Mark Doten - The Infernal

The tyranny of Donny’s life with his guardian, the freedom of his life with me, and between that, those few minutes in the old black Packard, which seemed to him the most precious …

You could see from his face, how he leaned forward to take in the words of the ancient driver, in a starched dark uniform with golden aiguillette bows …

To both of them, to Donny and the ancient driver, that interchange, that moment together, the two of them in motion, but still, and the words of the driver, words he’d never used before, and Donny listening, hearing new things, the two of them so serious, so sad, both leaning forward, facing the dirt road, trying to understand EN00 31 0BX2CLC2

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sent the driver away, didn’t look back, but lips still

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two boys with onyx dogs between them, we’d tell stories about the dogs, then he’d wipe them with a handkerchief and return them to his pocket …

Cheney’s office, seeing him there, something inside me started going Donny Rumsfeld, Donny Rumsfeld , but even that night when I called up Condi, told her all about him, and she said, well, didn’t you have a friend named Donny Rumsfeld when we were kids, I said, yeah, sure I did, but I never connected the dots, never realized that this was the Donny Rumsfeld …

And how we were children together …

He’d been my childhood friend, even my best friend, I remember the two of us sprinting through Mom and Dad’s vineyards one morning late spring in our waterproof boots, churning and crashing through the mud, arms raised to block the onrushing vines, and he shouted, without breaking stride, You’re my best friend …

And I shouted back, also not breaking stride, not the truth, which was that he was also my best friend , but rather, You’re one of my best friends, too …

And why had I told him he was one of my best friends, when he was my best friend and in fact my only friend, other than him it was just Condi and Mom and Dad, and what can I say about Condi and Mom and Dad …

We’d sit together in the vineyards and he’d line them up, five onyx dogs of increasing size, he’d line them up so nice, placing one after the next in the dirt, the first, then the fifth, then the second, then the fourth, then the third, working his way in, and when he’d picked them up he’d do so in reverse order and return them to his pocket …

We faced each other over the dogs day after day that spring without speaking, one morning he said to me, You’re the dog king …

And I said, No, you’re the dog king …

And he said, No, you’re the dog king …

And I said, No, you’re the dog king …

We went back and forth for hours, finally it was decided that I was the dog king …

They were your dogs, Donny, but I was the dog king …

Did I think it’d last forever …

Did I think it’d be me and you in the vineyards forever …

I did, I thought it’d last forever, that you would bring your dogs and I would be the dog king, that you and I would watch each other forever across the dogs in Mom and Dad’s vineyards, telling each other stories, but of course there had to be an end …

It was the morning after a hard frost, my family leaving for Cape Cod later that day, then on to the South of France, the two of us met in the driveway …

We spent the morning crunching ice with our waterproof boots, Donny, didn’t we …

Same freeze that devastated the vineyards was perfect for two boys, we smashed every last crust of ice in the macada0UI1XPCK WOJ E00TEGL 6QY YOBRL/0EM4STL5

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we alternated first smash, that delicious instant that gathers the whole world at your boot’s toe, when the dying world breaks and breathes free …

And then came the moment I looked down the driveway to the bend in the trees and saw that there were no unsmashed puddles left, I walked to the bend in the trees and looked to the road, there were none, we’d smashed them all, dozens, hundreds of crusts of ice punched out and destroyed by our waterproof boots, but at last you sang out, you’d found another …

Final puddle, outskirts of the property, it was really true, it was the last unsmashed one, and with ceremonial seriousness you arranged the dogs …

Before each dog you looked to me, Donny, but no need, you spaced them perfectly on your own, three inches between each dog, and after you set the last we crouched across from one another, and I took in the dogs and you, and you, Donny, you took in the dogs and me, and each onyx dog took in two boys and four dogs ranged round the perimeter of a frozen puddle …

It was a perfect moment, I knew even then that that’s what it was, it was perfect and it needed to end, the necessary ending was for one of us to crunch the puddle with a waterproof boot, to hear this last crunch and then walk away, but we didn’t, and this was a disaster, a disaster not to give in to the crunch impulse, for years now I’ve waited for that crunch, at the Cape, in the South of France, attending Yale and Harvard, or I mean Harvard and Yale, as I showed up at all the killer parties, and still later, global politics, highest level, always a chunk of my brain missing, a lobotomized chunk given over to pure listening, the brain chunk attendant on the lost crunch, that morning I waited for you to crunch, Donny Rumsfeld, and you waited for the same from me, a crunch from your Jerry to end our per I S5OTGWES3TZZ0 °CZRLQH 6P5ZO0PFZV Q CT R

but neither of us did …

My family was headed to the Cape for a week, then to the South of France, I could have brought you with me, no one would have cared, instead you just walked away …

I watched you go, Donny, leaving your dogs behind, and still I could have crunched, I could have crunched the ice and brought you back, it might not have been perfect but it wouldn’t have been a total loss, and yet I opted for total loss …

Easy to say now that I didn’t know what I was doing, that unconscious self-hatred decided my actions, but I was fully aware of what I was doing, I hunched over the frozen puddle and watched it thaw and in full awareness traded partial loss for total loss …

And the sun in this new water …

I wish I was like a slice of pie, and I could be separated from the rest of it, but … no, I don’t wish that. It’s just sometimes I think about it.

The RoboCrow roars in Mark’s face. They’re fighting. He jumps from platform to platform, using sword attacks I didn’t know he had. She keeps swooping down, belching sparks and lightning. This goes on awhile. Her eyes are a weak point, same with her talons and tail feathers and two bright green panels on her wings. After he’s blinded her, she sputters next to his platform. He leaps up on her back and stabs the sword into the base of her neck. She starts to flash and sputter, and now smoke’s coming out.

They’re spinning down through the sky. Mark’s on top. The sword’s still stuck in her neck and it glows blue. Mark can pilot her if he uses it like a joystick. Everything about her wings is now pulled by it. Mark circles once, now he’s heading out to sea.

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Mark knows just where he’s going. He and Nathan must have planned where to meet. I’m trying to follow. I’m slow. Fast but slow. I guess I mean I’m all stretched thin.