“We, to this door, not seeking pride or glory… we have come
For shelter from ill fortune, here… we have come.”
Hafez-e-Shirazi
Unfortunate
Jeff was almost at the end of his rout. It was about 5 a.m., too late, and the heavens were threatening to shine-a-bright and undo the mystery of the appearing Desert Chronicles on the door steps. And if there was a thing the old folk of small town California despised more than seeing the face behind the Milk man and the Mail lady was to see the sun shine on their daily newspaper before they got a chance to set eyes on it. They hated it just as much as children hate the thought of some night reaching underneath the pillow and meeting the hands of the Tooth Fairy. And speaking of hate, If there was one thing Jeff hated the most was to deliver papers to his last two stops on the remote end of town, where the quarters on the left housed hounds wilder and hungrier than the vultures that guarded the skies to that desert town.
But lately the dogs didn’t rush the fence like they used to, and that was good with Jeff. He wondered if he could see the faces to the beasts now that the skies were greyer. But instead what he saw was more puzzling than the hush of the hounds; a pile of his daily papers sitting untouched on the door steps to both quarters. He decided to take a closer look, and as he got close he sensed a stench. There beyond the fence the hounds were stashing a keep in the dirt.
“Whachu got there boys, show me whachu got?” whispered Jeff, cautiously.
And one of the hounds fetched him a foot.
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Indeed the story I am about to narrate has neither pride nor glory. It is a story about folk that even fate had to cleanse her hands away after putting them together on the same path. In a small town, perhaps the darkest in sunny California, where the sun blames her setting on duty, in fear of burdening on her conscious the weight of hectoring the needy.
On a bright desert afternoon Taslim Sulaimanov waited outside 12 Stone Ridge Way where he was to meet the agent or the property manager, call it what you may, for the keys to the house. He stood there motionless watching the sand mingle with dust in the hot air to the displeasing sound of wildest dogs he had set eyes on and wondered how he had ended up there. See he used to manage a British factory in his native Tajikistan right after the fall of Communist Russia where he endured the harsh work and unforgiving winters by dreaming of someday making his way to America, to sunny California. But dreams can be illusive, you know, like theater; they are to entertain the intended audience. I say the intentions here should have stayed at merely keeping the factory nights warm.
But struggling to find a fruitful path, enclosed by the high rise walls that make the Labyrinth of life, one has no clue as to what the future beholds, unless one is standing on top of the wall, peeping in. Let us stretch our imagination an iota further and assume there is a man on the wall.
Once Taslim got to America, forsaking his wife and children, he realized that he qualified for not much more than managing a convenient store in crime ridden Down Town Los Angeles, where the law was merely a suggestion. The low income and high living expense drew him to the suburbs; there he landed a job, a meager position in an American construction factory where he would have to endure the harsh work and unforgiving summers.
The agent arrived in his old Cadillac and squeezed himself out, cowboy hat first.
“You must be the agent?”
“Agent, property Manager…call it what you may.”
“I will take it.” Andy said before taking a tour of the insides of the town-house. His eyes were set on the fairly seductive outlines of the barely dressed blond across the fencing, Judy, putting up wet clothing that were reduced to moist as they hit the sizzling rope. He then let his sight follow the path of the linen until his eyes met with Adrian’s gaze of fury, Judy’s Husband.
“The Mexican guy, the one at the window, what’s he mad-dogging me for?”
The agent didn’t look;
“Oh, don’t worry bout him, you stay on your side and you be ok… You know what they say about neighbors and walls”
“Fences…”
“Said what?”
“Good Fences make good neighbors.” Tasleem corrected him.
“Yeah… whatever, do you want it or not?!!”
Almost instinctively Tasleem darted another glance at Judy…
“I said I will take it” he said to the disapproving sigh of the man on the wall.
In spite of the occasional distress of the abused woman next door, the nights were fine, the hounds howled and the wind sang a lonely song. But this soothed Tasleem better than the sounds of police chases, gun shots and ambulance sirens that filled the gaps between the hastened tick tock of the night hours in the city of angels.
Over time Tasleem learned to willfully avoid Adrian, the dog master as territorial as his subjects, the man whose depth of character was as deep as the Tattoos that inscribed his exterior and the length of his whip summarized the extent of his most intimate reach. And he didn’t keep any of that a secret from Tasleem.
“your up late!”
Tasleem looked up, still dazed, green eyes staring back, probably the only green in town besides the street signs. He ignored her.
“Papers been sitting there…” quite, “I am Jully.”
Tasleem looked over to the drive way, noticed the Chevy Celebrity that was parked there the day before was gone.
“Toni…” he said looking up “you don’t wear much.”
“There never is anybody else here but me and Adrian… and the dogs.”
Nothing…
“Dogs bother ya...?” Tasleem shook his head “Adrian?” Jully continued “Don’t let the Tattoos scare you or nothing, he can be nice… sometimes.”
Silence…
“You got an accent… your from one of them big cities up north aint cha?” Jully tucked her hair behind her ears “New York?”
Tasleem thought it over “sure.”
And the man on the wall weeps, but only because he knows so much more, he sees the clouds clustering further down the path, the clouds of deception, and he fears. You must understand, he has been rendered by you and me the burden of seeing what it leads to and he sees that it is stormy ahead. So he proceeds, cautiously, following the path, stopping at every junction to witness choices the unfortunate make.
