34 Maggie hearts Pocohantas

An almost overpowering aroma of roasting coffee beans filled Frou-Frou’s.  A non-descript downtempo electronica tune massaged Kris’ cerebellum.  The most effeminate man that ever lived flitted over to Kris and cheerily deposited a foamy drink in an Ikea cup on the small, round table beside him.   Kris fit into the contemporary lounge chair like a peg in its hole; this is where he belonged.

So where does one begin to stalk a stalker exactly?  Well, Kris had no idea, but he knew what he was good at.  He was good at surfing the Internet, so that was as good a place as any to start.  But where to begin?  The cursor on the screen flashed patiently, persistently.  “Take your time,” it seemed to say, “I’m not going anywhere.  People may die, but I will still be here.  Blink.  Blink.  Blink.” 

Kris went to his favorite search engine and entered simply, “Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Kensington.”  Exactly one kajillion hits came up.  After the standard home page and map entries, the next thousand or so were about different community events:  a kids’ festival, Sunrise Easter service, a health fair, weddings, baptisms, confirmations, and so on and so forth forth for pages and pages.

“Maybe another route,” Kris thought.  Where had the emails been coming from?  Could he figure that out?  Yes, yes he could.  There was an app’ for that.  He may not know who the Alpha Male was, but he could find out where alphamail originated.  He went to bigbrother.net and forwarded the appropriate emails to the service.  Kris had hoped that bigbrother would instantly tell him where the emails had come from, but unfortunately was told that he would have to wait for the next incoming message.  “Don’t they know that I am part of the Gratification Generation?” Kris complained.  So he would have to wait for Alpha to make his next move.  Fair enough.

But what about Sacred Heart?  He needed real information, real history, not a calendar of events.  Kris logged into the library and several local papers and began to scour their on-line archives and thought to himself that it was an amazing time to be alive.  “See?  Now this is instant gratification.  Was that so hard?”  Kris began to pore over the old newspapers and historical documents.  He didn’t immediately find what he was looking for, but at least these pages contained real information.  He need only sift through all the decades of entries. As he did so, Kris fell into that altered state where one begins to move more slowly through time than the rest of the world.  Patrons came and went.  The uber-gay barista brought him another drink, and then another.  The quality of light changed in the coffee-house as the sun trekked steadily across the sky vault.

Finally Kris came upon something interesting.  12 years ago.  12 years ago something terrible had happened: a string of sexual assaults in Kensington, 4 girls attacked over the course of 10 weeks.  An arrest was made, an arrest at Sacred Heart:  Paul Gomez. 

Kris had to slowly absorb this; he read the column again, and then a third time.  Paul Gomez turns himself in for the rape of four Kensington women.  Paul Gomez pleads “no contest”.  Paul Gomez is sent away to Dan Falls penitentiary. 

And then Kamal Dahak walked in. “Hola, person!”  Kamal sat himself in the lounge chair opposite Kris; when the barista sashayed to their table, the Oracle ordered, “Whatever he’s having.”  The barista chirped back, “Medio Americano!  Very good, sir.”

Me-di-o-A-mer-i-ca-no:  eight syllables,” Kris thought to himself.  It reminded him of something Maggie had said once.  “Four bucks.  That’s about right.”

“So, Kris,” Kamal said, “you rang?”  Kris had, in fact, not rang.

“Yes,” he said desperately, “thank you so much for coming.  I need to talk to you.  It’s very personal, well, not personal, but sensitive.  It’s a long, weird story.  But I’ve always trusted you for honest feedback, and you seem to know Sacred Heart as well as anybody.  Listen,” Kris looked Kamal in the eyes with a grave seriousness – it was time to divulge his secrets, “I know this is going to sound outlandish, but I am not actually an addict.”

“You don’t say!”

“I am actually a crime reporter . . . Well, sort of.”

Kamal feigned a gasp.  “Tell me more.”

“I write an online crime column.  I have been following this Alpha Killer story.  In fact, believe it or not, I am the one who named him.  And, to make a long story short, it’s becoming very important that I figure out who he is.”

“How interesting – because I follow online crime blogs.  So you think I can help somehow?”

“Kamal, you’re an observant person.  Is there anything at all that you can think of that is odd, or suspicious?  You’ve been at Sacred Heart a while now; has anything changed in the past few months.”

Kamal waved his finger tips together, making him look the part of a James Bond nemesis.  “This is absolutely delicious, yeah?  Anything different?  Out of the ordinary?  Well, there’s the obvious, of course, but we needn’t talk about that.  But I will say this:  Have you noticed that our dear ol’ Sacred Heart had become a veritable Love Boat?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, love is in the air, monsieur, eet iss in zee aire!  Paul, of course, always has his perennial oats a’sowin’.  Always a Philly in that coral!  But where is Carol?  Where is his latest flame?  A.W.O.L. for  a month now?  Curiouser and curiouser.  Mmm?  And of course there is Maggie and Granola-girl.”

Kris interrupted, “Wait – What?!  Did you say Maggie?”

“Oh Mr. Whitlowe, tsk tsk.  Surely, you know that Maggie and her little hippy-dippy friend from S.A. are frequenting the Art Festivals and Organic Markets together.  And anyway, what’s up with her and Mary?”  The waiter returned with a coffee for Kamal.

