II. "The Glorious Cause"

PART ELEVEN

   The sun was already low in the sky by the time the luxury sedan came to a gentle stop at the foot of an empty, familiar driveway.  Carlos Columbus Audaz gave a half-enthused thanks to the driver before opening the rear passenger door.  The mild February air of the Southern California evening washed over his face and arms below his rolled-up sleeves.  Pink-orange sunlight stretched over the roof of his house as the sun slowly sank away behind it.  The warm band of light reached past him, over the car and quiet street to the house facing his.  Carlos turned around and found himself staring at that home.

    His eyes were locked onto its brown, stucco facade made almost fuchsia in the waning daylight striking it head-on.  Carlos felt something dark inside of him crawling out of deep and hidden recesses.  It was bitter and hot, yet his skin seemed to suddenly feel cold.  There was a tingling in his nerves and muscles, it was electric like only anger could be.  He felt his blood boiling with a strange, irrepressible rage.

    “Sir?”

    Carlos blinked, dropping his gaze away from the house across the street to look at the driver in the front seat of the car.  Carlos was still holding the door open.  He was just standing on the curb, lost in a growing storm.

    “If you don’t mind, sir,” the driver said, gesturing subtly with a nod of his head toward the door in Carlos’ white-knuckled grip.  “It’s nearly dark and all the gas stations outside of the Central District will be closing.  Rations and riots, you know?”

    Carlos stared at the driver absently, hearing the man’s words but not really listening.  “Umm...yeah.  Right.  Sorry,” Carlos said, closing the door with a firm push.  He didn’t watch the sedan pull away.  He didn’t even move from the spot on the edge of the curb he’d been standing.  His attention snapped immediately back to the building across the street.  It was the home of Alex Vale.

    Like at his own house, the driveway was empty.  Carlos eyed the Vale’s garage as he walked closer, trying to remember how many cars the family had.  As far as he could recall, only one.  Like most families, the Vales could not afford the multi-vehicle tax levied against the California populace a year or so earlier.  Many sold their extra cars, making parents and eager teenagers vie for the valuable time behind a single steering wheel.

    Carlos opened the glass front door when there was no response to his ringing of the doorbell.  Where is Alex, Carlos asked into the ether as he knocked forcefully on the heavy, cherry-red inner door.  He rapped his fist against the thick wood once and then twice more.  There was no answer, no sound of muffled movement on the other side of the locked barrier.

    Carlos stepped back, glancing up at the second story.  Alex has to be here, he thought to himself.  There’s no place else for him to go.  Carlos bit the inside of his lip as he thought for a long moment.  He watched the sunlight dropping slowly off the walls and darkened windows.  The curtains were drawn together, obscuring the interior beyond the stained glass.  Carlos shuffled his feet off the stoop, moving with a frustrated huff around the side of the house.

    He felt a burning scrape on his knee as he scaled the rock wall isolating the Vale’s backyard.  He ignored it, not caring about the small tear in his designer pants.  At least, not right then.  Carlos stumbled through the thick grass of the backyard, trying to stay upright after springing off the wall.  Instantly he spotted familiar landmarks from a time that suddenly seemed so far away, a childhood that was more like a dream than an actual period of his life.  Carlos’ eyes lifted upward to a window on the second story of the house.  Our lives, he corrected himself.

    The two men, once boys and friends, had a system for getting in and out of the house in a more non-traditional way.  It was discovered accidentally.  They were filming a scene for one of countless games and adventures shared during those years.  As Carlos gripped the warped, cracked wood of a thick swing seat suspended from a long limb of an ancient tree, he couldn’t stop himself from grinning.  He felt like a geek, at least thinking back on his life life from two decades before.  There was a rolled-up rope ladder just out of reach on top of the chest-thick branch.  Carlos tried to remember what their imaginations had transformed the backyard, tree, and house into as he shook the stored ladder loose.

    Was it a temple in Sri Lanka?  A booby-trapped tomb in an ancient Amazon shrine?  A space station?  Carlos actually chuckled, quickly climbing the dried out rope.  The coarse fibers seemed to be quietly breathing as his weight moved upward.  The small setting surrounded by the unfriendly rock wall had served as the location for many far away, adventurous locales the two boys could never travel to at the time.  Carlos took a deep breath once he was atop the thick limb that stretched out toward the weather-stained roof.  His mood nearly began to change.  He might have found the ability to actually calm himself down.  He wiped the thin layer of sweat beading on his brow off with his shirt sleeve.  His eyes fixed in on the open window of Alex’s room.  The childhood memories making his heart feel lighter were suddenly crushed, snuffed out of existence by that dark feeling crawling out of his soul.

