The Box

Krieger is a homeless war veteran haunted by a sore leg and a woman's Scheherazade eyes.

Approximately 4000 words

Disney Dreams
by
Max Griffin

       

        Krieger stood in front of the Sixth Street Mission and squinted against the glare from the noontime Tulsa sun.  He wiped sweat from his brow, but a trickle burned his eyes.  Perspiration soaked his ragged desert fatigues, and his right big toe throbbed from where he'd stubbed it and torn the nail two nights ago.  Damned flip-flops.

        Sophie, the crazy bag lady who lived under the freeway bridge over Archer Street, snarled at him.  "Go in or get outta my way, Sarge." 

        Krieger flinched.  He couldn't recall the last time anyone had spoken to him. 

        He stood back while she opened the door.  A blast of chilly air cooled his cheeks, and the aroma of beef stew filled his nose. What the hell. Trading Jesus-talk for food was a tolerable bargain.  Barely, but tolerable.  He followed her inside. 

         The chatter of voices and the somber tones of a recorded hymn thrummed in his ears.  Krieger rolled down the sleeves of his fatigues to hide the bruises that ran up the inside of his arm.  He limped after Sophie to the soup line where she picked up a tray and flatware.  The air conditioning, while a surcease from the inferno outside, made his clothes cling to his torso and turned his skin clammy.

         The woman serving the soup ladled a generous portion into a plastic bowl and handed it to Sophie.  When the server spoke, her voice was velvet.  "Bless you, Sister." Her name tag identified her as Sister Lenore, and her golden hair shimmered in a halo about her head. 

         Sophie grunted.  "Yeah, yeah.  Whatever.  Bless you, too." 

         Light glinted in the server's brown eyes when she turned toward Krieger. 

         He froze.  Those eyes, those enchanting eyes.  So like the animated Disney princess from Aladdin.  He couldn't recall her name.  Scheherazade? 

         Like the eyes of that girl-child in Kandahar, right before the bomb hidden under her burqa had exploded.  Those eyes had looked through him, beyond him, to Paradise.  Like those eyes, Sister Lenore's didn't see him at all.

         His stomach clenched with sudden panic, and the utensils on his tray rattled.  An aura of flames flickered from his tray. From the pot of stew.  From Sister Lenore. The mission spun about him, veiled in swirling blue smoke. Faint voices screaming in Pashtun fought with the recorded hymns. He squeezed his eyes closed to banish visions from another place and time, to return to invisibility.

         Bony fingers steadied his wrist and Sophie's whisper rasped in his ear, "It's all right, Sarge.  Go find us a table.  I'll bring you your portion."

         He opened his eyes and the world re-formed.  No flames, just Sophie's concerned features.  It was hard sometimes to tell the difference between nightmare and reality. Sometimes he liked the nightmare better.  He swallowed and clenched his jaw.  "Thanks.  Give me a minute and I'll be fine." 

         He willed his hands to hold steady before he limped to an empty table.  His toe sent knives slashing up his shin with each step.  He slumped into a folding chair, rested his head in his hands, and heaved a deep breath.  This was Tulsa, Oklahoma, not Kandahar.  IEDs and suicide bombers were half a world away.

         Sophie clanked her tray on the table and interrupted his reverie.  She slid a bowl of stew in his direction.  "You prayin'?"  She stared at him, her eyes buried in a spider's web of leathery wrinkles.  "Won't do no good.  God don't hear no prayers from folk like us."

         "I wasn't praying."  Of course God couldn't hear his prayers. Krieger had believed once, but no more. Not after all the suffering he'd witnessed.  He hated God as much as if He really existed.

         Sophie wiped her mouth on a grimy sleeve.  "God's for people like her." She nodded to the server. "We can't afford no God, and He don't give a fuck about us nohow.  What a phony.  Sister Lenore, her nametag says.  Like we was blood relations or somethin', when she's wearin' Gucci shoes and a Verasce dress.  If she was really my sister, you think I'd be wearin' these rags while she's dressed up in all that glory?  Screw her.  She ain't my sister.  We ain't even the same species."

         Krieger picked up his spoon.  "Well, she is helping the Mission.  She doesn't have to come here."  His jaws ached as he spooned the first morsels into his mouth and chewed. 

         She snorted.  "It's all fake, I tell ya.  She just comes here so she don't have to feel guilty with her fancy clothes and all.  It's for show, just sound and fury that don't mean nothin'.  I was rich once. I know how them assholes think."

         Krieger avoided rolling his eyes.  Most of the street people claimed they used to be rich, with loved ones, jobs, and even lives, like real people.  Everyone had a story.  Even him.  But they were just stories, a dream within a dream.

