>>> Item number 14405 from WRITERS LOG9307A --- (145 records) ---- <<< Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1993 17:00:03 JST Reply-To: WRITERS Sender: WRITERS From: Mike Barker Subject: SUB: Such Lovely Smoke well, let's see what the critics think. mike Such Lovely Smoke Mike Barker 1280 words The center of the city was burning. The flames leaped high into the sky, and tiptoed across narrow alleys on toes of trash. The black smoke billowed and stank, drifting like a fog that stained everything even far from the vast burning core. Adrian Jefferson stood at the window of his office, gazing at the smoke, smiling. His eyes were white threads, the dark furrows in his forehead black brushstrokes against his brown skin, and muscles shaped his cheeks into faint echoes of ancient tattoos of the warrior. His lips were pulled tight, pink gums and white teeth bare in a tiger's challenge as he gazed at the darkening sky. The phone rang, and he backed away from the window and picked it up without taking his eyes from the window. "Jefferson here." He listened for a minute, then answered. "Well, off the record, I'm shocked, of course. My corporation has invested heavily in the areas which are burning, and we will lose heavily." In the dark bedroom, the boy listened to the scratching and gnawing in the wall, then patted his brother's hand. "You sure..." His brother shook his hand off, impatiently. "I gotta do it now. That damn rat gonna come in, and if he come in when we asleep, he get us both. I got a knife, and I ain't gonna let him kill you. You just stay back." The plaster fell away, and the scratching was on the floor. His brother moved, then screamed as the rat chittered. He screamed again and again, then there was silence, a silence so deep the boy could hear blood dripping. The boy hadn't been touched, but his brother died the next day from rat bites and malnutrition. Adrian tilted the phone a little away from his head as the squeaking voice erupted again. He grinned at the window again as he listened. "Oh, I doubt that there will be many injuries. I have a report here that all residents were moved to rural camps just last week to allow us to perform renovations. Since those camps are bankrupt farms which I had purchased, I expect we can leave them there for some time." The field in the campground was jammed with the press and angry faces. Adrian took a deep breath and pushed forward, ignoring press microphones, shouted questions, and lenses. He was startled when someone grabbed his hand. He was even more startled when he looked down and realized that the pink palms and brown hands belonged to a fat woman who was kissing the back of his hand. She finished, and turned her face towards him, holding his hand and patting it. "Mr. Jefferson, I just wanted to say thank you. My boy, he was in one of those gangs back in the city, and I'm sure he was doing dope. But now! Why, he's working on our two acres every day, from dawn to dark, and he's so proud. I don't know what this here trial is about, but when you decided to let us have our own little farms out at the camps, you saved my boy." Adrian nodded, speechless. Then he pulled his hand free gently and stepped forward, heading for the platform. The phone erupted again, and Adrian blinked. "I certainly wouldn't know anything about problems with the fire companies. You'll have to talk to them about what delayed their response. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to work, to planning just how we are going to handle this shocking tragedy." The old priest blinked at the young man's uniform, then held his hands. "Son, I don't know how to tell you, but your sister had grievous sins on her soul. Truly grievous sins. And if you buy these candles and we burn them in church, I'm sure it will help her poor troubled soul to rest." The copy of the police report in the uniform pocket crackled, and he thought about the list of drug and prostitution charges it showed, along with the final notation about her death due to drug overdose. He laughed in the priest's face, pulled his hands free, and walked out of the church. Adrian pushed the phone back into the set, threw his head back, and laughed. Then he moved closer to the window again and watched. He stepped forward and looked at the faces. He glanced briefly up at the dark sky, and looked beyond the gathered people at the trees and fields surrounding them. Then he started speaking. "You all have questions for me. I know you do." "My lawyer tells me I shouldn't talk to you, that I need to wait. But he doesn't understand." "So I'm going to talk to you today. I'm going to talk to you about what I've done, and hope and pray that you will understand." He paused a moment and looked slowly at the faces. Then he continued. "Let me tell you what I've done. I've finally repaid the debt I owe my brother who fought a rat in the dark to keep his brother.. to keep me alive and safe. He was so badly bitten that he died the next day." "You know what I'm talking about? I lived in those slums, and I know every one of you knows what I'm talking about." Adrian watched the sky, that dark swirling sky, as he continued. "I was lucky, damn lucky, because I found a way out. My sister didn't, and she died a few years after I got out, just another OD'd prostitute. The priest at her funeral tried to talk me into buying some candles to burn for her, and he seemed real disappointed when I didn't buy his." "Well, if you see him around, you tell him I bought her the biggest set of candles this city has ever seen, and I burned them this week. Can you do that for me?" Adrian looked down briefly as they laughed, then looked up at the clouds again. He wondered where they were coming from, but he continued. "Now, some of you may want to know what happened to the slums. I know you've heard of the fires by now." "Friends, I burned the slums. I ordered it done, I made damn sure that no one was there to be hurt by it, and I made sure they burned to the ground, every one of them. I watched, and I want to tell you, they are gone." He stopped, picked up the glass of water someone had set nearby, and took a slow sip. Then he got out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead and neck. The crowd buzzed as people repeated to each other what he had said. He raised his hands and they quieted. He glanced up at the black clouds and wondered why no one else seemed to be looking at them. "I burned those slums, for my brother, for my sister, for your family and friends. They are gone, and there is no way that any of you can go back to those stinking pits." "That's what I did to you." He watched, silently, as the swirling clouds came down, black ashes touching lightly on brown and red and yellow and white foreheads, marking them and then vanishing. Heads shook, some faces smiled, and some cried, as hearts and souls dimmed by life in the slums realized what he had done for them. He knelt before them, and gazed at the clear blue sky. Such lovely smoke. ---------------------------------------------