Chapter 1 – ‘Round Midnight

“He’s a clown.”

But Irwin’s words couldn’t cut the clamor, the hundred mashed-up voices, the heat the smoke the bass and the funk, the song and the singer, the cigarettes the booze the blur and the blues. The bar killed the words, dead in his mouth.

“What?” said Will.

The beat shook spirals in Irwin’s scotch … his sixth.

“A clown, man. A sad clown,” Irwin howled.

Will shook his head.

They sat at the corner table, the one closest to the stage at the bar, University West on 116th Street in Manhattan. It was a bi-leveled college bar mostly packed with students from the Ivy League school that stood across the street. The street level of the bar was the brown level, a spectacle of wood and brass. The booths, wood. The bar, a wood and brass island, where everyone packed tight against it to wave their arms, hold up twenties and say “me, I’m next” to the pretty bar maidens.

In this first year of the new millennium the bar was not much more than a meat market where young students met to nurse a healthy buzz before pairing off and fucking the night away in city dorms or homely Harlem apartments. But long ago, before bar music was a meatloaf of one-hit wonders, the famous Beat poets sat in those same wood booths and wrote of life and sex and scrawled in unlined notebooks while jazz bopped off the walls, all with at least healthy buzz, of course.

The underground level of the bar, however, was the black level. The walls, the tables, the chairs, the stage … black. Down there the music played, the bands raged. The young danced and spilled beer on the floor. And there, in the black room, surrounded by chaos, Irwin Jones sat with his friend Will, at the table closest to the stage.

“I’m telling you Will, it was weird. This guy, this clown. He wore this … trench coat, all ripped up, pockets full. One of those round hats, you know, like the ones the old-time cats used to wear. Oh, big shoes too, but not those funky-colored clown shoes, you know man. They were ordinary, brown wingtips, just at least six sizes too big, or something. I don’t know. But, man, his face –”

“What?” said Will.

The boom, the bass and the singer, a red-faced, freckled woman dressed in a tight, yellow plastic jumper and a big purple afro, made Irwin sway. The music was strong, the groove tight, and Irwin should have shut up, poured out that unnecessary sixth scotch and enjoyed the old Marvin Gaye song the young musicians played with a new, more urgent sense of soul. But Irwin only thought of the clown, of the noise … and of steadying his twirling head.

The scotch was Irwin’s sixth drink at University West but not his sixth drink of the night. Hours before, he and Will started out with a seven-dollar bottle of vodka, and took turns shooting the Russian gasoline while listening to Coltrane’s Sun Ship in Irwin’s dorm room. Irwin cranked the music so loud that the guy across the hall, a student at the Ivy League school who had traveled to New York from Denmark, threatened to break the damn stereo if Irwin didn’t leave. So they did, off to University West to listen to funk and keep the buzz alive.

“His face! It was painted. All white, black around the eyes. The little triangles on his cheeks. But man, it was the frown he painted. The brightest damn red you’ve ever seen, and liquid looking too. He kept the lips white. It was crazy. This sad-faced clown. Oh, and he had on black gloves that had the fingers cut off, you know. You could see his tips.”

“ … Yeah, man,” said Will.

There are not many people who, after drinking as much as Irwin did that night, would still have the necessary motor function in their lips to construct a sentence. But typical slurred speech and heavy lethargy didn’t afflict Irwin when he was drunk. Instead, the more Irwin drank the more wired he became. His eyes blew open, pupils dilated and swirled back and forth and up, down, in a circle, like he was dreaming. His hands twitched. His fingers bent and opened, bent and opened, like he was playing his horn or pointing everywhere. He leaned back and forth like a metronome. Another friend of his, Sally, once gave him the nickname “google-eyed Irwin,” to describe his uber-boozed persona. It captured well the crazy, wobbly, electric Hyde Irwin became.

Irwin’s google-eyes spied a lithe brunette as she danced in the opposite corner. But sad clown was the only character he could focus on.

“Yeah man, it’s so he can play his horn.”

“What?” said Will.

“He wasn’t just hanging out in the park, making balloon animals or riding a tricycle. He was there to play. He had this brown leather gig bag, and – a Mark VI. The clown had a Mark VI, the best sax you can get and the clown’s got it on his shoulder. So I grabbed a seat under a tree … so I could listen. Wait, listen, you gotta hear this.”

“Yeah man,” said Will, as he stared at the curvy brunette and kept the band’s beat with his head.

“Dude, it was incredible, check it out. He starts playing this minor blues-type thing, ripping these killer lines, and he keeps landing on the low B-flat, like BOOM then killer blues licks, then BOOM and back to these blues lines … but after each BOOM he’d add a few more color tones to the lick, changing the feel from minor to half-diminished and then it shifted to this augmented riff and then to some other colorful line until the whole key that he started in seemed … gone. But still, it was the BOOM B-flat, still there, still the power of the thing, but its relationship to the harmony of the piece had changed. It was like everything around that tone fought it and … embraced it at the same time. And he didn’t stop. That B-flat just BOOM and the colors just swirling. And somehow, he just falls back into B-flat major … and then he blew this serenity, this winding down riff that just painted this peace on you. And man. It was huge, it opened my eyes. It’s what I want, what I want to find. I never felt so close to a song before and–”

“Dude, I’m sorry,” said Will. He leaned into Irwin’s ear. “I see you’re excited about something but I can’t hear you. It’s just too loud in here.

Irwin shot his scotch.

Then his eyes grew extra googly, extra wide, and if you looked at him you’d swear that the brightest black, that pure malice flickered on and off behind that glance. Pure pupil, no color. And you’d keep an eye on that devil, knowing that something sour was soon to erupt from within him.

I heard it, his pang. Imagine the effort it took, drunk as he was, to feel so inspired by a saxophone playing clown. Imagine it, the roar, the band, the bar, the warbles, echoes and dizziness, all conspired to sheath this one sight, this one scene that touched him. Imagine that kick, when an alcohol inflated dream was pricked, when Irwin felt his song die in his mouth. And imagine the extreme level of Irwin’s intoxication, so extreme that he couldn’t suffer a tiny interruption to a thought that could only be that precious to him.

Indeed, he looked to be plotting something much more than wrong, but in his head there was no plan. Instead, where you’d expect to find the list, the premeditation and the decision … where you’d expect to hear my little voice in battle with a very bad idea … there was music. And it wasn’t the funky band. It was more like a stampede, like Shostakovich’s Seventh, one … and two two, from tubas and bells and horns, while clarinets trilled and snares snapped time. The motive, resolute and repetitive grew louder. You’ll regret this Irwin.

He stood up.

“What are you? … C’mon , sit, man,” said Will.

But Irwin couldn’t hear him. It was too loud.

He leaned over the table as he stood, and spun out from his chair. Irwin looked straight at the stage, saw the afro on the singer’s head, the tight drummer. Then he stared through the crowd with those rash eyes. A small woman noticed it, saw that something wasn’t right in Irwin’s head, and she danced out of his way.

He moved, tripped, ricocheted off of each dancer, and opened and closed his hands as he bounced from shoulder to shoulder.

Then I tried so very hard to get through to him, to cut the music, to alter his menacing motive. I tried to make him see what would happen, to bring a little sense to his deranged song. This is wrong Irwin, that would be rude Irwin, this will only turn out bad. But one … and two two ruled, and sense was exiled.

Who am I? I’m Irwin … but only half of him. If you called me his guardian angel I’d only apologize for the piss poor job I’d done so far. There’s no halo on my head, no wings on my back. I’m just Irwin.

I’m not plugged into any heavens, nor am I a messenger between an almighty God and Irwin. I’ve no idea about Alpha and Omega. Call me Zed. I’m nothing but a sense.

I am good, though, I know that to be true. I’m everything Irwin has come to know as right. As he is only nineteen, I am too. He lives, I live. He learns, I learn. I’m both egos and the id. I’m wise and I’m always right as far as Irwin is concerned. When he sees what is right, it is because I reminded him of it. Call me third person interactive, or first person omniscient. I live the story and watch it from far away at the same time.

