The Spaces in Between (23 page)

“I’m far more accomplished that you could ever be,” he replied, “More than you could ever dream of. I once had all the power of God.”

“Who is not to say that I have all the power of God, but because I chose not to use it I’ll never lose it.”

“And that is what makes me the better magician.”

“Neither of us is better. I gathered wisdom for the sake of gathering wisdom, but never use it. You had all the power in the world, but you squandered it. The better magician would have taken the middle ground.”

“Hmm, the Buddhist approach,” the Pirate King mused. “Perhaps you’re right, but I still think I’m better because I acted instead of waited.”

“There you go flapping your ego again.” The Urban Shaman crossed his arms behind his back.

“Then ask me something about the nature of magic. Anything. I can answer it – I’ve seen it first hand. I believe you were the one that said that experience was the better teacher.”

“Very well.” The Urban Shaman stopped in his tracks. He seemed to pluck a thought from his head. “Answer this riddle then: I am a tree. I need light to live, but not water. I am rooted in death so I can be life itself. Ten are my branches. What tree am I?”

“The Tree of Life,” the Pirate King said without any hesitation. “That might have tripped me up if I wasn’t walking it right now. The ten makes it far too obvious. Try something harder old man.”

“Alright,” the Urban Shaman opened the car door to a ’97 Jaguar. “I’ve got a good one. Why are you doing this?”

“Because I’ve squandered my power, but I want a second chance.”

“Why?”

“I want to walk that middle ground now.”

“Why?”

Cameron focused on something else. He noticed that there was overcast today. It added to the feeling of this being a tunnel and to the illusion that this was Baltimore. He bit his lip until he drew blood and spat it on the ground. He breathed in deeply and exhaled.

“I’m afraid of becoming another meaningless cog in the mechanics of life. I want to be something incredible and amazing. Someone that will always be remembered. I’m afraid of being forgotten.”

“Why?”

“There is no more! I’ve given you the actual answer! You just can’t ask why to that.”

“Why not?”

“Because, that’s the correct answer!”

“That is not the whole answer,” the Urban Shaman said, “and until you can give me the whole answer to my riddle you will not be allowed to the gates.” He ducked into the Jaguar and slammed the door behind him. Cameron flung open the door of the broken down Jag, but there was nothing inside but a cut-up leather interior.

10

What the hell? What does he mean there is more to the question? I bare my soul to him and it’s still wrong!

Cameron kicked a Pepsi can that got into his path. It clattered over the side of a Ford Pinto; it was difficult to see if there was a scratch since there was no paint left on the car. The can rolled back to him and stopped at the tip of his sandal. He lifted his foot and crumbled the can under its weight.

Following the path wouldn’t get him anywhere unless he solved the Urban Shaman’s riddle. He had gathered this from the last path.

“Well, can I at least get a hint?” Cameron yelled at the sky.

“Sure,” the Urban Shaman said from no particular direction. “No problem. This is the hall of memories after all.” The Urban Shaman appeared beside Cameron dressed in sparkly hobo clothes. A tiny pair of silk wings was attached to his back. Before Cameron could say anything, the Urban Shaman grabbed him by the collar and pulled him down an alley.

Cameron was standing in a living room. He suddenly realized he recognized this living room, but really it could have been the living room of any Irish family. The room was boxed in with wooden paneling and floor was covered with what his father would have called “booger carpet” – a brown and tan splotched carpet that had the purported properties of causing any booger thrown into the carpet t vanish. His father treated it like the carpet would transport the balls of snot into another Universe – perhaps the one with those scaly yellow bastards and their endless deserts. Cameron knew better and always wore his shoes in the house much to his mother’s chagrin.

He turned to duck back into the alley, but was greeted by another wood paneled wall. He turned to his right and saw that the Urban Shaman had vanished as well. Cameron sighed and turned back around.

He recognized the man that sat on the couch with the floral print, too. His father nursed a Miller Light. An envelope addressed to Cameron Styles rested on the coffee table with a return address in Sarasota. The envelope was as large as a sheet of paper and had a light blue tint to it.

