Chapter 9

Breathe…

She sat, huddled and rocking, on the steps of the Bank of America, and I was across the street from her. She held her face in her hands as she cried. I don’t want it. I don’t want it. Hers was the only thought I had.

Fog fell onto the street, and the light from the streetlamp she sat next to launched a yellow beam that rested its glow around her. The light squirmed as she rocked and cried.

I knew her for myself, from my own intuition, from my heart. It didn’t matter that I could hear her thought, hear her moan and wish that she could be without the other life inside of her. I understood her without the curse, my unwanted insight, because I felt her. As I stood and watched her cry, watched her rub her head where she had been hit, the ‘I don’t want it’s became whispers. It was in my heart where the noise had gone. I felt her resonate, I felt her quiver, and felt how she was stung and how she itched. I felt how she was helpless, and it wasn’t because I was now sensitive to feelings rather than thoughts. I felt her because I felt the same way.

…..

I was never satisfied with just one of Cary’s kisses. There should be more. A kiss goodbye should be ten.

…..

I don’t know what kept me from running away, from turning my back on New Guernsey and running until I lost myself in the mountains down the road, until I was away from all thought. I just didn’t. I wanted to talk to her, to help her. I wanted her to know what I felt, and so I would tell her what I was thinking.

I walked across the street and composed myself as I stepped. I was disturbed before and I tried to numb myself with a slow pace.

…..

Cary wanted children and so did I.

…..

I stood in front of her. She looked up and then covered her face again.

“What do you want?”

Her voice was soft and shaky, and a tear hung like a wind chime from her lip. The tear hung until it broke and slipped across the slope of her frown. She wiped her eyes and nose with her hand.

“Are you…OK?” I said.

“No I’m not fucking OK! Do I look happy to you? Just go away. I don’t have any food for you. You’ll just have to wait till I’m at the fucking restaurant tomorrow…. Go!”

“I know how you’re feeling,” I said.

She felt just like me. She was hurt, she was scared, she was trapped, and she was resting and feeling it all at once.

“What?…. You…. What do you want?”

She wiped her eyes and nose with her hand.

…..

Cary wanted to move after graduation and so did I.

…..

“I just?Is your head OK?”

She shook her head.

“It didn’t even hurt…You’re fucking crazy. I don’t know why you had to freak out like that. It was just another bar fight.”

“I was afraid you were going to get hurt,” I said.

“So.”

Up the road a beam of headlights illuminated the fog.

…..

Cary loved to go for drives. I loved to drive her. We would pick roads we had never been down, get lost, and find our way back.

…..

“I…thought you had been hurt,” I said.

She too noticed the huge glow of the headlights. She turned her face to the light. It was moist and under the streetlight, in the fog, it looked like a wet lemon. She stood up quick and took off fast. She ran right into the street. I didn’t know what she was doing. It was like she wasn’t thinking at all. The light around grew and she seemed to become almost translucent. The yellow on the moist air was swallowing her, and she faded more as the light grew. It looked like she had run into a yellow cave. Then I realized. She jumped in front of the car’s path, and I took off right behind her. Only adrenaline could have made me move that fast. My muscles couldn’t have been that strong on their own. I grabbed her by the legs and she fell back into my arms. She wasn’t at all heavy, and I carried her out of the street, ran towards the parking lot as the car slammed on its breaks, skid on the damp road, and maybe missed me by a foot.

The car stopped, slanted in the middle of the road.

The driver stuck his head out the window.

“What the hell! She just?”

“It’s nothing. Sorry. She’s fine. Just get out of here,” I said to him.

“You kids are going to get yourself killed,” he yelled back.

“Just go. She’s fine.”

The driver assumed that we both were drunk idiots. He straightened out his car, and drove away.

“Assholes,” he screamed out his window.

I carried her farther into the parking lot, and stood her down under a tree, in front of a Ford Taurus.

…..

Cary didn’t go to church, and neither did I.

…..

“What are you doing? That was crazy,” I said.

“Why can’t you just leave me alone. What do you want?”

“I don’t want anything…trust me. I don’t think I could handle anything else right  now,” I said.

