HI THERE! Here's Chapter 11 as promised. Now, I know I promised an 'extra' chapter and that this chapter is just the regularly scheduled weekly chapter. DOn't worry, I'll keep my promise before the weekend is out. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy! Drop me a line if you want. I'd be happy to hear from you.
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Crown Vic to a Parallel World: From Whence I Came The second installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips
11
Another Long Story and a Trip to South Street
The next morning, I was alone on the main floor of the house. I was wiping the table off after breakfast. Bem was still asleep in our room. He didn't rouse when Shawn and I got out of bed earlier. I supposed the previous day was a bit much for him, so we let him sleep.
The other missing man was Andy. He was almost conspicuously absent as I cleaned up. Every other time, the boy had jumped in to help with meals. It wasn't like him to avoid work, so I had to assume he'd made himself scarce to avoid his aunt. I finished wiping the table and was rinsing the cloth in the sink when there was a knock at the front door. Joe had made certain the door was unlocked, so the knock was followed immediately by the entrance of my sister and her husband.
Ezekiel Thompson was five feet ten or eleven inches tall with a slight build. He was a painfully thin man with glossy blond hair that he kept gelled flat to his head. He had watery blue eyes and skin the color of rendered fat. He always wore a buttoned-down shirt with thin vertical stripes and flat front, straight leg, khaki pants over walnut color, lace-up, dress shoes. As soon as he saw me, he called out in a squeaky voice, like a clarinet with a broken reed.
"Church, great to see you after so long. When Mary said you were here, I cleared my schedule to visit. We couldn't have you disappearing again without catching up, could we?" He chanted the words as he pushed into the kitchen to shake my hand with a moist palm.
I grabbed the dishcloth I'd just finished rinsing, pretended to wipe the counter with it, and wiped my hand off. I rinsed the cloth again and draped it over the sink faucet to dry. "Hi, Zeke, nice to see you. How are the kids?" I tried to sound at least a little enthusiastic and was doing my best to hide my dislike of the man. I wondered how successful I was.
"Zeke! I always loved that silly nickname you gave me." He grinned and slapped my back as we moved toward the dining room. "The kids are fine, growing like weeds. They're eight now."
I sensed that something was up, but I didn't know what it was. Zeke never liked me, he hated that I called him `Zeke,' and I'd never seen him so chummy with anyone except church officials. I also noticed my sister wouldn't meet my eyes. Mary was avoiding me while working very hard to seem like she wasn't. She'd been loitering in the living room, looking around like it was the first time she had ever seen it and wanted to note all the decorating.
"That's great to hear, Zeke!" I replied heartily. "Let's sit and catch up. Joe will be down in a minute."
As if on cue, Joe appeared at the head of the steps and made his careful way down as Shawn followed behind. Joe shook hands with his brother-in-law, raked Mary with an `I dare you to get out of line' glare, and sat at the head of the table.
I noticed that Zeke eying Shawn, and I decided to break the ice with a sledgehammer. I moved next to my husband, draped my arm over his shoulders protectively and possessively, and introduced the men to each other. "Zeke, this is my husband, Shawn Summas. Shawn, this is my brother-in-law, Ezekiel Thompson." I held my breath and waited for the explosion.
Shawn's guard was up. I felt that he was braced for another scene like the day before, but Zeke surprised us both. "It's a pleasure." He shook Shawn's hand.
The warm greeting put me on my guard even more than the easy banter between Zeke and I had. Ezekiel was as devout as his name implied. I knew that if he was ready to accept a same sex relationship without so much as a murmur of disapproval, he had an ulterior motive. I was trying to work out what that motive might be as we gathered around the table.
Andy surprised me when he joined us a moment later. I assumed that meant that Joe had caught up with him at some point and insisted on his presence. I had a fleeting concern about Bem, who I assumed was still asleep, but the conversation was almost immediately directed to me, so I had to shelve those worries.
"Church." Zeke addressed me with a forwardness that I could only assume was his `buddy' voice. "Joe tells me you're here to see about some rather sizable investments. We have quite a selection of financial professionals that volunteer their time for the church. I thought I could make some introductions for you. They're very experienced and trustworthy men, though the last part need hardly be said if they're involved with the church. What, exactly do you need done?"
`THERE IT IS!' my brain screamed at me. I realized that the whole visit was about money. Shawn and I had it, and Zeke wanted it. He likely considered us damned sinners, but Zeke was plenty willing to shake hands with a sinner if there were dollar bills in his hand. I pretended to be oblivious to Zeke's thinly veiled greed. "We're here to transfer a portfolio held by Shawn's extended family into his control. Joe has already made appointments for us with his contacts, so I think we're all set. I appreciate the thought though." I explained and poured saccharine over the words as thickly as I could without gagging.
Mary spoke for the first time. "My husband came over here to help you. The absolute least you could do is hear him out, meet with his people." She practically spat the words at me through a brutal scowl.
Mary's preemptive venom made me mad. It was the last straw that broke the camel's back of my patience. I'd had enough of everyone's act, and I told my mind to figure out a way to punch through it. My brain was kind enough to remind me of my brother's new power. I hoped that he could be persuaded to use it for my benefit. I turned my gaze toward Joe to see if he'd been following the discussion and had come to the same conclusion that I had about Zeke's motives for visiting.
