The Virtue of Heredity by Benjamin X. Wretlind

They come early in the evening, the sun just beginning to interact with the horizon, turning colors of yellow into orange and then a deep, bloody red. Some arrive in pairs, some alone, some as a family. They come to feed, to play, to live out their lives as nature would dictate, seemingly blind to the eccentric world about them. They are as much creatures of the night as they are creatures of the day, though by night they are the most prominent. They defend their territory with passion and stare down those animals who may tower above them. They fear little and dare to play life and death games with Fate. They are perversions of Flospy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter. They are rabbits, and they infest.

I have seen their presentation replayed in bits and pieces nearly every night, although up until yesterday I hadn’t stayed to watch more than five minutes. The first rabbit to arrive that evening did so as the sun had just touched the horizon. It hopped nervously across the parking lot, stopping now and then to investigate a lonely leaf or a spot of oil. Every few seconds it would look up as if guilty of some heinous crime, then hop forward a few more steps. By the time it reached the edge of the grass yard, the sun had slipped quietly away for the night. The wind blew kisses at the Cottonwood trees and rustled a few premature autumn leaves. The rabbit looked up, then around, and finally entered the grass wonderland.

The first nibble–like the first step–was a tentative one. It bent over, tasted the greenery, and then looked back up. A small blade of grass stuck out of the side of the rabbit’s mouth as its black eyes searched the periphery. Out on the road beyond the parking lot a car drove by. The fur on its back twitched involuntarily, a rear foot thumped the earth, and the ears rose high. The rabbit waited until the sound of the engine was lost in the breeze. A few moments passed before it took another nibble, another glance around, and then a hop forward to a greener patch of grass. The pattern continued until, at last, the rabbit felt confident.

I sat back in my chair and lit a cigarette. The shadows of evening were beginning to melt into the descending darkness, and before I realized it a waxing moon had risen over the mountains to take charge of another night. The yellow porch lights above me snapped on as if they had minds of their own and could sense my need for a little more light to write by. I glanced at my watch, noted the time and began to think about dinner. When I looked back out at the yard, the rabbit had cloned itself; instead of one lonely rabbit, I was now faced with four. It was like I had turned my back on a closet for just a moment and the clothes hangers had magically multiplied.

The rabbits were grouped together around one of the smaller trees, each intent face firmly rooted to a little patch of grass. They seemed to be completely oblivious to one another, yet working together as a team. When one rabbit would tire of his patch and hop forward to find something better, another rabbit would hop to the right or to the left in order to keep some sense of both territory and distance. There was something almost telepathic about their movements. One rabbit would be facing away from another, contentedly gnawing at a small twig. The other rabbit, having apparently decided that its grass wasn’t the right consistency, would hop farther away. Without hesitation, the first rabbit would grab the twig in its mouth and close the gap, thereby preserving the illusion of strength in numbers.

All of this would continue undisturbed all night long, were it not for a game of life and death these rabbits play. Unlike many other types of games, we are left to know only who the losers are; the winners escape into the night without a scratch. They play a game of joust between the themselves and the Beasts with Glowing Eyes. More often than not, this game is played on the paths that humans use to travel around from place to place. These rabbits in front of me have won the game before, but winning once is only an enticement to play again and again until they finally lose.

For several months I have found myself an eye witness to this jousting match, crouched inside the Beast, directing the motion of the Glowing Eyes. I have won some and lost some, and although I do not delight in killing animals I don’t intend to barbecue, there is a reassuring feeling to the sudden “thud” of victory that comes at the end of the game.

I waited for what seemed like an hour before the rabbits had moved toward the edge of the playing field. Their little mouths worked tirelessly, chewing the grass and secreting enough saliva to wash it all down. Another group of rabbits formed on the other side of the lawn, though I knew from previous encounters that the two groups would remain as far apart as possible. Minutes dragged on, and I began to think that I wasn’t going to get to see the game. Then, off in the distance, acting as if in a dance with the rustling leaves, the faint growl of an old Beast drifted through the night air.

I sat up. The group by the road continued to feed, heads to the ground, eyes on the prize. I watched their movements closely, hoping to find some evidence that at least one rabbit had heard the rumble–maybe an ear thrust higher or a quick glance out of curiosity. The noise grew louder, drowning out that of the leaves, and the light from the Glowing Eyes could be seen rounding the bend.

