The Mule
by Pieter J. Friedrich

"The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; and thy cities shall be laid waste, without an inhabitant."--Jeremiah 4:7

The place stank of cigarette smoke. Acrid, tearful, malicious, swirling like ghosts beat to and fro on a winter wind. Corban's tongue darted about his mouth, tasting and flailing for a word to put to a memory. He had been married once. The marriage had lasted for exactly three weeks, and then she died of a brain aneurysm. She smoked and he remembered kissing her...Corban's mouth tasted of ashes.

His head ached, a sharpness that began at the base of his skull and picked its slow way to the backs of his eyes. The scream of engines and the squeal of rubber on tarmac found his ears; he was at an airport. Crowds of people drifted about him, subdued, angry, tired, faceless, nameless. Corban Lassiter remembered now. He was going...where was he going? He was...at O'Hare, in Chicago. Memories darted and flirted inside his head, filtering into some sort of coherent form deep within his mind.

He had fallen asleep, slouched across a bench in the half-shelter of the overhang from the United Airlines terminal. It was night, still, and a handful of snow-flakes, battered on a gentle breeze, drifted like sleeping angels from the velvet of the black sky. The shuttle from the prison had dropped Corban off hours early, and he had fallen asleep on a bench like a homeless bum.

Lightheaded, tongue thick and dry, he wandered into the terminal. Two khaki-clad night guards stood with their nightsticks and holstered .45 caliber automatic pistols, collars starched, jack-boots pitch and polished. One, his curly hair tucked under a peaked cap, followed Corban with his dark eyes. Corban was purposeless, not knowing where he was going or why, and as the guard's eyes followed him, he ducked into a men's room.

He splashed his face with cold water from the sink. Prison had been like this, he thought. His eyes twitched with the flicker and flutter of fluorescents, and scanned the deep-etched graffiti that adorned the stone restroom walls. In prison, of course, the graffiti had earned the offending inmate a beating and a week of solitary. He dried his face and hands, and left.

His ticket was for New York City, for La Guardia. His gate was number 31.

The waiting area was spacious and cramped by a low ceiling. The number on the wall read "Gate 31." A languid blonde sat at a counter near the gate and squinted at a small computer screen. Passengers were crammed into the waiting room. They sat dozing, reading, biting their nails, furrowing their brows. One girl sat, hands in her lap, greasy locks pasted to her sticky, pale forehead, and peered about with great froggish eyes. Corban hated airports.

A calm female voice rolled, syrupy, from the white-painted speaker-grates, "This is a security announcement. Please do not leave baggage or carry-on luggage unattended at any time. Any unattended luggage will be confiscated and searched, and may not be returned..." The languid blonde at the desk spoke into a microphone, "Flight 1666 to La Guardia now boarding, first class." Several passengers disappeared into the gate, down the jetway. "Flight 1666 now boarding, all rows." People stood and collected their carry-on luggage and scurried towards the gate.

Corban threaded his way across the waiting area, past the pale girl. She sidled up to him. "A present from a pretty girl?" She asked, pressing a flat brown paper package into his hands. "We know about you, Corban. We know about the stash from the bank...we know where it is. Keep the package safe." Near the entrance to the waiting area, a night guard stood and watched Corban, and whispered into his radio. Sweaty palms gripping the package, Corban stumbled down the jetway. The pale girl slid past the night guard and disappeared into the O'Hare concourse; Flight 1666 lifted off into the stars and the velvet black of the night sky.

Corban slept on the plane.

"This is the flight attendant speaking. We will be arriving in La Guardia, New York City, within 30 minutes. Please return to your seats and fasten your seat belts. Please turn all electronic devices off, including cell phones, CD-players, and laptop computers. Local time is 1:00 AM."

Corban watched out the window as the plane descended. New York was a boiling mass of light, the highways filled with straining, pulsing strands of illumination. It was raining outside. He wondered if it ever stopped raining here in this world, outside of prison.

"It looks a lot like hell, doesn't it?"

Corban looked at the fat man sitting beside him. "What?"

"It looks a lot like hell," the man repeated, enunciating slowly. His huge jowls bounced with the formation of each syllable. Corban turned and looked again at the rapidly approaching swirl of muck and light and rain.

