as possible. There were kids playing with their parents, and the parents probably thought I was some kind of perverted freak. I probably looked like some perverted freak since I was still sweating out the flour paste I'd eaten like the dope I was.

  I didn't care what they thought of me. If anyone had bothered to talk to me, they would have discovered a lonely guy who was scared to death of being outside where the bad men could get at me. My apartment was safe and safety meant not getting mugged again. Not getting mugged again meant not being in pain from the cracked ribs or bruised jawbone. Not getting mugged meant not losing my ID and having a gunman point a deadly weapon at my chest. Not getting mugged meant being okay. It meant being alive. It meant not being scared.

  But it had happened. And I could not make it un-happen.

  I watched the little man walk toward me for a few seconds before I had to shake my head and take an honestly good look. I'm not one for staring at people who are different from me, or freaks as some would call them, but this dude caught my eye. He was about three feet tall with shaggy black hair and some mean ass blue eyes. He was looking at me just as I was looking at him.

  He walked by with a scowl on his face that said I should not be staring like a fool. Yet I couldn't look away. It wasn't his small stature or his intense eyes that made it almost impossible for me to look away. It was his bright green top hat that caught my eye.

  I couldn't hold my tongue. It's a gift. "St. Paddy's was months ago."

  He gave me the finger and walked into a tree.

  Now, I say walked into a tree in a certain way. He didn't smack into it because he wasn't watching where he was going. He walked right up to the tree and disappeared into it. Merged with it. Became one with the tree. Passed through it. Walked through solid matter. I can't think of any other ways to describe it. But he walked right into the tree. And he didn't come out the other side.

  I shook my head. "Did that just happen?"

  "Yeah," someone said. I lifted my head to see a burly parent walk by, dragging a poor kid along by the hand.

  "I just let one off, buddy. Sorry about that." He also gave me the finger, which sent the kid into gales of laughter as he was pulled off his feet, but Mr. FoulMouth did not walk into a tree. He continued on down the path, dragging the now laughing kid, who apparently did not mind so much the being dragged part of his life, along behind him.

  I went to investigate the tree.

  First I walked around it, my hand brushing the rough surface. The bark felt like normal tree bark and the tree itself was solid all the way around. It felt like a real tree. I made quite sure that it was a real tree, crouching down on each side and feeling the tree up and down. As I was getting fresh with this poor elm, people began to point and stare and talk amongst themselves, yet I didn't care. It felt good not to care. This was normal stuff, anyway. The pointing and staring, not feeling up a tree.

  Eventually I just sat down in front of said elm tree, my back to the park, stumped. I even called out, "Here little leprechaun," a couple of times, but I got no direct answer. What else could I do but s
it there and wait for the little man in the bright green top hat to return and explain things to me.

  Instead, a former coworker found me first. "Guy?" she said from behind me. "Is that you?"

  Still sitting on the ground, I turned my head and looked up. "Hey, Crista. What are you doing here?"

  "I'm babysitting my neighbor's kid," Crista Himmelmen pointed over her shoulder at an insignificant kid. "What happened to you? You just up and disappeared from work."

  "I got fired," I said, not ready to get up and admit defeat in not finding my leprechaun.

  "Why?"

  "I was in a coma."

  She lifted an eyebrow and said, "Oh. Well."

  I took one last look at the elm tree before me and made good use of it to get to my feet. Then I turned to Crista. "What are you doing here?"

  She raised both eyebrows. "I told you, babysitting my neighbor's kid. That one. Over there." She pointed and this time I followed her finger to where a small boy sat in the sand tossing said sand into the air. The other parents weren't saying anything, which made me think they weren't as annoyed as they appeared. "I hate that kid." Crista snorted in disgust. "In fact, I hate kids in general."

  "Then why babysit?"

  "I need the extra money," she said. "Part time doesn't cut it nowadays."

  I couldn't resist looking back at the mysterious tree that had somehow swallowed a leprechaun and left no trace whatsoever. Just in case he'd decided to show his face again.

  "So." She drew out the word until it sounded like it had fifteen o's attached to it. "I better get back to that kid. Eventually I have to stop him from throwing sand or else the cops will show up again. I guess that means you can get back to your tree."

  "It ate a leprechaun," I found myself saying.

  Crista gave me an incredulous look before saying, "Yeah, trees'll do that."

  I realized that she was making a joke at my expense. "Not funny," I said to myself. Then I went back to watching the tree.