The expression on Joe's face was a cultivated blank. It was an inscrutable expression that Joe wore when he didn't want anyone to know what he was thinking. His expression may not have exposed his thoughts, but the fact that Joe bothered to put that expression on his face told me that he had thoughts to hide. I hoped the thoughts that Joe was hiding were the same ones that I was thinking. I took my chance and asked my brother for help.
"Joe," I called in sweet sing-song, "have you practiced yet this morning? You know what the doctor said about keeping your new skills sharp."
Joe's face lit up. He seemed excited to find a practical application for his new magic. In spite of the fact that Joe had never said a negative word about Mary's husband, I guessed that he felt much like I did about Zeke. I also knew he'd take pleasure in exposing a liar. He locked eyes with the squeaky man.
Truth spilled out of Zeke like air from a popped balloon. "I need two hundred thousand to hide my embezzlement before the bishop's bookkeeper comes next month. I hope I can get it from these two. Would serve them right to be robbed, disgusting faggots."
Zeke's admission put a smile on my face. I resented being called a faggot, but I was thrilled that I didn't have to pretend civility to my brother-in-law. I jumped to my feet. "We're done here." I announced, probably too gleefully. "Have a nice day, Zeke, and good luck with your financial shortfall. You're going to have to hide that like a woody in church." I tossed my words carelessly at my sister's husband. Now that he was exposed as a thief and a liar, I didn't bother to hide the biting sarcasm that invaded my tone.
Zeke looked terrible. His face was twisted into a grimace of disbelief. His mouth hung open, and his eyes were huge. Mary looked even worse. She stared at her husband like he had just grown a third eye. Raw hatred overflowed when she spoke.
Mary pointed an accusatory finger at Zeke. Her voice started low but built almost immediately to a shriek. "Two-hundred thousand, TWO-HUNDRED THOUSAND! Where is it you deadbeat? TWO-HUNDRED THOUSAND! Spend it on horses and whores? You filth. They disgust you? THEY DISGUST YOU? They might be sodomites, but you're a vile degenerate gambler and whore monger. I HATE YOU!"
"That's enough now, everyone." I grabbed Zeke's shoulders, lifted him out of his chair, and marched him to the front door. He went without a word, still in shock. I shoved him outside and told him that one of us would drive Mary home later. I closed the door and locked it.
I turned to face the room and was greeted by the sight of Bem standing on the stairs. He was on his way down and had paused to look around. Bem was wearing a very nice pull-over shirt, white designer boxer briefs, and nothing else. "What's all the noise?" He asked and cast his gaze around the room. He called out. "Andy, what did you do with my pants?"
Mary blanched and pointed a trembling finger at Bem. "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN THIS HOUSE?"
Joe's authoritarian tone rose over all other voices and rattled off several orders. "Everyone shut up. Andy, find Bem's pants. Bem, put your pants on. Shawn, we need another pot of coffee. Church, whiskey. Everyone sit-down. Church, tell it again, ALL OF IT. Mary, shut up and listen."
It took until lunchtime to tell the story of the missing years completely. Shawn added and filled in some detail, and Bem provided some color, but mostly I spoke. I told my story from getting laid off from work, all the way to my recovery after the first mission and my marriage to Shawn. The last several years I framed but didn't flesh out with detail. I fast-forwarded to when Ars called us back from our honeymoon tour to go to Earth for his investments. Lastly, I outlined a little of what had happened since we'd arrived at Joe's.
When I finished, Mary poured a fat shot of bourbon into the dregs of her cold coffee. She drank the mixture down with a grimace and looked around the table. "You believe this?" She asked Joe.
Joe shrugged helplessly. "I didn't. I tried not to, but now...I have to. Too much has happened for me to disbelieve. What do you think?"
Mary wasn't so easily won. "Can they prove anything they said?" She asked.
Joe lifted his hands in another helpless gesture like he was taking everything on faith. "You mean beside me being sort of able to walk now and using my magic power to make your husband reveal his secret plans for Shawn's money? Isn't that enough?"
I almost commented at the enormous pair of brass balls that the ever-incredulous Joe had for daring to question Mary's lack of faith in my outlandish story, but I didn't. I realized that would get us nowhere. Instead, I focused on Mary who wanted some proof.
"How about something tangible." She asked me. "You said your power is physical, show me something."
I thought about what I'd shown Joe and decided those demonstrations weren't appropriate. I didn't want to make another airplane because I had visions of Mary accusing me of another trick napkin. I also didn't want to cut my hand open again. I decided to ask Mary for an object to demonstrate with. I figured she'd be less likely to doubt something she owned. "Do you have something in your bag, maybe a pencil or a mint or something?"
Mary rummaged in her black leather handbag and pulled out a piece of hard candy wrapped in a twist of cellophane. She held it between her right index finger and thumb. I nudged it with my telekinesis and Mary's hand recoiled from the candy like she'd received a jolt of static electricity. My magic unwrapped the candy. I pointed at it and shot a small laser beam out of my finger. The candy glowed and vaporized. I used my telekinesis to fold the cellophane into a tight square and floated it toward Mary's hand. She reflexively opened her palm to catch it. When the plastic foil touched her hand, Mary dropped it like it was a cockroach and stared at me.
"I don't understand." She said in a barely audible whisper.
Joe raised his shoulders and dropped them in yet another expressive shrug. "Yes, you do. The universe is a bigger place than you thought and we're not at the center of it. It's a lot to take in."
