201 - Nobody (Tissue Warning)
201 - Nobody (Tissue Warning)
I’ve held your brothers’ children and now I’ve held the first of yours. I’m tired. – Momma Dee
Three days after Baby Noah was brought home, Momma Dee asked for Darkness to come see her. He found her holding court in the main area of the Shack where the club bunnies were all flocked around her. Not many people would allow their great grandmother to move out of an assisted living center and into a biker clubhouse at over a hundred years old.
Honestly, Darkness did not have much say in the matter, Momma Dee would do whatever she wanted to do. Everyone else was just there for the ride. Maybe to be her eyes for the physical world.
With her age and blindness, she was limited in what she could do. She would need help getting from her room on the second floor to the preferred couch here in the sitting area. Although she could knit by feel and counting the stitches, she would need someone else to pick the yarn and confirm that it matched what she was already using.
Today she wore a long bright red skirt and a heavy black sweater with red roses and green leaves and stems. No slip shoes were over thick wool socks. The women of the Shack had taken the old woman in and enjoyed buying presents for her. He was certain that today’s outfit was the latest gift because he did not recognize it.
From where she sat on her favorite couch, Momma Dee turned her face towards where he stood by the stairs and smiled. The fact that she could find him without any sight still unnerved him. With just a few soft-spoken words, the girls left the couches, and the centenarian was left alone.
“When you come over here, bring me a beer, boy.”
“It’s ten-thirty in the morning, Momma Dee,” he turned to look at the bar that was still dark. “The bar isn’t even open yet.”
“Boy, I’m over a hundred years old. It’s not going to matter if I have a beer now or in two hours. I miss my fruit smoothies.”
He chuckled as he came and sat next to her. “I’m sure Nessie would love an excuse to get a margarita machine. Just imagine all the recipes that she could come up with.”
Momma Dee patted his large hand with her small, frail one. “Not enough time for that.”
Looking down at the old hand resting on his own, he studied it. Wrinkled from a hundred years of use and age. Knuckles that were swollen with arthritis. Small scars from learning to do everyday actions by feel and no vision. Dark spots from age and time in the sun. A few burns from her time working at the Higgins Industries factory in her youth.
He could not remember them ever looking so old before. Sure, they were not smooth like they once had been. However, he could not remember so many wrinkles or dark spots on them. Not that he had ever studied them, but he remembered thinking that she was the epitome of black don’t crack. Yet now, she looked like every bit of her one hundred and four years.
Dark eyes moved up to look at her face. Deep crow’s feet and laugh lines were etched into the dark skin. Her cheeks drooped slightly creating the jowls that she had fought gravity not to have. Thin lips were paler than usual, but maybe that was because she was not wearing any lipstick or tinted lip balm.
Murkey eyes that had not seen the world around her in decades looked back at him. She might not see the building she now lived in, but she saw the world. She spoke to the dead and spirits bound to the earth. Knew things that she should not. Saw into the shadows and the possibilities of the future.
Darkness took a deep breath and braced himself, afraid of what the answer might be to his question. “Momma Dee,” he gently took her hand in his, “what do you mean that there’s not enough time?”
She reached up with her free hand and gently touched his bearded cheek. “You know.”
He shook his head as he fought back against the tears.
“Yes, I’m old. I’m tired,” she whispered. “It’s well past my time. I’ve buried three husbands, my children, my grandchildren and even great grandchildren. I’ve held the next generation. There’s nothing left on my bucket list.”
“When?”
“You know that not even I can know something like that. It will happen when it’s time.”
“There’s something that you want me to do.”
“My friend, Nessie calls him the silent one, he says that he is nobody. I need you to find out who he is.”
Darkness stood up and gently pulled her to her feet. “Let’s go for a little walk.”
He settled her hand in the crook of his elbow and handed her the nearby cane. With her holding onto him and using the cane to steady herself, they began to walk across the floor to the hallway that leads to the offices. He stopped outside Toad’s office and knocked on the frame of the open door.
Looking up from the computer, Toad smiled at the two people in the doorway. “What can I help you two with?”
“Does the name Nobody mean anything to you?” Darkness asked.
The smile on his face faltered slightly and he opened the desk drawer to retrieve the keys that he kept there. Closing the drawer, he stood up. “I’ll meet you at the chapel, I need to grab something.”
Darkness nodded and then guided his great grandmother to the ballroom that was turned into a biker chapel on the other side of the grand staircase. He walked slowly for the woman next to him. Toad walked faster and made it to wherever he went before meeting them.
Toad was holding a book and a framed picture as he unlocked the door and stepped inside. He flipped the lights on and automatically moved to the head table where he sat during meetings. Except, he did not sit down. Instead, he placed the picture, book and keyrings on the table and then grabbed a chair for Momma Dee to sit in.
As Darkness got the old woman settled, Toad pulled a black cut with nothing on it off the wall. Walking back over he handed the leather to the woman in his chair. He handed the Viet Nam era picture of four Army buddies in the jungle to Darkness.
“Killer, Pops and Murphy,” Toad said, pointing to each man. “And this one, that no one talks about, is Nobody. He rotated in just days before Murphy was killed. From what Pops said, and this is not the official story, Murphy died saving his life.”
“He came home, carrying ghosts with him. Pops and Killer decided that the best way to honor their friend was to keep a record of the good that we did. They created an extra officer position and named it historian. Nobody was the first historian. He recorded his own death with ink, gunpowder and blood.”