Awakening Part I: Knight's Gate
Summer, 1987 New York City
The air is warm, but not full of the humidity that normally just hangs over the city during July and August. I switch the shoulder of my knapsack, trying to ignore the soreness which has built up in the right one from lugging most of my belongings across half the island today. I could have taken the subway, but the weather was too nice for that, so it’s my own fault I guess. My Walkman is blaring some new song off the radio by the Bangles, something or other about Egyptians which I find kind of fucking insipid. Pop music is shit for the most part. Reaching down and not breaking stride I press the triangle-shaped button on the tape player and keep walking. The rock and roll voice of Bono fills my ears, and to the tune of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” my trek towards Central Park continues. These guys will be around for a while I think.
For a kid who spent the first part of his life growing up in rural Canada, New York is sometimes overwhelming. The tall towers, speeding traffic, and insane nightlife is enough to either lift one’s spirits higher than they have ever been or crush them beneath a million tons of steel, concrete, flesh, and sin. I was raised to be independent, to take care of myself. My father saw to that as we moved from place to place starting on my seventh birthday, right after my mother died. I can’t say as I altogether missed sitting in classrooms or doing chores. Instead we made do with odd jobs and had to scrape together what we could. Me with my crazy old man, telling me stories about all kinds of weird shit. Always trying to teach me how to be tough, and stuff like how to cut a man with a blade so he would bleed out fast, how to fix a car engine, or to mix household products into a potent little firework, and making me read about weird things like Atlantis and ghosts and pyramids and some crap about the lost secrets of the Ancient Oracles from these books he carried. Sometimes back then, I even loved the bastard. When he wasn’t being a paranoid sonofabitch and telling me to always keep my eyes open and watch out for something, he was a decent man. Of course he never explained what that something was, just moved us again whenever the mood seemed to strike him and kept sitting around like he was waiting for something. Sorrowful and yet somehow dignified.
I walked out on him when I was sixteen; I was so dammed smart you know. I had had enough of his delusions that we were being chased. I was tired of never having friends, never settling down, never knowing where the money was going to come from to eat let alone everythign else. I thought I was old enough to make it on my own, that I could find all those things for myself if only he wasn’t around. I can still remember the look of resignation on his face when I told him I was going. He didn’t fight me on it. Just gave me a bundle, all wrapped in this black cloth, and told me that someday I would understand about it, but not to open it until that day. Made me promise on my mom’s memory not to open it. I almost didn’t leave then, the look in his eyes had me rooted to the spot. But I did like he asked, and took what he gave me. He just stood there quietly and muttered, “She would have been proud.” I walked out the door before he said anything else, and before I could change my mind. Not looking back was about the hardest thing I ever did. Never saw him alive again.
I wandered for a while. Took what I could for work. Got into some scraps, gave better than I got. It was about a year and a half before I got up the nerve to go back to the place we had been staying. I figured he would have moved on but that someone there might be able to help me find him, I believed I owed it to him to let him know I was OK. It was the manager of the building who I finally got some answers from. Damn if she wasn’t surprised as hell to see me, told me that there had been a fire about a year ago and that my dad and three people were found inside, or at least what was left of them. Which wasn’t much apparently. The police never found me or heard from me so they assumed I was one of the dead ones. And someone had gone to some trouble to cover up that those men didn't die from the fire. No, they died from bullets and a man's hands. That’s when I knew. Knew something which changed my life for the second time in as many years. Standing in that burnt out shell of a room, with the yellow tape still on the door and glass everywhere, I realized the old man had been right. Something had been chasing us all along. And whatever it was that came for us my dad, that tough bastard, had stopped running and faced it so I could stay free.
From then on I have kept moving. I worked in Boston, New York, and every little town in between. I hauled garbage, swept floors, fixed cars, poured concrete. Honest work, stuff I could be proud of. I never sold drugs or stole or anything like that. Had a good gig as a bouncer at a nightclub, which was just on the shadier side of the law, letting in minors and turning the other way to what went on in the bathrooms, but I always tried to be a good guy on the clock. Never hurt anyone unless I had to, unless they asked for it. Honestly I think it was my favorite job, getting to protect people like that. Most people never see that side of it. Even if there were some bad things going on around them I think most of the kids who came there felt safe. But the club closed a few weeks ago, some shit about tax evasion, so here I am back to being without work or a regular place to stay. My friend Carl told me last night he can get me work as a delivery guy here in the city, so I am on my way to meet him and another buddy in the park. Funny thing is, I haven't ridden a bike since I was like tweleve.
I step off the curb and jog across 5th Avenue, ignoring the inevitable curses of the cabbies as I go. It’s not like I can hear them anyway over the music, The Clash is good for drowning out the shouts and horns of the speeding cars. In front of me looms the Met, which is kind of odd since I didn’t mean to come this far down 5th. I guess I wasn’t paying attention while walking, thinking about my father and the past. I shake my head and get ready to hoof it up 85th and then through the park, back towards where I am supposed to meet Carl. I’m only running a little behind and should catch up if I hurry. The lace on my right boot is undone, so I kneel down to tie it. I dip my head and I swear a big cloud must have just passed over the sun because all of a sudden it is dark out like just before night.