         The Mission's resident preacher broke into the drone of hymns and announced last call at the serving line.  A few stragglers rambled forward, and Sister Lenore doled out soup and a blessing.  When the line closed, she pulled a jeweled compact from her purse and touched up her crimson lipstick.  Her princess eyes glimmered in the sunlight that streamed through the plate glass windows. 

         Krieger tightened his mouth and turned his attention to Sophie. "You could be right about her." He nodded at Lenore.  "What difference does it make? The world is what it is."

         Sophie pushed her tray back and inspected him through narrowed eyes.  "Ya think?  Some says the world's what we make it."

         Krieger scowled and sharpened his tongue. "Right. Like I choose to be here, in this dump. And how about my buddies?  I saw them die.  Blown to smithereens.  You think they created their reality?"  His hands shook and he gripped the edge of the table to steady them.

         Her face softened and her eyes glistened.  "I'm sorry, Sarge. That ain't what I meant."  She caressed the back of his hand with her bony fingers. 

         The preacher stood on a small stage at the end of room and spoke into a microphone.  "Let us pray," he intoned.

         Sophie leaned forward and whispered, "Tonight, at midnight, come to my crib under the overpass.  I got some hootch to share, and maybe we can help each other out.  You scratch my back, I scratch yours."

         Krieger withdrew his hands under the table, leaned back in his folding chair, and let the preacher's sonorous voice wash over him.  The mission disappeared in a haze of gospel music, prayers promising hell fire and damnation, and the blessed coolness of air conditioning.  He knew the real hell fire was outside, on the unforgiving Tulsa streets, not in some fear-filled Biblical fantasy.

***

         Krieger scuttled over the old Boston Avenue bridge that crossed the railroad tracks bisecting downtown.  A rusted steel sculpture of a cloud towered overhead on a pole that thrust seventy feet into the night sky. Amber street lights sent shadows radiating from its base.  His toe burned and daggers of pain knifed up his calf.  He stopped at the worn concrete circle known as the Center of the Universe and stooped to rub his leg.  "Damn foot," he muttered. His voice reverberated in the weird acoustics of the place and returned to his ears as loud as if he'd shouted. 

         Wind, hot as Satan's breath, sent a swirl of dust racing down the walkway.  The moon hung low above the eastern horizon, orange and full, silhouetted against the skyline.  He might be able to rest at the shelter, if they had a bed.  He limped over the bridge, crossed Second Street, and entered Centennial Plaza.  The clock there read 11:28.  A lonely Honda chugged by, one fender crumpled and corroded.  The driver wore a muscle shirt, and his hair hung in greasy ropes on his neck.  Krieger lifted a hand in a half-hearted wave, but the driver sped on, ignoring him.

         Heat still radiated from the skyscrapers and the asphalt streets.  Sweat drizzled down Krieger's sides, and dust gritted in his teeth.  He remembered Sophie's promise of hootch. It wasn't much, but it might tide him over. Her crib was just a few blocks away.  It was better than a cot at the shelter, and closer, too.  Besides, the run-down warehouses around the shelter reminded him of Kandahar, fire, and death.

         He plodded down the empty streets, past closed storefronts and cutting through vacant parking lots.  He turned onto Archer Street.  Two blocks away, traffic swooshed on the elevated expressway, but down here in the underworld twilight reigned.  The new ballpark hunkered dark and foreboding on his left, and a dusty, overgrown parking lot stretched to infinity on his right. 

         He stopped at one of the benches outside the entrance to the ballpark to rest his aching leg.  The damned thing looked infected.  The toenail was black and green, and the flip-flop squeezed against his swollen foot.  The free clinic was nearly a mile away, and wouldn't open until 5PM tomorrow.  Still, he supposed he'd have to make it there, somehow.

         A black bird, too large to be a crow, fluttered to the street and pecked at garbage.  Krieger narrowed his eyes.  That wasn't garbage.  It was the remains of a dead dog.  The passage of countless cars had flattened it to a pathetic pancake of flesh and fur.  And the bird, what was it?  Not a crow.  Surely not a raven?

         Whatever. 

         He heaved a sigh, stood and limped forward.  The railroad crossed Archer at street level and both ran underneath the freeway above.  Sophie lived in a cardboard crate hidden away in a tangled bramble of trees and bushes between the tracks and the street, sheltered by the overpass.  Krieger pushed his way through the thicket, nettles stinging his bare feet and drought-seared scrub prickling his fingers.

         He paused and peered into the gloom.  "Sophie?  You there?"