Mary turned her staring gaze to Joe. He stared back at her for a while. Neither Joe nor Mary said anything until I interrupted what had become a Mexican standoff. "I'm hungry." I announced. "What are we going to do for lunch?"
Joe scowled at my flippancy, then he seemed to change his mind and brighten up. "Take the boys and go to the city. Mary and I will eat here. We need some time."
"Fine with me." I was thrilled to escape a scene that had become too dramatic for my liking. "OK guys," I clapped my hands, "get it together. Be out front in five minutes or I'm leaving without you."
The four of us piled into the Town Car. Shawn sat in front, Bem was behind me, and Andy behind Shawn. I made a quick stop at the old brick bank that was just to the north of the center of town and went inside to write a check for some cash. The teller was an ancient woman who I remembered working at the bank since I was a kid.
I got the feeling that she remembered me and that she knew that my old name wasn't the one on my identification. She eyed my Ars-supplied Pennsylvania driver's license with deep suspicion. I think she was disappointed when she couldn't find anything wrong with it. She processed the check and handed over twenty-five hundred bucks in twenties, fifties, and hundreds.
I fanned out some cash when I got back in the car. I remembered that the small businesses on South Street were very cash friendly, and I wanted everyone to have money to spend. I gave each person two-hundred dollars and told them there was more available if they needed it.
I drove us away from the bank and took it easy through town. We went west on Main Street, took a left on Coles Avenue, and traveled along that road passed Alden Park and out to the Route 38 traffic circle.
"What is South Street?" Bem asked as we cruised through town.
I wondered how to explain the unique experience that was South Street in terms a Solum native could understand. I tried to connect it to what Bem already knew. "Think about a shopping district in Epistylium and add four times the people, ten times the traffic, and about a hundred times the filth."
I checked the rearview mirror to see that Bem had no idea what I was talking about. I tried again. "It's a street that's dedicated to shops and restaurants and bars. You can get a cheesesteak or any other type of food, have a drink, get a tattoo, get a massage with a happy ending, see a band, and buy just about anything you can think of, all within about ten city blocks."
Bem still didn't get it. "So...it's like a Divided Light show at a shopping district next to a park?"
"No." I thought about how to explain and realized that I probably couldn't. "You'll understand when you see it."
Bem accepted my answer and settled in to enjoy the ride to the city.
I made a right at the circle and dealt with the many traffic lights along route 38 until we reached the old Airport Circle. That section of road wasn't a circle anymore, and the airport the name referred to hadn't existed for decades, but the confusing mess that remained was still referred to as the Airport Circle by the locals and expatriates, me included. We skirted the mess of on and off ramps, bypasses, and overpasses and merged onto Route 30 toward the Ben Franklin bridge.
It was Saturday, and the road was busy but not crowded. We had the windows down and the hot, humid, August air whipped through the car. I found that, as I was back in the flow of traffic on a New Jersey road, my old driving habits had returned. I weaved in and out of lanes and passed slow moving vehicles on the left and the right with equal enthusiasm. Shawn didn't appreciate my aggressive style, but the two adolescents in the back seat seemed pleased.
I paid the bridge toll at one of the few remaining cash lanes and came out of the booth hard on the throttle. The vast sedan built-speed quickly, to the point that the ancient, light-blue-painted steelwork of the bridge flashed passed us like the styles of a picket fence. I slowed for the hard right onto Fifth Street and laid hard on the gas again as I hauled the car around the two-hundred-and-seventy-degree turn down New Road onto Fourth. The fat back tires skittered across the cobblestones as they squealed and churned and protested our sideways progress under the old bridge. I straightened us out with a flick of the wheel and a blip of the throttle as we slowed for the first traffic light, appropriately at Fourth and Race Street.
Andy and Bem cheered my skilled handling of the old sedan. Shawn tightened his seat belt and scolded. "I do NOT want to die on Earth, thank you."
"Shawn, Shawn, Shawn," I teased through grin that I couldn't hide, "we are surrounded by over four-thousand pounds of Detroit iron. There is very little on the road that could challenge this beast, let alone do enough damage to cause us harm. Trust me, I'm a professional."
Shawn didn't appreciate my humor and said as much. I dialed back my exuberant driving style and took it easy between the stop signs and lights on the way to South Street. It turned out that obeying my husband had added situational benefits. Driving slowly gave me a chance to look around more. I looked at the city that had once been my home and thought about the time that had passed, and the progress I'd made, since I'd last been a resident. I also noticed Bem's intense gaze as he tried to take in the city that surrounded him.
Now that he was closer to it, Bem understood the city even less. That area of South Philly is representative of the rest of the city in that everything is brick and asphalt. The only green is in the ancient cemeteries and trees are as rare as one-legged ballet dancers. Bem didn't ask any questions, but his head never stopped moving. I hoped I hadn't made a mistake by including him in our little trip. He liked being with us, he seemed to have fun with Andy, and he'd been doing better. I figured everything would be fine.
Everything was fine...that is until it wasn't. I'd been piloting the car through heavy, slow moving Saturday traffic toward South Street. In the course of advancing block by tedious block, we found ourselves stopped at a traffic light at Pine Street. We were stuck next to an idling Penn DOT truck that protected some active roadworks at the intersection. I thought the chattering diesel engine sounded a bit loud, and I checked on Bem in the mirror to see how he was handling the noise.
