Young agent steps in for break; talks to me regarding evil incarnate
He’s talking to me. A young agent; didn’t give his name. Or maybe he did, but I didn’t catch it.
How do I know he’s an agent? Because in him I see myself. I know – no one has to say anything. The thing is clear on its face.
I can’t remember anyone he reminds me of, but he looks familiar. Maybe they all do. I hadn’t heard him come in, nor felt the beams glare at me through the window as he pulled up.
As he sits across from me drinking tea and eating a grilled-cheese sandwich, I peer out into the blind pitch. Sure enough, there’s a dark-colored two-door sports car out of the ‘70s – something American based on the British (hell, all of America is based on the British). It’s parked askew, in contravention of the parallel lines, worn and faded though they are. In terms of the law, it is a violation subject to police records and ticketing.
It goes beyond devil-may-care. His whole thing is, ‘I don’t give a damn,’ or ‘To hell with you.’
It would make some sense if this were daytime and there were a few people about, perhaps someone looking to park their car and drop into the diner only to be rudely inconvenienced by the asshole taking up two spaces with a midget car.
But in the depths of an unending night, with no one around or likely to appear, the act of social defiance, the flaunting of convention, the rude gesture, is absurd, bizarre, devoid of meaning, senseless.
He’s talking about some Gramps, some Jeb Davies, and I suddenly stand to at the harsh note of that name – the second one: Davies; although ‘Jeb’ also sounds nerve-rackingly familiar.
Similar to…? I can’t remember. It’s almost as if I’m suddenly being shocked into looking for my old desktop PC to write on, fumbling with nervous trigger fingers for my gun, on edge and anxious over the unfinished bottle of Johnnie in my bottom desk drawer.
He keeps talking and now that he has my attention, I try to piece together from all he says what exactly he is looking for.
It is and it isn’t Jeb Davies. It is and it isn’t information on Davies, his clan, how deep into history it all goes, how far into the past, out of which evil always springs, to devour us, to eat us in our skins.
It is and it isn’t the legions of armed militants that have sprung up over the entire Eastern Seaboard of the United States in the name of this Jeb Davies and are moving inexorably this way, westward, picking up hundreds, and thousands of followers, whom they will also arm as they continue their sweep like a harrowing plague across the country.
He is looking for answers to all of these things, but he is also looking for something more, something greater, something all-encompassing: I know, however, if I press him on details, he won’t be able to put his finger on them. But I won’t push such points, because I don’t want to tell him that his is ultimately an impossible quest.
“Now here’s a picture of Josh Davies,” the young agent is saying, pulling a large photo out of a yellow A4-sized envelope, “and I’m pretty sure,” he continues, “that he’s not Jeb Davies’s brother. I’ve got nothing to go on. It’s only a hunch, and chances are probably as likely as not that I’m wrong. But that they’re related is clear.”
Before I know what has hit me, I am staring point blank at a large mug shot of an evil I know. It has followed me all the way from Kyiv and has found me here, in this Kansas diner. I know the world is a small place, but even in death, I do not think Hell would be this close. Even as I look at it, the photo, an inanimate object containing an image frozen in time, that face seems to change. It is laughing at me. Contempt. Derision. The purest, most undiluted ill will. By any other name it would still be known as evil, except there is no other name for it.
“Now here’s Jeb Davies. And here’s another one of him. It’s funny, because he seems to change. It’s the same face, but he seems to change.”
“Yeah.”
My shirt is getting wet. I am using my handkerchief to wipe sweat from my forehead, neck, and face. I can smell the stench of the alcohol vapors rising from my body and I worry that I don’t offend my young neighbor.
But he says: “Here’s a third one. See what I mean?”
“There’s a strong resemblance, though,” I reply. “They look very similar – this Jeb, that you call Gramps, and Josh. I know Josh.”
“You know Josh?”
“I mean, yeah, I know about him. A lot about him. But I can’t say I know him.”
“Here. And this is Charles Aesop Davies. A cousin, although what degree, I can’t say. This is his police station photo from 30 years ago when he finally got collared. Soon after, the place burned down. I got this from court records. Death row for murdering more than a hundred men, women, and children, including infants and toddlers. Same way each time – ripping out their hearts. Ten years later, or thereabouts, he escaped. No one knows how; maximum security – just one day, as they came by, he wasn’t there. Funny thing, the reason why I say ‘thereabouts’, is that nobody can say exactly when it happened. Ever since, the same type of butchery is strewn across the Southern States.”
“Also very similar. Only five-foot-three. Pretty short.”
“Yeah, they all are. And here’s another photo of him taken undercover in some shack somewhere in the Blue Ridge. At least that’s what everyone presumes. From what I understand, it’s pretty recent. It’s a little blurry, but it’s him all right – Charles Aesop Davies. The guy taking it was probably in a hurry.”
“Probably shittin’ his pants.”
“No doubt – took a lot of guts to do that. Although by now he could be dead. Probably is.”
“It’s unbelievable. Thirty years. This Charles Aesop Davies hasn’t changed a bit.”
“And here, look at this one. Isaac Stonewall Davies.”
“This is fucking uncanny.”
“You’re telling me. It’s not one clan, though. It’s a whole network of them. But especially note the Davies forehead. Very broad and generally prominent in the extreme.”
“Deformed, I’d say. With that forehead, the head is entirely too big for the body.”
“Yes, that’s exactly right. It’s almost like a form of dwarfism. Whatever it is, it is a specific genetic feature of these related clans. The Davies are heavily inbred. Reproduction among cousins is not only usual, but eagerly pursued and encouraged. Incest between siblings is also not unusual, nor are instances of father-daughter, mother-son. In fact, marrying outside the clans is only done to replenish the lines and bring in new blood, or the whole bunch would die out, but otherwise strongly discouraged as a matter of common practice, and one such union that is unsanctioned will likely lead to ostracism and expulsion from the society of the clans. There is one Davies I met – Ned – my first Davies, in fact – who met with precisely this fate. He says it was years and years ago, but to this day he’s not sure if he’s glad it happened or not – the pull of the evil is so strong. Is there anything else that strikes you about these photos?”
“Yeah. The eyes.”
“That’s right. The eyes say everything.”
“And nothing at all.”
I raise my head to gauge the reaction of the young agent to what I think is my logical conclusion drawn from everything he has just told me, but that young man, who had just been here, talking to me, is gone.
Is it summer already? Or is the summer almost over?
Where is the summer, the unimaginable
Zero summer?
Jack Step, August 21, 2014