From the late morning conversations to the early afternoon brunch, from the innocent patio chit-chat to the backyard lax, from her showing off skill-full hands at the table to him bragging of his New York escapades, from Jully being a woman she never was to Tasleem a man he never will be, the man on the wall saw it all.
Week day, day last, Tasleem finally trespassed, right foot first, into forbidden land. He offered the cheap Merlot and she prepared Tilapia, in desert land! He was in smooth Tajik silk on a path much too far from the Silky Road, she was in Sunday dress, on a sinister Thursday after noon. And the dogs, oh, the dogs barked too loud and growled with vengeance reserved only in wait of a thief, as they have a keen sense for boundaries being crossed. They may not have a way with the spoken word, but you must know they are well trained for the unspoken.
Jully double-stepped like a child to the recorder and but a moment later the persuasive sound of Andrea Bocelli had her bare lightness on Tasleem’s feet, moving together, harmoniously as they let the rot of heavenly fruit ferment their minds.
It’s a Song
that we resemble
you, you loved me
and I loved you…
Tasleem was hypnotized by Jully’s face; in the green of her eyes he saw the greens of Tajikistan and in her fairness the white of the snow tops, running the tip of his fingers gently sensing their undulations. Her hands danced their way up, mimicking the climb of Ivies making their way to his solid shoulders, holding on; she curled her soft physique around his rigid body, lifting her feet as if they were to never come down. Jully then softly lay her lips on his and let their luscious red rest against his rugged mouth before he invaded the taste of Merlot and generic lipstick. She then tilted her head in a gesture towards the bedroom, and there they headed, but all too slowly, taking in every moment with eminent resolute.
There in the bedroom a mattress was spread, a mattress that smelled like lonesome nights, soaked with tears and too often caressed with Jully’s throbbing cheeks. She examined her private abode from atop the stranger, as if to reaffirm that the room didn’t divulge her shameful keeps. A moment of hesitation in worry that the mattress might whisper of her perils, that it might still bear the prints of a lowered esteem, that the walls might project the shadows of yester nights, that the door would reveale all that it has locked within, the door that had let her in more often than out.
Tasleem closed the secretive door behind him, and laid Jully on the mattress resting on top of her, inching closer until he could feel the rapid unrest of her tender bosom against his. In return Jully gave in to him, for as long as it took in generous surrender.
Screech of tires, a muffled bang of the car door outside, and the man on the wall jumps frantically around like an ape locked in a cage, in warning of a disaster only he could sense, tears of blood running down his horrified face.
And as if Tasleem heard the imaginary call, or the excitement beyond, he woke up in turmoil, moving quickly for the window. Peeping out he saw Adrian in the front yard unleashing the beasts. His chest sank in, the air withdrew from his lungs, and his knees weakened. The dog master, he knows… Maybe I can sense with him, talk to him.
At some junction in the then idle time, time so laze that the arms of the clock had to stretch further to make it to the next strike, between Adrian’s hustle and Tasleem’s thoughts, their eyes met; there was blood in the dog master’s eyes. There is no way I can talk to him. No way at all.
Tasleem ran back to where Jully’s naked body lay undeterred.
“Jully…Jully” She woke up with a smile, initially unaware of the storm that was brewing, until she caught the sight of Tasleem’s unnerved face.
“He is here isn’t he?”
“Outside, he knows, he is furious, bringing the dogs, like a-“
“He is going to kill us” Jully broke into a screaming frenzy, running around the room, purposeless, like a headless chicken. Then she paused, a realization hit her. Adrian’s gun. She ran for the closet, momentarily brandished a revolver, and handed it to Tasleem.
“He is crazy…”
“No your crazy, what do you think I am going to do. Kill somebody.”
“Your going to kill HIM, kill Adrian, you don’t know, he is going to kill us, its either him or us”
“Go get them boys” shrieked the dog master jerking them back to reality. Tasleem gestured for Jully to get to the corner and he followed, sitting in front of her. Now clearly hearing the dogs’ sniffles behind the door, they could smell adrenaline, sweat and secrets.
A gun was bolted without. One was cocked within. Door knob turned; Taslim lifted the gun towards the door, aimlessly, shivering, Jully tightening her grip on his waist.
Door flunked open, vacuuming the room, rattling the windows, the starting bell. Adrian and the dogs entered, before them the naked figures squeezed in the far corner. Adrian aimed the Springfield and fired.Taslim fired the revolver with his eyes closed.
Adrian’s thirty-aught-six caught jully in the right eye pinning her to the wall, and he went down with Tasleems bullet in his chest. For a moment the desert went back to the silence that it is so accustomed to while Taslim and the dogs stared at each other, then the beasts moved in for the prey. Taslim was able to squeeze the trigger one more time before one of the dogs got a hold of his throat and ripped his neck apart.
After the echoes died, the sound of grinding teeth and smell of blood prevailed to the back drop of Bocelli…
And The Feuilles Mortes(dead leaves)
very gently
without making A Sound
drifted By the Window…
The only other sound that could be heard was the reluctant echoes, the footsteps of the man on the wall, walking away in melancholy retreat.
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Originally Posted by jersea