Bem's face showed a slight grimace that made me think the sound was making him uncomfortable. I thought about how to protect him from the noise, but I didn't have many options beyond rolling the windows up. I didn't think we'd be stopped next to the truck for very long and also didn't want to call attention to Bem's discomfort by shutting the sluggish power glass. I figured that, soon enough, the light would change, and we'd go on our way. The light change didn't come soon enough, though. A jackhammer started on the far side of the idling truck and rent the air with a shattering pneumatic din.
Bem's last nerve frayed. He shot over the seat, landed between Shawn and me, and huddled against me with his hands pressed over his ears and his eyes tight shut. I knew I had to get us out of there to protect Bem's fragile well-being. I looked for an escape route and found one. There were no pedestrians in the way, so I cut the wheel hard and juiced the throttle.
The car bucked and lunged as I drove over the corner of the sidewalk and made a left against the red light. I pointed us toward a part of the city that I hoped would be peaceful. I drove three long blocks in one hell of a hurry, made a left turn on Front Street and drove another two blocks to reach the shade and relative quiet of the war memorials. When I got there, I found some shade, parked, and shut the car off.
I wrapped my arm around Bem and pulled him close. Shawn slid tight against our friend on the other side. He pressed himself to Bem to let him know physically that he was there to protect him. Even Andy, who had no idea what was going on, moved up against the front seat to be there for Bem. We waited in silence. Bem came around slowly and removed his hands from his ears. I think it helped that he was able to see some greenery when he opened his eyes.
"Thank you for getting us away from that horrible thing." Bem said with his chin in his chest. "I'm sorry I panicked. I guess I'm still in pretty bad shape."
"Do we need to take you back to Joe's?" I asked. I didn't understand why loud noises were bothering the man who was so used to the sounds of weapons firing and loud rock and roll music, but I didn't try to analyze the problem. I assumed that the fragility of Bem's physical health had taken a toll on his mental well-being and the symptoms were popping up in odd ways.
"I'll be fine. Just let me breathe for a minute." Bem scanned the opposing sides of the street. One side was the ornate memorial with its well-tended landscaping and the other was a solid wall of brick and concrete buildings. "Even here it's noisy. Is it always noisy? I don't understand how no one else seems to mind." Bem spoke softly, like he was trying to counteract the aggressive din of the city by being mild and quiet.
I listened closely and heard the sounds Bem referred to. The city throbbed with sound. There was a constant dull roar of noise, like the murmur of patrons at a crowded restaurant. Sprinkled into the constant din, was the occasional blaring car horn, wailing police siren, screaming truck brakes, and the thump of a blasting radio. For me, it was so much white noise. For Bem, it was stress.
I squeezed my friend against me and wished there was something more I could do for him. I had some inspiration and decided to make my magic available to Bem. Shawn hadn't told me to do it, but it seemed like the right thing to do, so I took a chance. I activated my power and let it gather into my right hand where it would be available to him if his body wanted it. I felt my magic trickle into Bem. He took a deep breath and sighed it out. I swore that I could feel some of the tension leave his body as he exhaled.
I let my magic flow into Bem for a few minutes, until I felt his shoulders relax a little, then I slowed the magic transfer to a stop. I tried to answer the question Bem had asked. "It's like I said when we arrived. This is the world of man. The city is constantly in a state of flux. It's been here for more than three hundred years, and it's still being built and rebuilt. The people who live here don't even hear it. To them, it's the sound of home. If you took them to the country, they'd be deafened by the silence."
Bem didn't answer me, but after a few more minutes, he seemed to recover himself enough to return to his seat. He climbed into the rear of the car and ran the window up on his side. He thanked Andy for worrying about him but didn't offer the boy an explanation. I had a moment of uncertainty where I considered asking my friend again if we needed to take him home. I decided that if he needed that, he would have said, and that he'd probably rather have less attention on his problem than more. I started the car and pointed us toward South Street.
I debated with myself over massaging Bem's shoulders with magic like I'd done after we ran away from the freight train, but I didn't want to be overly solicitous. I was concerned that Bem would feel bad if he thought I was worried about him. Instead of direct action, I opted for indirect action. I started a conversation to distract Bem from the city, but I started it with Andy in the hope that Bem wouldn't realize why I did it. "Andy, what do you think about my story this morning? I probably told it better the second time."
"I wanted to ask you some things." Andy slid forward again so he could talk over the seatbacks. I had a momentary qualm about Andy's safety. I suspected that if Joe was present, he'd make Andy sit back and buckle his seatbelt. I took a calculated risk and let the kid sit how he liked. I took comfort in the fact that we weren't going faster than twenty miles an hour, and neither was anyone around us. Andy asked his first question. "Are you guys really rich? Like really, really rich?"
"All three of us are, a billion credits each." I said to answer his question. My answer wasn't quite the truth, but I didn't think the semantics of our respective fortunes would matter to a fifteen-year-old, so I left it out. "I think that's more than a billion dollars. Shawn bought our four-unit apartment building for about fifty thousand. I couldn't buy one of these row homes for that." I indicated the run-down block we cruised along with a wave of my hand.
"WOW! What about all that age stuff you talked about? You said Shawn's uncle was more than a hundred years old when you met him. Is that right?"