"Yeah," Corban said. "You're right."

The plane soared hawk-like past the Twin Towers, their massive lighted frames rising against the night like great blazing giants.

The fat man cackled a bit. "Of course I'm right. I'm always right." He jabbed a stubby finger at the window. "You see down there? Down in big old New York City? It's full of lost souls. People who hated and shoved and shouted and generally ignored one another. Now they're in hell."

"Yeah," Corban said.

"And hell is New York City."

"Yeah."

"What are you doing here, in New York City, boy?" The fat man asked, turning his fleshy eyes on Corban.

"I'm going home."

"Nasty. Glad I'm not you...living in New York City. Where you been? Business?"

"In prison." The word was foul in his mouth.

"Oh," said the fat man. "Oh. Well...oh. Excuse me. These landings are hard on me." The fat man had gone pale, and he groped at the seat in front of him. Corban turned away as the fat man emptied his stomach into the airline-provided paper bag. He hated airplanes.

The plane landed, and taxied across the rain-slicked tarmac. Night was young and full of a dangerous, manic vitality. A memory, a bit of verse, floated to Corban...For they do not sleep unless they have done evil. He was afraid. Frightened of the darkness, of the night. Scared of the inhabitants of the dark, for they could not sleep until they had done evil.

"Good luck," the fat man said. Everyone was standing, and the passengers at the front were disembarking. "Watch yourself. It can be nasty, I'm told, being out of prison. Cops don't like you, y'know, when you've been in prison." The fat man's breath stank of vomit. "Watch yourself." The fat man groped about in the empty seats, found Corban's untouched in-flight snack, and bit down on a muffin. Then he turned and hurried up the aisle.

Corban picked up the brown paper package, bits of paper, pulpy from his sweat, clinging to his fingers. "Thank you for flying with us, sir," the stewardess at the front of the airplane said, as he passed onto the jetway. Glancing back, he saw her, bowed in conversation with the pilot, her white fingers grasping at a small flyer with his picture on it. His throat tightened, and he panicked and raced up the jetway.

Shit. What do they want now? Haven't they done enough to me? Shit. Taken enough years of my life? What the hell do they want with me this time? Shit. His feet pounded the raceway, echoing back to the plane. Passengers from ahead glanced back at him, curious. "No." He slowed, his heart pummeled his chest, and he gasped for air. He wouldn't attract attention. If there's something wrong, if they want me...well, they won't have an easy job. It would be simpler to go unnoticed if he tried to stay calm.

The gate area outside the jetway was crowded. Furious people of all ages crushed together, subduedly swearing. Corban wasn't quite sure whether he should freeze in the air-conditioned arctic of the room, or sweat with the massed heat of the crowd packed about him. The passengers disembarking from the plane grew testy as they fruitlessly attempted to exit the gate area; the swarm of anxious passengers, waiting to board, were pushed into and tripped over by the exodus from the recently landed plane. Corban shouldered into the gridlock, shoving a young couple out of his way, stepping on the toes of a skinny kid.

"Just a minute, young man."

A bony hand snagged his sleeve and a pair of shrunken, angry eyes glared up into his face. The old lady screeched at him again, "Just a minute. See here what you did?" She dangled a pair of crushed eyeglasses before Corban. "See, now? You've smashed my glasses, young man. What do you have to say for yourself?" She was nearly bald; her last few wisps of white hair swirled about her head in a breeze from the air-conditioning.

"Sorry, ma'am," Corban mumbled, desperate to avoid a scene. His eyes searched the room, taking in the gate area. At the exit...a pair of night guards stood by the exit, one well over six feet and probably two-hundred-fifty pounds, and the other short and emaciated. Their pistols were in their hands. "Sorry. It's an airport."

"Ah," She gasped. "An airport? That's your excuse? Well, young man, I'll have you know these glasses were quite expensive."

"Yeah. Sorry. Lady, I really have to leave." Corban tugged away a bit, his eyes still on the two night guards. They were consulting with one another, perusing a sheet of paper. He knew what was on the paper.

The bony hands pinched at his shirt-sleeves again, but Corban pushed away and hurried towards the unguarded exit. Around him one or two other noisy debates had broken out between short-tempered, red-eyed passengers. Corban was almost at the exit, and the night guards had lifted their faces towards the noise of the arguments.