She sat down on the grass.

“Jesus. You just ran in front of that car,” I said.

“So.”

“So! I know you’re not happy, but that’s not the answer. Please…tell me I’m right.”

“Who…what do you want anyway? Do you want me to thank you? For breaking that guy’s jaw when he didn’t even mean to hit me? For saving my life? Well, thank you, alright. You’re my hero, OK? I’m so glad that this town has a goddamed super-hero, and who would have guessed that he gets his strength from a calzone a day. I know your secret calzone man.”

“I can’t explain why I freaked out. Let’s just say that everything in that bar got to me,” I said.

“No. I’m serious. That’s what the waitresses call you at work. Calzone Man. The guy who eats big and tips bigger.”

“…”

“And I thought you were just spying on me. No. Turns out that you’re here to protect me. My own fucking hero. Mild mannered diner by day…head basher and damsel rescuer by night. Well, go away. Disappear into the night now. I’m safe and ever so thankful Calzone Man,” she said.

“I don’t spy on you.”

“Yeah? How many times a day do you walk by the restaurant and stare at me…. I see you when you do it.”

…..

I am pale blue and Billy Holiday.

…..

“I?”

“I?Just leave me alone, freak. Please…Please!”

She cowered and started to cry again. Even when she tried to be tough and mean, she was frail and in too much pain to mean it.

“I just…I just want to know about you. That’s all…. You look like you might need some help right now,” I said.

“Fuck you. I don’t need help.”

…..

Arcane, arcane, arcane, arcane, ARCANE, ARCANE, ARCANE, ARCANE, …we alone are so painfully arcane.

…..

She wiped her eyes and nose with her hand.

“What do you mean, you don’t need help? You just tried to commit suicide,” I said.

“Fine! You want to help me? Take it away then. Get it out of me. I don’t want it.”

She grabbed her mother’s paunch and shook it.

“…I can’t do that. But, I can listen to you. If you want to vent, fine. If attacking me makes you feel better, fine. Fuck me. I don’t care about me right now. My life is shit. If you want to be alone, I understand, but maybe you shouldn’t be. Maybe all I want is to help you calm down, and feel better right now. I want to listen to you…unless…if you really want me to…I’ll go,” I said.

She held her hands over her face.

The fog sailed like a barge under a river bridge, and the orange-yellow light was everywhere like a brush fire.

…..

Cary loved to watch me fight, and I loved to kiss her when it was over. Her lips could make my face stop hurting.

…..

I heard a police siren and sat down next to the girl. I was huddled as she was, and I hoped not to be found. She uncovered her face as the siren got louder.

“That’s for you, isn’t it,” she said.

“I think.”

“…”

“…”

She picked up a small rock and looked at it, turning it between her thumb and pointer before she threw it at the windshield of the Taurus. It made a small ‘click’ when it bounced off.

…..

My mother liked Cary. She wasn’t happy with the way I left her though. When I saw my mother, that evening, she didn’t have much to say. She just looked at me, in silence. She looked as if she felt sorry for me.

…..

“I’m sorry…I’m not a bitch. I’m just really fucked up OK.”
…..

I never got tired of Cary’s voice.

…..

“Talk to me if you want. I won’t judge you. I’ll just listen…I want to know your story, and maybe by telling it you’ll understand how to make it better.”

“Why should I tell you anything?”

She looked at me and for the first time she didn’t turn immediately away. Her eyes were bloodshot and her eyelids hung heavy and dark.

“I don’t know…Maybe we’re part of the same story right now. Maybe it’s time that we know each other instead of just having a civil, waitress-Calzone Man relationship. Maybe we should just talk, and calm down…and maybe I just care. I don’t know you well, but I do care about you…and besides…even if you didn’t want me to, I just saved your life. I think that warrants us getting to know each other,” I said.

“Thank you…that was stupid. I don’t want to…”

“I know. But why would you even think you did,” I said.

“Look at me. You know. You tipped me because you know. You saw how it shows now. OK? …Here it is…my story. I’m 20 years old. I’m a Communications major. I serve Italian food for a living, and in eight weeks…I’m going to have a baby,” she said.