I affect the story too, when I’m listened to. Essence, kindness, truth, compassion, jurisprudence, karma, desire and spirit, that’s me. I’m true Irwin, the voice in his head. And I guard him only as well as he guards himself.

Like Irwin I live for jazz, for beauty, for ideals and hope, but I never run astray. When Irwin despairs I turn on the light, and when he makes a bad decision I learn too, so that next time, and there is always a next time, I can sing to him the lesson in the memory.

I am Irwin without time, without flesh, without motion. The imprint he wants to leave behind, and the tool that can help him do so. But without that flesh, that motion, that place in time, I’m essentially powerless if Irwin chooses to ignore me.

Because all I can do is dream Irwin’s life.

He lives it.

And Irwin was definitely living it without me as he bounced his way to the foot of the stage, and climbed onto the platform.

Back at the table, Will stood up, and watched.

The singer sang with her eyes closed so it took a few moments for her to realize that Irwin was there. The guitarist, the bassist, drummer and keyboard player each smiled at Irwin, laughed and mouthed ‘Yeah man.’ The crowd started to cheer and whistle, and Irwin stood as close as he could to the shut-eyed singer, and pointed his google eyes at her. She’d shut her eyes tighter, so she never saw Irwin coming.

Maybe she thought the sudden crescendo in the crowd was for her, and she dug in, wailed high tones, rich blues, soul and rhythm. And she danced harder, bent her knees deeper, shook her wild body … and bumped into Irwin.

She stopped singing when she caught the chaos in Irwin’s eyes. His hands opened, fingers pointed, and his body swayed back and forth. It almost looked like he was dancing to the music.

“Give him the mike, he wants to sing,” the keyboard player shouted to the singer.

“What?” she screamed back. It was picked up in the microphone and the crowd laughed a little and cheered louder for wobbling Irwin.

”Give him the mic.”

She heard him … and she did.

Irwin started to sway even more. That last quick shot of scotch was exploding inside of him. And I tried to get him to see the drummer’s smile, the guitarist’s sincere nod of his head. If Irwin wasn’t going to listen to me at least he could feel the music, perhaps feel some respect for this honest band. Just give the mic back Irwin.

But in Irwin’s mind that motive lingered, one … and two two, deep tuba, flutes and trills and tensions and clacking snares.

“Sing, man.”

Will started to laugh.

Irwin brought the microphone close to his lips, his head tilted into it. He stared at the singer. The crowd cheered, the keyboardist played glissandos, the drummer beat hard time, clacking the snare … and then Irwin spoke.

“Why don’t you motherfuckers shut the fuck up I’m trying to talk to my friend.”

………………………..?

Will mouthed “Oh … fuck,” under his breath.

The whistles cut off, the noise cut in half. The keyboardist and guitarist stopped playing, but the bassist and the drummer kept on going. It didn’t look like they’d made out what Irwin said.

At least a quarter of the crowd gasped, their jaws dropped. Heads shook, howls grew angrier. Irwin kept the mic close to his lips and swayed like a snapped guitar string hanging from the neck.

In the back of the bar a few guys yelled towards the exit, and pointed to Irwin, the drunk idiot on the stage. Two massive bouncers waddled through the door and split the crowd like an ax splitting butter. When Will saw them coming he jumped around the table and pushed his way to the stage. He got there first.

Irwin remained on stage, rocking back and forth. He looked the singer right in her eye, and she shot a fierce look back. She looked devastated, yet Irwin held nothing in his eyes, no malice, no regret. The singer hurt, I saw it, everyone else in the crowd saw it, and the howls and boos boomed louder.

“Irwin, hey Irwin,” said Will, who stood below his drunk friend. “C’mon man. It’s time to go.” Will looked at the singer and said, “I’m … sorry, he’s drunk.”

She turned around.

Irwin placed the mic back in its stand while the drummer and bassist kept playing the beat and the bass line, perhaps trying to the scene from turning into a lynching. The guitarist, yelled “asshole” at Irwin.

“Come on man, we have to go,” said Will.

Irwin stepped off of the stage.

The bouncers burst through the last layer of the crowd and grabbed Irwin by the arm. “It’s cool,” said Will. “We’re leaving.”

“Yes, you are,” said the taller of the bouncers. “Your friend’s a real fuck,” said the shorter.

“He’s just wasted,” answered Will.

“No excuse.”

And the three of them carried Irwin upstairs and outside into the cold night, into December. That scene had passed, the curtain descended on the black hall below the bar, and I had never even made an appearance. I was useless.

Will ran back inside to grab Irwin’s coat.

In Irwin’s mind the music faded. The cheers from University West echoed down Broadway. Blurry streaks of red chased cabs down the street, and the moon swayed over Irwin’s head.

It was early yet.

Flickr photo by Tina Hsu

© 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. The Host: Bear’s Second Dream
2. The Host: Epilogue
3. The Host: Chapter 10

Epilogue

The police brought me to the station.  I was quiet, I was sad, and as I walked I stared only at my feet making slow steps. My hand still hurt, but the paramedic had bandaged and cleaned it well. It was sore but no longer dirty. The cuts on my forehead had also been cleaned and bandaged. They didn’t hurt.

Its hard to explain how far my imagination took me when I thought about that tick, and how it had burst on me.

I did look up and not to the ground when I walked through the doors of the station. Off to the side, in a contained room were Mary and Irwin. They held each other. Mary wept while Irwin held her. Her face was swollen, red and wet. Irwin stroked her back has he held her. He looked as if he had already cried, and both of them did not see me watch them.

They brought me into the captain’s office and told me to wait there. I did, and I thought about my friend. I remembered how much I would miss him.

…..

If you’re going to watch someone die then you might as well watch them live too.

…..

The captain walked into his office. His name was Terry Peterson, and I had know him through my store. He sat down and stared at me while he breathed heavy through his nose. He asked me about the altercation I had had earlier, when I tackled Mary’s father on Main Street. I lied again, and stuck to the story the murderer had told. “He insulted me and I tackled him.” Then Peterson asked me about Mary, asked me how I knew her. I told him that she had waited on me many times at the restaurant. Peterson looked smug, like he knew I wasn’t being completely honest. He finally asked me about my manic display in Rusty’s, why I hit the boy, threatened his life and launched into a tirade on morality. I told him that I couldn’t really explain, but I was very sorry, and that all I wanted to do was protect Mary from getting caught in the fight. My clothing was still covered in then dry, brown-red blood.

…..

Brainwash me you ignorant people. I want to live in your murk.

…..

After Peterson smirked and shook his head for a while he gave me a lecture about self-control, and what is considered to be ‘going to far.’ Then the phone rang. I didn’t eavesdrop, or even pay attention at all to his conversation. I hardly could pay attention to the room I sat in. When he hung up I paid attention again. He told me that it was the Mayor who he had just spoken with. I was not to be brought up on charges for assaulting the cop, but the family of the boy I attacked was probably going to sue. Peterson said that the Mayor would try to settle things with the boy’s family. He then smiled and asked how the Mayor and I had suddenly become such good friends. I shrugged, and looked at my hand.

…..

I am tired.

…..

I don’t remember what the station looked like, what color it was or what was on the walls. It was just another place where I had to sit and remember what I wished had not happened.

Terry Peterson recommended that I seek therapy. I told him that I’d think about it. He said the amount of rage and lunacy I displayed showed that I needed control, that I was letting out what should stay in its place. I nodded…and then he asked me one more question.

“They call you, Bear, right?”

“Yes…It’s an old nickname…My Coach?”

“Thought so…My old captain told me about you. He said he watched almost all of your fights. He was quite a fan.”

“Huh.”

“…Well, Bear…. Can I ask you if you know Lester Jones.”

“Yes sir, I do. His son works for me. Why?”

“Did you happen to see him today?”

“…Yes sir, I did.”

“What happened?”

“Well, I found him pissing on my car. We had an argument. He ran away?Why’d you bring Irwin down here?”

“What did Lester say to you?”

“That…he hated me. What happened? What did Lester do now?”

“You see…Bear…Lester Jones hanged himself from a tree in front of your grocery store,” he said.