The rabbits continued to feed.

The Beast came into view down the road, gaining speed and closing the gap. First gear. A small bump bounced the Eyes into the air and then back on the road. Second gear. The growl grew higher, commanding the wheels to move the Beast faster and faster. Third gear. The black skin reflected the moon. The Glowing Eyes bared down.

The rabbits continued to feed.

The Beast came closer and closer, until I felt a twinge of doubt that any of the rabbits would take the chance. Maybe they could judge the intensity of the growl by listening. Maybe they could tell whether or not they stood a chance by watching the Eyes. Maybe they knew I was watching. Maybe–

An ear perked up. I looked closer at one of the rabbits, its head rising from the grass and turning toward the road. The fur on its back twitched involuntarily, a rear foot thumped the earth, and both ears rose high. It hopped toward the road–still chewing on a blade of grass–and stared directly into the Glowing Eyes.

I read not too long ago that the DNA strand of any human, when broken down into its component letters, is remarkably similar to that of almost any other animal. For example, the genetic spelling of a simple nematode is, in fact, almost ninety percent the same as the code for any human. An ant is nearly ninety-two percent similar. What this means in the grand scheme of life, the universe and everything, I don’t know. But it must mean something.

And what of the rabbit? What of the animal who had risked everything for a little rush of adrenaline? What of the animal who had given its life for a little taste of the narcotic of chance? Well, that tangled mess of blood and fur out there on the road is ninety-seven percent human. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

An Excerpt of The Independence of Carolyn Woltkowski by Benjamin X. Wretlind

It took a day, a phone call to a friend back in Vegas she hadn’t spoken to in months and a talk with her irate but slightly understanding boss to convince herself that the man she saw on the casino floor was not, in reality, the man she’d been running from for the past two years. In fact, the friend on the phone said she’d seen him just a few days ago, and for him to figure out where Carolyn was, hop a flight or grab a rental car and drive to the middle of nowhere was probably an unlikely scenario. He wasn’t the type of man who hunted down people.

Carolyn didn’t mention she knew that wasn’t true. It wasn’t a day before she left for good that he promised to find her and to kill her. That cut below her left eye–the one that bleed for nearly an hour–was to remind her that he was in this for the long run. And no, she couldn’t get stitches.

Thank God she got away when she did.

Carolyn looked up at the crystal blue Colorado sky. She’d been walking up and down Bennett Avenue for an hour or so. It wasn’t a long street and while most people viewed all the little shops and ancient signs painted on century old buildings as quaint, she saw something different. In fact, she was in love with the area, with the people, with the serenity that could only come from a town that had died once and been reborn through an industry she was not only familiar with but would probably continue to work for until the day she passed away alone and surrounded by a hundred cats. There was peace in Cripple Creek, even if that peace felt tenuous to her at best.

Tenuous peace was still peace.

She stopped at the walkway to the Wild Horse Casino, its richly painted sign contrasted with the deep red brick of the building to shine in all its ancient glory. A white stallion leapt from the painting, chased by four other stallions. Perhaps it was a mare; she didn’t know. But there was meaning in the painting, something she found at nearly every corner of her life: she was running, hard and fast. Maybe she could stop one day, find the peace the rest of the painting portrayed, one of grass meadows, mountains in the distance, a clear sky free of trouble.

To her right, another painted sign pointed the way to the Red Lantern, offering food and cocktails. She knew it pointed to Myers Avenue, a former “Red Light” district if ever there was such a thing at the turn of the century. Down the steps and next to the Wild Horse Casino stood the Homestead House, the most famous brothel in Cripple Creek. She knew the history, even respected the owner and operator Pearl DeVere. The opulent parlor that bustled with activity was known for its impeccable service, high-powered customers, its glamorous madams. At a time when three dollars a day was considered a good wage for a miner, Pearl charged $250 a night, and got it.

Carolyn sighed. The museum existed to glorify the days of women used for their bodies by miners who used the earth for its gold. Then again, what was so different now?

