Bitter Instinct jc-8 Read online

  Bitter Instinct

  ( Jessica Coran - 8 )

  Robert W. Walker

  Robert W. Walker

  Bitter Instinct

  PROLOGUE

  … every action is preceded by an impulse, and man is not so private a being that his behavior is unseen, his patterns undetectable.

  — Gavin De Becker

  Scrawled in careful longhand in a reddish ochre color across and down Anton Pierre's thin, bony back, an exquisite living poem ripples with his movement. And the movement speaks. It speaks the poem into existence as it crawls, glides, moving with his lithe body. At first, snakelike, the poem slithers with his groaning. Soon, however, it seems to assume an angelic flight with Anton's lilting gasp for breath.

  It is a poem penned with a needle-pointed, flesh-cutting quill. The poem's ink, laced with the toxic concoction, runs into Anton's bloodstream, the poison doing its work. Anton Pierre believes both poem and poet inspired, and, in fact, he'd earlier jokingly called his killer the Lord Poet of Misspent Time. They had toasted to the name, and the poet thought it appropriate, replying, “Yes, Lord Poet Messenger of Misspent Time, I would add. That's what I'll call myself.” They shared a laugh then and they drank to each other's boldness, Anton's in baring his body, the poet in baring his soul.

  Anton had been searching for a sponsoring poet, someone whose work he could respect. He had found his poet, or rather his poet had found him; either way, results had come about, results without regret.

  “Perhaps you are what you claim to be, the reincarnated soul of all the great poets,” Anton Pierre had said to the poet on reading some lines the other had dashed off as if it were no more difficult to compose poetry than to breathe in the moonlit air. “You have the flare of a classical poet, but your subjects are abjectly modern, dark, and melancholy.”

  “I'll take that bit of critical analysis as a compliment,” the poet had said, toasting again. “Dear boy, you must know that melancholia sells, and it is precisely that which my poetry is meant to evoke.”

  Now Anton feels a sense of pride fill him at being chosen, that he will stand before the coffeehouse masses to bare himself so that others might read him: literally read his living poem from his back side. His Lord Poet of Misspent Time promises this opportunity, saying, “These words and your body, Anton, will reach the minds and souls of everyone tonight-all the world's a stage, right? And the poem inspired by you? It shall be repeated throughout time.”

  Inside Anton Pierre's head a silver rainshower of uncontrollable and musty images now swirl. A desperate euphoria engulfs him. An overwhelming and hungry sensation of warmth and happiness crawls along the corridors of his mind, curls up catlike, and replaces any sense of pride or feelings of self, for he no longer comprehends the self. The self has been washed away by a peaceful serenity invading his brain. This paradoxically gentle tidal wave ends all limitations and boundaries of self, of time, of place, and of will. The next to choose dies on the vine, replaced by innocent ignorance of his own demise-on this plane. Works like a charm-keeps all thoughts pure and unencumbered. He feels no melancholy, no bitterness, only a sense of loss just out of reach, running ahead… shadowlike, just out of his grasp, like a butterfly being.

  Perhaps if he had understood the deeper meanings of the poem that he'd allowed to be etched into his back, then perhaps he would know the intent of the Lord Poet Messenger of Misspent Time, as the other had begun to think of himself. Meantime, in Anton's inner ear, whispered words travel the shell-like coils, but these words can't make themselves clear; the auditory sense has been disengaged along with all other senses.

  “Aaaaway-ken-to-aware-wareness… place of angels,” were the last words to solidify in Anton's brain.

  Inside the killer's head, a sense of accomplishment rises, dragonfly-like and divine. The mission has been accomplished. No lack of sensation here inside the poet's mind, for it is filled with the words, sights, sounds, and odors of this moment, soothing the angelic Anton into calm acceptance of the death and the rebirth he so deserves; he soothes Anton with assurances, contentment, and serenity, and what the final serenity promises. Now sending forth a gift to the pleading heavens, the poet knows that the archangels must be as elated as he himself is proud.