“Oh…no…. Do you think I had something to do with it?”

“No, not really. It was obviously suicide.”

“What do you mean ‘not really’?”

“How do I put this…In front of the tree…Lester kicked away the snow.”

“OK.”

“Let me finish…. He actually wrote a sentence, a kind of phrase in the snow.” He said.

A phrase came to mind.

“What did it say?”

“He wrote, ‘Give away the burden to bear.’”

“Oh.”

“But…he capitalized the ‘B’ in Bear.”

“…”

I wanted to be silent for the rest of the night.

Through the window of Peterson’s office I saw Irwin and Mary, still locked together and embracing. Irwin looked at her face, her tears. She looked the same at his, and they kissed, simple, sweet and sad. If maybe for no other reason but to feel something other than sorrow.

“Someone has come to bring you home,” Peterson said. “You can go outside now, but I’m sure we’ll talk again soon.”

“Yes sir.”

I stood up, shook his hand, turned and walked out of his office, slow and straight through his door to the doors of the station. Outside there was a green Ford Taurus with its engine running. The exhaust mingled with the fog.

…..

When will they hurt me back…or have they all turned their cheeks?

…..

It was Coach who sat behind the wheel.

“C’mon son. Get in,” he said. His window was rolled down.

I walked around the front of the car and got in. He drove away from the station.

“You OK Bear?” he said.

“Not really. No”

“Well…fuck…I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“I heard you a…really lost control tonight,” he said.

“Yes…I did.”

“It’s funny Bear. Well…not funny I guess, but remember our conversation today.”

“What? When you called me a taker?” I said.

“Yeah…and I also told you about my new star. The kid I think might go to state this year.”

“Sure Coach. Whatever.”

“Yeah, fuckin’ whatever…. Well you broke his face tonight. I talked to him. You scared the fucking shit out of him Bear. I don’t think he’s gonna box for awhile.”

“More shit, my fault.”

“You just got some real bad luck, son,” he said.

“Yeah Coach. I’m not doing too well, am I?”

He turned and looked at me. He was sad for me, but he smiled like I imagine a good father would for his son.

“You’ll be fine Bear. I’ll help if you want.”

“Yeah.”

“…You know Bear. I always knew what happened at state. I knew who that man was. It had to be him to get such a…wrath out of you.”

“Yeah…it was.”

“But you should have let me knock him down, not you. Someone else should be fighting for you…because…shit, you got way too much fuckin’ aggression to be let wild.”

“Yeah…I do.”?    “So what now then? What changes?” he said.

“…I think I’ll train coach. I think I should box…. You’re right…I need an outlet for this guilt.”

“You need rules. Son, you need to keep it in the ring.”

“Yeah.”

“In there, it doesn’t matter where it all comes from. It’s civilized, you know…. Every boxer’s got something behind his punches.”

“Yeah.”

“Listen…I know I’ve only been your coach…but…you’re my boy. I’ve never…cared about someone like this…Fuck. You just have so much life in you, good and bad.”

“I’ve never been this sad Coach,” I said.

“Make changes, son. You know that you need to.”

“Yeah.”

He pulled up to my front door. Cary sat on the sidewalk in front if it.

“She’s still around Bear. Don’t ignore that…and…I’m sorry. I love you too much to let you go down like this.”

“Listen Coach…when my hand heals, I’ll come see you. We’ll start up again,” I said.

“You’ll see me sooner.”

He turned and hugged me. I thanked him, and got out of the car. Cary stood up and rushed to me.

“Benny…Oh God…Max.”

She wrapped her arms around me. I felt warmer than I had ever before. Everything welled up as heat, and the sorrow was going to burst. I was determined to keep moving, to heal. Cary felt just as warm, with just as much sorrow boiling. We held each other and grieved, and cried for Max.

“I’m sorry Cary. I’ve been?”

“Benny. Be quiet.”

I completely broke down.

“Max,” she said.

“I know………………………………..”

We held onto and poured over each other. Her hair clung to my face.

“Benny,” she said.

“Yes.”

“He’s yours.”

“Your son?”

“He’s yours too. He tried to find you himself today. He said he saw you. He saw you run in here. He said you were huge, but you looked tired.”

“He’s mine?”

“Yes.”

“…I knew that.”

“I should have told you,” she said. She pulled herself into me. She grabbed and pulled my back.

“You have to help us, Benny.”

We still held on.

“I will. I promise.”

“I trust you,” she said.

“I don’t want you to trust me?”

“We’ll talk about it later Benny,” she said.

Her smell was the same.

“Do you want me to stay,” she said.

“Not tonight Cary. I’ll come by the house tomorrow…I will, OK.”

“I know you will.”

“I have to lie down Cary. I’ve had enough of today.”

“OK,” she said.

…..

It’s funny how hope tends to travel with despair.

…..

She kissed me on the cheek and let go. I looked at her. She was sad but so much older and stronger than me. She had grown when I had only gone backwards, but I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t confused. I was looking forward. She walked away and the fog danced around her.

…..

In the soft dark of my room, after our college graduation, after we went to dinner together with our families, Cary and I undressed as we stood in front of each other. We watched each other’s body and the pleasant tension grew like warm jelly through our whole senses.

We stood naked and kissed. We were warm and my room was warm and humid too. Our tongues slid over our lips and mouths. Together we wet our lips, kissed our mouths and necks and shoulders. My hands, like paint brushes, drew lines up her side and circles around her breasts. We pulled each other close. As we kissed I walked her to the bed, and we wouldn’t let go of each other. I lowered her onto the bed and we were one moist knot, committed to never being untied.

On the bed she was flat beneath me. My mouth painted her body with kisses on her curves. My hands ran down her legs and teased the opening of her woman’s kiss. My sex was taught as she traced it with her palm.

“There isn’t anything better than this Cary,” I said as I looked her square in the eye and smiled my desire.

“I know,” she said.

We kissed again. Our arms wrapped around each other and we pulled hard as if we were trying to merge our frames. Outside, the cheers from graduation parties were faint beneath the wind of our heavy breaths.

“Just think. Of all the things a person can be doing right now, on Earth, we’re doing the best one,” I said.

“I love you Benny.”

“I love you too.”

The kissing continued. Our chins were moist from the fervor. I placed my hands over her, ran my fingers around her red triangle of whiskers and placed one finger on top of where she was wet.
She pulled her mouth from mine. Pleasurable sounds of lament seethed from her open mouth. I slid my fingers where they were. Her body felt warm, and tight, but she seemed to sink deeper into the mattress. I kissed her breasts as I felt her moist with my fingers. Her hands dug and pulled at the skin of my back. Our bodies became smooth as a thin glaze of sweat covered us. I stopped touching her.

“You know…I can’t imagine a day without you. I want you Cary, for as long as I can want anything.”

“How long is that?” she said.

“I don’t know…. When you have something amazing, then…when could there ever be a time when you don’t want it. When you realize something like that, like when a person completely illuminates you, then what could ever happen to make that go away. Nothing Cary. I want you…. You’re amazing…. You’re the most beautiful thing I have ever known, and there’s nothing I’d ever do to hurt you. I only want to be great for you.”

“I feel the same way,” she said.

Her naked body looked like life itself to me, beautiful, deep, and eternally full of angles to explore. She wrapped her fingers around my sex.

“How do you want me?” she said.

“From behind.”

“OK.”

She turned over, on her knees and palms, her full bottom in front of me. I got to my knees behind her, lay my hands on her back and shoulders as she pulled my sex to the moist opening of her woman’s kiss.

Forward. Our bodies tensed together and we both sighed deep and vocal. The warmth around me was pure comfort, an ecstatic oxymoron of water and fire at once. I drew my hands to the top curves of her ass. We moved in rhythm and her bottom felt like liquid arches as it pressed against my pelvis in rhythmic, almost swinging intervals.

She sighed and I faced electric scowls and voiced tense elated snarls. We pulled and rocked faster as our breaths blew fast, full puffs of wind. Our sweat glaze shone in the soft dark, and my hands slid over her back and around to her breasts.

“OK…. Let’s turn around,” I said.

“OK…. Top or bottom.”

