Four Eyes | Page 6

the rain after Jimti. But Jimiti had disappeared. His
footsteps ended by a large puddle of pooling water.
"Jimiti left, gone for good," said a man from Manny's side. Manny spun
around. A tall thin man in tails, cigar lighted despite the rain, smiled at
him.
Manny heard the ambulance coming up the hill and ran back up his
yard towards the house. Nothing today made sense. He was beginning
to fall apart. It was as if he were standing at some sort of crossroads.
#
After the paramedics came and left, Manny threw the laptop into his car.
He left the house resolving not to ever go back. And he left the van in
the driveway, telling himself he would never drive it again.
He drove all the way to a point where the rocky edge of the island
butted out against the ocean, not far from Magen's Bay. Here water

hurled itself against the rocks, shaking the ground with booming
explosions of salt water spray that perpetually hung in the air.
"I want nothing to do with spirits, or ghosts, or witch-doctors," Manny
muttered.
He walked as near to the edges of the wet rocks as he dared, and flung
the laptop out into the air. It arced slowly down into the foaming water
and sunk.
"Please," a voice implored. "You must help."
Manny looked down at the rocks beneath him. Massive waves roiled up,
swept over the boulders, and retreated. A man sat on the top of a
dripping rock, the water passing right through him. He wore a suit, and
glasses, and held his shoes in his right hand.
"I think I slip down into the rocks. But my son still here. Help me find
him?" The man stood up and began to look around.
The next wave crested the boiling waters around the rocks, reached up
into the crags, and the man disappeared. A spirit, Manny thought.
Another duppy only he could see.
For a moment he stood still, then he sighed and cupped his ears to see if
he could hear a child calling for help.
He heard the child crying behind him. It took only a few seconds for
Manny to search through the rocks and find him. A small child, his
hands cut, crying for his dad. Manny picked him up and took him back
to the car.
"Where you live?" Manny asked, leaning over the back door. The child
wouldn't say anything, and kept sobbing.
Manny got in the front seat. He almost jumped out of his skin to see the
tall man with the cigar sitting across from him. Somehow the smoke
failed to fill the inside of the car.

With a deep breath Manny started the car and turned around. He would
take the child to the hospital.
As he drove he ignored the apparition in the other seat. He would not
speak to it. He would not acknowledge it. He would give it no control
over him.
But finally the man spoke.
"The child name Timothy. He mother waiting for him and she husband.
She real anxious, you know. You won't do them no good if you take
him to the hospital, because tonight all the doctor there from stateside.
They won't hardly understand her when she call, and they go treat her
like she dumb. You would make an easier messenger. You like to know
where they live?"
Manny drove on, clenching the steering wheel. He bit his lip. Still not
willing to speak, he nodded.
The tall man smiled and gave him directions, and fifteen minutes of
tense silence later they pulled into a sloping concrete drive lined with
palms. Manny pulled the parking brake up, and Timothy in the back
seat stopped crying.
"Okay, what is it you want from me?" He asked the man next to him.
"To do things like this for me." The cigar was waved in a long gesture.
"Some things little, some things big. Sometimes you go like it, other
times you go hate it. But you always guiding people in this world."
A screen door banged. A thin, worried looking women peered
hopefully around the edge of it at the car.
"I can't," Manny said. "I ain't right for this. What I know about helping
people? Plus, I throw away that laptop already."
The man shook his head. The top of his hat poked through the ceiling
of the Acura.

"Look under you seat," he said.
Manny felt around and grabbed the edge of something plastic. He
pulled the laptop out and set it on his lap.
"Okay," he said. "Okay. But only because I want help people." He
looked over the man, who was fading away. "But who you is?" he
demanded.
The thin man smiled again.
"Most call me Eshu."