  It has been a long time coming. Anton had required a great deal of courting.

  The poet did not always know what brought the ethereal shadows swirling into and through both mind and body, down to the T-cells and pores. They-the ethereal voices- were felt as energy, electrified and stinging, but in a good way, like a good scalp massage, only this massage energized the brain and the will. It amounted to sound but a sound that was as much felt as heard. They-the sweet existence of sounds-made life bearable; knowing of their existence made all the years of inexplicable horror in this life manageable. They were known throughout history as beings of light and air, and scholars of the occult had determined that there were exactly nineteen Angelic Calls-poems written by the angels as instruction to a human host. And now he was that host to whom they called, asking for nineteen of their own to be returned to them.

  The poet's soft voice fills the room as he attempts to further lull Anton into the life of that not-so-distant river that parallels this one, saying, “Now I know and you know, Anton. We have learned our lesson well and we know. We know what draws them near: primarily a total immersion in faith, a faith that speaks of their existence.”

  Along with this immersion in faith, a stick of expensive sandalwood incense helps both the poet and his chosen one, as does relaxing music, a cool evening breeze, dim lighting, an aroma of candles, all carefully arranged before the reading of favored poems for Anton Pierre's delight.

  They had talked all evening about this polluted, corrupt, and profane existence, and that other world spoken of by poets. They had agreed on the awful, corrupting power and putrid breath of this world, which dances with the devil. They had gotten round to Anton's role in it all, and to the fact that he should have been born into a far different, far more advanced and less noxious world. When asked to elucidate, the poet had said, “A world filled with radiant light and joyful spirit, a world blessed and ethereal with rarefied air and subtle, fragile life-forms who nonetheless prove spiritually powerful, filled as they are with love and a glorified nature.”

  Anton's eyes sparkled as he pictured it. “Spielberg ought to make a film about such a world,” the boy had kidded.

  Now the author of Anton Pierre's death takes a deep breath and sips the last of his margarita, from the place where he has been sitting on Anton's veranda, enjoying the sense of closure along with tonight's calming breeze and the “Blue Danube Waltz” played by the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra. Anton had excellent taste in music. The past pushes in on the poet, making anger rise; why had it taken so long to understand the one true purpose of one's gift?

  The poet pushes back from the chair, stands, and salutes the bustling city below with the drink in his outstretched hand; next comes a salute to the stars, a sense of finality and fulfillment washing over him. “Yet so much more remains to be done,” the poet says, and downs the final drop of tonight's Chardonnay. “Lovely evening, really,” the poet tells the cool night air.

  With Anton Pierre in the bedroom behind the poet killer, struggling to catch his last breath of this putrid world, both victim and killer now might rest. “But the term victim hardly applies here,” the poet tells himself, “and the word killer proves a misnomer as well. Both words, more suited to a mystery novel, pointed to wrongheaded thinking and ridiculous conclusions.” After all, Pierre was dispatched from his sad existence for one reason only, and it had been done without the least feeling of malice, prejudice, disgust, or anything smacking of the negative. Revenge
or profit? Nothing could be further from the essence of the matter. The poet hasn't killed Pierre for his possessions, his position, or his woman; the poet hasn't actually killed Anton Pierre at all. In point of fact, Anton's release comes as a direct consequence of Anton's beloved nature. “Good guys finish first,” the poet mutters. “The good die young, innocent.”

  The poet has merely acted as catalyst, freeing poor young Anton Pierre from his ugly prison, this vile existence wherein one's own body is infested by vermin.

  The Lord Poet of Misspent Time, Anton had called him. “I like the sound of it, no matter its meaning. Meaning takes second place to musicality these days anyway, so… In any event, the label will be kept, and deservedly so.”

  A return to the bedroom to stare at the dying boy. Genuine pride in having helped liberate naive, innocent, young Anton from this filth-ridden world fills Anton's benefactor. “I feel great compassion for you, boy.” His benefactor kneels over Anton and speaks softly in his ear, taking the boy's naked body in his arms. “Who else fights today for human dignity? I'm engaged in a war here, an all-out, fucking cosmic battle. A war between all darkness and all beings of light, and the stakes are high, Anton, absolute in fact. The whole fucking universe is at stake.”