“How about the corner of the bed…”

“Definitely,” she said.

As we moved to the corner of the bed we looked raw and pained, sore and stimulated. We glowed, and our hair looked wild and random. I sat on the corner, my legs touching the floor. She straddled me, her legs around my waist, arms on my back. She moved over me and sat down around me.

Our warmth wrapped around each other. Our mouths opened on top of each other. Our glaze made us slide together. We were warm, the rhythm, the tension. My hands over her bottom pulled her close, surrounding me more. We became louder, our breaths louder, our wails of awesome, wonderful torture. A faster rhythm, our whole bodies pulled us together. I felt chills, my hair on end, and the soft dark blurred around me. There was only her, her bowed lips and half-opened eyes, the shine on her brow, her hair dancing apart.

“I love you Cary.”

“I love you Benny.”

“Do you Cary?”

“I do.”

Faster yet, louder yet, tighter yet, closer yet.

“I only think of you anymore. I want you forever.”

“I want you Benny.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“Then marry me.”

We didn’t stop the rhythm. We were close to the shock.

“Are you serious?” she said.

“So serious. We’re two halves of the same thing.”

Breathe.

“I need you Cary.”

“I need you too.”

“Then, marry me.”

“I will.”

“What?”

“Yes. I will marry you. I love you.”

I pulled her hard and as close as she could be to me. Our mouths were one cavern. We kissed large, full, wild and deep. Our bodies still moved faster. I felt the beautiful pain, her body became tight. And then her moans were silenced, cut off by the tense preparation….

And then we were loosed, peeled open over each other. Hard, full, deep breaths flew. The numbing quivers took over us and our bodies were as alive as they could be. We came together and felt each other’s orgasm the same as we felt our own, and we held each other until the waves had left us.

I picked her up and asked her to stand in front of me. Her body looked limp, but her smile was firm. I reached into my dresser, pulled out a small box, opened it, dropped, naked to my knees, showed her the ring and said, “I love you.”

“She took the ring, smiled larger and said, “Yes.”

I picked her up again and put her flat on the bed. I kissed her on the forehead.

“That was different,” she said.

I lay down with her in the soft dark and heard the voices outside.

…..

I opened the door and walked up the stairs. Each step seemed farther than the next. I opened the door to my apartment. Voices from the street sifted through my windows. I heard drunk guys laugh and yell “Woo”, heard music roll out of the bars.

I walked to the kitchen and noticed the blinking ‘1’ on my answering machine. I dragged myself over to it and pressed the button.

“Hey Bear, its me. I just tried you again at the store but they said you ran out. I’m up in the mountains and I’m gonna hang out here for a little while. I think I’m gonna build a fire or something. So I might be a little late to Rusty’s. I’ll be there though?OH…I just thought of another one…Colonel Popcorn kernels…Ha…alright, see you later bro.” Beep.

I stepped over the broken glass on my kitchen floor.

I walked into my grey room and lay down on top of my bed. A woman outside yelled ‘Bitch’. And then it got silent for a moment. The clock didn’t tick, the radiator didn’t hiss, and the brick didn’t knock.

Silence, save for the sound of my breath…for a second.

…..

It is time to stop remembering.

…..

One thing stuck out in my mind. It was the old man murderer as he yelled ‘There are rules.’ I had said that too, but not as clearly. But what are the rules? Are they specific for each different individual? For us as each a unique story?… WE are stories, we are written and we are read. We are watched. And I believed in that. I believed that there was an audience. I believed that it wasn’t only me who had lived through this day? The reader saw it all. It was my purpose to be seen and heard as I ran like inked sentences…as I either kept or broke whatever rules there really are. I was never alone, and never would be until my story was over.

So I read the 94th Psalm. Then I put down the book, closed my eyes, and thought of you who will feed on me.

Flickr photo by edduddiee

© 2009 – 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. The Host: Chapter 9
2. The Host: Chapter 10
3. The Host: Chapter 3

Chapter 10

I was once again snared in the dirty claws of this day. I was confused and uncertain of myself. I lacked confidence as I began to wonder if I had ever had a thought of my own, something that came from me and wasn’t some bullshit rehashing of what everybody else already knew. Did I always have the gift? Were my thoughts someone else’s? And how could I think that? How could I earnestly believe that every thought I had ever had didn’t come from me? It was because at that moment I looked at myself and saw a stranger. I had no idea who I had ever been because who I was…was new. I hated what I looked back to see, because I was jealous of that old me. My thoughts were voiced by an old companion, myself when I wasn’t a lunatic. And then, as I ran I felt unsure of what I would do. I only could believe that my hopes were clean and maybe my friend would once again be me.

But there was no time to take on the change.

Why did Max run away? How does he know the phrase? Is he afraid of me?

I ran after him, down the hill, past the head shops and the pizza parlor, and the other bars and the gas station. Police cars were parked in front of Rusty’s, but nobody saw me run.

…..

I AM NOT CRAZY!!!…Whoever gave me this is.

…..

The fog twisted around me as I ran. My face was wet and my hair stuck to my brow. Max was way ahead of me, but I could still see him. He ran fast and never looked over his shoulder. He turned down a side street, and ran past the Old Dutch Church. Someone was sitting on the bench, but I ran past and did not notice who it was.

My breath was strained. I was tired. I was tired of this day. I no longer felt curious, or interested in people at all. I wanted the supernatural feeling to disappear, even though I still felt a little like a judge only minutes away from my moment to shine. I was minutes away from the end, from the closing arguments that inevitably lead to the bang of the gavel. I had no more control or prudence to give. I was now a puppet, a story for the people, a scribble out of God’s pen. I was a human circumstance about to hear my sentence.

I was actually gaining on Max. I pushed so hard as I ran. The fog seemed to thicken as the streetlamps became more sparse and spaced between each other. The fog was less yellow and now I ran through a burly layer of charcoal grey.

And a black Lincoln drove right in front of me. Its breaks were clamped and the car screeched as it skidded in the moist road in front of me. I ran right into the fender, smacked my knee on it, and then I rolled up over the car, onto the hood. The pain shot from my knee to my foot.

The car door opened.

“Get off my car you piece of shit.” I will ruin him. He will get what he deserves.

The man came over and grabbed me by my sweater. It tore as he tried to pull me off the hood.

I grabbed my knee. It hurt like it was broken, but I could still move it. The injury both stabbed and burned. The man kept pulling until he did manage to get me off the hood. I fell to the ground and hit my injured knee again. I would not scream in pain. On my back, on the ground I watched him walk to the back of his car. He opened his trunk and pulled out what looked like a stick covered in a blanket.
He closed the trunk, turned, and threw off the blanket that covered his weapon. It was a fencing sword, a sharp foil.

The Mayor walked over to me … with a sword.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Stand up Bouchard. Stand up…now!”  Boy, I am going to get him.

“Mr. Lucas, what the hell are you doing?”

I struggled to get to my feet. I put most of my weight on my arms and pushed, shifting my weight to my good leg.

“Don’t you call me that. You call me Mayor, Mr. Mayor, Mayor sir…OK, Bouchard?” It’s his turn now. I got him.

“Jesus, Mayor…what do you think you’re doing?”

He pointed the foil at my chest.

“I’m going to hurt you now. I hope you got my message. Soon, you’ll be out of a job, you idiot.”

“And that’s not enough for you?” I said.

“No way Bouchard. No friggin way.” He’s mine.

“What is this? A sword? What are you going to do, kill me?”

I stepped back, towards a large oak tree. The fog looked like a black mirage, like black heat.

“I don’t know Bouchard. I sure feel like it though,” he said.

“C’mon. Get over it!!! What do you want? Cary’s fine. Everything has been fine for years.”

“You think? Bouchard, you think it’s over. You think you’ve done your damage and everything is just great now?”

“Yes I do.”

“Yeah?” God help me, I hate this guy. “Have you returned any of her calls this week. Huh?”

He came closer to me with two slow steps. My back was against the oak. The fine point of the foil he held inches from my neck.

“You know Bouchard, I was a sportsman in college too,” he said.

He postured himself into, what I assumed to be, some kind of fencing stance…his free hand back and in the air.

