Chapter 14.

The door clanged shut behind Frank, his eyes narrowed, adjusting to the room’s warm light, and he gazed around. Corny had little: a made twin bed, a bakelite dinette with chrome legs, three kitchen chairs, and a small television viewing area facing the window. Several pictures in inexpensive but tasteful frames graced the ornate wood-cased TV, a contraption so old it had to be black and white.

Thus oriented, Frank walked to the television, chin-pointing at a photo of Corny with three teens. “Your kids?”

Corny nodded, limping forward and handing Frank the photo, his puppy-dog eyes filled with longing. “Yes, sir. Latest one. The ex snapped it in August at my family reunion.”

“Down south?”

Corny snorted. “Hell, no. My people moved to Cleveland. Jobs. I mean, grubbing for the man in a steel mill or auto plant pays better than sharecropping in Mississippi, by a country mile. Same sweat, more cash, you dig.”

“I do.” Frank said, examining the photo and whistling, impressed. The kids—one boy, two girls—smiled that goofy group photo smile, but made a handsome group, all straight teeth, and wide, robust faces. “Sharp looking bunch. They live nearby?”

“No,” Corny said, as Frank handed him the picture. “They moved to Detroit last summer. My ex’s people are from there, and her mother got real sick. They with her, taking care.”

Frank sighed. “That sucks. You ever get to see them? The kids, I mean, not your in-laws…. Er, ex-in-laws… The outlaws?”

Corny grinned at the joke, his eyes dancing as he positioned the picture on the television with care. “I take Greyhound to see them when I can afford it. As you’d guess, I ain’t too popular with the… ah… with the ‘mother-out-law,’ so I stay at the Y most nights. Cheap digs. Once, they were full, so I spent the night sleeping on a church pew, the most uncomfortable night I’ve spent since Nam. Still, you gotta do what you gotta do.”

“Indeed, for the kids,” Frank said, a cloud of melancholy settling over him. “Family’s family, and yinz gotta look out for each other.”

Frank shifted his eye to the other pictures scattered across the room: Corny wearing fatigues in Vietnam, clowning with his platoon, MLK, Malcolm X, and some other yellowing photos and tin-types of African-Americans that Frank assumed were Corny’s parents and grandparents.

Corny cleared his throat. “Enough of my bellyaching.” He turned his warm eyes Frank’s way, their irises so dark brown they almost seemed black. “Never thought I’d see downtown customers here. Lucky for you, got me a pot of red beans and rice on, slow-simmered for hours. Oughta be ready it half an hour, forty-five minutes.”

Frank threw up his hands. “Ah, Crap. Sounds great, but I gotta be at Severance Hall before eight.”

“Hoo, wee,” Corny said, “Severance Hall, just like the rich folk.” The lamed man shuffled towards the kitchen, a small island with a hotplate, Crockpot, and mini-fridge. “Guess slaying dragons pays good, no?”

Frank guffawed, following. “Slaying dragons?”

At the table, Corny crumpled into a chrome-framed kitchen chair with a plump cushioned seat upholstered in red vinyl. “You know. Saint George killed him a dragon, according to legend, so you work for a dragon-slaying outfit, making you a dragon slayer.”

Frank shook his head and laughed, hoping Corny didn’t think he slaughtered imaginary creatures for a living.

A grin lit Corny’s face. “I don’t think you slay real-live dragons, fool. I was just goofing, paying homage to Saint George, a powerful Loa.”

The chair’s puffy cushion went ‘pfffffffffffffffft,’ deflating as Frank sat, his mind blanking. “A what, now?”

“‘Loa.’ It’s an African word, what my people call the great saints, spirits of power that intercede with the Lord, God Almighty on our behalf. Think, Saint George or Saint Peter or Mary. It’s a Mississippi thing, like the blues, I suppose.”

Before Frank could gather himself to reply, Corny rapped the table. “Anyway, if you ain’t got time to eat, care for a drink? A Cuba Libre? I even got limes I snuck out of Club Seventy-Nine, a juke I visit now and again.”

“Please,” Frank said, wincing, “but not too strong. I gotta sit through Mozart without dozing.”