She shook her head and picked up another small rock.

“But you don’t want it?”

She looked at me again. She looked, she had this expression like I was going to change everything once she told me.

“No…I don’t…I can’t do this,” she said.

“Did you think about…an?”

“I’m not a murderer!…Besides…my mother would have rolled over in her grave…She was…She came from a very strict, Catholic family. It would have broken her heart if I had an abortion…I couldn’t do that to her, to her memory. I couldn’t think of her, in heaven or whatever…hating me.”

“I don’t think?”

“What do you know?” she said.

I sat silent for a while. I didn’t want to say the typical ‘I’m sorry.’ I felt more sincere, more connected to her than that. I smelled her perfume escape from under the stale, smoky smell that the bar had doused us with.

“So…what about the father?” I said.

“The father?”

She turned and grabbed me by my coat and then threw it back at me.

“The father?…that horny bastard. He’s nothing…. Do you really expect to find a worthy father in a place like Rusty’s.”

“That’s where?”

“Yes…I got all I could out of him…just sex. He picked me up. I let him, I agreed. Fine. Good looking bastard. I was drunk on Long Island Iced Teas and I…let him take me home. I’d done that before. Who doesn’t go home with a stranger every once in a while?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Yeah…they do…He took me to his place, cool place…and we, whatever. We don’t say much because we don’t really have much to say to one another. We just fucked?and you know what happened? The fucking condom broke, of course. Fucking broke, and he tells me this as I’m lying naked in this strange bed and he expects me to be calm. Calm? How the hell do you stay calm when that happens? I didn’t plan that. It wasn’t supposed to happen.”

She threw the little rock at the windshield.

…..

Cary was a romance that I made into an ideal. Somewhere in that process I became a cynic…. Kill the cynic.

…..

“You know it’s not your fault, right?”

“It’s not? It was my choice to fuck him. He wasn’t pushy…. Anyway, for days after that I was a wreck?completely failed every bit of schoolwork I had, and my housemates were just watching me. They didn’t have to deal with it. They had to do their schoolwork. But don’t get me wrong…they sure seemed like they cared….but they didn’t. I know. I could tell by the way they looked.”

“How’d they look?”

“Like liars. Their mouths sure said they were sorry, but their eyes…their eyes were happy…that it wasn’t their problem…and sure enough I was late. I went to the doctor for a test and he says ‘you’re pregnant’ and I nearly fainted. So I call the bastard and he says ‘shit.’ Shit? All he can say is shit? No ‘I’ll be with you’ or ‘we’ll figure this out together.’ No. That bastard says ‘why don’t you get an abortion?’ How about WE get an abortion. It’s his too, but he won’t admit it?and today! Today I drag him to the ultrasound,…dirty bastard…, and he tells me he can’t be a father. Can’t? Bull shit he can’t. He just doesn’t want to. He didn’t have to lie. And he offers to give me money, but just says ‘I can’t do it. Bad timing.’ That fucking coward. He can’t do it? And I can? No…I can’t…and I don’t want to?and to be honest with you…. I went to that place tonight because I wanted to kill it, to drink so much that I miscarry and somehow feel that nature took its course…but I don’t want to kill it…and I don’t want to die myself……… I’m fucked, I guess,” she said.

She had no ease or gentility at that moment. There was panic and hopelessness, and the little rocks she picked up, rolled through her fingers and threw at the windshield. I didn’t know how to respond other than nod and purse my lips. I didn’t know how to help her other than to listen and interject with sparse comments.

…..

Cary couldn’t cook, and I loved to cook for her.

…..

“My mother was a single parent,” I said.

“Oh…thanks. That’s comforting…. I don’t know if you realize, but you’re kind of a freak.”

…..

Cary loved music and books, and so did I.
…..

“Thanks,” I said.