“OK. I’m sorry. I’ll call her back. Just let me go. I have to?”

“You think it’s that easy? You don’t even realize what you’ve done,” he said.

“What have I done besides hurt and disappoint her?”

“You made her life very hard,” he said.

My knee started to hurt less, and I paid attention to my breath. I breathed slow, deep breaths in order to build strength to burst free. A squirrel ran across the street and disappeared in a shadow.
The Mayor flicked his wrist, and with a quick thrust he cut me on my forehead.

“Jesus Mayor, what the hell?”

“You don’t seem capable of ruining yourself Bouchard, so I’m going to do it for you. I’m going to ruin you. I’m going to change your life so bad. I’m going to make you wish that you never had met my daughter.”

“You can hurt me, fine. But you can’t make that happen.”

“You will, Bouchard…. You should have left this town. All of this could have been avoided then. Seeing you around has only fueled this anger I have, and now I can’t contain it. I should have protected her from you. Do you realize? You break her heart ever day, Bouchard.”

He whipped his hand and again cut my brow. Thank God I didn’t flinch. He could have pierced my eye.

“You’re gonna poke out my eye, Mayor. Now stop this,” I said.

“You think I care about you?… Even though I should, I don’t. I’m just going to handle it like you handle things. You hurt people, and you leave them to live a long time with the damage.” I hate him. I hate him so much.

“You can hate me all you want, but don’t think you’re just bringing to my attention now how much I hurt her. I know it. I can’t stop knowing it.”

His twisted face shone as the fog mixed with his sweat.

“You don’t know a goddamed thing, you damn asshole!” he said.

This time I could tell that he was about the strike me, so I made my burst, and threw my hand at the sword, trying to grab it. At the same time he lunged forward and screamed ‘Bastard.’
The blade pierced through my palm and stuck in the trunk of the tree behind me.

“Goddammit,” I screamed.

His face showed a little surprise, and a little regret, but the anger hadn’t gone. My hand was pinned against the tree, and black syrup slipped down my wrist. He pulled the sword out of the tree and my hand, and at that moment, before he could wield it again, I pounced on him and hit him with my other, uncut hand.

“You sonofabitch,” I said.

He dropped the sword and had trouble keeping his balance. I had hit him pretty hard.

“Go ahead Bouchard. Hurt me too.”

I believed that he would have certainly killed me then if he got the chance, so I put my hands around his neck and held him back.

I hate him. I hate him. I hate you. “You’re invincible Bouchard, you know, and I don’t understand why that is,” he whispered.

I squeezed a little and looked him right in the eye.

“No I’m not Mayor. I’m just a sacrifice to myself, that’s all.”

…..

Am I entertaining you, silent God?

…..

I let go of him. My blood covered the left side of his neck.

Before he could retrieve the sword I hit him in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. He fell down, and clutched his stomach. I hate him.

“I’m sorry Mayor,” I said.

I ran away, down the street.

Everything was a squirm of a blur. Everything was fog. All the houses, all of their lights were just streaks in the fog. Everything was wet and cold. There was no time to think about what had just happened.
I ran as hard as I could. My forehead stung, my knee burned, and my hand throbbed. Blood flung from my wound as I swung my arms and ran. I rounded the bend in the road and came to the Little League field on my right, next to the road. Max stood in the middle of it. He stood in the outfield. He stood in a large patch of coarse snow. Around him the grass was black, and the snow under him was grey. He was looking up at the sky. He looked at the vanishing moon that gawked through a hole in the clouds.

I ran towards him and said nothing as I did so. I watched him, as he rested. He coughed.

When I reached him he took his eyes off the moon. He turned and we just stared at each other. Both of us breathed heavy, too heavy to talk, and Max thought the same as he had before.

Hell Hell Hell

“Max…why the hell are you running from me?”

“…” Hell Hell Hell

“I went to your house?”

“What? You didn’t go in though?” he said.

“Yes I did Max. I’m worried about you,” I said.

“You just walked into my house? Why would you do that?”

Max’s black shirt was wrinkled and blotched with paint. He even smelled bad.

“Max, tell me what’s going on. I think we’re having a similar problem,” I said.

“Yeah? You think?… I doubt it.” I’m doomed

“Just talk to me Max. Tell me why your house reeks. Explain to me why your entire house is covered in garbage?except, of course, for your bedroom.”

“Shut up Bear, OK…just…stop…. I can’t believe you just walked in.”

“But I did Max…Deal with it. Now tell me. Why is the word ‘Hell’ painted on your fridge? What’s going on with that painting in your attic?”

“You went into my studio too? I covered that painting up…what…you even pulled off the tarp? You break into my house? That’s fucked up.”

“What’s fucked up? Worrying about your friend, caring if you’re OK after everything I saw? Jesus, Max…you’re running from me. What’s that all about?”

“I wasn’t running from you.” I’m in Hell, I’m in turmoil.

“What’s tormenting you Max? Why is that phrase in your painting?”

My hand throbbed and I kept it clenched as a fist.

“What phrase?” he said.

“The one in the demon’s lips.”

“Holy shit, Bear…you saw that too. Dammit, you really did investigate the place.”

“Just tell me, please Max. You have to,” I said.

“The phrase? How do you know anything about that? Maybe you should leave Bear. Leave me alone.”

“I know that phrase. I knew it before I saw it in your painting, and I’ll tell you all about it…after you tell me what it is that’s making a mess out of you,” I said.

“I’m a mess? What about you? I saw your crazy rampage in Rusty’s. I hid in the back of the crowd so you wouldn’t see me. What the fuck was that all about? Nice speech?and now you tell me why you were talking to the waitress, and tell me why you are running after me?Jesus Bear, what happened to your hand. Shit, your head’s all cut up too,” he said.

“The Mayor came after me with a fencing sword. He stabbed me.”

“No…fucking…way. You’re kidding, right?” he said.

“Nope…C’mon Max. I’ll tell you all about it, I promise, but you first. I’ve been worried about you all day.”

“Why?”

“DAMMIT MAX, TELL ME, NOW. I’ll understand, OK. I swear. You have to tell me…where did you…How did you hear that phrase?”

“How? Jesus, Bear, relax. I guess you’re pretty screwed up right now…yelling at me. You want to know. Fine. I was on my way…it doesn’t matter where…. This morning I saw this college kid sitting on the bench on Main Street. He was saying it to himself. ‘A tornado is reflective reason, a tornado is reflective reason’ and I overheard him. That’s all,” he said.

“But why would you incorporate it into that painting. What’s going on dammit,” I said.

The pain from my cut, my knee, my forehead, my hand, pounded with each pulse of my heartbeat.

“It just made sense to me Bear.”

“Why Max?”

His thoughts gave no answers.

Hell Hell Hell

“BECAUSE I’M FUCKED, BEAR, ALL RIGHT!… I’m fucked. I can’t sleep…I can’t even go into my own bedroom. I can’t look at it.” His speech was quick and he talked short of breath. “I just can’t do this Bear, and all I’ve been doing for a couple weeks now is painting that…thing…my curse. Dammit, Bear. I can’t believe how bad I’ve screwed myself…and I can’t do the right thing, even though I know I should.”

“What’s the right thing Max?”

“It’s only what I can’t do. I’m not ready…and I definitely don’t want to be. Goddammit. I’m all set up now. Finally, my work is selling. I’m supposed to travel in the summer, get out of this trap of a valley. I got invited to show my work in Rome. My whole plan is happening now…and I screwed it. I got a little nostalgic…or lonely, or maybe I felt a little proud of myself for making it. So maybe I wanted a little reward. It was so easy, Bear….shit…and…my bedroom…shit, and then I hear that kid’s phrase and I can’t tell you how much it made sense to me. Everything you’ve done, everything you can’t get back, it destroys you because you can never change it. It’s unpredictable, just how much damage the past can do. And that’s what happened, I did it to myself. I destroyed my life and I can’t change it. I can’t get it back, unless…and this is what I got figured out from that phrase…. Shit, man, you can ignore the past, never think about it, or reason it. You just keep going forward, never concerned about what you’ve done. You just concern yourself with what you’re gonna do. Spontaneous living…and that’s a perfectly legitimate way to live. Why give a shit about responsibility? Not in the year two thousand they don’t. Do you think anybody cares about what happened in the past. No way. The past is nostalgia, but its edicts aren’t holding water anymore. Right now it’s all about moving forward. There’s always more to do, more to build, and more reasons for us to blow off the past. I’m not gonna pay attention to what happened. From my standpoint the past never happened, it was just a dream and who really cares what the symbols mean anyway. Nothing ever happened, believe that and you dodge the storm. That’s it Bear. Happy living, ignorance is bliss…and knowledge is torture.” Hell
“What did you do Max? Are you talking about something specific? Max?”