Kris muttered to himself, “Is that right?  Why would she not tell me that?”

“Oh sure, mon ami,” Kamal continued.  He pulled a phone from one of the many pouches on his back-pack.  The phone was probably 24 months out-dated. It was as big as a box of cigarettes and looked like absolutely Messozoic to Kris’ up-to-the-moment digital sensibilities.  He felt a little embarrassed for Kamal.  If it had been anyone else, he would have said something.  “See for yourself.”  Kamal pulled a stylus from the side of the device and began plucking around on the screen with audible beep and clicks.  He whisked it around to show the young reporter, and on the screen, clear as day, were Maggie and a girl with Birkenstock sandals and Pocahontas pony tails, Patricia. 

Kris knew that there was a lot to Maggie that he didn’t know, but he had always felt that they had been 100% open and honest with each other, at least with current events.  He was surprised that there was apparently a part of herself that she had been keeping private from him, and he was surprised that this made him feel jealous and sad.

“And of course the body-builder fella used to date that Susan Campbell girl, the one they found floating at Saint Kris.  But everyone knows about that, right?  But he has a new girlfriend now, anyway.  So ce la vie.”

“Um, right.”  Kris had not known about this.  Kris turned up the last dregs of his coffee.  His veins were getting a little itchy from being overloaded with caffeine.  

“Kamal, I need to ask you for something: a Truth.”

Kamal was elated at the request, “Certainly, my friend.  You know that I only ever speak Truth.”  He fought to contain a smile, and the effect made the Oracle look slightly sinister.  He sat erect and folded his hands nervously in his lap.  “Let’s get down to it, shall we?  It’s been a long time coming, yes?   At long last our friendship is in a place where we can speak the Truth to one another.”  He squirmed in his seat.

“Kamal . . . will I catch Alpha?”

“Oh Kris,” the Oracle sighed;  He was crestfallen.  “Kris-Kris-Kris, that’s not a Truth.  That is a Fortune; you have asked me for your Fortune.”  The Oracle threw his hands in the air. “Oh Kris,”  The Oracle chided his disciple, “Truth is Truth, it is built upon the elements of Fact.  The Future?  Who can say?  The Universe is far too subtle and sublime and clever for us little fat-brains to outfox.  Nearly every major scientific discovery ever made has been attributed to accident (well, accident and observation).  To ask for a Fortune is to ask for a Fiction.  Hm.  I thought that you – we – were in a different place.”  Kamal returned Kris’ deadly earnest gaze and said very softly, “I would have told you the Truth . . .  had you only asked it.”

The Oracle stirred his coffee-drink, melting a 50-cent sized dollop into creamy spiral.  “Ok fine, simple enough.  Yes!  You will find a killer.   If the killer doesn’t find you first, then you will absolutely find a killer.  It will be the last place you look, but I guarantee: you will find one.  How’s that?” 

“Good, I guess.”  Kris suddenly felt like somehow he may have totally misunderstood their relationship, and he didn’t know what to make of it.

“And since your Fortune is what you really want, I give it to you for free, yeah?  No charge. 

“And here it is:  What you are stands above you and thunders so loudly that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.  Emerson.  Would you like to know what stands thundering above you, my friend?  Guilt.  Like a banner this guilt!  Flapping in the breeze – look at me, look at me!  You wear it like it’s something you earned, like a back-stage pass, yeah?  But what shows has it gotten you into, friend?

“No, your guilt is an outdated and artificial emotion, my man, created way back when we were first crawling out of the caves – cousin to patriotism and consumerism and – and your western standards of beauty.  Gotta keep order in the tribe, yeah?  But Kris, do you think a lion feels guilt as it disembowels an antelope while it is still kicking?  Of course not!”  The Oracle laughed out loud.  “The idea is absurd, correct?  Or a soldier, when he or she blows the face off one of his or her olive-skinned cousins?  No guilt, no burden.”  He wiped his hands clean.  “Kill 100 foreigners, you’re a hero.  Kill one fair child of the tribe, you’re a mon-ster. 

“A seedling pushing its shoot up through the soil, reaching for the sun:  this!”  the Oracle declared, “this is real!  All of your societal mores?  Meh, not so much.”   Kamal stirred his coffee.  “But in a world with no right or wrong, how can guilt even exist, yeah?  Time to cast off the Fictions and be free, Kristopher.”

Kamal pulled out the little metal and plastic faux pencil and once again began to tap at his clunky phone.  “Life is so . . .  simple, Kris.  Not necessarily easy, but simple.  It’s just that nobody observes, nobody is paying attention.”  Kamal leaned in and whispered this last bit.  He clacked one last tap and put the phone back in his bag.  “Are you paying attention, my friend?”  He stood up and fastened the heavy pack around his shoulders.  “Well,” he said, “Gotta run.  Those strays aren’t going to euthanize themselves!  Au revoir!”  The Oracle stood, nodded at him in a gentlemanly manner, and half-bowed as if he were dressed in a top hat and tails.  He then exited the establishment with the shop’s expensive mug in hand.  He did not bother to pay for the drink.

Kris’ laptop chimed.  The Sword and Scales had a posted message.  That meant that bigbrother wouldn’t be able to trace it.  Damn.

Kris opened the post and found that it contained a single link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWLfMURhd7Q.  He clicked on it and was surprised to find that it was a video . . . of him.