When I stand up, out of the corner of my eye, I see something on the steps of the Met. Stumbling back a little, my eyes widen with disbelief. I do not even really notice that the music in my earphones has been replaced with a static crackling, one that sounds like wind blowing into a microphone or across an empty barren plain. I look to my right and left, but no one else seems to have stopped or to have even noticed what I am seeing. Instead everyone seems to be moving slowly, like they are just gliding aimlessly along and not at all walking like the busy New Yorkers I know and hate. All the color seems washed out of them, and the shadow of this crazy noontime darkness seems to cling to them as they go by. In fact the whole world seems to be caught in a weird half-lit state, with no freaking sun in the sky. I see men and women in clothes from a hundred years ago beside people in suits right off the rack from Macy’s down the street. And all the buildings seem dirtier in the gray light, like ruins waiting for the right wind to blow them down. Where is the damn sun? What is going on?
While my brain tries to process everything I am seeing, my eyes are drawn back to what had me so shocked in the first place. The thing I have most been avoiding looking at 'cause it sure as shit shouldn't be there. In the middle of all this weirdness and looking as solid as myself. I cannot believe this crap is happening. Standing on the stairs leading up to the middle archway of the building is something out of a nightmare. A man in iron-gray medieval armor regards the pale shadows beside me with an impassive gaze. He wears a sable tunic with patterns and drawings the color of bleached bone over his mail and carries a sword easily four feet long across his back, a weapon that looks like it was made of the same dull color as his armor. Framing his face is long, pale hair like a lion’s mane, held in place with an iron circle like some kind of crown. As I watch the strange knight what the hell else could he be? turns its head towards me. All I can see are two globes of pure midnight, like living shadow, where his eyes should be.
With a nod of that great big fucking head towards the building the knight turns and climbs up the stairs towards the doorway. When he steps inside the building I can see that an deep blackness, something I can only describe as an…abyss of the darkest midnight seems to reach out to embrace him. But he just keeps walking, letting what look like arms of the blackness gather him in. Every rational instinct I have tells me to run, to head the other way from this dreadful warrior and his black gate. But I can’t. There is something familiar about him. Like I know him as well as I know myself. Without another thought I start after him, shouldering both straps of my knapsack now. As I walk by them the transparent figures on the sidewalk glide out of my way, gracefully twisting to avoid touching me. Is it my imagination or are they bowing their heads as I pass? And why do they seem afraid of me?
Not wanting to be caught out here alone in the dark, I race up the steps, pushing open the doors to the Met with both hands and stepping towards the clutching darkness within.
The air is warm, but not full of the humidity that normally just hangs over the city during July and August. I switch the shoulder of my knapsack, trying to ignore the soreness which has built up in the right one from lugging most of my belongings across half the island today. I could have taken the subway, but the weather was too nice for that, so it’s my own fault I guess. My Walkman is blaring some new song off the radio by the Bangles, something or other about Egyptians which I find kind of fucking insipid. Pop music is shit for the most part. Reaching down and not breaking stride I press the triangle-shaped button on the tape player and keep walking. The rock and roll voice of Bono fills my ears, and to the tune of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” my trek towards Central Park continues. These guys will be around for a while I think.
For a kid who spent the first part of his life growing up in rural Canada, New York is sometimes overwhelming. The tall towers, speeding traffic, and insane nightlife is enough to either lift one’s spirits higher than they have ever been or crush them beneath a million tons of steel, concrete, flesh, and sin. I was raised to be independent, to take care of myself. My father saw to that as we moved from place to place starting on my seventh birthday, right after my mother died. I can’t say as I altogether missed sitting in classrooms or doing chores. Instead we made do with odd jobs and had to scrape together what we could. Me with my crazy old man, telling me stories about all kinds of weird shit. Always trying to teach me how to be tough, and stuff like how to cut a man with a blade so he would bleed out fast, how to fix a car engine, or to mix household products into a potent little firework, and making me read about weird things like Atlantis and ghosts and pyramids and some crap about the lost secrets of the Ancient Oracles from these books he carried. Sometimes back then, I even loved the bastard. When he wasn’t being a paranoid sonofabitch and telling me to always keep my eyes open and watch out for something, he was a decent man. Of course he never explained what that something was, just moved us again whenever the mood seemed to strike him and kept sitting around like he was waiting for something. Sorrowful and yet somehow dignified.
I walked out on him when I was sixteen; I was so dammed smart you know. I had had enough of his delusions that we were being chased. I was tired of never having friends, never settling down, never knowing where the money was going to come from to eat let alone everythign else. I thought I was old enough to make it on my own, that I could find all those things for myself if only he wasn’t around. I can still remember the look of resignation on his face when I told him I was going. He didn’t fight me on it. Just gave me a bundle, all wrapped in this black cloth, and told me that someday I would understand about it, but not to open it until that day. Made me promise on my mom’s memory not to open it. I almost didn’t leave then, the look in his eyes had me rooted to the spot. But I did like he asked, and took what he gave me. He just stood there quietly and muttered, “She would have been proud.” I walked out the door before he said anything else, and before I could change my mind. Not looking back was about the hardest thing I ever did. Never saw him alive again.