“Max!”  a different voice screamed. It came from the road alongside the field. “Maximillian Earl Sandman?”

The figure, a man’s shadow, a darkness ran onto the field. He raced towards us.

“Yeah?” Max hollered to the man.

The shadow was closer. He carried a bag by the strap, in his hand. I recognized him.

“Max, we have to get out of here…now,” I said.

His khakis were soiled with mud, his loafers covered in it. His striped tie was loose and it hung on the outside of his sweater. His hair stood up and out in every direction, and it shone with the oil and fog that had wet it. His face cowered and his eyes were wrath. It was the old man, the murderer I was looking for, and his thought was the same as before.

Gonna kill him.

Before we could run he pulled a sawed-off shotgun out of his white, dirty tennis bag and thrust it in Max’s face. I froze. My hand itched with sharp pain.

The man yelled.

“You are Maximillian Earl Sandman, right…artist, resident of seventy-four Pine Nut Terrace, State University at New Guernsey graduate, most recent contributor to the Guggenheim Museum, Right!?…Nice job Max.” Little punk.

Max did not move. The gun was pressed right into the skin of his forehead.

“Answer me!” the old man yelled. I got him now.

“Yes,” said Max. His voice was a barely heard whisper. He swallowed.

“How old are you Max,” the old man said. “And I won’t ask twice, OK”

I just waited for something to happen, some kind of whatever, some kind of power to stop this.

“Twenty-eight…listen, you can have anything you want, just…” Oh God.

“Twenty-eight, that’s right” The old man spoke through a locked jaw and a clenched bite. “So you’re a twenty-eight year old man who goes around fucking girls eight years younger than you. And not just any girl…my girl, my little girl, my Mary.” Am I really going to do this? I think I am. God help me.

Max was silent. I knew everything. The man continued.

“You miserable bastard. You ruined her life. She can’t be young anymore. She was doing well, and you…and now…now she’s got to move home, quit school AND YOU WON’T EVEN HELP HER. You miserable?how do you feel now? Still feel like you can ignore what you’ve done? Does it feel good to know how quick your life can come to an end? Because that’s what’s about to happen to you. I am going to kill you.” Am I really? am I? I want to, I hate him.

I was afraid, and I tried to breathe slow, deep breaths, to build energy. I had to make a burst.
The man still spoke.

“I really want to know what it’s like to be you, Max. I want those balls of yours so I can stand here and destroy a life just like you did. I don’t want to feel anything, I don’t want to regret this. Just like you I want to walk away and forget about it…. You slimy, child mol?She doesn’t even have a mother of her own to help her. I have to keep working in order to feed them. I have to postpone my retirement, and what?… You…the coward. You gonna run away, paint your little tornado pictures, pick up some more young women? No way young man, you’ll never do anything again,” he said.

“I’ve seen you before,” Max said. Please God, I’m sorry.

…..

I think that I will never die if today doesn’t kill me.

…..

“Yes, but you don’t know me. I know you, Max. I know you don’t care about the world. All you artists do is whine and make people feel bad. You want to create the world for yourself, live by your rules. But those aren’t rules, they’re not the real rules. You can’t make anything original at all if you forget the things that should be preserved. There are rules Max!”

I was going to strike.

“There are rules that you can’t ignore. Fuck!… You don’t destroy people, ‘cause if you do…it’ll come back…and get you!”

Help me Oh G? …………………………

…………………..oh God oh God I did it

…..

A speech can be only slides, only images.

…..

All I saw were sparks. My ears rang, clanged vicious. I felt the wet slowly pour down my face. There was a salty taste in my mouth. My ears, my ears pound and pound and hurt. My sweater, my coat was dark and wet and I stood in a cage of fog with the murderer. Max’s body fell in its back…and his head was strained across the snow. Half of it covered the murderer’s face…and my face too. From the stem of Max’s neck a black puddle grew into pool in the snow, and as I watched that, his blood melt the snow, I froze with terror. I was jailed by my ringing ears, by the pierce that ran me through. It split me, its howl stabbed me. Shock, like a barge, harbored huge in my eyes. It was shock that hurt the most. The sight of Max’s body caused a current of pain that added hot pressure and fever to my head, and together it throbbed and ached as it stretched. The taste, the taste of my friend’s blood, and the warmth it covered my face with…it was a wet warmth on my clenched face. I was nothing but a reaction. I was only pain and sorrow and shock and deaf.

…..

I don’t know anything.

…..

The air smelled like fog and gunpowder.

I felt a slight pinch on the back of my neck.

The old man turned and fixed his placid eyes on mine and he quivered as he stared. He was calm, but he also looked afraid. The hairs on his forearm stood up and glistened in the dew that floated and engulfed us. He had so much blood on his face, and panic seemed to creep over his expression, showed through his eyes as they turned from calm and narrow, to scared and wide. He stood, and held the gun, slowly lowering it.

It was so cheap, how such a small finger movement could cause so violent an explosion. He knew it too. It didn’t satisfy him, I could tell by how he shook his head. He could never have caused so much damage, shattered a man’s skull. It took a diseased parasite that had levers for fangs only one bite, one squeeze and BOOM. But I only could wonder if he was going to command the gun to bite me too.
I stared back at the man, and I was just as scared as he was. I wanted to scream at him, curse him, but my voice was too paralyzed to work. I wanted to tear him apart, but my body was deaf to my commands. I could only wonder if I was next. I waited to see if my story was really ending. Would I be found next to Max, bleeding, dead, a body without a man…only mulch? I tried to hear the thoughts of the old man murderer, perhaps to see ahead of time what fate he would give me. He was now the author, he was the pensmith. He decided if I lived or died, because he had a gun. But I couldn’t hear his thoughts. I heard nothing, only the sharp ringing and the clang and dull pain in my ears. The bells hurt deep in the core of me, and boiled as they left me. I stood and waited for the man to act. I bore the painful throb of each wave of silence.

The blood soaked the snow, and all I could do was wince at the scene…and be deaf to the thoughts of man. I couldn’t hear him. The gift was gone.

The old man murderer still stared at me. He looked both angry and about to cry. He winced and shut one eye, then he took a deep breath, and spoke to me.

“Who are you? I don’t remember you,” he said, and he turned, placed the gun back in the tennis bag, and ran, almost galloping from the scene. He disappeared into the fog.

My wristwatch chimed midnight. If you don’t look it won’t hurt. It was black, and the fog appeared to embrace shadows that shuffled around me. If you don’t look it won’t hurt. We’re the monsters gone? What’s that noise? No noise. They hide back there behind the fog. They’re watching, waiting, watching and stalking me. You win, I’m afraid. Did you see his head fly apart? What? Did you like it? His face, how wide his eyes got before they were gone. If you don’t look it won’t hurt. Do you care, hiding behind the fog, watching carefully, still looking at me, saying nothing except a few grunts and sighs? Look at Max, the fog can’t cover him, I’m too close. Did you see him die? He’s all over me, he’s on my face, and the mountains can’t even see because they’re too far away. I didn’t see any color though. Only these squirming shades of grey, only this mess. There was hardly any cold air. There was only sight, dim, obscured sight. If you don’t look it won’t hurt?

“Mr. Bouchard?” yelled a boy.

Irwin was on the road, and he ran towards me.

“Irwin, NO! Stay there!”

“I heard a? Oh my God.”