"Yup, people live a long time on Solum. It took me a while to get used to the idea. What do you think about that?" As I asked, I looked forward to a child's unique perspective. Not that Andy was exactly a child, but I expected him to have a different take on things than someone firmly in adulthood.
"How old are you guys?" Andy asked.
"Don't say anything you two." I instructed. "Let him guess."
Andy was close with his guess for Shawn. He only undershot my husband's age by a year. He missed Bem's age by several decades.
"I'm seventy-nine; I'll be eighty in March." Bem bragged.
"WHAT? You look younger than my dad."
"And he acts like he's your age." I added.
"Yeah." Andy nodded his agreement. "How can you be eighty?" Andy didn't wait for an answer before he asked his next question of me. "Uncle Church, will you live to be three hundred like them?"
"I don't know. I spent forty years on Earth, half the normal life span. Since I've been on Solum, I feel and look younger. Maybe those forty years won't matter, maybe they will. Either way, I'll live a lot longer than I would have here."
Wrapped up in that answer were several truths. Even if I only made it to eighty, that would still have been far longer than I would have lived had I stayed on Earth. The smoking and drinking would have caught up to me, likely sooner than later. Maybe I would have made fifty. That said, since I arrived on Solum, all signs pointed to my aging going backwards by a decade or more. At one time I would have found the prospect of living that long troubling, but since I married Shawn and became the new me, my life was no longer a burden to me.
We were finishing up the discussion when I found a parking spot one street back from South. I tapped my credit card against the meter and paid for several hours of time. The first priority was lunch. I remembered there being a cheesesteak place on the corner of Sixth and South and guided our steps in that direction. Andy wound up in front of us, seemingly eager to get to South Street and the wonder that it held. Bem bopped along at the boy's side and took in the sights of the busy residential street that we walked along.
Shawn fell into step with me as I strolled behind Andy and Bem. He slowed his steps a bit, to let the distance between us, and the pair in front, get wider. He elbowed my side to get my attention. "Did you do something to him?" Shawn asked me about Bem.
"I gave him some magic. Not much, just a little to calm him down. Was that not OK?"
Shawn shook his head just once. "I suppose the results speak for themselves. His energy is up, and he looks excited instead of anxious. What made you think of doing that?"
"I don't know. The magic seems to help people. You said too much can't hurt someone, so I figured...I don't know. I took a shot."
Shawn leaned into me and gave me a sideways hug. "You did well. Good for you."
I leaned into my husband and was happy to have him with me. I was happy to be part of his life. I put my arm around Shawn. We drifted along the block, in no hurry to get anywhere, just happy to be arm-in-arm in the sunshine. Our lovely moment didn't last long, though. Andy shattered it with an excited shout that he'd found the cheesesteak place. "Uncle Church, Shawn...we're here!" He looked back at us and pointed to the glass storefront of the corner sandwich shop.
I agreed that we were at the right place and reluctantly disengaged from Shawn. I held the door open, herded the others through it, and went in to find a table.
As we entered the restaurant, Bem stopped in front of me so quickly that I almost ran him down. His attention had been captured by the glass partition between the seating area and the griddle. He pressed his face against the smeary glass to watch the cook handle the vast pile of chipped beef and fried onions with precision born of long practice. "Look at all that meat!" Bem enthused. He looked along his eyes at me and smiled a smirk that I knew was trouble. "Reminds me of when I first saw you, Big Guy." I shook my head at Bem's joke but didn't comment on it.
We found a table and ordered our food. Each of us got cheesesteak sandwiches with fried onions, cheese-wiz, and sides of French fries. The only one who ordered a different sandwich was Shawn. He got a portabella mushroom sub with fried onions and French fries. The food was greasy perfection, just like I remembered. It was even better because I got to enjoy it with my husband and my friends. In the old days, the old me would have eaten by himself and washed the sandwich down with whiskey from an apple juice bottle. Fuck the old days.' I thought. Fuck the old me.'
After lunch we strolled the sidewalk to immerse ourselves in the unique experience that was South Street. Head shops, bars, funky clothing boutiques, junk shops, bookstores, sex shops, counter style restaurants, and record stores fought for attention with colorful signs and chasing lights. Each occupied converted, brick-fronted row homes or occasionally, heavily ornamented store fronts, the vestiges of luxury goods stores long gone in history. The crush of people was equally varied and colorful.
I had forgotten what a truly busy city street was like. On Solum, the city population is too spread out for any one area to bustle like Philly. Here the crowd was dense enough to wade through, and wade we did as we checked out the stores and watched the people.
I was a little worried about Bem and the noise, but it turned out that I worried for nothing. Music poured from the open fronts of bars, the crowd hummed, and the idling traffic on the street fascinated Bem to the point of interesting him without overloading his fragile senses. I guessed that the organic nature of the crowd noise was easier for Bem to deal with than the harsh mechanical assault of the jackhammer or the freight train.
I enjoyed getting to see Bem have fun. I enjoyed getting to see my nephew and my husband have fun. The last time Shawn had been on Earth, he was a stranger on a mission. He'd been alone. This time, he was free to enjoy the pleasures that the Earth could offer without worrying about a mission or his safety. I felt his pleasure in the experience of being in the city with me and the group. I tried to enjoy myself as well.
I watched the others as they rotated around me in random orbits. Each moved toward whatever interested them and often called one of the others or me to observe. I felt a bit like the sun with three planets that moved haphazardly instead of in regular elliptical arcs. In my role of `sun' to the orbiting men, I noticed the respective sizes of my planets. I also noticed my own size against that of the crowd.