         She replied in a husky whisper, "That you, Sarge?"

         "Yeah.  Where you at, woman?"

         A candle flickered and sent shadows chasing the darkness.  "Right here.  Come rest a spell.  I didn't think you was comin'."

         Sure enough, there she was, huddled half-inside an enormous box that read "Whirlpool Refrigerator Model WRX735SDBM."  A cigarette dangled from her lips and she patted the scrap of carpet that covered the floor of her ersatz home.  "Have a seat, my friend."

         He grunted as he settled next to her, taking care to extend his sore foot in front of him.  Sophie smelled like shit, but he didn't mind.  He imagined he didn't smell any better.  He nodded to the bottle that protruded from the paper bag she gripped in one fist.  "That your hootch?"

         A semi roared by overhead, and her eyes glinted in the reflected headlights.  She tipped the bottle back and took three hefty swigs before she wiped it on her sleeve.  "Ahh, that's good stuff.  Here ya go." She offered him the elixir.

         He let a grateful grin bend his lips before guzzling liquid fire.  He shuddered and repressed a belch.  "Where'd you get this rotgut?"

         "It's my private stash. I ain't talkin'."  She snapped her fingers at the bottle. "Gimme."

         He sat with her in silence, trading drinks and enjoying the careless camaraderie of the homeless.  The alcohol oozed its way into his body, numbing his lips and softening the harsh edges of life.  Junk littered Sophie's squalid abode: stacks of smoothed-out fast food foil, packets of catsup and mustard, empty water bottles and other accumulated street treasures.  He swept aside a clear place and lay back, resting his head on a stone pillow.  "You got a good place, here.  The cops give you any trouble?"

         "Nah. The daytime cops is too busy suckin' up to the big shots downtown to notice me.  The night patrol, they sometimes bring me food from the Marriott, all wrapped up in napkins."

         "Nice of them."

         "I guess.  Them fancy places downtown what serve food, they give the day's leftovers to the cops free, afore they throw it away.  I guess they figure they'll get better protection if they feed the enforcers."

         He fidgeted and winced as agony ripped at his leg.  "Still, it's kind of the cops to think of you."

         "If you say so."  She lit a cigarette, the glow of the match turning her features a golden brown. "Wouldn't occur to the rich assholes to give to them what needs it."

         "We're invisible, Sophie.  They don't even see us.  We don't exist, not in their world."

         "You got that right, Sarge."  Smoke leaked from her nose and swirled in delicate wisps about her head. "How are you with dogs?"  She handed the bottle to him.

         He took another swig and then quirked an eyebrow at her.  "Dogs?  I can take 'em or leave 'em.  Why you ask?"  He jiggled the bottle.  "It's almost gone.  You want the last?"

         She squirmed on the ratty pillow she squatted on and shook her head.  "Go ahead.  I got more." 

         Silence stretched for a few moments before she spoke again.  "Here's the thing.  I got more hootch stashed, and some cash too.  But I can't get at it.  There's this damned dog what's in the way."

         "In the way how?"  He took a final sip, and his body started to relax into an alcoholic torpor, muscles languid.  Before long, he knew, sleep would come, and with it temporary reprieve from the pain of existence.

         "I got it stashed in this storm drain, see.  But this scraggly dog's camped out there.  He snarls and nips at me whenever I try to get it."  She paused to take a drag on her smoke.  "I'd split it with you, fifty-fifty, if you can get it for me."

         "Fifty-fifty, huh?  What's the catch?"  He didn't really feel like getting up, or doing anything at all.  He wanted to sleep.  Maybe he'd luck out and his hootch-infested brain wouldn't dream.  That would be a blessing.

         "Aint no catch. But this drought, it won't last forever.  I gotta get it outta the drain afore it rains, or I'll be screwed."  She snuffed out her cigarette.  "There's enough for both of us. I ain't greedy, not like the ass-hats in the real world."

         He used his elbows to lever himself to a sitting position.  "How big's this dog?"

         "He ain't so big."  She dug into her supply of junk.  "And lookie here.  I got this bone I found in a dumpster the other day.  Maybe you can tempt him with that."

         He wrinkled his nose.  The bone was huge, almost two feet long, and rancid gristle and fat clung to it.  "More like I could club him with it."

         "I got a pipe you could use for that.  You gonna help me, Sarge?  You're a soldier. You know how to do battle."