“Irwin, No, get out of here. Please. It isn’t real, I swear, I’ll try to fix it. Just run go play and forget about this, please…Irwin…you’re fine…this is fake, like a movie…. Don’t…I mean RUN. You can’t see this! Don’t look, it will ruin you. UNDERSTAND.” I screamed my voice away until my throat hurt as much as my head, hand and heart. “Irwin, this isn’t for you, it’s my…my fault. You don’t need this so don’t look. Don’t know this. They’re thinking awful things, but you aren’t like them. Make it good Irwin. I’m the only one to see this. Tattoo, Irwin, good things. Just run, the monsters are catching their breaths, and while that happens you should run, so they don’t hurt you…they won’t be able to reach you. They want me Irwin, they want me to see this, they want to torture me…and that’s because I won’t let them have you. They don’t mix, the pretty things in all this fog.”

He was frozen, and swallowed hard.

I lunged at him, trying to chase him away.

“JUST RUN IRWIN…I might be wrong.”

Instead of running away, he stepped towards me.

“I saw you run by,” he said.

“No, Irwin.”

I grabbed him by his shoulders. He saw the blood on my face. He saw the inhuman glow in my eyes. I threw him backwards.

“Irwin, just run. You don’t know. Stay dumb to this Irwin. Go and play music, give us nice things. I want to smile Irwin. Help me. Go make something that can help me, go make something more honest than this. This fog, it’s a lie. If beauty is truth than evil is a lie. Go. Songs Irwin, happy beautiful, please. Run now! Write them!”

He ran away fast, like a gazelle being chased by lion. He didn’t look back. He only looked towards the direction he ran. He tripped once in the snow, and fell. He pushed himself up faster than he had run, harder, like if he’d stayed on the ground more than a second he would have been devoured. He ran again, and disappeared in the fog.

“NO. Not there,” I screamed.

I paced circles around Max’s body. I felt a quake about to rupture me. I looked at the blood, the black, his position, the way his knees had bent back and how his hands were clenched in the snow. I was so scattered that I almost was skipping around his body, in circles like a moth around a candle. I bent down and picked up handfuls of snow. I rubbed both my hands in it, cleaning them. Black drops fell off my hands. Clean them. I was covered in the old man’s wretch, the mess he left me with. I picked up more snow and rubbed it all over my body. I stood up. I ran, I dove face down in the snow. The snow felt coarse and I ignored the simple pain as it chafed me. I stood up. Still black, still dead. Another figure came from the street. It was the cop I had seen earlier that day.

“Here he is,” I screamed. “I know you’re dressed in blue, but I can’t tell with all this black fog.

He came closer.

…..

Will I die slow and alone or fast and in a crowd?

…..

“Oh my?Did you see who did this?” he said.

Right then he noticed the blood that was smeared all over my face, a little diluted from the snow that melted on it. “Are you armed? Get your hands up.” He drew his gun.

“I saw. Remember, you saw too. So what’s this infraction called, 507, 620, 469, 2. What is it? You know them all. C’mon.” I held my hands out in front of me. “Look, where’s his head? It’s on my face. But you know that, don’t you? Look at him. He didn’t always look like that.”

“Alright, you can put you’re hands down. Just don’t move, OK. There’s backup on the way. I see that you’re unarmed, and there doesn’t appear to a weapon around you. Tell me. Just calm down…and tell me what happened,” he said.

“What happened? His head exploded all by itself, and you couldn’t prevent it, none of you could. How do you like the law? Do you know it? Because you couldn’t stop it from being broken?Fuck You, You can’t stop anything, nothing? You failed. You knew, you saw him. He was angry. Max screwed his daughter. Shit, he screwed her over, and he was mad. You know who I mean. I tackled him today. I’m sorry?wait. I’m wrong. You don’t know anything, not until it’s happed like this. C’mon cop. Did you break up a fight today, stop a speeder? Great! You guys are fucking great in this town. Small town, and the one time that there will probably ever be a murder here you miss it. Do you see all this fog? Doesn’t it make you think that a few drunk kids are only going to hurt themselves, but the crazy people, the ones that can’t get over how much hate they have. The crazy people make plans to hurt, they decide ahead of time that they’re going to cause pain. That’s fucking crazy. And I’m not crazy. I don’t think I am. Are there more conditions? Look at him. He was great. He painted some cool pictures, and people were starting to see them. Do you know this? What do you know? How many tickets did you write today? How much money did you make for the Mayor? He doesn’t like me. Look at my hand.”

“OK, enough. Just clam down now,” he said.

He couldn’t stop staring at the corpse.

“It’s a shame, isn’t it? New Guernsey’s finest. It’s not your fault? You sure scare the drivers into slowing down on Main Street…What?… Yes… and you’re damn good at chasing the skateboarders out of my lot…Oh, you understand? Doing your job? But you missed this? You’re a goddamned public servant?I know you try. But…sorry, you screwed up. The public could sure have done without this…What?… Is this America’s fault? No fucking way. This is the greatest country in the world…Yes, you’re right. Because of its principles…I know this goes deeper than government. This…murder…it’s stupid, It hurts. Yup. Stupidity and pain. Sure…You want some symbolism, cop? Look, when the smart people die, everything inside their heads go with them. It’s just a body now, all you see is a body. What?…Do you want me to tell you about him? I will? Somebody should?” I said.

He stepped closer to me.

“Don’t lose it now, man. Hold it together,” he said.

I felt cold and weak.

“Oh God. You should have found him, not me. You should have seen this. You want to devote your laws to life, fine, you be there when they’re broken.. Ubiquitous, right? Long fucking arms in a small town and right now when they should be dirty….your hands are clean. Where were you? Making friends with the bouncers. YOU DON’T KNOW EVIL, DO YOU? You know law, and law is good, but look at that evil right in front of you. Good lost. My friend is dead. WHERE WERE YOU? Why didn’t you see? Fuck…WHY DIDN’T I TELL YOU! What was I saving you from? Why am I judging you, and why did I judge you unable to hear the truth. I heard his thoughts, that’s why I tackled him. He thought about murder. And I didn’t tell you because I heard you too…and you didn’t care. Dammit, I’m an idiot. I’m not special. You could just as easily had the gift. We’re the same. LOOK AT US. We’re both appalled right now. But I have a much heavier memory to carry now. I have to die with this. I’ll never let it go. Where are you? What are you thinking? What does it mean that you can come out of the fog with a gun if you’re only going to go right back into it? God damn you!”

The cop stepped in real close and raised his arm as if to grab me. I twitched, and without thinking, only feeling every muscle in my arm and back tense up I launched a right hook that landed on and seemed to go straight through his temple. He fell, and he did not move.

I stood over him, and I watched the slow movement of his breath. Max was still inanimate. I sat down in the snow, and covered my face with my hands.

…..

“I can’t believe you got us lost, Max”

We were tightly packed in a cave we had found, and the forest was only a shadow outside of the cave.

“There’s no use harping on that now…besides…this is kind of a cool adventure to have before graduation,” he said.

“I knew it.”

“You knew what?” he said.

“You did this on purpose. You planned to get us lost.”

“When have you ever known me to plan anything.”

“Bullshit, Max. You knew this would happen.”

“Listen…I always stray from the trails up here. It’s more fun. Eventually I  find another trail and follow it out, but…it got dark…. We could go back out there if you want…I just don’t think we’d find a trail in the dark. Do you?” he said.

“No.”

“So relax. We’ve got shelter, there’s a few apples in your bag, and it’s not cold. All we got to do is hang out until morning. It’s pretty simple Bear, and there’s nothing to worry about.”

“This cave’s probably full of bats, spiders, and who knows what else,” I said.

“Jesus Bear, it’s not like were in the rainforest or the outback or anything. Even if there is, they’re not gonna kill you. The only thing a bat or a spider wants right now is a bug…not a boxer.”

“Funny, Max,” I said.

“Yeah…now the Copperheads…those’ll get you.”

“Enough.”

We sat, not talking for a while. We looked at the shadows of trees from out of the opening of the cave. Max held a flashlight in his hand.

“You know…these batteries aren’t going to last all night,” he said.