“Hoo-wee, Mozart at Servance Hall, and you pimped to-the-nines like Charlemagne.” Corny stood, walked to the kitchen area, bumping around glasses and ice.

Frank gazed out the window. The view surprised him. It was postcard-perfect, looking out at the crossroads of Hayden and Shaw, the window framing a clear sightline to the distant downtown skyline.

“Anyway,” Corny said, delivering Frank’s glass to the table and hobbling back for his own, “what brings you here?”

Frank took the proffered spirits and ran through the story, starting with Umberto reading the Plain Dealer, Boots chiming in, and how they worried.

Corny’s expression relaxed as he eased into his seat opposite Frank. “Imagine that, y’all gentlemen worried about Cornelius Keyes, an old fool who ain’t nothing but a lame hotdog vendor. And you a Severance Hall Mozart-man to boot. Pure class, Cleveland’s Charlemagne, working for a dragon slayer, but maiden-like modest regarding your prowess with the flaming sword.”

A quick, nervous hoot of laughter escaped Frank. He thought, What the… Charlemagne, and prowess with a flaming sword?

To hide his discomfort, Frank cleared his throat and sipped his drink, savoring the sugary fizz of the cola tempered by the citrus tang and alcohol bite. He grimaced, realizing he still had a chaw in, and fished it out, mulling over Corny’s question. A few beats later, he said, “Reckon we regular folks gotta look out for each other.”

Corny chuckled, leaning his chin on the cane. “You are the Star Child, Frankie. The bomb, chasing the noses away. Can you dig it, Mister Big Mozart man slaying dragons and chasing noses, Protector of the Pleasure Principle and all that?”

“I guess…” Frank chuckled, lost in the labyrinth of Corny’s words, which hovered between sense and nonsense. But unlike his wild words, Corny sat calm, earthy, and solid, sipping his rum and Coke and lighting a match, the sulfur strong in the air. He snagged a pipe from an ashtray and breathed in, spittle bubbling in the pipe stem. Soon the pungent-sweet incense of cherry pipe tobacco filled the air.

Corny raised his glass. “Here’s to friends.”

“To friends.” They toasted, and Frank sipped. As the pleasant drink fizzed in his belly, he stood, displaying the spent tobacco. “Garbage can?”

“In the commode, next to the kitchen.” Corny pointed to a narrow door and Frank stood and threw away his chaw, washing tobacco juice from his hands in the spotless porcelain sink. After patting his hands dry, he shuffled back towards the table but stopped dead in his tracks, his heart skipping a beat.

Now, Frank reckoned Corny worked hard keeping his place together, washing, dusting, sweeping, and mopping. The apartment’s condition provided ample evidence. And yet, the apartment’s front wall stood in stark contrast, its entire length and width defaced by graffiti, blocks of text written in multi-colored magic markers.

Gape-jawed, Frank edged forward for a closer look.

Large gaps of vertical space divided the display into three major sections, each identified by large, red magic marker titles written in handwriting so neat it would look at home on an architectural blueprint. The sections read: ‘MK Ultra & CIA & Government Mind Control,’ ‘Majestic 12 & Area 51 & UFOs,’ and ‘New World Order & Illuminati & Rothschild.’ Snaking purple lines connected these with several dozen subthemes written in smaller text with a blue marker. Which split into hundreds if not thousands of factoids recorded in a rainbow of fine-point Sharpie text, the ideas interconnected by a kaleidoscopic swirl of connecting lines, the result a rainbow snarl.

Wild, he thought, a freaking spiderweb of crazy, laid bare for public display.

“It’s all true.” Corny stood, waving the pipestem at the defaced wall. “I saw MK Ultra at work in Nam, brother. The Man fucked with us big-time, putting acid in our water, even drove one of our boys crazy. I tripped hard on patrol, twice. Twice. And I never touched no drugs… Well, I smoked reefer, but that’s it, no drugs… So I know the CIA snuck acid in that cracker’s water, the one who flew the Dixie flag and shot all them negroes up in sixty-two. That fool could’ve, should’ve killed me, but I survived. I declare, that mean-ass peckerwood wasn’t crazy before then. The Man drove him bonkers.”