“No, I don’t mean that. I guess…. How do I tell my son that his father doesn’t want to see him? How do I dress the kid in clothes bought with that sonofabitch’s money and not choke when I look at my boy. I don’t know how your mom did it. The point is, I don’t know how to bring a child into the world, alone…no father to help me. If I didn’t have my father…I’d die. At least I got to live most of my life with two parents, but not my kid. No…I have to make up something like ‘Your Daddy can’t come home. He’s away,’ or some other bullshit lie. That bastard’s gonna make me lie to my kid…our kid, and what choice do I have? What? Tell him the truth? Tell him that his daddy don’t have the ‘calling’ to raise him, that he’d rather just send a check than hold his fucking baby. And this bastard’s ruined me. I can’t go to school anymore. I have to move back home, with my father, get a day job, a car, and what? Work in a pizza house down there? What the hell is that? It’s like I’ve completely lost the ability to make my own choices anymore. I’m just a mom now…. Yeah, great fucking mom. ‘My mom serves pizza to fuckers.’ What kind of mother is that? How is my son going to look at me and not think I’m a screw-up? Tell me.”

She cried harder than when I first had found her.

“He just won’t. You have to believe that. My mother serves coffee to nice people, and the whole town loves her…and her son does too,” I said.

“I’m not her though,” she said.

“Well…maybe I could help you?”

At that moment I had no idea what I was going to say. I didn’t listen to her thoughts though. When I didn’t want to listen her voice inside my head faded into a murmur that was low.

“No you can’t,” she said.

“I don’t know. It’s like I said…I care about you.”

“Well thank you, really, but…there’s nothing a stranger can do for me…OK.”

She wiped her eyes and nose with her hand.

“I don’t think we’re strangers though. Do you realize…for the longest time I’ve forced myself to eat those balls of grease and cheese just because I’ve wanted to see you…. I park my car in the lot farther from my house so when I have to walk to my car I pass the restaurant, so I can see you…”

“That’s a little frightening. You know?”

“Why? When I see you, I’m caught. I’m not trying to hide from you. I’m not trying to spy and disappear when you look. I’m just trying to see you,” I said.

She looked away from me.

“You don’t know me,” she said.

“I don’t know anything. I don’t know you like a friend. I know. But I see you. I see you move and smile, and when I see you I feel better. I feel peace…. The mere thought of anything harming you makes me crazy. I can’t imagine, I won’t imagine anything less than a happy life for you, and I want to be part of it because I would never hurt you.”

“You don’t know that.”

She picked up a handful of wet, old snow from the pile behind her.

“I’m not telling you that I love you. That would give you a reason to think that I was some obsessed freak. But, I think I could love you. I think that the things behind your smile, walk, and soft voice that delight me are…what’s in you….the things I don’t know I love yet.”

…..

Cary loved dusk in the summer. We had many, perfect hand-held walks at dusk.

…..

“Whatever. You sound pretty full of crap Benny Bouchard.”

“How do you know my name,” I said.

“Who doesn’t in this town? You run the grocery store. You were a boxer at the college a while ago. I’ve been in the school gym. I’ve seen your pictures up on the wall. I’ve read the articles they have pinned up next to them. And I know about how you left the mayor’s daughter, stood her up in her wedding dress. You sure hurt her, and even though I don’t know why, I know that was a pretty cowardly thing to do.”

“It was complicated.”

…..

I could never remember the names of people I met. Cary always remembered though.

…..

“I don’t care…. Listen…we’re not some kind of kindred spirits, OK,” she said.

“Why not? What is this idea about love that insists that one be able to write a book about a person before they dare say ‘I love you.’ What you know about yourself isn’t the same as what I feel about you…but it’s the same subject.”

“Do you realize how little sense you make?” she said.

“Why? I’m talking about feelings, not knowledge. I feel like I lose twenty pounds when I see you. And so, I guess I am just supposing that that means something?but doesn’t it? Don’t you think people have become stupid when it comes to love, concentrating on what they know about a person rather than what their instincts tell them,” I said.

“I don’t know what every person’s manner of loving is. There’s too many of them in the world for me to have talked to them all.”

“C’mon,” I said.

“No. Listen to yourself. You talk about feelings instead of knowledge, but you’re pitching it to me like a salesman would. It doesn’t sound very heartfelt when you just lecture me about stereotypes.”
“I’m not judgmental,” I said.