    The grin on Carlos’ face was gone by the time his feet touched the cracked shingles layering the rooftop.  His knee was bleeding underneath his torn pants, stained,  along with his shirt, by the mud and moss spread over the old tree.  He was tired and, now, sweaty, adding to his misery and anger.  Carlos didn’t look back as one of the old knots holding up the ladder snapped free, too weak from years of wind, weather, and sun to stay intact any longer.  The stress of the times had won out.

    Alex was home, but he wasn’t in his room.  Not at the moment Carlos climbed over the windowsill.  It took Carlos a moment to recognize the music circling the cyan-painted walls.  It was a soundtrack to a movie Alex had seen a hundred times, maybe more.  The instrumental score had always been striking to Carlos and emotionally powerful to Alex, though he never described how or why.  Carlos was so focused on the music and taking in the details of the bedroom that had become foreign to him, he nearly missed the sound of water running from a nearby bathroom.

    The faucet shut off, leaving only the sound of the music resonating from small speakers placed inconspicuously around the small bedroom.  Carlos’ eyes shifted suddenly from a framed, faded and frayed American flag mounted to the wall above Alex’s bed to the doorway.  Alex had stopped in mid-stride, surprised by the presence of the man he used to call his best friend.

    “You should have knocked,” Alex said, walking across his doorway into his room.

    “I did,” said Carlos, tensely.

    Alex rubbed his wet hair with the soft, white towel in his hand.  “Oh, sorry.”

    “You never came back to the office.”

    “How long did it take you to notice?”

    “You embarrassed me at lunch.”

    Alex furrowed his brow.  “Really?  How horribly tragic for you.”

    “Why are you acting like this,” Carlos asked loudly.  He could feel the anger boiling inside of himself again.  It was coming from pain, an awful sensation of feeling something so solid and stable in his life suddenly changing and tearing apart.

    “Carlos, listen to yourself!  Do you hear your words at all?”  Alex tossed the damp towel onto the footboard of his neatly made bed.  “I was told today that everything I’ve done is wrong.  The work I have struggled to perfect and make as accurate as possible is worthless because the people in charge-your new friends-want us to tell lies.  Lies, Carlos!  The Glorious Cause is a sham!  It’s become their cause and it’s a trick!”

    “Stop it, Alex.”

    “Stop what, Carlos?”

    “Stop talking like that.  Stop talking like one script change is the end of the whole freaking world.”  Carlos sighed, turning away from Alex to lean against his friend’s old desk.  The thin wood creaked softly under the pressure of his weight.  “And why shouldn’t they make changes, you know?  It’s their money.  They’re in charge.  We work for them.”

    Alex shook his head.  “That’s the thing, Carlos.  We don’t.  That studio is subsidized.  The taxpayers own it.  We own it.”

    It was Carlos’ turn to shake his head.  “That’s funny.  Go ahead and tell them that.”  Carlos looked up at Alex.  “Look, I don’t like this either.  But this is my job.  And like it or not I’m going to do it.  I’ve wanted to make movies my whole life.  I’m getting to do that now and I’m not going to stop.”

    “At what cost though, Carlos?  Look at what you’re giving up.”

    Carlos blinked, surprised by Alex’s statement.  “What?  Poverty?  Living from project to project like we used to?  No thanks.  I’d rather not go back to that.  I’ll stick with being fed and provided.  I’ll hold onto making the money I earn.”

    It took Alex a moment to say anything.  His whole body felt numb from Carlos’ words and conflicted logic.  His heart sank, frozen in shock.  Suddenly, Alex could no longer recognize the man in front of him.  Gone was the face of his best friend, the glow of a creative spirit pure and free.  That person had been conquered, replaced by a sacked soul wrapped in chains.  The figure before him, invading his space, was a hollow shell to be filled by the whim and will of the those more powerful than himself.

    Finally, Alex found his voice again, though only to say, “I don’t know what to say.”

    “Say you’ll come back.  Say you’ll help me finish this movie.  Say you’ll help me make the best of it.  Let’s do this.  Then...then we’ll change the world.”

    Alex’s eyes dropped, saddened.  “If we haven’t completely changed before then.”

    “We won’t.  Come back and you’ll see we won’t.”

    “I can’t,” Alex said, still looking down at the carpet.  His voice was soft and unsteady.  It was hard to feel the floor under his feet.  The whole world felt like it was turning upside down.

    “What?”

    Alex closed his eyes.  “I can’t,” he said again, louder this time.  “I can’t follow you this time.”