         Battle.  Flickers of memory lashed at him, and the refrigerator box turned into an earthen hovel.  Sophie's ragged overalls and worn sneakers transformed to the robes and sandals of an ancient Afghan matriarch.  The swish of traffic on the freeway overhead morphed to the chop-chop of helicopters mingled with the twang of a tambur from the Kasbah.  A severed limb lay bleeding nearby, a combat boot still attached.  Blood poured from his own thigh, its muscle churned to hamburger.  He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut.  When he looked again, Sophie's refrigerator crate returned and his leg, though swollen and sore, was whole again.  "Where's this storm drain?"

         "It aint far.  It goes under the tracks."  She stood.  "I'll show ya."

         "I didn't say I'd do it."  Krieger wobbled to his feet and stood still, waiting for the world to stop rotating about him.  The hootch must have been stronger than he thought, or he wasn't used to drinking any more.  "Show me."  He picked up the disgusting bone and the pipe that Sophie had uncovered.

         She scuttled off through the brush and he stumbled after, using the pipe as a cane. "Don't go so fast.  I got a bad leg."

         She'd already stopped, dancing eagerly around a broken concrete drain that ran underneath the tracks.  He examined the opening.  "What is it?  Maybe three feet across?  How am I gonna fight off a dog in that?"

         "It runs about fifty feet and then there's an opening.  It looks like an old basement or something caved in.  That's where the dog's at, and my stash.  In the cellar."

         "How am I gonna see anything?"

         "I got a light."  She showed him a battery-powered lantern.  "I been savin' it for this."

         He peered into the black hole of the drain and then into Sophie's black eyes.  What the hell.  He didn't have anything to lose.  "Gimme the light."

         She snatched his wrist.  "The hootch is in bottles in a cardboard box.  My stash is there, too, in a tin box.  Don't open the box, though.  We'll do it together back at my crib and count out our shares there."

         He shrugged her off.  "Whatever. You gonna gimme the light or what?"

         "Not until you agree. Don't open the box.  Say it."

         "All right, already.  I won't open the blasted box."

         She examined his face for beat before handing him the lantern.  "See that you don't.  I'll wait here."

         When he knelt to crawl into the drain, she squatted next to him, grabbed his ears, and gave him a sloppy kiss on the lips.  "Be careful, Sarge."

         "Jesus, Sophie." He wiped his lips on his ragged cuff while he examined her face.  Something hid there.  It wasn't quite concern, but it was something strange...almost human.  "I'll be careful."  He stuffed the bone in a cargo pocket in his trousers, but kept the lantern and the pipe in his hands.

         Crawling on hands and knees, he barely fit into the drain.  He dragged the pipe in one hand and the lamp in the other.  The beam cast sinewy shadows across the disgusting, dried-up muck that filled the bottom.  Tree branches, gravel and piles of sand brushed against his sore leg and sent agony shooting all the way to his hip. No doubt about it: the pain was getting worse.  Damned thing was hot to touch, too.  Feverish.

         He figured he advanced ten inches per drag of the lantern and pipe and started counting.  When he hit sixty-four drags, a jumble of stones on his right opened into a cave-in.  He shone the light into a dingy cellar.  Sure enough, a cardboard box filled with dusty bottles sat perhaps ten feet away, amidst a tumble of trash, brick and stone.  A mangy dog lay on a river of dried mud and sticks, its head resting on its forepaws. When the light flashed, the animal raised up and curled its lips.  Yellow, jagged teeth jutted from its mouth, and its enormous eyes caught the light like rubies. 

         Krieger placed a hand on the floor of the chamber, and a low growl reverberated from the animal.  He paused, then spoke to the beast in subdued, soothing tones.  "Hey, Cujo.  Good doggie.  Ol' sarge has a bone for you." 

         He held out the disgusting thing, and the animal's nose twitched.

         "Yeah, that's a good doggie.  Good Cujo."  He figured giving the dog a name would help.  After all, the thing was too dumb to understand the reference.

          Cujo coiled, its forelimbs crouched low with its rump high, its tail erect and quivering.  A snarl escaped its lips, but its eyes stayed on the bone.

         "Good Cujo.  You want the bone, doncha, boy?  That's a good dog."  Don't rush it.  Be patient.  He waved the bone.

         Cujo sniffed again and circled closer.  Its tail drooped and now it swished rather than quivered. 

         "That's it.  Good dog. Good Cujo."  Krieger held his breath, the bone extended in invitation. 

         Cujo approached and sniffed the proffered treat.  It nipped at the end, and then tugged on it.  Krieger released his grip.  "Good doggie."  He eased into the room, careful to stay on hands and knees. 

         Cugo dragged his bone across the room, then turned, tipped his head, and examined the intruder in his lair. 

         Krieger froze, then slowly extended a hand.  "Good doggie.  Good Cujo."