“Really? Doesn’t sound like it,” she said.

“I’m?”

“So what about the girl. Was she also stupid when it comes to love. You did say everybody was.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“C’mon. You’re sitting here, asking me to love you, or something, but you won’t even be honest with me.”

“I can’t.”

“Do it Benny. I want to know. Why did you leave her?”

She had twisted me and I both wanted to run away from her prodding insensitivity, and hold her close to me.

“Fine…I’ll tell you. I got up the day of the wedding, and I asked myself why I was marrying her…and…I had an answer. I had a detailed, catalogued, term paper of an answer…and that didn’t seem right to me. It should have just felt right, rather than sound good in my head.”

“………That’s ridiculous…you know?”

“Tell me your name,” I said.

“It’s Mary.”

I picked up a little rock myself.

“You’re pretty guilty, aren’t you?” she said.

What came next was the strangest phenomenon I had felt all day. Even greater than the gift, the headaches, the nausea, the panic, and the rage. Everything fell off of me, like this day had never happened, like I had only lived one feeling for almost half a decade. The memories I had after, the days, the hook-ups, the bad interactions, the birthdays and times with Max. The store, my job had never happened, and I had never met this sad pregnant girl. I felt then like all that had gone on for the past five years was an invited strangulation and bind, and I had been wrapped in guilt. I could hardly remember my life, the memories decreasing in numbers each day since I had left her. Guilt. I not only felt it, I had become it, and somehow learned how to cover it up.

“It’s feeding off me…how much I hurt her,” I said.

Mary sat still. Her face was calm, her eyes glossed, and the skin around her eyes was swollen. She looked at the fog.

She spoke quiet then.

“What do you want from me Benny. I’m not in love with you. I don’t want your help,” she said.

“I want some joy in my life. I don’t have any. I wake up every day and I hate what I’m doing…I hate what I’ve done. And I don’t give a goddamn about what is going to happen to me. I just dream, and imagine that what’s in my head is important. That I’m right to have done everything wrong with my life.”

“So we’re both fucked,” she said.

“I guess.”

“Fine. But at least I’m real about it. You’re delusional. You won’t admit what you really want,” she said.

“I just want you to give me some trust, and let me help you.”

“Do you even realize how sketchy this whole scene is?” she said.

“Why?”

“Why? This is America, year two thousand. Everything is nuts. This is nuts. I should have run away from you. I mean…look at this. Here I am, a sad girl, and up comes a strange man who says, or tries to say, romantic things, to flatter me with some kindness and caring, and all he wants is for me to trust him. This is how some rapes and murders start. This is the kind of scene that parents are scared stiff of for their children. I should be scared, alert, cynical, and especially wary of guys who throw the word ‘love’ around.”

“Oh, fuck that. I’m tired of this crap. This isn’t the type of existence we’re meant to have. I don’t care about trends, or history, or how people are made to generally act. Fuck sociology. I don’t care if you’re supposed to go on a set number of dates before you actually express feelings to a person. I don’t care at all about the way things are done. I don’t want to do anything like anyone else does, especially when it comes to how I love. It’s all so fucking backwards. People will have sex on the first date but maybe a year from then they’ll dare tell each other the L-word. You know…I don’t care what anyone else does or thinks anymore. If I’m gonna be a myth, confident knowing that even though I have sinned, and done wrong to people, that I am moral and kind, and that I’m gonna act on my feelings. I’m gonna be that myth. I’m gonna shut off my brain and if every last person acts differently, than I don’t care…. You, you have been in my dreams, dreams I’ve had awake as well as asleep. I would do anything for you. I would protect you, be kind to you, respect you, and not because you’d be a trophy of mine. Because I am a giving, protective, kind and good man and I want to love you.”
“I don’t think so. I think you want her to love you again,” she said.

“Stop it.”

“Fine Benny, go ahead and ramble on again. You really do like to hear yourself speak…but unfortunately…right now…you don’t make a bit of sense,” she said.

“Take it easy.”

“You’re not an authority Mr. Bouchard. You act like you’re the only man in the world with any idea about what is right and wrong, and you’re rambling on about how love should be, looking at me like it’s working….. How could that work? You aren’t even talking about me. You’re all fucked up over this girl.”

