The Crossover Artist

The Crossover Artist 

By Armand Muniz 

Ken Marlow died Saturday afternoon. That was the day he collapsed after the  charity softball game between the town councils of Trumbull and Monroe. He was the chair of the town finance committee and prior worked in a brokerage house that went under because of the financial crisis. In his mind, the whole thing was overblown and he was part of the solution. While he worked at Denton Worthington Pitt, his assistant Morgan kept a secret for him. Ken liked to drink. He  loved to snort cocaine. He really loved to do both at once. And after the firm went under he did it a lot more. Morgan knew how things usually work out when a bad person gets into a tight spot: you fall upwards. A former partner of the firm who went into politics got him a job in the town clerks office and Ken was set. He used that connection to get Morgan a job at the bank across the street.  Appreciation for the job came easy, keeping the secret about round hill road and the Metlzer boy was not. It weighed on him and made his life harder than it had to be. Most of all, it made him forget things that really matter. Morgan ran up the front steps in the same rushed way he always did. The crisp new England air felt fresh, as if the cold killed off any of the dangers riding on the wind. Adjusting his weight off his bad right knee he balanced the bag on his thigh while trying to fish out his door-key. Morgan is always rushing because he is always late. Being on time is a skill he hasn't mastered; or perhaps he hasn't awakened yet. The world around him seems to command a broad sense of urgency. Never the type to take time to plan, Morgan is the architect of his perpetual tardiness. Scheduled activities require too much control and losing control isn't something he takes kindly to. Freedom is the only thing he has that is his and the ability to be late or, more accurately described, on his own schedule, is the only way to be truly free. Ties and obligations abound in the scheduled world he runs through. Aggressive faces on the train and on the subway platform meet his gaze as if judging his choices. Morgan looks at them with a childlike innocence. Sometimes he wonders if people can read his mind. The looks on their faces suggests they can. Either that or they're being extremely assumptive and judgmental. The apartment where he lives is actually the top floor of a  three family house. His lease is month to month giving him just enough time to reevaluate things  before having to pay another 800 for a place for his stuff. It's 8:24 in the morning and this gives him exactly 16 minutes to get to the office before he is boss realizes he is 15 minutes late. Juggling two jobs seemed like a good idea at the time. It wasn't. But it's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. Locking up the branch early is a blessing and a curse. Everyone who normally would be here today has other things to do. The funeral was on a Wednesday at the parlor in town near the park he played soccer. Even though it was  only early March the weather was comfortable enough to have on only a long sleeve shirt and a suit jacket. March in Connecticut is a mixed bag of cool sunny days or grey windy messes. The weather tends to break right before April and if you are lucky days like today are good to savor. All was great save for the funeral. Ken was not young in age but too young to die. Alcohol was the reason but Winter league indoor softball was the scapegoat. Running through memes on Facebook was getting old and people were filing in so it was showtime. Family gatherings, whether a time of celebration or contemplation, challenged Morgan. His relationship to Ken was second tier, b list at best. But he wasn't only here for paying respects. Walking up the drive towards the funeral home he caught a glance at the large wraparound deck where the bereaved and bereft huddled together. The warmer weather made cause for leaving space between each body where normally the group would be much closer. Ken was not an easy person to grieve. His overall demeanor was that of a man of obnoxious wit and mean spirited comments interspersed with awkward over shares drenched in scotch and cigar smoke. From the window you could see the casket if your neck craned enough. On it a bottle of Johnnie Black and a pair of snake eyed dice held in place by his catchers mitt, used religiously since 1980 when he would pretend to be Johnny Bench.  