Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3: BROKEN & SCARRED
9/8/11

It turned out that Morrison
Didn't feel like crying.

He felt like talking.

Morrison spent the better part of an hour telling Callista about various tours of duty. She kept looking at her watch, counting down the time. “You know,” Helmut said, passing her a tray of fig newton cookies. “I'm going to hire some other impatient brat.” Callista waved away the tray; setting it down, Helmut popped a cookie in to his denture-less mouth. “You're leaving me with quite the inconvenience.”

“Ah.. yeah,” Callista mumbled. “But, like – you know I have a good reason. I'm doing a bone marrow donation to my cousin, Sissy. I need time to heal.”

“I know how this stuff works; Jimmy Two-Toes had that done. That bugger had leukemia; his sister get a big ol' needle in her hip – she was just fine, after. It's a pretty mild procedure, for the donor.” He stared at her from under his thick glasses. Taking them off, he wiped the lenses on his golf shirt. He inspected them, squinting. He held them up to the light, then shrugged. “What's the real reason – getting sick of hanging out with an old Magoo?”

“Hmm..” Callista looked around Helmut's living room, taking in the sights of Morrison's dead wife's paintings – 1950s rock stars – and the various trophy heads of wild beasts. “I dunno. I thought this'd be good for diction, but, I'm still tripping-up sentences aloud.”

“That,” Morrison started, slipping his goggles back on. “And you're a young girl, with young things to do.”

“Mmm.. well, yeah. There's that. You know, I could probably keep doing this...”

“It's not like I pay you,” Helmut reminded. “But, you know --” he whipped out a hanky and blew out some red goobers. “-- I COULD pay you. Nothing fancy; I'm thinking $5 a day. I'm on The Pension, so, I can't afford any fanciness.”

“Okay. You're fine, though, right?” Callista asked, referring to how she'd found him tonight – sprawled, in the backyard. He'd passed out, after conking himself into a mature maple tree. Despite Morrison's intricate front yard, the back yard was more of a grass patch. There were two trees – the maple, in the center, and a blue spruce in the far corner. Sure, the very back had a little garden – squashes, and berries – but, most of the yard was just grass. She'd found him smack-dab beside the maple, a welt on his forehead, and crusty blood under his nose. He woke up easily enough.

“Hurrumph. Yep.” Helmut cracked his knuckles, before inspecting the boogies in his old, white hanky. He folded the hanky, thrusting it back in to his breast pocket. He adjusted his suspenders. “I'll be just fine.”

“That's quite the bump, on your noggin,” Callista said, crossing her legs. She sipped at her tea, glancing back at her wristwatch. The neon green hands told her that she was about to be 10 minutes late for her date with Billy.

“I said, I'll be just fine.” His wrinkly face scrunched up, as he attempted a comical frown. “Don't be such a worry-wart.” He reached in to his back pocket, pulling out a fantastically-chunky leather wallet. No doubt, another memento from that dead wife of his. “Here,” he said, extending a $10 to her. “I'm paying you, for two weeks in advance. If you can muster, I'm thinking of re-reading Dante, sometime. I'll pay you $2 more, per hour, if you can manage.”

“Dante. Hmm. Every damn goth kid wants to name their first born that,” she mused.

“You mean those ghouls in KISS makeup? Hmm. 'Dante' – not a bad choice, really.” He plucked a pair of newtons up; he popped one in his mouth, leaving the other one balanced on his knee.

“I swear, Mr. Morrison. You can make anything sound gothic; you add 'dead', 'black', 'crow', and Dante, and you've got yourself the typical goth song.”

“Back in my day,” Morrison said, reaching for the newton on his knee, “We just wrote poems about what we knew – the weather, the woods. Sometimes, we'd write little ditties about the pretty ladies we liked.”

“I'd still prefer Dante, any day. You're not going to try to make me read the Italian version again, are you?”

Helmut chuckled softly. “You've never read anything interesting, from your generation?”

“Unless you count some interesting essays, back in high school – no.” Callista put her empty tea cup on a coaster, atop Helmut's tall coffee table. “We're not the most literate of people, my generation.” She gazed at the tea cup, debating a fourth refill. “But, I mean, the sociologists are saying we're breaking new territory, linguistically. If you can count l33tspeak as a language...”

“It's settled, then. Next Wednesday, I'll expect you to bring your peepers, and be ready for the Dante.”

Callista rose from her comfy chair, and headed out. Wellp; now she was offiically 15 minutes late.