My six-feet-four-inches of height was tall in an Earth crowd, but I didn't tower over everyone like I did on Solum. There were enough people, men really, who were between six feet and my height, or even taller, that I could blend in. That observation made me focus on the men I had with me. I noticed Andy and Bem and the differences between them.
Bem and Andy were about the same height, and at first glance, they appeared to be built similarly. I had to look close to notice that Bem, a fully-grown and physically mature adult, was built on a small, fine-boned frame. Andy was a slim youth who still had growing to do. He was slightly broader across the shoulders than Bem, and he looked like his frame was significantly heavier than Bem's. I suspected that Andy would thicken and fill out as he reached adulthood, surpassing Bem in every direction.
I also noticed Shawn in comparison to Bem and Andy and to the crowd. I loved looking at Shawn. He turned me on in every way. I loved him as a whole person and I lusted for his beautiful body. Even though I looked at him as much as possible, I didn't often to it in comparison with anyone else. I usually thought of him as a small man because I was so much larger than him. Comparing him to the group and the crowd, reminded me that Shawn was not a small man.
His five feet ten was average height for an Earth man, but Shawn was broad and masculine. He had a deep chest and a V-shaped torso that tapered to a narrow waist. His dimensions flared out again for his impressive butt and sculpted dancer's legs. He was a solidly built man on a sturdy frame; shorter than me, but very much my physical equivalent as opposed to my inferior.
Shawn raised his arms and laced his hands behind his head. He leaned back in a stretch that tightened his shirt against his torso. He flexed his arms into the stretch, so his biceps strained his sleeves. He dropped his arms to his sides and stuck his hands in his front pockets. His hands filled his pockets and pulled the fabric of his shorts tight against his ass to show off the delicious roundness that I loved. He spared a side-eyed glance my way. "Being admired feels good." He murmured so the others wouldn't hear.
I leaned in and whispered to him. "You're a shameless tease, you know that? I wish we were alone tonight. I'd admire the hell out of you."
Shawn gave me a kiss on the side of my face and smiled at me. "Flatterer." He said through his pleased grin.
I smiled back at him, and the moment was over.
The four of us wandered around for a while until I spotted an old bookstore that looked interesting and led the group inside. It was a two-story shop, converted from its former purpose as a private home by the ingenious device of moving the furniture out, and moving rickety wooden shelves in. Personal photographs of the previous resident's family still adorned the walls and made me feel like I was at an estate sale of some eccentric book collector instead of in a retail shop.
Heavy drapes over the windows protected the paperback books from the bleaching effects of the sun and dimmed the interior to a cave-like gloom. I wasn't sure the precaution was worth it as the books sold for fifty cents up to five dollars or ten dollars for a paper shopping bag that one could stuff to the brim.
The four of us separated and wandered for a while. I was lost among the stacks when Bem appeared from nowhere and tapped my elbow. "Can I have some more of that cash,' please?" He asked with his fingers forming air quotes around the word cash.' "I found something I want, but I don't have enough."
I engaged my brain to reason out what Bem wanted the money for. I assumed he'd left the bookstore and found something else that he wanted to buy. It couldn't have been books because the math didn't work. If he tried to spend his two-hundred-dollar allowance inside the shop, he would have needed a pick-up truck for the mountain of books that much cash would have bought him.
I was curious to the point that I almost made him explain. I didn't because I realized two things; Bem was an adult...sort-of, and the money that he'd asked me for wasn't mine. Ars was footing the bill for the whole trip including the restoration of the Vic.
With that thought in my mind, I happily handed a stack of bills to Bem without checking how much I gave him. It was probably a few hundred dollars. He took the money and hurried away. A few minutes later he was next to me again with the same request. This time I asked him how much he needed.
I had an unwelcome vision of Bem losing money by pitching pennies or playing Three Card Monty. I assumed things like that still existed in the city, and even though the money wasn't mine, I didn't want to see it wasted. This time Bem only asked for twenty dollars. I handed it over, plus another hundred. He took the bills and hurried away.
The rest of us finished up in the bookstore without purchasing a thing and gathered on the sidewalk to blink in the bright afternoon sunshine. Bem came from down the block. He was burdened with several large, black, handle-bags, each with a strange white logo on the side. He handed two of the bags to me with the words, "give me a hand with these, they're heavy."
I accepted the bags and inspected the side of one of them. It had a very small logo, a white, full-face respirator or gas mask on a black background with the words `Domination Dominion' in a circle around it. I opened the bag and peeked in. The realization that I was looking at a bag full of weird sex toys...or maybe toys for weird sex...hit me slowly. Once it did, I slapped the bag shut and looked for Andy to make sure Bem wasn't showing off his purchases to the boy.
Thankfully, Andy's attention was focused on the window of a music store. I called Shawn over for a quick and quiet discussion. "I have to take these bags to the car before Andy sees them."
"Why?"
I opened one of them for Shawn to look in. He looked, then raised his eyes to me in confusion. "What is that even for?"
"I'll explain later." I said and hoped I wouldn't actually have to explain. I also wanted to keep the discussion short. "Bem bought this stuff. Does that tell you what you need to know?"
"Yes." Shawn sighed and located Andy with his eyes. "I'll stick with Andy, that way you'll be able to find us when you get back."