Walking into the home, he felt eyes both seen and unseen, on him. The unseen bothered him much more. People lined the hall like human rope ready to entangle him. Around every corner and in every room stood someone new. Some known others strangers all vacant and superfluous like extras in a movie. Morgan made his way to the casket. He made sure to keep his back to the wall covered in a faux-velvet curtain made up to look like there was another room or exit on the other side. Morgan slid his fingers between the break in the fabric and saw a bare brick wall. How ironic he thought to have that there. A room where the living people are no longer moving forward, trapped by memories of the person in the box or the urn. Morgan, as a Catholic, believed in Heaven and Hell. He knew in his heart where Ken was going. It was obvious. In life, guys like him got it all. Relationships. Power. Money. The kind of celebrity you can living in a town like this. But afterwards came the penance. Paying the piper. Thinking about it made Morgan smile the kind of smile you don't normally see at a funeral. He collected himself and continued the facade. Scanning the room, it was much too full to comfortably pay respects. Too many crying relatives. Even more those looking for FaceTime with the deceased showing their face as to avoid the inevitable chatter rampant in suburbia. Morgan would get stares and chatter himself but for an entirely different reason. The black jacket he wore had one inside pocket. In it he carried a piece of tigers eye on a string. That was for protection. The side pockets held a penny each. For the ferryman. Making his way towards Ken, Morgan wondered how many people here would believe it if they found out that he was who he was. Growing up the kids in his class and neighborhood talked about Gertie, the bus driver who only listened to Ozzy and Maiden and Crüe and would have cut them into pieces as a sacrifice to the dark lord if she got them where she wanted them just once. Nobody wants to be the last stop on that bus because you're never riding it again now. Only Gertie was really just a lonely burnout who didn't want anything to do with these kids but rather missed her son who left home when she divorced and hadn't seen him since he was 19. Her spit wasn't purple because she sold her soul and was a with but brown because she regularly bought skoal and had the onset of oral cancer. Morgan knows that everyone has shit they shovel down the hill everyday. He knew that she would die alone in the house surrounded by her unfinished letters to Cole her son and those poems that are a little too personal to read aloud. He also knew she would have kids that never rode her bus talking about things that never happened to kids that didn't exist, legends passed down by older brothers and sisters who also had no idea what they were talking about. But that's the nature of legends right? They're all bullshit stories made up to scare you into being good or stop you from being bad. Santa Claus, Easter Bunnies, The Great Pumpkin all bullshit. But Morgan knew that some legends are true. Sometimes the things you don't know about are best kept that way. Things like God, Angels and Demons. Morgan knew them all too well. The stories from his childhood are very different than some fake witch spitting purple globs of spit with remnants of devoured child-souls in them. His were much darker. Nightmares that started when he was awake and ended when he passed out from the heat of the flames scratching his face and leaving marks on his neck. Marks his mother saw and asked about in awkward conversations about having sex too soon because they looked like hickies. The crowd thinned out as he shook the shame from his mind clinging to his head like walking into a spiderweb. His anger at Ken peaked and he was ready to send him where he belonged. Walking past the line of grieving family and friends, with the strut of confidence reserved for but only the most brave and ungodly cool, he placed his hands on Ken. The room, already darkened from the setting sun, went pitch black. The wall with the velvet curtain shook and scratched while the casket rattled against its risers. The whites of Morgan's eyes began to glow a blue white tint and Ken rose from the box slowly before turning into an orb and floating through the now open curtains shocked silence abound. The faces of those around him were filled with shock and terror. Towards the back of the room, a pair of classmates stared mouths agape as the orb pulsated past them. Once the orb passed through the now open hallway of burning rock and stone, screams and torment, charred walls of the damned encasing the evil of the underworld. Behind the curtain the wall flashed and once again became brick and velvet. The light returned and the casket was closed. Turning away from it, Morgan quickly snatched the bottle, and shoved it in his jacket pocket. It , clinking against the penny, felt heavy but not nearly as heavy as his hands after absorbing so much energy. If only these people knew this morning they would witness the crossing over of a child killer. And that all these years Morgan Gannon, banker, brother, painter of fences and sheds was also the real life totally legit Angel of Death. 

And he fucking hated it.