I wandered for a while. Took what I could for work. Got into some scraps, gave better than I got. It was about a year and a half before I got up the nerve to go back to the place we had been staying. I figured he would have moved on but that someone there might be able to help me find him, I believed I owed it to him to let him know I was OK. It was the manager of the building who I finally got some answers from. Damn if she wasn’t surprised as hell to see me, told me that there had been a fire about a year ago and that my dad and three people were found inside, or at least what was left of them. Which wasn’t much apparently. The police never found me or heard from me so they assumed I was one of the dead ones. And someone had gone to some trouble to cover up that those men didn't die from the fire. No, they died from bullets and a man's hands. That’s when I knew. Knew something which changed my life for the second time in as many years. Standing in that burnt out shell of a room, with the yellow tape still on the door and glass everywhere, I realized the old man had been right. Something had been chasing us all along. And whatever it was that came for us my dad, that tough bastard, had stopped running and faced it so I could stay free.
From then on I have kept moving. I worked in Boston, New York, and every little town in between. I hauled garbage, swept floors, fixed cars, poured concrete. Honest work, stuff I could be proud of. I never sold drugs or stole or anything like that. Had a good gig as a bouncer at a nightclub, which was just on the shadier side of the law, letting in minors and turning the other way to what went on in the bathrooms, but I always tried to be a good guy on the clock. Never hurt anyone unless I had to, unless they asked for it. Honestly I think it was my favorite job, getting to protect people like that. Most people never see that side of it. Even if there were some bad things going on around them I think most of the kids who came there felt safe. But the club closed a few weeks ago, some shit about tax evasion, so here I am back to being without work or a regular place to stay. My friend Carl told me last night he can get me work as a delivery guy here in the city, so I am on my way to meet him and another buddy in the park. Funny thing is, I haven't ridden a bike since I was like tweleve.
I step off the curb and jog across 5th Avenue, ignoring the inevitable curses of the cabbies as I go. It’s not like I can hear them anyway over the music, The Clash is good for drowning out the shouts and horns of the speeding cars. In front of me looms the Met, which is kind of odd since I didn’t mean to come this far down 5th. I guess I wasn’t paying attention while walking, thinking about my father and the past. I shake my head and get ready to hoof it up 85th and then through the park, back towards where I am supposed to meet Carl. I’m only running a little behind and should catch up if I hurry. The lace on my right boot is undone, so I kneel down to tie it. I dip my head and I swear a big cloud must have just passed over the sun because all of a sudden it is dark out like just before night.
When I stand up, out of the corner of my eye, I see something on the steps of the Met. Stumbling back a little, my eyes widen with disbelief. I do not even really notice that the music in my earphones has been replaced with a static crackling, one that sounds like wind blowing into a microphone or across an empty barren plain. I look to my right and left, but no one else seems to have stopped or to have even noticed what I am seeing. Instead everyone seems to be moving slowly, like they are just gliding aimlessly along and not at all walking like the busy New Yorkers I know and hate. All the color seems washed out of them, and the shadow of this crazy noontime darkness seems to cling to them as they go by. In fact the whole world seems to be caught in a weird half-lit state, with no freaking sun in the sky. I see men and women in clothes from a hundred years ago beside people in suits right off the rack from Macy’s down the street. And all the buildings seem dirtier in the gray light, like ruins waiting for the right wind to blow them down. Where is the damn sun? What is going on?
While my brain tries to process everything I am seeing, my eyes are drawn back to what had me so shocked in the first place. The thing I have most been avoiding looking at 'cause it sure as shit shouldn't be there. In the middle of all this weirdness and looking as solid as myself. I cannot believe this crap is happening. Standing on the stairs leading up to the middle archway of the building is something out of a nightmare. A man in iron-gray medieval armor regards the pale shadows beside me with an impassive gaze. He wears a sable tunic with patterns and drawings the color of bleached bone over his mail and carries a sword easily four feet long across his back, a weapon that looks like it was made of the same dull color as his armor. Framing his face is long, pale hair like a lion’s mane, held in place with an iron circle like some kind of crown. As I watch the strange knight what the hell else could he be? turns its head towards me. All I can see are two globes of pure midnight, like living shadow, where his eyes should be.
With a nod of that great big fucking head towards the building the knight turns and climbs up the stairs towards the doorway. When he steps inside the building I can see that an deep blackness, something I can only describe as an…abyss of the darkest midnight seems to reach out to embrace him. But he just keeps walking, letting what look like arms of the blackness gather him in. Every rational instinct I have tells me to run, to head the other way from this dreadful warrior and his black gate. But I can’t. There is something familiar about him. Like I know him as well as I know myself. Without another thought I start after him, shouldering both straps of my knapsack now. As I walk by them the transparent figures on the sidewalk glide out of my way, gracefully twisting to avoid touching me. Is it my imagination or are they bowing their heads as I pass? And why do they seem afraid of me?
Not wanting to be caught out here alone in the dark, I race up the steps, pushing open the doors to the Met with both hands and stepping towards the clutching darkness within.