1

The man with free hands drew the straight razor across the chest of the man crucified to the tree.  A fresh sheet of blood followed the line of the razor as it cut deep into the man’s mutilated chest.

“Pleeeze!”  The man cried.  “Pleeeze!”

His hands were nailed to the tree with spikes.  Above his head was a wood sign with “Thief” written in English and Spanish.

“It’s important for you the understand, Paco, why we are doing this.  You leased one-fourth acre from us but you planted one-half--twice as much corn—and reaped the extra amount.  You stole from us, Paco.  What do you think we should do to a thief like you for that?”

Paco shook his head and wept

“I don’t know, Paco, I just don’t know.”  The man amputated an earlobe.  “It’s important that he understand, right?”

“I suppose so, Carlos.  Can we wrap this thing up?  I am missing my Ta Ta. “

The older man poked a twig into the ground.  He was short, muscular and wore a ponytail.  Two guards stood watch with automatics.  They wore baseball caps with interlocking L’s.

        “Paco, let me ask you a question.”  Carlos struck a scholarly pose.  “Paco, what do you own?”  Paco pissed himself.

        “And that’s it, isn’t it.  You own your pee pee.  That’s what you own.”

        Paco looked up at his tormentor.  He was an older man with a deeply creased forehead and a sardine moustache.  He spit on the man with the razor.

        “Did you see that!?”  Carlos turned to his older brother.

        A gout of blood spurted from his mouth, and blood mixed with teeth and bits of bone came out, and Carlos flopped onto his face.  The men with automatics dropped into a crouch and scanned from side-to-side.  One fired a long burst into the trees.  Santana covered his brother’s body and stared into the awful hole in the back of his head.

        “Vamoose!  Go!  Now!” Santana shouted and hoisted his brother’s body over his shoulder.  Blood spouted from the tortured man’s chest.  His chest heaved, made one last effort at life, and collapsed.

        The three men ran to the armored vehicle parked nearby and beat it out of there, lurching violently over the uneven ground in Central Park.  “I knew this was no good,” said Santana.  “We came too far south.”

        

        

2

        A rigorously slender man stood at the balcony of his penthouse on Central Park South and looked down at the world below him.  At the left, was Columbus Circle, and the right border of the block was Grand Army Plaza.

        When he looked down from the mid-rise height to the street below, he saw a small crew fixing a pothole.  One shoveled the hot asphalt, while the others raked and tamped it down by hand.  A man in an overcoat picked through an overflowing trash barrel and placed something, apparently of worth to him, into a steel grocery store shopping cart.

        “I can smell it from up here.  Can’t you do something?” asked an Asian woman half the man’s age.

        “There won’t be a pick-up for another week,” said the man.  He lit two scented lanterns, on either side of the seated woman.  “That’s better,” she said, puffing on a cigarillo.  “Beautiful sunset,” she said.  The older man nodded.

        A pair of motorcyclists gunned their engines traveling north up Fifth Avenue, on the east border of Central Park.  When he looked up the length of the park, he saw a scene that would have surprised an earlier generation: in addition to the trees and lake and other bodies of water, were rows and rows of corn.

        “Is that the same fire burning in Jersey?” she said, pointing from the deck chair.

        “It is,” he replied.  “It’s been going three days, now.  My reconnaissance says it’s a chemical fire.  They’ve got a couple of pumpers on it.  It may burn for days.”

        “Well, I’m going inside now, Wilbur” the woman said, stubbing out the cigarillo.  He helped her up from the settee and opened the glass sliding door for her.

        “I’ll be in in a few minutes, Lily,” he said.

        A bulldog trotted up to the man, who took a cookie from his pocket and dropped it.  “Good evening, Major.”  The dog took the cookie to a patch of grass and chewed on it.

        Cain peered north up the park and saw what looked like a model airplane, at a distance.  He steered the object toward him with a remote.  It was a drone with the wingspan of a condor, and he jumped up to snag it by hand.  The dog barked.

        “No, you don’t like these things do you.”  The dog barked again.  “All right, all right.”

        Cain removed the underbody camera and energy pack, and stored the fuselage in an outdoor shed.  He lowered and stowed the American flag.  He turned off the two scent lanterns, let the dog inside, stepped in himself, and locked the glass doors behind him.