“What the hell do you mean you aren’t going to pay for it!” a man with trimmed red hair yelled at the older man. “This is college!”

“No, I said I would pay for college, Cam,” his dad said and picked up the envelope from the coffee table. “This is not college!” Cameron’s dad flung the envelope from the Ringling School of the Arts at him.

“It’s a four year degree. A bachelor’s of the arts from an accredited school. This isn’t the fucking Everest Institute!”

“No, the Everest Institute teaches you skills that you could use in a job,” his dad said while scratching his auburn beard. “I’m not asking you to follow in my footsteps. I want you to go to a real accredited college and learn real skills as well. I want you to end up better than I did, but I don’t want to pay for the art school because there is no money in that. I’m not asking you to give up art what I’m asking is that you pick a field that makes money like your sister and engineering.”

“Well, I’m sorry that my interests can’t be clear cut enough for you!” Cameron yelled. “That I’m not as marketable so you’ve given up on me!”

“That’s not the point. I was just using her as an example. She’s just sixteen…”

“Oh fuck you both!” young Cam yelled and flipped the bird. He turned and grabbed the handle of the door.

“I know you don’t mean that, but… where are you going?”

“Out!” young Cam barked. The Pirate King moved to stop him, but his arms passed right through his younger self. He pulled the revolver, drew back the hammer with his thumb, and fired. He found the possible time paradox worth it – had it worked. When the smoke from the blast had cleared Cameron was standing on the street again.

“Do you have the answer now?” the Urban Shaman asked.

“I want to be powerful, because I never went to Art School?” the Dread Pirate answered.

“No.”

“I’m really glad, because that would be too Hitlery for my comfort.”

“You went to art school anyway.”

“No, I went to local college. Got a degree in graphic design. That’s not art. So oversaturated that companies prefer kids that played around with Photoshop for four years. Market savvy isn’t that hard to come up with, because we’re so enriched in marketing since the day we are born.”

“You are missing the answer and it is right in front of your eye,” the Urban Shaman said, “Why don’t you step ahead nine and a half steps? I bet you’ll see another hint.” The Urban Shaman had vanished again. Cameron sighed and stepped forward nine steps. Before him Lafayette Street stretched out for what seemed like forever. Then he jumped. With a precision that he did not possess yesterday, Cameron twisted at his waist, and rolled into standing again.

He found himself standing in a busy intersection. The cars passed harmlessly through him. Cameron grumbled under his breath and relaxed. The light turned red, and the walk sign flashed on. Pedestrians began crossing the street in both directions in front of the Inner Harbor. He turned around once again sick and tired of the Urban Shaman’s crap.

He recognized a face in the crowd. His shoulders bunched up, his fists clenched, and his jaw went taunt like a bowstring. He tried to grab her shoulders, but she passed right through him.
God, why are you making me watch this! I don’t want to see this!
The girl was lithe with short red hair. She wore a green t-shirt with hardly any sleeves and low v-cut in an attempt to show her nonexistent cleavage. She wore daisy-dukes, which did show off her legs that stretched to heaven. One of her only hints at adulthood.

Why was she even out here? Why was she not at school? I wasn’t even here to see this!
Cameron sprung into action; he drew the revolver from his waistband and fired it into the oncoming traffic. The explosion was brilliant, but did nothing. Still he drew the hammer back and fired again.

A ’98 Chevy Malibu darted out of the cloud like a burgundy bullet. Somehow it had weaved through the gridlock and sped through the red light. The red head tried to dart out of the way, and the Chevy swerved with a squeal of the tires.

They only succeeded in crossing paths.

He turned sharply, covered his eyes, and screamed, “I don’t want to see! Oh God, I don’t want to see!” However, he still saw. He saw through his eyelids, he saw through his hands, and he saw out the back of his head. It was only a second, but he saw it all in bullet time clarity. The red head’s long legs snapped at the kneecap where the bumper of the Chevy struck her. She snapped forward with break neck speed (which it did), and bounced off the hood of the car. She was flung over the windshield and tumbled behind.

