Eric Stever - Non Metallic

He wanted to cry out a warning to Jim, to tell him to be careful, but the words did not come. And then Leo was lost in a wash of white light. His Uncle spoke through him.

“Ok,” Leo said. “I’m here.”

The two men talked for over an hour before Jim rushed out the door. Leo could hear the Jeep’s engine scream as it roared down the road, plastering some of the houses with mud. Slowly his own personality bobbed to the surface, pieces at a time.

Leo sat at the table, creaking back and forth in his chair, unable to move. His Uncle had retired, and now he enjoyed the familiar emptiness, the constraint of his own normal mind. It was like coming down from a pretty good high.

After a long while, he put a large tip on the table and walked out into the street, trying to forget what his Uncle had just done.

As he walked, Leo wondered where Jim had rushed off to, what fools errand he had been sent on. His Uncle had hidden that part of the conversation from him. And he doubted Jim, for all his insights, would have expected what had just happened.

No one knew that an Uncle could lie.

Leo spent the next two sleepless nights locked away in his house, waiting for word on Jim’s whereabouts. Occasionally he would get a wild rush from his body as it demanded a drink, that he weaken his resolve. But Leo was on to his Uncle’s tricks, and he was able to get some painting done. He’d thought that drinking confused his Uncle, but now he knew: it was the other way around.

The picture of Manny in the rain was now taking shape on his canvas. Leo had stalled on the outline of the main figure; he wasn’t sure it had the right posture. It didn’t feel right. He stared at the canvas, looking for an answer.

Maybe Jim was right, Leo thought, that the paintings really had come from his Uncle. But Leo didn’t reach out to his Uncle for guidance, as he had in the past. It was too dangerous.

A knock at his door broke his focus. Leo walked across the room and opened the door.

“Manny, hey it’s good to see you.”

“You drunk?” Manny asked.

Leo smiled. “C’mon in man. I got some coffee brewing if you want some…” His smile faded when he saw the burning in Manny’s eyes. Leo felt his Uncle stir, warning him.

Manny walked out of the rain. His eyes darted around the house, but he said nothing.

Leo busied himself in the kitchen and tried to quiet his Uncle. What was it telling him? And could he trust it?

“Well, what’s up?” Leo said finally, handing a cup to Manny.

“Your distraction campaign is up,” Manny said, his eyes pouring over Leo’s startled expression.

Leo felt a cold spot growing in his stomach despite the gallons of coffee he had consumed.

“Manny, I— What’s going on with you dude? Are you sleeping all right?”

“No,” Manny smiled, touching the dark smudges under his eyes. “Not for weeks now. Even before I found out about momma… I have these dreams.”

“So why tell me?” Leo said, turning away from the boy.

“Because you know about it too. I can tell that. There’s a few people in town who know. At first I didn’t understand it. They would signal me somehow. The way they walked, or smiled. I could tell that they knew.”

“That’s crazy,” Leo said. Since their distraction campaign, Uncles rarely developed on their own anymore. That was the point. But that day in the rain, Manny had seemed close. “Is this about your mom?”

Manny shrugged off the suggestion. “Still trying to distract me? Give it up man.”

Manny stood up and walked over to the unfinished painting. “This is me right? This was our fight?” He picked up a brush lying on the counter. “You missed this part though.”

Leo watched in shock as Manny applied four deft strokes to the canvas, to his canvas.

“What the shit man?” he said.

“You had it wrong,” Manny said. “Now it is real.”

Leo looked at the painting. The figure had not been altered, only the garbage it was fishing out was different. A dark smudge had replaced the feathery touches Leo had put there. He felt his Uncle stir again, pressing up against his consciousness.

“I didn’t know you painted, Manny.”

“I don’t,” he said, grinning. “And neither do you really.”

Leo could feel his Uncle surging upwards, making him woozy. “I’m not feeling so well. I guess we’ll have to finish this—”

“Leo, sit down. I’ll tell you when we’re done.” Manny’s voice cracked when he spoke, destroying the forceful tone he had been trying to use.

“You’re tired Manny. You’re upset about Soledad. I’ll come by tomorrow—”

“Tomorrow is too late. We’ll talk now. Is it true what they said, that you could cure her?”

Leo sat down and sighed. “What do you want man, another apology to ignore?”

“I want her to be better,” he said. “And I want to be better too.”

“You’re sick?”

“You know what I mean Leo. Ask your Uncle if you’re not sure.”

“You’ve got some funny ideas,” Leo said.

“Yes but ‘where do those ideas come from, man’” Manny said.

“You were listening in on us, at the bar?”

Manny shook his head vehemently. “No, not me. Us. The bartender is one of us. We’ve got a few others in this town. We can control the rest that are emerging now, at least in the local area. I guess in a way I should be thanking you especially. You helped to make us better. More refined.”

“Bullshit man. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You mean all about the ‘Snoops’, or your distraction campaign? Did you really think it would work; that you could fool them?”

“We did what we had to,” Leo said. He pressed a fist against his chest, trying to hold back his Uncle by physical force. “We never made anybody do anything they didn’t want to. You don’t know the Snoops.”

“And you do? You know shit. Look at your painting. Look at the last few you did. What’s the common theme? Are you that oblivious?”

Leo said nothing as he stared numbly at the canvas. The dark smudges Manny had added began to take shape in his mind. It was no longer an old plastic bag that the figure was taking from the ground. It was a pistol. He had missed it. More importantly, his Uncle had missed it. Or perhaps the old guy had hidden this message from Jim and the rest of them, Leo included.

“You’re weak. But we couldn’t have done it without you. The Snoops told us that. You made it so much more difficult for the mediocre to emerge, for their Uncles to turn On. Right now, only the best have been able to do it, and once we organize, we’ll be the ones with the power.”

“So what, you’ll take over the village?” Leo said. “Then, five years from now, you think you’ll be emperor of the earth. Bullshit, man. You’ll be dead, same as everyone else.”

“We have promises from the Snoops, old man. We’ll be the ones running things in a decade from now. Then we’ll start training the rest. You’ll need to stop your distractions though. We don’t need them anymore.”

“You’re 14 years old,” Leo said.

Manny straightened his back. “I’ll get older,” he said. “And age has nothing to do with it anyway, as long as you’re not too old. I’m one of the best though, the Snoops told me.”

“They tell that to suicide bombers too,” Leo said.

“Jim is dead, I just wanted to tell you that,” Manny said, striking out with his casual words. Leo winced and turned away.

“We did it quick though Leo. We had to do it.” Manny looked out the still opened door. He softened his tone. “He didn’t suffer, I made sure.”

“Your mother must be proud,” Leo said. His eyes reddened. “Jim was a good man. You didn’t have to do that. He was reasonable. You could have talked it out.”