    Carlos slammed his fist against the top of the desk.  Everything on the smooth, dusty surface jumped and rattled.  He couldn’t explain why he did it, only that he had.  He saw his fist more after the fact, as if it had been an instinctive impulse.  He saw his knuckles change from white to red and back again as the impact traveled through his hand and up his arm, as his muscles tensed tighter.  It caught Alex’s attention as well.  Carlos looked over, their gazes locking instantly.  Both were a mess of anger and sadness.

    “Why, Alex?  You’re being selfish!”

    Alex narrowed his eyes.  He exhaled slowly, letting his shoulders sag as he dropped his defensive posture.  “I guess so,” he said, almost at a mumble, taking his eyes away from Carlos’ gaze.

    “You aren’t thinking about what you’re doing.  You aren’t thinking about me...or the story.  You aren’t thinking about you...”  Carlos glanced around the room, his eyes rolling to take in everything from the floor to the ceiling.  “...your family,” he continued.

    Alex looked up at Carlos sharply.  “My family?”  Alex shook his head.  “You truly are lost, aren’t you?  I’m an only child.  Both my parents grew up in foster homes.  They built their life together from scratch all by themselves.  And, they died in a car crash a month before we came back.”

    Carlos stood stunned, suddenly remembering.  He felt the air rush out of his lungs, Alex’s words striking him like a steel bar.

    “You stayed in Toronto to finish things up when I left.  Your family, the neighbors, old friends and some of their families all came to the funeral.  It was a tremendous feeling of support.  Only...you weren’t there.”

    Carlos finally looked away from Alex.  “I’m sorry,” he said glumly.

    “It doesn’t matter anymore.  And no apology is going to make me change my mind.  You have already made up yours,” Alex said sternly.  He turned away from Carlos, walking the few steps separating the corner of his bed and his open closet.

    There was a duffle bag on the floor, it’s zip-top still open, revealing the clothes folded and tightly tucked within the thick, mesh fabric of the heavy luggage.  Alex bent over to reach for the soft straps.  Carlos grabbed his left wrist, holding it firmly but non-threateningly.  “Alex, no.  Stop.”

    Alex turned, his arm still held by Carlos.  Alex looked, first down at his trapped wrist, then up at the face of his oldest friend.  There was desperation there, mixed in the storm of defiant anger.  “No, Carlos.  I have to go.”

    “Alex, stop,” Carlos said, tightening his grip on Alex.

    Alex could feel the pressure building at the bottom of his arm.  “Carlos, let go.  I’m leaving and-”

    “Alex, stop!”  Carlos stared undeterred at Alex, his fingers strangling Alex’s wrist.  The skin was starting to tingle and burn under Carlos’ steely and sweaty grip.

    “Carlos, let go.”

    “No, Alex.”

    “Carlos, let go!”

    “No!”

    Alex pulled at his arm, trying to free himself.  “Carlos, this isn’t funny!  Let go, now!”  He yanked at his arm again.  “That hurts!  Let go!”

    “No!”

    “Carlos,” Alex protested, pushing his friend’s shoulder in another attempt to get his arm loose from the threatening hold.

    The forceful nudge against his shoulder was the final snap.  Already on the edge of the darkness that had been swelling inside of himself, Carlos became completely lost within it.  He felt his body, every muscle and nerve to every artery and vein, become consumed in a flash-boil of dark and selfish rage.  It was an instinct of hate that Carlos finally surrendered to which propelled his unoccupied hand, now balled into a mallet-like fist, through the dim light of the bedroom.

    Alex didn’t see it coming.  In all the world and space he never suspected his best friend would become violent with him.  Alex’s vision flashed white then swam in a blurred and jarring dizziness.  A rush of maddening pain exploded outward through his body from the surprise impact on the side of his face.  Alex blinked, trying to steady his balance and spinning vision.  He was looking down at his bed, past his outstretched arm still locked in Carlos’ grip.  A drop of blood from the swollen corner of his mouth landed lightly near his elbow.

    Alex watched the tiny, crimson rivulet staining the pale skin of his arm.  It had only been a few seconds since Carlos had punched him.  Alex didn’t look up at the man holding him hostage.  He took a deep breath, pulling in and focusing the feeling of the pain surging up and down his body.  He used it as strength, understanding now that everything that once was sacred was now destroyed.

    With a surge of raw energy, Alex shoved instead of pulled.  He used Carlos’ weight and stance against him, launching the two of them unsteadily backwards until they crashed ferociously into Alex’s desk.  Carlos shouted in pain, landing another punch into Alex, this time in his side.  Alex groaned but fought back, pulling back and then shoving them both against the wall.  The plaster cracked, caving slightly inward in a shallow, Carlos-shaped crater.  The two friends had rapidly dissolved into adversaries.  They struggled and fought with bitter passion around the room, destroying the things that filled it as they went.  It was the undoing of the familiar, the tearing down of a world once shared.