3

        Cain was busy late in his workshop, taking apart and cleaning the drone’s camera, with tiny tools.  His hands quivered more than he would have liked.  Lily entered, covered in a bath towel.  “I’ve taken my shower,” she said, smiling.  Cain looked up.  “You smell sweet.  I’ll be with you in a minute.”

        He slid into bed beside his woman, still wet from his shower.  Pale moon light came through the glass ceiling.

        “You’re all wet!” she said.

        “Sorry.”

        “Are you that eager for me tonight, Wilbur?”

        “Must be, Lily.”  He cracked a smile.

        Her voice dropped a register.  “I saw you with the rifle today.”

        “Yep.”

        “Was justice served?”

        “Yep.”

        “Who appointed you judge, jury and executioner?”

        “There’s no law out there.  You know that.”

        “So, who did you save us from today?”

        “I’ve never seen them before.  They were torturing a corn farmer.  Scum, that’s who they were.  Scum-sucking scum.  I put the farmer out of his misery; he was too far gone.”

        “And you weren’t going to rush out there or call an ambulance.”

        “What ambulance? A wolf would have gotten to him before a Good Samaritan,” he said, his gravely voice rising.

        “I worry about you when you lose your temper.”

        “I didn’t lose—”

        “This vein here, on your forehead.”  She touched the prominent vein.  “Sometimes I think it will burst.”

        “I don’t think too much about it.  It doesn’t help.”

        “How many times were you wounded?”

        “Three, that I got medals for.”

        “I suppose you’re earned some rights, in your 80 years.”

        “I suppose so, Lilly.”  She kissed him; massaged him, stimulated him and climbed on top.  He opened his mouth and she covered it with a cupped hand.

        “You grunt too much like a pig.” She smiled.

        

        

         

        

4

        The cathedral was packed.  Everyone had heard the news: Carlos Santana was dead.  Santana, himself, had not used his given name since school.  He had made himself into the Santana uptown in the city.

        There had been no wake, which surprised everyone, and fueled speculation that something awful had happened, that the casket contained no body at all.  It fueled suspicion that Carlos Santana had been murdered, and that a gang war was about to erupt.  It was safe to assume that members from rival gangs were in attendance, armed but concealing their colors.

        It could not be called a society funeral, in the old sense.  That society, meaning upper crust white society, had been gone for decade.  In fact, if one looked closely, one would see scarcely any white faces in the crowd.  The priest was white, and wore white vestments.

        The white casket was surrounded by floor floral displays and displays on easels: white lilies, roses, daisies, snapdragons and mums.  There were also red and purple displays, a not-so-subtle reminder of the colors of the Latin Lords.  In the back of the cathedral stood a row of tall black men in long leather coats and wearing dark shades.  Also, Mexican peasants in white fancy shirts and holding light sombreros.

        Santana was seated in the front row next to Tina, Carlos’s wife, and Lourdes, Santana’s wife sat on the other side of Tina between her and her two young children.

        The priest, a man in his seventies, had perfected the lofty voice of a man speaking upward, in the high reaches of the cathedral, toward God.  It was a soothing, sympathetic voice, which nonetheless conveyed dark sentiments of the Catholic liturgy.

        “ And now I shall recite Psalm 51, known as Miserere mei, Deus,” the voice said.  “Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness, According to the multitude of Thy mercies, do away mine offences. Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness: and cleanse me from my sin.  For I acknowledge my faults: and my sin is ever before me.
Against Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that Thou mightest be justified in Thy saying, and clear when Thou art judged.”
           “There is so much about sin!” Tina whispered, clutching her rosary.

“Yes,” Santana replied, putting his arm around her.

Lourdes tried to calm the children, who were kicking and pointing.

“Carlos was a good man!”

“Yes, he was.” Santana said.

“I know he went to confession.  He didn’t like to talk about it with me.”

“That’s strictly with the priest.”

“I know.  He was good to me and the children.”

“Yes, yes.”

“We will be rejoined at the Resurrection?”  Tina was shaking badly.  She reached into her purse for a cigarette, and Santana closed the purse and squeezed her arm.

“She’s stoned,” Lourdes said.

“Yes, we shall be redeemed.”