I dragged Bem away in the direction of the car. He chattered as we walked. "I didn't know places like that existed. They had so much great stuff. It was hard to pick just a few things. I wanted to buy the whole store. The guy behind the counter was a big help, he really knew his stuff. He even had some pictures, a lot of pictures really, of the stuff being used. He invited me to their next demonstration party. He said it would be a lock-in. What does that mean?"
I shook my head and shrugged to indicate that I didn't know what a lock-in was, even though I kind of did. The conversation had taken a bizarre turn, bizarre enough that I was uncomfortable continuing it. I knew a little about the kink scene from porn and the internet, but nowhere near enough to discuss it intelligently. `Leave it to Bem to find the most inappropriate store on the street.' I thought.
I remembered the sex shop from years before, but I'd never been inside. I should have known Bem would be drawn in like a moth to a flame. "Please," I begged, "please don't bring this stuff in the house, or talk about it to anyone, or let Andy see it. Especially don't let Andy see it. Joe asked me to keep him innocent for a few more years. One look in any of these bags would shatter that innocence."
"Oh, sure. No problem." Bem readily agreed. I don't think he understood my concern, but I was glad my request made him forget his question about what I assumed was an overnight kink and fetish sex party. We found the car. I packed all the stuff into the trunk and tied the bag handles so they couldn't open if they fell over during the ride back.
I used my connection with Shawn to lead Bem and I back to he and Andy. The group reformed when we found each other in front of a fortune teller's shop and continued our stroll. I fell into step with Andy and let Bem and Shawn drift ahead of us. Now that we were back together, I had something I wanted to talk to Andy about. I'd caught the boy staring at men on the street several times, but I hadn't said anything. It seemed a lesson was in order. South Street was always good for eye candy, especially in the summer, and there was plenty of material to choose from.
I picked out a meathead in a skin-tight shredder tank-top and a pair of shorts that looked like they were vacuum sealed to his ass. The guy would have given the Dux brothers a run for their money in raw size. Not only was he bulging with muscle in every direction, but he was as tall or taller than me, so proportionally bigger than Cy and Vulp. He appeared to have just left a small, storefront meathead gym across the street from us. He was strutting down the block, admiring his `pump' in the storefront glass of the businesses he passed. "Andy, do you see that guy over there?" I pointed the meathead out with a jerk of my head.
Andy followed my gaze, picked the guy out, and stared hard.
I poked Andy's shoulder to get his attention back on me. "You saw him. Now describe him in detail. I want to know everything about him, and you're not allowed to look back."
"What do you mean? Why can't I look?" He objected.
"You have to stop burning holes through people if you're not ready to be out. Even if you are ready, staring is rude, and can get your ass kicked if you run into the wrong person. What if that guy we just saw was a stereotypical tough guy? Do you think he'd hesitate to punch my face if he thought I was lusting after him?"
I shook my head at my nephew. "Not everyone appreciates being admired. Now, back to the lesson, describe that guy from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. I want to know how he was dressed, what colors he wore, how tall he was, how he was built, everything. You saw him for about five seconds. That should be more than enough."
Andy thought and started to describe. I asked a few questions to prompt him when he lacked detail, and he was able to fill it in without searching his memory too much. He got every nuance right and could even mimic the guy's stiff, gym-rat strut.
Andy was proud of himself when he realized how good his memory was, and I took the opportunity to make the most of the lesson. "Now you know how observant you really are. Admiring people on the street should be like looking at the sun; glance, lock on, look away, and remember. That's it. Practice that today. I want you to be able to describe five people to me on the ride home. Two of them have to be women and one of them has to be over fifty."
"Over fifty!" Andy cried. "Why do I want to look at old people?"
I was momentarily peeved at the kid's definition of `old people.' Being almost forty-six meant that fifty didn't seem that ancient to me. I quickly remembered how ancient fifty seemed when I was fifteen and kept my comments to myself. "Maybe you don't. I'm not putting you through this just to help you add material to your spank bank. This is a skill for life."
I looked down and saw Andy staring at me with a look on his face that was strange enough to make me ask what was wrong with him. "Spank bank?" He asked in response to my question.
I felt the color rise in my face but explained in spite of my embarrassment. "You know, the things you think about when you..." I shook my almost closed right fist in the air forward and back to mimic the motion of self-pleasure.
Andy gasped, turned red, and laughed an awkward, embarrassed laugh that turned into genuine amusement. "Did you make that up, Uncle Church?" He asked between gasps.
"That one's far older than me." I admitted and laughed with him. I tried to get back to the lesson. "You should be aware of your surroundings, not just what turns you on." I checked my phone. "It's about 2:30, we need to leave here by five to be home in time for dinner. You've got two and a half hours to find five people to remember. That's only one every half hour. Get to it."
"How many of them can put in my spank bank?" Andy spluttered and sniggered as he said the words.
I smiled at him and was glad he was having fun. I decided to work with him a little. "Tell you what, pick three men for your pleasure, one young woman for variety, and one old woman for the over-fifty requirement. How's that sound?"
Andy nodded his approval and started to scan the crowd. I noticed him mumbling to himself as he worked out the descriptions in his head. I hoped he'd take the lesson as it was intended, as helping him develop a life skill instead of just as work created by someone in a position of dubious authority over him.