         The animal inched nearer, tentative, but this time its tail fell to half-mast and gave a slight wag.  Krieger continued making soothing sounds while the dog edged closer.  It sniffed his fingers, then snuffled his hand and gave it a big doggie kiss. 

         Woof!  Its tail now wagged in full-fledged welcome mode.

         "Yeah, that's a good dog.  Good boy!"  Krieger stayed low and kept his voice soft and reassuring.  Animals were so much easier than people.  Animals never lied to you.  They could hurt you, but they were honest.

         Cujo snuggled closer and licked Krieger's face.  "Good dog."  He ruffled the animal's scruffy ears, and sand burrs nicked his fingers.  Poor thing.  It must have been someone's pet once.  People could be so cruel. Who would abandon a helpless dog?

         There'd been another dog once, back in Kandahar the day the bomb went off.  After, there had been patches of bloodied fur, but no dog.  Humans were the real beasts in this world.

         Krieger played with Cujo for a few moments longer, and then crawled through the dust to Sophie's stash.  Seven bottles of Stolichnaya vodka.  He ran his finger over the grimy state liquor stamp: 1978.  They must have been here almost fifty years.  He wondered how Sophie had found them.

         A tin container, about the size and shape of a schoolchild's lunchbox, lay nestled amidst the bottles.  That must be what Sophie wanted.  The light from the lantern glinted off its shiny surface.  When he picked it up, it was surprisingly heavy--at least twenty pounds.  He shook it, but it made no sound.

         Something wasn't right here.  He glanced at Cujo, who had retreated to a corner of the room where it held the bone in both paws and gnawed.  When the light flashed on him, the dog released the bone and stared a Krieger.  One ear fell in a goofy flop across his face.  Woof?

         Despite himself, a smile bent Krieger's mouth.  "It's all right, boy.  You're a good dog. Eat your bone.  You've earned it, protecting Sophie's stash all this time."

         Woof!  As if he understood, Cujo returned to slobbery chewing.

         Krieger fingered the lunch box.  She'd said not to open it.  What the hell.  She'd never know.

         He pried at the lid.  It moved a fraction of an inch and stuck.  "Shit."  He laid it on the floor, positioned the lantern so he could see, and used both hands, one on the top and one on the bottom, to open the box.

         The lid snapped off with a suddenness that shocked him. The lid clattered to the floor, while the lunch box itself stayed put. 

         Then the strangest thing happened.  A blue glow emanated from deep inside the lunch box, dim at first but instantly brighter, and then brighter still.  Within seconds it hurt his eyes to look.  The glow swirled about and enveloped him with the fluidity of water, flowing in liquid streams as no light could or should.  Music, alluring and soothing, oozed forth.

         Krieger fell back on his haunches.  Cujo whimpered and crept to him, huddling at his side.  The basement whirled about him in a dizzying spin.  Pain lacerated his brain. His limbs turned rigid and his back arched.  The blue light dazzled him, dominated him, drowned him.

         That's when it happened.

         A miracle coalesced out of the cerulean light.  At first, only her eyes were visible.  Scheherazade eyes, just like in a Disney movie.  Then, as if from nothing, her body swirled into existence, passing from the middle ground of light and shadow to the substance of imagination and longing--lovely, feminine, and draped in diaphanous splendor. She could have been Sister Lenore, but not the flesh-and-blood angel from the mission.  She was an idealized Arabian Princess, consumed by contradictions: exotic and wholesome, alluring and modest, sexual and innocent. She was the animated Scheherazade of his fantasies, of his dreams. Of Disney dreams.

         The ruined basement flickered, and for an instant--for an eternity--Kandahar returned.  Smoke slithered about shattered buildings. Screams tore at his ears.  Pain slashed at his injured leg.  Another flicker, and the cruel, dusty heat of Tulsa streets choked him.  In the distance, Sophie's laughter cackled.

         A rumble from afar, from nowhere, brought the divine Scheherazade back to him.  His princess.  He reached for her, astounded to see not his flesh but an animated chimera of his hand caressing her cheek. 

         It didn't matter.  This was what he'd longed for, hoped for, lived for.  He surrendered to the end of nightmares, the end of pain, the end of...

         

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Author's notes.
This fable is loosely based on a Danish fairy tale, "The Tinder box."   

The "Center of the Universe" really is a landmark in downtown Tulsa. Photos and information about the site and the cloud sculpture are here   and here.  

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Short Stories by Max Griffin  (18+) Tales of horror, suspense, mystery, and science fiction. #1727241 by Max Griffin 🏳️‍🌈