“Santana, did he ever cheat on me?  Do not lie to me.”

“No, never.”

“You would know.”

“Yes, an older brother would know.”

“You will look after me and the children?”

“I will take care of you, have no fear, Tina.”

Lourdes smiled upon her.

The bereaved woman lifted her veil and dabbed her eyes with a white lace handkerchief.

The priest continued…

“Behold, I was shapen in wickedness: and in sin hath my mother conceived me.
But lo, Thou requirest truth in the inward parts: and shalt make me to understand wisdom secretly.  Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.  Thou shalt make me hear of joy and gladness: that the bones which Thou hast broken may rejoice.  Turn Thy face from my sins: and put out all my misdeeds.  Make me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right spirit within me.”
        Afterwards, the priest, again vested in a black cope, stood at the foot of the coffin and granted the departed absolution, which was followed by the Responsory, Libera Me. A Kyrie was then chanted, followed by the Pater, during which the priest passed twice around the body, sprinkling it with holy water and incensing it. This was followed by a prayer asking that the holy angels bear the departed to paradise. As the body was carried out of church, the Antiphon In Paradisum is sung : "May the angels lead you into paradise: may the martyrs receive you at your coming, and lead you into the holy city, Jerusalem. May the choir of angels receive you, and with Lazarus, who once was poor, may you have everlasting rest."

And they stepped out into the sunshine.

At the burial, they all shoveled dirt onto the coffin and buried Carlos with kisses and tokens of affection from this life.  A heavy gold chain, a ruby-encrusted ring.  Two of the men in fancy shirts and sombreros approached Santana, whose eyes were restless, searching, always searching.

“Boss man, you will excuse us, in your time of grief, it is a small matter, but Paco had a family.  He left behind two young sons.  And it would help if, you know, could make s small donation, just to tide the family over.”

‘You trouble me over a matter like this, at a time like this?”  Santana now glared at them directly so that the men shrank away.

“Yes, yes, it is a small matter, as I say, but it would mean a lot if you could, as I say, make a small donation.”

“The gringo was not at all happy to see his wonderful park cultivated as a cornfield.”

The two men shrugged.  “The gringo is not here, Boss Man, he left it all to us.”

Santana could see that they would stick to his shoes until he gave them something, and then they would then go quietly.   He peeled off a few bills and gave them to the men.  “Thank you, Boss Man, ” and they bowed deeply and vanished into the crowd that had come to see the world pay its last respects to Carlos Santana.

5

        Cain was up at dawn.  It was quiet then, and he liked that.  He ran around the periphery of the building.  It had a track, and it was inside the outer balustrade, so that he could not be seen from the street.  He wore a tee-shirt that said “Marines,” fatigues, and running shoes.  He carried a pennent, which resembled a lance, of his company calories.   He carried it straight up, and he sang as he ran at a jog trot.

“While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free.
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer:

God bless America, land that I love…”

        After ten laps, which was a good workout in itself, he dropped to the ground and gave himself an order: “Do fifty!”  And he did fifty ramrod pushups.  And so it went for two hours.

        He looked through the spotting scope and studied the landscape below.  The Mexicans were nearly ready to harvest their corn.  Deeper into the park, a group of boys were badgering two girls.  He reached for his rifle.  The two girls stood bakd-to-back, and pulled our guns.  They fired dropping two of their assailants.  They rest scattered.  “Way to go!” grinned Cain.  The two girls went on their way.  They just left the dead there for predators to find.

        Clouds were slowly moving in from the west.  It would rain soon, Cain realized.  He wanted for the rain.  The sweat dried from on his body from the workout.  He took off his tee shirt and breathed in deep lungfulls of air.  When the rains came  he stretched out his arms and laughed, and opened his mouth and took in the water.

        The umbrellas opened all over the roof.  Maybe twento of them.  They opened inside out, so that they caught the rain and funneled it down ward into cisterns.  The water on the roof likewise ran into drains that ran along the perimeter of the roof.  Just a half inch of rain was water for a month or two.  Even in dry times, the system worked.  It had been a particularly dry summer.  But Cain wasn’t worried, as he looked into the cistern and saw the depth of water.  They could withstand a siege, if necessary.  And no one was about to do that.