We continued our walk and I retreated into my head. Memories flooded back as I saw places from long ago. I'd been a frequent visitor to South Street from the time I moved to Philly when I was twenty years old. I'd spent a lot of time on that street as an expression of my freedom back then, back when drinking was still a social activity for me. Later, after my folks died and the drinking ruled my life, South Street was a good place to feed my habit. There were enough small bars mixed in with the other businesses, that getting flagged in one, only meant that I had to pay the tab and stumble into the next.
Our walk took me passed many of those bars, some that I recognized, and some that I remembered under different names. I was certain that I'd been inside them all. Alongside the whiskey-soaked memories of my old life and the old me, were some happier memories. The bars weren't the only places I'd spent my money. There were also small music venues where I'd seen local bands or has-been headliners and little music stores where I'd built my vinyl collection.
The music stores made me nostalgic for the analogue sound of a needle in a groove. It wasn't a practical thing to long-for though. Transporting my once-vast record collection to Solum would be nearly impossible, even if it still existed. I assumed with a wistful twist of my mind, that the records had gone when the landlord took my rowhome over when the rent ran out. Joe hadn't said anything to the contrary and I hadn't seen a trace of my collection at the house. There weren't many places that it could be. The house had no basement, and the attic would be too hot for the vinyl. Storing them up there would be as bad as setting fire to them.
Thoughts along those lines brought Divided Light into my head. Calidi and Neb had been running the band for five years on what came out of my memory and the CDs I happened to have in the Vic when Shawn first took me from Earth. They needed more material, and I was in a unique position to supply it.
I stopped in a music store with a large, second-hand CD collection and had a short meeting with the proprietor. After some intense negotiation, he sold me his entire rock, pop, blues, Motown, classical, jazz, and big band CD catalogue for ninety-five hundred dollars. For an additional fifteen hundred, he agreed to have his kid put them all in jackets in alphabetical order by genre and artist. I charged half the money to my credit card as a down payment and agreed to come back on Wednesday to pick everything up.
Since Ars' tech gurus had managed to convert my CDs to a format playable on Solum equipment, I didn't even need to worry about players. The tech wizards could do their thing and digitize the CDs to their Solum computers, and Divided Light would have a whole new world (literally) of music to pick from. I couldn't wait to get back and present the mountain of new material to the band. They'd have enough music to last for the rest of the lives of every member and then some.
My group continued to tour around, never lacking for things to look at or people to watch, until it got near five o'clock, when we turned our steps toward the car. I spent the time it took us to find it, preparing myself mentally for the battle out of the city. I hadn't experienced real traffic since I left Earth and thought I'd better psych myself up for it. As it was a Saturday evening, I anticipated more traffic coming into the city than going out.
As we found the Town Car and drove away from the curb, I felt a vague curiosity for my old rowhome and Big Nick's bar. I had a half a mind to drive by to commemorate the place where I'd met Shawn and embarked on my new life. I dismissed that idea with a shake of my head. No reason to go back there.' I thought. That guy, the guy who lived in that place and drank at that bar, he doesn't even exist anymore.'
I pushed my mind to pay attention to the road. The traffic patterns complied with my expectations as we cruised along. The one-way streets toward the bustle that was South Street were jammed while the ones toward the bridge were moving. They moved at least as well as they ever did. Once clear of the South Street gridlock, half-way down Fifth Street on the way to the bridge, I managed to get into a stop-sign-to-stop-sign race with a young guy in a slammed down import.
He thought he had the contest in the bag, but he obviously didn't know the reputation of the Panther Platform Fords. That platform was the underpinning of every full-sized Ford sedan from 1979 until they stopped making them in 2012. The Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis, and the Lincoln Town Car that I was driving, were all Panthers. Those cars always made good taxi cabs and police cruisers because of their V-8 engines and low first gears. That was the perfect combo for aggressive, stop-and-go city driving.
Even though my opponent's car was half the size, half the weight, and likely twice the rated horsepower as the Town Car, we wiped the floor with him. We had the low-end torque to get off the mark quickly and the suspension travel to deal with the swimming-pool-sized potholes that threatened to swallow our opponent's import whole. The soft suspension of the Town Car ate the bumps like they weren't there. The adolescents in the back seat of the Town Car cheered our win. Shawn wasn't happy about me playing around on the roads, but he kept his objections to himself and didn't spoil my fun.
As a `thank you' to Shawn for not complaining out loud, I drove us over the bridge with far less exuberance than I'd displayed when we entered the city. I limited my speed to no more than ten miles-an-hour over the limit as I traversed the bridge, traveled down Route 30, and waded into the sluggish Route 38 traffic near the Cherry Hill Mall.
Once the traffic slowed us down, and we were cruising passed the mall with very little wind noise, I asked Andy to tell us what he learned about five people on South Street. He did really well with the descriptions, even to the point of making up voices for the subjects. The description of an old woman was especially detailed. Even Bem was impressed with his memory. He made the ride home fun, and we arrived in front of the house just before six.
I got out of the car to head inside and found Bem waiting for me. "Thanks for today, Big Guy. I had fun."
"Me to, Uncle Church!" Andy agreed.
Shawn added a nod and a grin to the thanks of the others. The praise made me feel ten feet tall and bulletproof. I was pleased that my idea for an outing had been so well received.
"You're welcome, guys! I'm glad you had fun." I traversed the front yard and entered the house with an ear-to-ear smile on my face.