Part I - Hitchhiker Gods

Allen T Harrington

Copyright © Allen T Harrington 2023

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Any perceived slight of any individual or organization is purely unintentional.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

They were first published in the United States of America in 2022 by ATH.

ISBN: 979-888526633-8

Foreword

I was seven or eight – hard to tell now, not that it would matter anyway. It was unusual to sleep over at someone’s house that did not live on our street – mainly since it was a lot closer to being retrieved late at night if something went awry – something usually involving broken glass or throwing up – the usual. Mark lived in a two-story house in Parkway Village, a 1960s-bedroom community in Southeast Memphis, where only three homes on the street were two-story, and some streets had none. The norm was about 120 square meters, not exactly comfortable for a family with four (much less five) kids, so any days away were a treat, even if only a few streets over.

The plan was that I would go over to his house sometime early in the afternoon, we would play, exhaust ourselves, try to stay up as late as possible, get up for breakfast, and probably church (to no doubt atone for the previous day’s mischief), then return home to chores, then hanging out with kids on our street – and there were always a dozen or so around, even when half were still at the lake, or their farms, or at the grandparents – who in those days usually lived within an hour or two away.

Mark had a younger brother, and he had a friend or two over – making it seem like some form of socializing event by their mom – which I found odd since Mark was one of the most confident, socially lubricated guys I had as of then ever met. He had it all – the smile, the confidence, the smarts – the type of douche I would normally despise, living in a big house with his own room.

But he also had a personality, so it was hard not to like him.

Most spectacular was his backyard, which had this magnificent fort – sturdy, built of wood, where the platform was three meters off the ground – something unparalleled in those neighborhoods, where a steel poled swing set was a huge deal. I was living large this afternoon – from the fort, you could see as far as from the roof of our one-story ranch, which my dad allowed on occasion so we could watch the fireworks over at the fairgrounds, about 10 kilometers away as the crow flies.

We had on our heavy coats, even though the sun was shining and had been for several days, so it was late January or February, quite nice since that time of year always seemed more overcast than not. Five or six of us were in the fort, which was close to the next-door neighbor’s yard, but they had no backyard fence. In those days, not everyone had fences; the most common was chain link. These two yards had no fence, so a few other kids had joined us – quite a party.

Then, we had a visitor that I would / should / could not ever forget.

Gina was about ten, older than us, and lived next door to Mark, where all the kids but me knew her, well, to the extent you could know Gina. She would be described clinically as having a syndromic intellectual disability, and her DNA was jacked up, disturbing me in ways that still traumatize me. Talk about a defining moment that was one for me and has haunted me my entire life.

Gina could no more help her chromosomes, nor could I justify, under any circumstances, anyone being that doomed. My grandfather went blind from syphilis, but he picked that up of his own accord and got the relative life sentence to go with it. This was different. This was cruelty on an unimaginable scale. She did not do anything to deserve this.

Gina was drawn to the activity like a moth to a flame, sent outside by her mom, or perhaps because she wanted to get out of the house. She was a heavy-set kid, whom I could relate to, but her eyes triggered me. She did not know me but curiously looked only at me, or so I thought, and still do to this day. Her heavy black eyes moved lazily from object to object, and her movements were labored, if not an outright struggle against nature. While I attempted to process some of the flood of bile rising in my throat, the guys around me were *calling* her to come over and climb up in the tree house.

I knew this to be impossible, even criminal, to allow such a thing to occur… then the acid hit my tonsils as I realized… they were taunting her…

She stood there, arms stretched to us above, with an emphatic “Unhhh, Unhhh,” as close to a plea to ‘pick me up’ as she could muster. Still, it was her eyes – I could not process how limited her instruction set had to be – even my two-year-old sister could emote enough instruction to get me to let her out of her crib. Gina was pure, simple, and helpless, though clueless would be the wrong context. The lights were barely on, and no one had ever been home.

Besides (and behind), I could hear the taunts, “Come on up, Gina!.” “Climb up the ladder, Gina.” She could no better understand the instructions but knew they were encouraging her for the first time– if only she could figure out how. It then occurred to me that this might not be the first time the kids had played this game.

She was urgent, raised arms, jumping maybe a few centimeters upward – not understanding the cruelty. It was not. That.was how they all were as friends and neighbors. It did not matter to me, as I threw up (on a side away from Gina) and then started shaking and sobbing uncontrollably. I vaguely remember Mark’s mom trying to console me as I was lying down on their couch, then her dropping me off at home, where several hours were spent under my bed, which was most certainly not the last time I there sought solace from a world I could not understand.

I never knew how to apologize to Gina. Or if I should even apologize, or for whom, since I do not think I did anything wrong other than completely freaking out. I never spoke to Mark again, at least not that I recall, and did not pretend to know his heart, not then and not now, but I know mine.

I am sorry, Gina. Most sorry your DNA gave you a challenge I would never have to face. Sadder still that I can write this al these years later, and you would never be able to read it. You were lucky only because you never understood how cruel that day was. I could only hope that.

I only wish that trapped in that physical darkness, you could jump amongst the heavens, light-years at a time. This is dedicated to you, locked away, as we all are in one way or another.

Rabid, maddening, festering

Words depicting fervor unyielding.

Like a perched cat on a humid night, pupils fixed, muscles tense,

Be feral, wild, and fearless, for you are no stray.

You fascinate me, beast—you, hidden among the stars.

I beg for quarter, but none is given.

You're a disease, killing me, softer than any plague.

Infect me completely. Consume me. Excrete me through your pores.

End the agony.

Parkway Village and Exoplanets

One escape from the slums-of-the-future, post-War suburban housing developments of East Memphis was the outdoors, with endless expanses of water and woodlands. While the woods offered claustrophobic solitude, the open waters of the great northern lakes in Mississippi offered an escape that required skills far beyond getting lost or covered with ticks. The greatest, Sardis, was the scourge of William Faulkner, which had flooded the beloved swampy hunting marshes he had traipsed his entire life. Since it was built about 20 years before I was born, I never knew it in any other form – like Grenada, Enid, and Arkabutla. These were the great waterways of my youth, as The River was something we never considered for recreation.

Times uncounted, I recalled James Taylor crooning about taking to the highway or the sea – these were my seas and highways, other than the ferry from Biloxi to Ship Island. Still, we never fished the Gulf as kids and certainly never out of Biloxi.

The lakes provided places to fish with our dad when we were not at the farm or visiting our extended family, which were all within spitting distance from one another in the town nearest...