More Words

Howdy, a few quick words, before the update. I'm totally getting into researching this story, using Google Maps, Wikipedia, etc. Baltimore reminds me of Adelaide, if Port Adelaide was much more prominent and wrapped itself around the city. A big image used in the following passage, which is Chapter 2 Part 2, is the USS Constellation, a civil war ship docked at Baltimore and used as a museum. Here's a great photo I found on Flickr by a guy called Steve, so full credit for that. Without spoiling too much, this is a great image and for the first time writing Irredeemable I totally stole a childhood memory for the story. Also this update is longer than the last, I was on a roll and hopefully all future updates can be about this length.




- 2 -
Part 2 of 4


By nine o'clock, Ray had exhausted the Expressway and crossed onto South President Street, well and truly in the heart of Baltimore. A few blocks to his right Ray knew the USS Constellation was moored in the docks. He remembered his father taking him and Rachel there when they were only little, he was about five or six and Rachel was still in the stroller. It was a magnificent old civil war sloop, probably about two hundred feet long and immediately Ray thought it looked like a pirate ship.
“No, not pirates, Ray. The Constellation sailed around the Mediterranean and Africa stopping slave ships and setting the slaves free, during the Civil War.” His father's voice echoed around his head and he took a deep drag of his cigarette.
“It was the good guys sailing this ship, son.” His father beamed proudly up at the rigging, his infant daughter nestled in his arms and his son by his side as they stood on the deck, waiting for the tour guide to usher them along.
“But Daddy, aren't pirates good guys?” Ray looked up at his father, blocking the sun from his eyes with his hand.
Ray's father looked down at his son, a brief wave of confusion sweeping his face, then he let out a big chuckle. “No Ray, the pirates are the bad guys. Don't you remember Peter Pan?”
Ray scratched his head, deep in thought. “Oh yeah...”
His father got down onto one knee, his head level with his son's, so he wasn't looking into the sun. “Pirates steal, and kill, and... and drink rum, Arrr!” He let out a mighty pirate roar that made Ray giggle. “They're definitely the bad guys,” his father said as Rachel began to squirm, horrified by the noise her father had made. “See, kiddo, even Rach doesn't like pirates.” His father smiled and stood up again, rocking Rachel gently until she calmed.
Ray took a deep drag of his cigarette as he turned a corner in the rain. After driving for a few more minutes, the rain cleared slightly and Ray caught a glimpse of Baltimore, a sight he hadn't seen in five years. The rows of brickwork buildings that lined Boston Street looked different, but to Ray they felt the same. He got a pang of nostalgia, like a punch to the gut, the unmistakable feeling of working-class, East-coast America swallowed him in waves, like an anaconda. The docks were only a block over, the ghosts of steel and rail-road men haunted his senses. The Stars and Stripes hanging from a tidy business-front held his gaze through the storm. This is what had been missing in Ottawa, stupidly, he hadn't realized it. America was missing from Canada, in Ray's eyes. Sure, not for everyone else there, but for Ray, who woke up every day, an expatriate, an ex-patriot. The urge to pull-up at a pub and order a shot and a brew, flew through his mind. The urge to eat hot dogs at an Orioles game at Camden Yards, even thought the Orioles weren't the team they once were, when he was a boy. Ray even had a sudden urge to do a U-turn and head back to the Constellation.
His memories of the Constellation however threw him into the future of those two kids, on the deck with their father. In his mind the image of baby Rachel shifted to an image of grown-up Rachel being showered in glass, screaming at him.
“Get out!” She screamed, pointing at the door of the apartment. His eyes fixed on hers, his gaze endless and never shifting, but she didn't flinch and she didn't back down.
“Ray, seriously get the fuck out! Now!” She lowered her voice but remained in her position, arm outstretched towards the door.
“Sure,” Ray nodded, getting up off the couch. While he couldn't scare her with his eyes alone, she began to visibly shrink as he stumbled towards her. He stopped only a foot from where she was standing and she cupped her elbows in her hands, across her chest as she looked to the floor. Her thin frame engulfed by his solid build, heavier then ever because of the booze, she stood a foot shorter than him.
“I'm fresh outta bourbon, anyway.” Ray growled into her ear and she shuddered. He held his gaze, inches from her face, his head swaying with the drink. It made him appear to her like and animal sniffing its next meal.
Suddenly, after what seemed too long to be anything but a nightmare, Ray stumbled back from his sister, tripping on his own feet, laughing at himself.
“Bitch,” he mumbled as he fell out of the door and disappeared into the street.
He didn't know it at the time, but she had cried as she swept up the broken bourbon bottle that had hit the wall inches from her face. He didn't know that she had waited the entire night for him to come home, sitting in her bed with a kitchen knife shaking between her hands. She told him this later, in an email to Iraq, although he barely remembered the details as this was when he was still drinking.

Ray's eyes shot open and he saw the police-issue Glock in his hand, a pile of ashes resting on his thigh. He jerked his head up, he was sitting in the Cadillac, parked awkwardly out the front of a Tavern on O'Donnell Street that he knew well. He quickly hid the pistol and scanned the side-walk for anyone who might have seen him, but was relieved when he saw the rain had kicked up again and the streets were deserted. Checking his watch provided more relief when he saw that it was only nine-thirty in the morning, he couldn't have been asleep for longer than fifteen minutes. Wiping his eyes, Ray lit a cigarette and forced the caddy to life, he was close to where he needed to be.