An Ocean of Suffering

The Final Chapter (Part 1)


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

An Ocean of Suffering
We’re all niggers now!
--The Mayor’s Journal
Champ applied medicinal lotion to Meredith’s diaper rash. He blew on her
feminine gash while making a funny face. She giggled and squirmed. Finally the clean
diaper was on. Backwards. “Ready to go back to Mayor’s party?” Champ said while
tickling Meredith’s belly bulge.
“Mayor’s potty?”
Champ brushed back the fine platinum strands from her forehead and kissed her
there. “He’d find that pretty funny, kid. Think I’ll keep you around awhile, feed you raw
food, watch you bloom.” Champ took Meredith’s hand and grasped the door handle with
the other. “Yep,” Champ said. “Pretty damn funny.”
“Damn thummy,” she said and stuck her thumb into her mouth. Champ turned the
handle, then stopped. Eerie humming, clicking sounds like those made by exotic insects
in a shitty movie he’d long forgotten. He remembered the sounds. Scared the shit out of
him as a kid. Champ flicked off the light, clicked the padlock, clutched Meredith to his
chest, whispering “sh,” smelling of smoke. He pressed an ear to the door. Competing
noises. Louder. Louder. “A herd of thundering boots,” he said.
“A bird of hula hoops?”
“Yes, honey. Take a nap with Champy now, and then we’ll play.” Champ
slumped down away from the door crack, closed his eyes and listened. Meredith
snuggled in his arms and soon fell asleep. The liquor’s done its work on her just in time.
Boots thundered past and down the hall. Boots slowed then stopped. Squeaking door.
Boots clomping in. My friends, Champ thought. Rabbit-like vibrations of Meredith’s
toddler heart against his. God help us all.
A woman’s laughter, unfamiliar, haughty. Rough gruff of men’s voices.
Intermittent buzzing and squeaking, anomalous and evocative of primal fears, though
broken at times by the woman’s twittering peals, equally anomalous in context of this dark
concert of sounds and evocative of primal fears of a most different sort. Bad mother
sounds. Turncoat giggles. Nothing indicative of struggle. No noise or sense of Mayor,
Peggy, Gilbert. Competing scenarios jousted mightily in Champ’s mind but none was the
victor. What is happening here. He patted the small of Meredith’s back. His family long
forsaken. Boots clomped again, cooperative, regimented. The woman spoke with words
close and clear the voice of hubris.
“That special brew worked like witchery. I’m a born actor, damnit. I’ve always
known.”
A male bellowed, “They ain’t gonna break, men; and they ain’t gonna wake
till mornin’ whether ya knock ‘em against walls or not. We got a damn busy night ahead.”
“I did good, didn’t I Dale?”
“Yes agent Williams. Don’t worry. You’ll be famous for your contribution. The
masters are well pleased. Tomorrow everything will be made clear to the world. The age
of the game has ended.”
“You will see to it, won’t you Dale, that my father--”
“Yes. He’ll be anally electrocuted in the most excruciating manner possible.”
“I’d like a video tape Dale, or at least an audio recording of his screams, and I
want him to know who his daughter turned out to be.”
“He will know, Samantha.”
Meredith slept content as Champ crouched by the heating vent kicking around
various plans of escape. Minutes later the girl stirred, and opened her big innocent eyes.
Champ tweaked her nose which sent her giggling. “How would you like to go to the
forest with uncle Champy?”
“Foh-west.”
“Yes honey. West to Forest Park.” They made their way slowly. Due to the
unprecedented police presence, Champ decided the back-alley approach was best. After
three hours of sweating behind bushes and detouring through backyards and thick brush,
of running from blue shadows and unknown buzzes in the dark, the winding dirt path of
the Wildwood Trail lay before them. “We’ve found our yellow-brick road kid. Hope
there’s an Oz shining with friends at the other end.”
Meredith, sitting astride Champ’s shoulders, said nothing, just occasionally batted
her uncle’s head like a drum as they moved on. The moonface, cadaverous as ever.
Unseen helicopter sounds made Champ think of spotlights. He doubled the pace. After
another hour all signs of the city were gone. Stars bright and numerous like hippy
campfires on the beach. Friendly fires. Champ took the symbol to heart and made a
choice. He lifted Meredith up and swung her around so she dangled over one shoulder
for freer locomotion. They left the path and ducked into the wild. On they trudged past
shallow streams, past hilly terrain and tightly clustered pines, up and down and over the
obstacles till finally they came to a clearing. Champ set the child down. She clung to his
leg. Surrounding the clearing were gnarled fairy-tale trees, twisting out of the ground’s