  The poet begins to gently rock the dying white form in his arms, tears streaming now. The boy's skin seems as white as an albino's, as unblemished as fine porcelain. The poet's tears stain the boy's forehead here where Anton's body is held close and rocked. “You'll become a warrior for good, Anton. You are needed elsewhere.”

  A siren wails somewhere out over Philadelphia's nightscape, disturbing the peace of Anton's last moments. “I'm guilty of caring too deeply, too abidingly,” the poet says to the near-empty, lethargic shell that had been Anton Pierre, wondering what the boy's real name might have been, and then wondering if it mattered what he called himself. The boy's soul is yet slipping off to become one of the legion to whom the poet answers. “I believe in the actions I take; I believe in the forces driving me, forces that speak through me, act through me, use me and my poetic genius. I am a mere humble pawn in this flawed world of impurities.”

  A shudder erupts from some final, volcanic center inside Anton Pierre's thin, white body. The poet lifts Anton's head and gazes into his dying eyes, bringing the young man's final pure light to his own eyes, and there shines resigned acceptance in the dimming orbs, and the angels dancing over Anton's irises smile at their messenger poet. The angels are pleased, pleased at finally finding and embracing Anton Pierre. “Go-go on angel's wings, dear, sweet youth,” mutters Anton's poet.

  Helpless, yet in smiling reverie, his veins circulating the poison that formed the very words of the poem on his back, Pierre groans the groan of the warm and comforted feline, feeling no pain, completely happy in a pure and beneficent embrace now. With the virtuous poet sponsoring him, the virtuous angels welcoming him into their legion, Anton becomes the chaste chosen.

  Yes, the poet cares so much and knows much. In fact, the poet has learned a great deal from his otherworldly tutors. Thorough and meticulous, they have filled his mind with all the knowledge of those who have spoken through him since childhood. Through the World Wide Web, they now have come to reveal themselves and to help target the chosen, and the work has been rewarding, for they have assured him a place among them, and they have said what he has done makes him a true man in every sense of the word.

  The poet has heard them speak it even as they revealed their identities. Enticing dark friends from beyond are those same entities he converses with in his dream and reverie.

  He had assured Anton Pierre that he, Anton, ought to have been born an angel, or at least a saint. So lovely and gorgeous is-yes, is-he, for he lives now and forever…

  Yes, the poet cares far too damned much. He simply loves too deeply and too well, certainly too passionately, but then no one knows of the true depths of his passions, not really. Certainly no one knows the depth of his involvement with young Anton Pierre, here tonight.

  Lovely thought, lonely reality, he thinks, for no one can share in the beatific work, the calling. The poet wonders if Byron, Shelley, Keats, and other inspired poets had not been called to perform such miracles in their day. If so, perhaps Byron alone acted on the choices offered him. Did Byron hear the same voices?

  “No one not hearing the voices could possibly understand; no one not hearing and feeling himself directed by the angelic spirits surrounding the poet could know the depth of the connection. They guide the poet's every movement and breath.”

  Anton lets out a long, languishing burst of air.

  “Yes, of course, that is it,” the poet mutters, and the dying Anton Pierre, whose eyes glaze over with his slow passing, responds with an angelic smile.

  “A final toast,” the poet bellows out, “to that other world which you're moving toward, Anton, I promise you.”

  Anton's angelic, startled reply is telepathic, speaking of stunned and amazed innocence at what he now sees. The poet hears Anton's voice inside his head telepathically sending a message: “And I love you, too, my beautiful poet friend, and you will reap the reward of pure love for freeing me from this, our shared purgatory.”