By turns uncomfortable and bemused, Frank cleared his throat. “Sounds serious.”

Corny snarled. “Serious as a heart attack, brother. And it doesn’t stop there. I swear before the Lord God Jesus Christ that some brothers scrounged evidence the CIA is pushing heroin on the streets to fund monkey business in Latin America. They put it in a book, and I guarantee, the Man doesn’t want you reading that shit. Nam all over again, but paid for by negro addicts. And then—get this—Old Uncle Sam sends brothers to jail for getting a taste of the junk they supply… It’s in the book.”

Corny stood, sucking his teeth, his face pinched with displeasure. “Shit just ain’t right, man, when your Rothchild-controlled government plays people like pawns for the Wall Street money lenders. Playing We, the People like game pieces, like we ain’t human.”

Frank stifled an eye roll, though a wry grin he could not control flashed across his face. He reached for a bit of Dale Carnegie wisdom to help him, so he considered Corny’s words. It wasn’t all bonkers. Frank agreed with parts in principle, and voiced his agreement: “You got that right, goddamned Washington elites, always got a boot to the workingman’s throat.”

Corny nodded his agreement, jammed the pipe into his mouth, and tapped Frank’s shoulder with his cane, nudging him aside. Frank flinched, as if the crazy were catching, but moved to his left as Corny shuffled past him towards a rickety bookcase tucked into the corner. “Case you think this is just a silly fool fussing, I got that book here, if I can find it, I’ll loan you it. Several others, too. Eye-opening revelations, brother, stuff THEY don’t want plebes like us seeing, dig?”

A mischievous grin stretched Frank’s face taut as he followed. “I dig you, boss, I dig you. Can’t wait.”

Corny strained to read book spines, the light in the corner dim, the evening light streaming through the window casting inconvenient shadows. He snagged one that Frank recognized from the bookstore, Chariots Of The Gods? by Eric Von Danekin, and another with a dolphin and a seeing-eye within a pyramid from the top shelf. From the shelf below, he fished out a volume with a plain white cover overlaid with stark text. Frank couldn’t read the title, but the words ‘CIA’s Illegal War’ featured prominently. Corny placed those on the filing cabinet, reaching toward another tome on the lower shelf.

Frank’s eyes went round with shock as Corny’s bad leg split into two pieces. The lame man teetered like a chopped tree, knocked books and nicknacks off the shelf, and thudded to the ground.

Frank shot towards him, kneeling at his side. “Jesus, you okay?”

Corny smiled, as if self-conscious, and he struggled to his feet, leaning on Frank and a filing cabinet, patting himself, evidently checking for injuries. His boney butt sliding into a chair, Corny shook his head, his expression wry.

“Nothing bruised but my pride,” he said, rolling up his pant leg to reveal a detached wooden leg. “You’d figure after fifteen years, I’d remember, but once a fool…”

Frank grinned, dusting off Corny’s back as he undid the cheap prosthetic's leather buckles.

“Freaking wars,” Frank said, “didn’t know you’d lost that leg… Need a hand?”

Corny shook his head, aligning the prosthetic and buckling leather straps with practiced precision while cursing under his breath.

Frank said, “I got your cane,” striding forward and grabbing it from near the door. On his way back, he swooped to pick up the blessedly unbroken statue of Saint Peter holding two gold keys that Corny had knocked over, which proved heavier than expected.

Behind him, Corny screamed, “No. One at a time, ain’t safe for the uninitiated…”

Frank’s mischievous grin grew wider, and he laughed at the crazy.

But he gasped.

A purple-blue lightning bolt arced between cane and Saint Peter, with Frank caught between. His torso burned as if twenty thousand spiders bit him at once. A force knocked him backward, wrenching cane and statue from his grasp.

His belly swirled as he plummeted earthward, a skyscraper's girders zipping past at thirty-two feet per second per second. The rushing air filled his ears, roaring like a gale-force wind. He braced for impact, praying a Hail Mary.