Negative Space

Native American thunderbird lore. Something about them fascinated him. Those and UFOs. Maybe it was the sky. That great abyss above us. Only, unlike the sea, it didn’t really end.
He wondered what he might chase afterward.
He also knew that, sometime before he was through with this job, he would have to come clean to Max Higgins.
Movement near his van pulled Dwayne from his thoughts. It was Higgins, toting a single black duffel bag and wearing the same clothes in which Dwayne had met him—paint-ridden jeans and a worn flannel shirt with a navy-blue undershirt.
“Open up,” Max said.
Dwayne unlocked all the van doors and his guest clambered in.
“Where should I put this?” Max asked, holding up his bag. “Just under the seat?”
“Sure, that’s fine. It’ll fit.”
Max nestled into the front seat, buckled up, and sighed long and hard.
“You’re late, Maximo,” Dwayne said in dry humor. “Not by much, of course. Everything all right?”
“Eh, yeah, everything’s fine...”
“Hmm?”
“There’s a huge part of me that says this trip is a bad idea.” Max ran his hand through his hair. “But I don’t know. I don’t know what I feel anymore.”
Dwayne maneuvered the van back into the city’s concrete bloodstream.
“Keep in mind, Max,” said Dwayne. “You don’t know for sure if this guy is really your father.”
“Looks just like him.”
“Lots of people look like each another. Take a look in the Coincidences and Miracles section of volume three of The Unexplained if you don’t believe me.”
“‘Course I know there’s a chance it’s not him. But so many things seem to click into place and I don’t even think I can explain how. The man in that article, the man in my painting...I feel like...I feel like I’m the subject of someone’s sketch, slowly coming together, filling out. Trapped in a new world.”
“What about this woman we’re getting?”
“Karen? What about her?”
“I dunno, she get the same sorta feeling, too? She’s your sister, you said?”
“Half-sister, supposedly.” Max dug into his pocket and retrieved a Taco Shack packet.
“Where are we going, by the way?” Dwayne merged onto the I-10 freeway. “Where’s this chick live?”
“Santa Monica, just off Pico. I’ll show you when we get closer. For now, just get off at Overland.”
Dwayne drifted through traffic. Jerky lane changes, random punch-bursts of acceleration, the windows moving oil canvases of the city and all its glittering stipples.
On reaching Karen’s complex, they climbed out and headed upstairs to her door. Two knocks and seconds later they were staring at a strange man.
“Yes?”
Max spoke. “Yeah, is...is Karen around?”
“Karen? Think you got the wrong apartment, dude.”
“Vivian’s roommate.”
“Oh.” The guy’s eyes widened. “Ohh, okay. No, she’s not here, I don’t think. But hold on.... Vivian!”
From behind a bathroom door and the running shower, Vivian called back, “Yeah?”
“Karen! Where is she?”
“What?”
“Where is Karen?”
The guy left the door, headed toward the bathroom. He promptly returned. “She said Karen’s at work.”
“Work?” Max said. “Thought she’d be off by now.”
The man shrugged. Behind him Vivian emerged wrapped in a towel, skin glistening, wet curly hair like a pile of corkscrew pasta.
“Some client called for her,” Vivian said. “Made a special appointment. She told me to tell you to pick her up there.”
“Well, when’s she going to be done?”
“Don’t think it’ll be more than an hour. Her appointment’s at nine o’clock. It’s, what, almost 9:30 now. Who knows, she might be through with it by now.” Vivian squeezed the towel tighter around her. “I’m kind of disappointed, too, actually. We were s’posed to use up this weed my cousin hooked me up with, before she got the call.”
“Call?”
“Yeah, from work. Dude wanted her for a session. Paid double for her to be there.” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“All right,” Max said. “Thanks.”
“Sure thing.”
The man closed the door and Dwayne and Max set off down the stairs.
***
With wide arms and lustful zeal, James greeted Teresa, who, caught pleasantly off guard, more than reciprocated. The lovemaking was as it hadn’t been in years. A resurgent flame of their initial courting. Teresa couldn’t even remember those times being as good.
When subtly prodded about this renewed enthusiasm, James just smiled and answered in kisses.
“Do you mind if we use handcuffs or ropes?” he said at one point.
“What?”
“Handcuffs or ropes,” he said. “Maybe liven things up?”
She furrowed her brow, unsure if he was joking.
“I...no, I don’t think so,” Teresa said. “Sorry.”
Something fell in his eyes. “No problem.”

PART TWO
“A town is a colonial animal.”
~ John Steinbeck


Chapter 4
I
“This the Jersey Devil?”
Karen leaned forward, holding one of Dwayne’s personal photo albums and pointing to a blurry picture of a forest and a road and a tall, horse-like figure. The photo had been snapped at dusk, but the camera had caught a glint of the animal’s eye, creating a pivot point around which to spin into view the rest of its murky, silhouetted shape.
Eyes on the road, Dwayne darted a brief glance at the album, needing only one glance to recall the account.
Max sat in the passenger seat, shifting gazes from himself in the side mirror to the black California terrain sliding up from the sea and away toward the night.
“I think so,” Dwayne said. “I mean, I thought him to be the devil at the time. Truth be told, I don’t know what it was—could’ve been a moose or something. It was dark.”
“Doesn’t really look like a moose to me.”
“Nor to me, and it certainly didn’t look like a moose when it moved off. But I can never be sure. Tracking down the things I do, your whole experience is like a funhouse, one annoying deceptive lead after another, running into glass.”
“The Jersey Devil is supposed to have wings, right?”
“It is,” Dwayne said with a chuckle. “Though all sorts of things have been misidentified as the Devil, even cougars. You’re from the area, right? The East?”
“East Coast? Yeah. I remember my mother told me about it when I was four when we were in New Jersey. Of course, I thought I saw it everywhere.”
“Where you from again?”
Both Karen and Max replied, “Baltimore.”
“So, you a conspiracy buff, too?”