The Chevy Malibu did not stop or even stall. The driver was reeking drunk from an all night bender and was terrified. Cameron glanced at the driver, but not for any incredible revelation on the driver’s identity. He already knew the answer to that question already.

Behind the wheel was an eighteen-year-old man with closely trimmed red hair who was angry at the world for not letting him go to art school.

11

Cameron didn’t need to be shown the next part of what happened. Our mind is only capable of holding a couple truly accurate memories. Memories may as well be stored in a vat of acid. They slowly dissolve over time, or become changed by our opinions and point of view (usually in an attempt to shift blame to someone else). For Cameron, this was a true memory.

He parked his Chevy by the docks where the tourists paddled around in bright pastel boats. He sat in the car for five hours until night fell. He did leave the car briefly to check for damage to his car. His Chevy was lucky the girl had done very little damage. He noticed that girl at the last moment and swerved, but he could barely see as it was and didn’t recognize her.

He was deathly sober now. There were scratches on the hood, but he was always missing a big chunk of topcoat. He spotted three dried droplets of blood spattered on the passenger side windshield.

Two wiped away with a single swipe of his thumb. The third had to be scrapped away with his thumbnail. There was a strand of red hair in the grill that he didn’t notice, but no one ever did. A shoe was wrapped around the axel of the rear right wheel. He chucked the shoe into the harbor.

He drove home with the lights outs, which really made him all that more suspicious. He stepped through the door and instead of finding an angry father who then notices the paranoid expression on his son’s face or the aura of beer and smoke that hung on his clothes. His father embraced a bewildered son.

“Kristina’s dead…I’m so sorry.”

“How?” He told Cameron every grisly detail so that one day if Cameron was facing his horrible memories in a realm of his own creation he could see them. The true gravity of what he had done dropped into the pit of his stomach and sank all the way to his testicles. His dad didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary with Cameron’s horrible reaction; it would only have been out of the ordinary if he hadn’t reacted at all.

No one ever found out what Cameron had done, and that was worse than any punishment he would receive. While he never even told his father, deep down Cameron was sure on that on some level - he knew.

Now what happened for the next couple of weeks was a blur to Cameron. There was a wake. Followed by a funeral. Followed by a burial. When his father finally started going back to work again was the second truly clear memory for Cameron. This was the chance for which Cameron was waiting. He crept into his father’s room and pulled the shotgun from the gun cabinet.

He loaded a shell and cocked it into the chamber with a loud
chu-klick
. He sat in the bed with the barrel inserted into his mouth. His toes had always been rather dexterous, and the big one was wrapped around the trigger. One quick tug it would all be over.

He tugged, but nothing happened. At least not the nothing he was expecting.
The safety!
Cameron pulled the gun from his mouth and checked the safety. It was indeed on and with a soft click that was rectified. The gun was reinserted. There was no hesitation this time and his big toe pressed down on the trigger with the same sureness as if he kicked down a kickstand.

There was a flash and a boom.

Cameron found himself sprawled on the booger carpet of his father’s bedroom. The shotgun lay out of reach. Standing in front of him was a man or at least it was man shaped. The man shaped thing was merely a white outline and white light spilled forth from him. The white light burned Cameron’s eyes and obscured the rest of the room from him.

“Are you here to take me…?” Cameron asked. But the outline merely shook his head. Cameron would later recognize this shape as his guide Noremac. Then it was gone just as suddenly as it had appeared.

Cameron was still alive and a rational thought finally came to him that resembled self-preservation. Nothing like his death would be meaningless or that he would leave his father with two dead children and a wife five years dead. The shotgun remained out of his reach and unfired. He cocked the gun again and the cartridge fell to the floor never to be seen again. The reason Cameron changed his mind from killing himself is that he was afraid he could be punished for it.

Thus started the life long trend in Cameron’s life of doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

12

The Pirate King was now standing in the series of caves near the Inner Harbor. The monument known as the hobo jungle. The only hobo present though was the Urban Shaman.