Tagging behind him, the old lady was screaming now, calling upon all the powers of heaven to strike Corban down for his callous behavior, and shouting for the police. Stepping through the exit, Corban looked back and saw the night guards move towards him. Cursing the old lady, searching his mind for any reason why the police should be after him, Corban shoved the brown paper package into his jacket and lost himself in the rush and the clamor of the La Guardia concourse.

Outside great drops of rain slashed across the sky to shatter, glasslike, against the concrete walkways. Tires screamed on the pavement, the screams rising against the wind to fill the night with sounds like the last living moments of fallen angels. Corban slid into a waiting taxi.

"Where to, man?"

Corban looked at the driver. His eyes ached. When had he last slept a full night? Two days ago, he thought. He wasn't quite sure. The release from prison had been a surprise; Corban hadn't yet served half his sentence. He was being released for good behavior, he was told. Forget the time Corban had snapped and put one of the guards in an intensive care unit. He was being released for good behavior. "What?"

"Hey, man, you wanta go, you gotta tell me where." The driver looked back at Corban, his eyes intensely white against the black of his skin. "Gotta tell me." The driver repeated.

"Ah..." Corban searched his mind. Where? His apartment was gone, everything in it claimed by creditors, or the government, or relatives who knew Corban wouldn't return for another two years. "Motel. Take me to someplace cheap. I don't care."

"Don't care? Ok, man, your call." The driver eased the taxi away from the terminal and left the airport. "So, you in the city for a good time, or what? Lousy Sheol you chose for a holiday."

"Someone else told me that."

Rain spattered against the windshield of the taxi. "Yeah, man. They sure was right. This place right here, old NYC. Welcome to Sheol." Rain sloshed away from the speeding, screeching tires. "NYC's hell all the time, guy, but here, at night, man, you gotta watch it. At night NYC's the black pit itself. Only there ain't just one guy in red. Y'see this big city, lotta people? Every one of them is a man in red, with horns and a big fork."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Least, that's the way it is at night. Bad place, NYC at night, man."

"Yeah."

"Ever hear that old Good Book bit, the part about how the nasty people can't sleep at night until they done evil?" The driver asked. "That's NYC for you."

So that was where the bit of verse came from...the Bible. "I've heard it."

"So, you here for fun? The adventure of the Big City?"

"No."

"Kinda figured that, man. No luggage, and all. Why you here?"

"I live here."

"Yeah? Where you been?"

"In prison."

"Nice, man." The driver pulled a pack of cigarettes from the glove box. His teeth clenched the cigarette and he lit it and blew smoke against the rearview mirror. "I don't like convicts. Y'know, I like cops a lot less."

"I don't like cops much myself," Corban said.

The driver reached into his jacket and pulled out a small automatic pistol. "You got it, guy?"

"Shit. What is this? Got what?"

"You got it? The goods, man, the goods." The cigarette tip glowed orange and pink against the rain-driven windshield. The wipers, with slow squeaks, hypnotically smeared the rain. "You a mule, man, that's what you are. You bring it, give it to me, you go away. You got it with you? Nice brown paper package."

"Yeah. I've got it."

"Beautiful. Give it up here." Traffic swept ponderously through the streets, the beams of the headlights of a million yellow taxis and blue busses pierced the curtains of rain and darkness.

"Why?"

"Why, man?" The driver's black knuckles were white against the grip of the automatic. "See this guy, the one sitting right here in the driver's seat? Y'see me? I'm the one you supposed to give that package to, man. Me, right here."

"Yeah? So, who are you?"

"Belong to this organization, y'know, man? Our organization got you outta prison early. We needed you, see, guy? Knew you'd help us, if we kinda let on we know things about you, know where some of the stuff from the bank went. Did nice, man, y'did nice. Give it up here."

Glass shattered and brakes squealed; the driver slouched against the steering wheel. The automatic flew from the driver's hand to crack against the passenger side window, and the taxi veered crazily. Metal creaked and cried and snapped, and Corban was thrown about, and then with a great crunch the taxi crashed. Sharp pain flashed through Corban's neck, and he saw white and red and black inside his closed eyelids, and then he was unconscious.