  The poet loves Anton Pierre, far more than any of the boy's blood relatives, who detest him for his difference, for being a woman born to a man's body. Even given the brevity of his and Pierre's encounter, which fate has brought to them, the Lord Poet believes he loves the youth far more than any who called Anton friend, certainly more than his current lover, Tom, who has hurt him so deeply and so often. Tom's reward, his punishment, will be to live out a full life in this realm of the putrid, where the spirit is corrupted with the body.

  From what the poet has gathered, Pierre had recently been hurt for the umpteenth time by family, by so-called friends, and by Tom. Well, no more… no more pain or suffering ever again. Michael, Raphael, and the other angels have seen to that-with a little help from a poet whose soul belongs to them.

  He has helped Pierre flee from this world for the most passionate of reasons. He cannot allow the Anton Pierres of this world to suffer. He sits now with Pierre while the young man's life wanes, the life force now like a flickering wisp of moon-glow.

  The poet holds on to the young man's hand, so like a glove now, a sheath for the sword of soul.

  The body is a simple vessel, a mere repository for spirit.

  He weighs time. A light on the horizon from the open window, a cool breeze tickling Pierre's fevered brow at the moment between darkness and dawn, a special moment when the ethereal creatures come to take their own.

  The Lord Poet of Misspent Time recalls the lines he has penned on Anton Pierre's back. The poem honors Anton, as it is meant as much for the boy's memory, his sepulchre, as for the masses who will learn from it.

  “Or will they?” the poet laments.

  With the boy's head in his lap, brushing fingers through his hair, the poet recites aloud the poem to his loving Anton for a final time:

  Chance… whose desire is to have a meeting with stunned innocence…

  A flickering with every heartbeat born is a picture burned into skin a little story wherein ends illusion.

  The cut of it against my back marks time in distances wide, the time it takes to retell a new breath.

  Anton Pierre's eyes roll back in his head, fully dilated, the poison having done its work. It will be a killer difficult to detect, and it creates in the boy a peaceful end, now that the initial convulsions have passed. The poet holds the young man's head in his hands, rolls him facedown, and places him gently on the pillow on the floor. The poet next covers the marked boy with a sheet up to his waist, leaving the poem revealed to those who find the body. He next kisses his cheek and bids farewell.

  “Safe crossing, my sweet friend,” he softly coos, locating the door and quietly leaving the apartment.

  He leaves the building, unseen save for a homeless man who pays him little mind. He steps out onto the wet shimmering bricks o
f a newly gentrified neighborhood, where cheap pavement meets expensive stone, the renovated warehouse courtyard silent and slick with a summer shower that futilely attempts to wash this world clean.

  A mewing cat from the alleyway abandons her search of a garbage heap to follow the Lord Poet of Misspent Time, whose left hand carries a valise, the tools of his trade. It's as if the cat wishes to be his next protegee, begging him to skin her and scrawl a poem across her back and send her over to… to some cat heaven. He ignores the animal. Still, the poet's soft-soled steps from this place are like a cat's, like the fog of Carl Sandburg's poem that “comes on little cat feet,” and he thinks of J. Alfred Prufrock, the eponymous hero of poet T. S. Eliot's “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and he wonders who knew first, the poet or the creation. And which of the two was more real, Prufrock or Eliot, the poet. Which of the two saw the world for what it is, and which of the two did something about it. As I have done this night, he thinks.

  ONE

  Technology is not going to save us. Our computers, our tools, our machines are not enough. We have to rely on our intuition, our true being.

  — Joseph Campbell

  Twilight had painted the common grounds about the

  FBI buildings at Quantico in lavender and purple shadow beneath the lamps lining the walkways. The springtime hills around the Virginia compound appeared cluttered. Blooming dogwood splashed color up and down the forests. From a distance, it looked like swaths of lingering snow, the flowers snuggling and wiggling and boring in-alive amid greening blades of wild grass, all at odds with the carefully kept, manicured lawns of Quantico. The training grounds were empty, classrooms locked up for the night, most lights turned off, most buildings vacated or nearly so, but the bright fluorescent lights of the forensics lab glared out at the night like so many defiant eyes.