“I need joy.”

“You need something else. I’m not this girl in your dreams, and deep down you know it. Dammit! Why are you screwing with my head, after I tell you what I’m going through. You’re not kind, you’re insensitive. I don’t want to hear your ideas. I don’t want to hear how guilty you feel. Do you realize what you’re doing? You walk up to me and say you care about me, and I’m entirely fucked up with my own problems, and you tell me you want to help me, and all you’re actually doing is asking me for help. That’s not fair. OK. We’re both a mess right now, but at least I know why I am,” she said.
I had to stop. I had to get away. I had to wake up.

“I’m a mess,” I whispered.

For a few minutes we said nothing and both looked at the ground.

Her intensity faded, and she looked at me again. She was done judging me.

“Listen. We both need help, but we can’t do a thing for one another….and I’m still thankful…you did help me. You stopped me from making a big mistake…I’m not afraid of you….You’re messed up, but I can tell you’re sweet.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“But you’ve made yourself pretty crazy.”

We smiled as much as we could. From far away no one could have distinguished those smiles. We were two sad people, as happy as we could be.

I felt calm. I felt pale. I felt sorrow. I felt guilt. I felt lazy. I felt hidden. I felt scared. I felt pompous. I felt severe. I felt stupid….

The fog crawled on the lot, but above where we sat it cleared. There it was, the blue night sky, and in the middle the moon was more than half eclipsed.

“Check it out,” I said.

I pointed to the eclipse. She looked up and focused on it. She was mesmerized. She thought about how small she was. She thought about her baby. She loved the beauty of the eaten moon. Her lips, still wet with her tears, drew an earnest smile. When I saw it. I felt normal again. Her smile made me feel like more than a freak and a psycho. I dropped the guilt and felt the extent of my memories.
Time stopped for an instant, and I caught my breath.

As I sat with Mary and watched the moon disappear above us I felt more like a traveler on an already trodden path than a trailblazer of unexplored terrain. I was like everybody else on the planet, part of a straight line that stretched form the sun to the earth to the moon, a witness to the shadow cast by where we all live.

And then instead of remembering I forgot. Then I rested.

Mary smiled, but she was scared and sad. She was unable to forget, all she could do was project. She did, however, feel thankful, glad I had come. She halved her pain by recognizing the pain I was in. It took effort for her to see what a mess I was. But she didn’t want to help me though, she just felt sorry for me.

The snow that had survived the warmth of the day shimmered in the dim half-moonlight. The shadows of the buildings around us glowed at their borders. The fog rolled over the doorways and roofs.
And then a fast walking shadow scurried through the lot. It walked frantic and jagged and its thought was a eerie, repeated chorus.

Hell Hell Hell

It was a voice I knew, and could never be wrong about. It was the second thing I had to find…my friend…and his thought proved that he was lost in something that was destroying him. Only his voice and the outline of his frame reminded me of him. His busy, possessed and almost insect-like scuttle betrayed the calm and fearless and motivated friend I knew. It was only the shadow of my friend that ran across the lot, and my real friend had to be found.

“Max!” I called, loud as if the volume was necessary to cut through the fog.

Max turned when he heard me and looked at my shadow as I sat in the dirt. His eyes opened big and he twisted quickly, and ran away.

“Mary, I have to go,” I said to her.

She tucked her face into her hands again and cried hard with the same fervor she had had when I found her.

“I’ll come back,” I said.

I jumped to my feet and stepped in a cold black puddle that then was a mirror. My reflection looked tired and frazzled, and the eclipse was above my left shoulder.

I took a deep breath, spit on the ground, and ran after Max.

Mary screamed.

“Where are you running to you fucking coward…. Go!… FUCK YOU!… I don’t need you!”

And the tick on my neck, wanting more, rumbled and quaked.

Flickr photo by gilderic

© 2009, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. The Host: Chapter 10
2. The Host: Chapter 6
3. The Host: Chapter 5
4. The Host: Chapter 4
5. The Host: Chapter 3