    The battle reached its climax.  Bruised and bleeding, but each holding firm, Carlos and Alex spun around in a tight circle on the littered floor desperately searching for the single advantage each of them needed.  The two opposing forces met again in a combustible impact that drove them sideways through the room.  Glass and wood exploded under their unstoppable momentum as the two young men burst through Alex’s bedroom window.  The two tattered bodies rolled painfully and uncontrollably onto the coarse, abrasive shingles.  They finally separated as they each tumbled down the slop of the roof, each trying to find something to grip in a blind panic of motion.

    Carlos barely found the tree limb.  Alex managed a brief hold on the rusted gutter.  It didn’t last.  The weathered and weakened metal almost instantly gave way under his weight, sending him falling to the dried grass below.  Carlos wasn’t far behind.  He had barely heard Alex land with a winded grunt against the ground before the bobbing tree branch snapped near his fingers.  The old wood had no strength at its end, the bark shearing loudly free from the rest of the stout tree.  It sent Carlos to the grass two dozen feet below in a shower of dry splinters.

    For a long time the two young men just laid there in the cool, dry lawn under the tree.  Their chests heaved with each quick, pained and shallow breath they took.  Leaves rained down from the disturbed solitude of the thick, spidery branches.  Carlos blinked, brushing one of the crisp, yellowed leaves aside when it hit his face.  Mastering his strength, Carlos rolled over and upright onto his knees.  His vision spun for a moment as he scanned the yard around him.  Alex was still laying on the ground a few feet away.  The nightmarish anger had not gone.  Carlos could still feel it under his skin, pushing him through the grass on his hands and knees.

    Alex could hear Carlos moving.  He sensed him coming closer.  Still, he only laid there, feeling the evening wind blow over his hot, bruised face.  He felt it cooling the thin stream of blood slowly sliding down from his mouth.  He was done fighting.  Even when Carlos came into view, the angry grimace on his face washing away any of the old light and idealism his friend once eschewed, Alex didn’t move.  His eyes considered the other man’s presence before returning to stare at the darkening sky.  A few stars had begun to appear out of the deepening violet.

    Carlos noticed the lack of response from Alex.  He glared hatefully, climbing on top of Alex’s torso.  With one hand he gripped Alex’s already torn shirt, pulling him upward.  His other hand was already in a fist, his swollen knuckles white and ready to strike.

    “Go ahead,” Alex said, his voice a tired, coarse whisper.  “If you think you have to, go ahead.  Do it.”

    Carlos stayed frozen, staring at Alex through eyes that did not feel like his own.

    “What are you doing, Carlos,” Alex asked.  He managed a chuckle, suddenly aware of the gravity of their situation.  He suddenly understood his place.  Alex was awake in a world half-asleep.  He realized then, for the first time, he wasn’t just seeing the stars appear through the haze in the sky.  “What are you so afraid of that you have to destroy me?”

    Carlos reared his fist back, ready to bash his tingling hand into the younger man’s face.  But he stopped.  His nostrils flared.  His lungs burned with the rapid breaths he couldn’t stop taking.  Yet, even with all the anger and hate churning away inside him, Carlos could not move his arm any more.  He wanted to, a part of himself even felt he had to.  Carlos turned his head slightly, his eyes peering back to look at his fist hovering in the air.

    Alex watched wordlessly in the seconds that passed until Carlos finally dropped his tensed arm, his swollen fingers opening.  He loosened and then let go of the hold on Alex’s shirt, dropping his back into the dry, sandy-green turf.  Carlos stood up, looming over his old friend.  “I’m not afraid.  I’m not the one running away.”

    Carlos swallowed his anger and stepped over Alex without another look back.  His thoughts and feelings where in a whirlwind he couldn’t figure out how to escape.  His only clear notion was to get out of that yard and away from Alex.  He had managed only a few steps when the voice he had always known to belong to his best friend called out to him for the last time.

    “Are you sure, Carlos?  Aren’t we both running away from something?”

    Carlos didn’t answer.  He rounded the corner of the house hurriedly, making his way back toward the rock wall.  Alex didn’t watch him leave.  He kept his eyes on the sky, watching as more stars appeared out of the city haze.  He wasn’t that startled when the ropes holding up the old swing to the tree finally gave way.  The small, wooden bench split in two when it hit the ground and settled into the grass and dust.