She turned from the sign and tried to exorcise the horrible thoughts that bubbled up from her memory like deadly gases in a swamp. She’d been used for her body, perhaps not by a miner but rather by so many men she lost count when she turned thirty. Now, two decades later, she lived in regret of nearly her entire life. The man she married a few years back told her she was more than a body; she was a woman with thoughts and desires and all the things that make up the soul trapped beneath the skin.

When he hit her the first time, she still believed he meant it. When he broke her arm the night she didn’t feel like spreading her legs for him, she started to have doubts. When he threatened to kill her for being nothing more than a whore who got a job as a casino waitress to look for more men–his festering delusion–she lost all hope he had ever meant what he told her. She was trash, a woman to be used, neglected and disposed of like a tissue full of snot.

Carolyn shuddered. She didn’t need to think of these things. She escaped, and now it had been two years of relative peace. Yes, she was still haunted by the threat and the man she once loved, but it was getting easier.

She looked back at the Wild Horse Casino sign then down at the ruins in front of it: a building without a roof, grasses infecting every crack in the foundation. Bricks were poorly laid out and wrapped around an unbroken window that reflected her face. She stared at the face for a moment–weathered, wrinkled, scarred. She was that person she saw: a beautiful woman now in her fifties, a body that could wrestle large tips from drunk men at the Spanish Mustang, a face spotted with history. She hated the way she looked. While her face aged, her body didn’t. She needed to do something else with her life, something that didn’t require wearing tight shorts and a blouse that exposed nearly all of her breasts to drunks. She needed to be a waitress in a café, an accountant working daytime hours, a bus driver for little kids. She needed to do something, but that something was elusive. You don’t get real jobs unless you have an education, and her father–the motherfucking sexual predator who got his due in prison–made sure she never even finished high school.

“I heard a fly buzz when I died,” she said. They were the words her mother used to comfort her as a toddler, to soothe away the demons in the night. She never knew where the words came from or why her mother would even use them, but she didn’t need to know. The words were a blanket.

Carolyn wanted to cry right there on the street, surrounded by history. Who lived in these buildings, worked the mines, sold their bodies? What was their history? Did they leave a legacy? Her body quivered with shame, with regret, with so many feelings built up in her life since childhood.

Life was a disaster waiting for an ending. Life was a quest without a goal. Life was a thing of beauty ruined by others.

Life was hell.

She turned away from the window and walked up the street toward the Spanish Mustang. She didn’t have to work that night, but she was damned if she was going to sit in her house all day and let the memories creep in. A walk was what she needed, complete with fresh air, the wonderful smells of fudge coming from the General Store and the peace of a street filled with strangers.

As she passed the General Store and reached an intersection, she noticed a woman on a bench with what looked like a sketchpad. The woman stared at something or someone in the distance while her hands worked a pencil across the paper. She was a small woman, frail, with light brown hair draped across her shoulders and gently tossed by a March breeze. Her hands–naked of gloves despite the weather–seemed to shake more than glide across the sketchpad. If Carolyn had seen the hands first, she would have sworn the woman was in her seventies, maybe older. However, the artist’s face countered that assertion.

Curiosity welled up inside Carolyn and she crept up behind the bench to get a look at the sketchpad. She’d always wanted to draw–as a little girl, a teenager, a woman bouncing from job to job, casino to casino–but outside of doodles on cocktail napkins or notepads meant for taking orders, she never produced much. Still, the act of sketching something–anything–was liberating to her, and those who did it more professionally or with more conviction interested her. They were creative souls who saw the world with different eyes, eyes not tarnished by men who beat them, men who leered at them, men who reduced them to nothing more than disposable objects.

She shuddered. Where did that thought come from?

The woman on the bench didn’t notice or seem to care that Carolyn was now directly behind her, looking down the sketchpad. Her hand still shook, but moved effortlessly while her eyes appeared to be locked on whatever was across the street.

It was hard to discern what the woman drew at first, but the longer Carolyn stared the more she recognized a form, a man with brute strength buried under what might have been a heavy winter jacket. The curves, the shading, even the stippled whiskers of a week-old beard were impressive if not alive. She leaned in a little closer to see the detail in the man’s face. . . then froze.

It was him.

In a split second, naked, bitter fear crashed down around her body like a wave against an exposed cliff. Her body shook, her lips quivered, her heartbeat escalated. Carolyn slowly raised her eyes from the sketchpad and looked across the street.

It can’t be.

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