“Great. I’m really interested in hearing about that.”

“…I know Bear, even though you never talk about it,” he said.

“You know what?”

“That you’re afraid of the dark.”

“I’m not afraid of the dark.”

“Really?” he said.

Max turned off the flashlight.

“Max?” I said.

Max wouldn’t say anything. We just sat there in the dark. The trees rustled, and it sounded like something was walking around outside of the cave.

“Alright Max, that’s enough.”

Still no response, and shuffling outside.

“Max, turn the fucking flashlight on, OK.”

He turned it on.

“See,” he said, “I was right.”

“Fine. You’re right, I don’t like the dark.”

“Don’t like it?”

“Yeah.”

“Bullshit, you’re afraid of it,” he said.

“No man, it’s…. It’s not the dark that I’m afraid of,” I said.

“What then?”

“…It’s…what’s in the dark that scares me.”

“And what’s in the dark?” he said.

“I don’t know…. That’s the problem.”

“What are you talking about?”

I looked around the cave. I hated it, the wet rock and the pine needles I sat on.

“…I’ll tell you…but only if you promise never to mention it again.”

“Of course. I promise. It’ll stay in the cave, OK,” he said.

“…It’s like…I can’t handle not knowing what’s going on around me, not being able to see everything. I can’t handle the sounds…in the dark. My imagination goes wild with them. I hear footsteps, heavy breathing…voices. Sometimes I can even feel things…I can’t explain ’em…and it really freaks me out…. It might sound like I believe that demons and monsters and spirits come after me when the lights go out…but that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“C’mon man?”

“Listen to me. You want me to tell you this?”

“Yeah, but?”

“Then listen,” I said.

“Alright man.”

“…When I was younger, I’d have these dreams…At least now I think they were dreams, but then…they happened every night. I’d turn off the light and get into bed. At first, I’d just start staring at the different shadows in the room. The black shapes. Eventually I’d hear some kind of noise, like a footstep or a breath. I’d get real scared and I’d pull the blanket up over my head, and when I did that the sounds would get louder, and they’d get closer to my bed. They’d sound like whispers, garbled whispers, and then it sounded like these voices were walking around my room, getting closer to me. And then I could tell that whatever it was that was making the noise was standing right beside my bed. It was then that I’d become paralyzed, literally. I’d try to move, my hands, head, even sit up, but I couldn’t. I’d even try to scream, but nothing would come out of my voice. And then…I’d feel my blankets…being tugged on. I mean it. Something was pulling on my blankets, and the only thing that kept them from being pulled off were my hands, over my head, frozen in a solid grasp…and it would go on, until it stopped. Until the next night, when it happened all over again… I even had names for the different monsters. There was Gremlin, and he grunted a lot, and Witch…I could see her shadow coming…. Sometimes there were two, pulling at different parts of the blanket. As I got older, it stopped, but even now…every once in a while, it’ll happen, only…I don’t cover my head anymore. So when it happens now…I actually see the shadow of what’s standing next to my bed. It’s fucking scary Max…and…so that’s why I don’t like the dark. It’s…where the…where the demons are.”

Max was quiet for a while. He looked a little scared himself.

“Wow Bear…. You think you have a demon?”

“I don’t know, but as a kid I did.”

“You know, in Kabala, there are ways of finding out if you have a demon.”

“How’s that?”

“You pour sand around your bed.”

“And what does that do, get ‘em dirty?” I said.

“No. But if you wake up in the morning and find the sand stamped with chicken feet?”

“C’mon, you’re fucking with me.”

“No, I mean…not chicken feet exactly, but footprints that look like a chicken’s. That means that you do have a demon, and then you have to exorcise it.”

“Are you serious?”

“Jewish mysticism is pretty wild Bear,” he said.

“Maybe I’ll do that.”

“You should.”

“That’s it then…No more. Now you know…. Only you and Cary know,” I said

“Really.”

“Yup…and that’s it,” I said.

Max turned off the flashlight again. He sat very still and silent.

“Max, that’s not very nice. Turn the fucking thing on.”

He turned it back on.

We sat quietly for some more time. Once again we both looked outside of the cave to the person-like shadows of the rustling trees.

“Did you figure out your plan yet,” I said.

“Yeah, I think I got it figured out.”

“So?”

“Well, my parents are giving me a pretty big chunk of money for graduation…and I’ve seen this place, this old Victorian house in town…man, you have to see it. It’s gorgeous. The house is split, one apartment upstairs, one apartment downstairs. The upstairs apartment is vacant, and I’m gonna buy it. It’s perfect. One bedroom, living room, bathroom, kitchen.”

“Sound’s pretty nice,” I said.

“Yeah, but check it out?the attic is huge, the size of the whole roof. Man, it’ll make a perfect studio,” he said.

“So you’ve decided to stay in town after all.”

“Why not? I like it here. The way I figure, I’ll do a lot of painting, try to hang my work in some of these local places, maybe someone important will see them, hook me up with a gallery show in New York, and I’ll be a happy man.

“What about money?”

“I’ll find some work. I’ll bartend, landscape or something. It doesn’t matter as long as I keep painting in my spare time.”

“Well I guess you finally made a plan,” I said.

“Weird, I know.”

“Don’t worry, you can still be reckless.”

“I intend to, but now it’s your turn,” he said.

“My turn what?” I said.

“Your plan, let’s hear it.”

“I’m gonna do it,” I said.

“You should. You guys are great, inspiring even.”

“Yeah, she’s great. I love her, we’re happy together, we both want kids, why not?”

“Did you buy a ring.”

“Yeah. Damn thing wiped me out.”

“But you got it,” he said.

“It’s not much though. It’s not like the wine shop pays me that much, but it’s something,” I said.

“That’s awesome Bear.”

“Yeah, could be good,” I said.

“How you gonna propose?”

“I haven’t figured it out yet. I just want it to be different, not clichéd at all.”

“Any ideas?” he said.

“Yeah, but I’m not going to say.”

“Fair enough,” he said.

“I think I’m going to try to get an office job in the city. Cary wants to get a Master’s degree from Julliard, so I guess I’ll need to make some money in order to afford New York.”

“You really want to live in New York?” he said.

“You know…I don’t care where I live.”

“OK.”

“I’m sure I could survive,” I said.

“Man, this is crazy, sitting and talking about our plans and actually intending to follow though with them,” he said.

“Yeah this could be a first.”

“I wish we had a few forties to make a toast with,” he said.

“Well, good luck anyway Max.”

“Yeah, you too Benny.”

It once again became quiet between us. It was pure dark outside of the cave, and inside the light of the flashlight had become dimmer than before.

“Hey Max.”

“What?”

“Seeing as I’m telling you all my secrets in this cave, you want to hear one more?and this one Cary doesn’t even know.”

“Sure Bear.”

“But…we never talk about it again, OK.”

“I promise, man.,” he said.

“Alright…. You know that guy who died last week on Mountain Road,” I said.

“You mean the real fat guy that walked in front of the dump truck.”

“Yeah, that’s the one,” I said.

“I heard that he was just standing in the middle of the lane, waiting on the other side of a blind curve.”

“Yep.”

“Some say it was suicide. Others think he was just crossing at a very stupid place to cross. I think his name was?”

“Robert Joseph Leighton,” I said.

“Yeah. I heard that if a regular car had hit him the passengers would probably have died…seeing as he was so fat?I also heard that the dump truck got pretty fucked up, and it was pretty messy.”

“That was my father,” I said.

Silence. Trees rustled.

“What?” he said.

“He was my father,” I said.

“I thought you didn’t know your father.”

“I didn’t…but he approached me the Lexington.”

“At State?” he said.

“Yep.”

“Why would he pick that time to meet you?”

“He wanted me to lose…so he could win a bet,” I said.

“Bull…Shit.”

“I’m serious Max. He did, and I got real mad and knocked him down in front of everyone who waited to register.”

“Damn………..Are you sad?”

“No fucking way. I feel bad for the dump truck driver. I also heard it was quite a mess,” I said.

“Are you gonna tell your mother?”

“Nope.”

“So only you know,” he said.

“And you…and no one else…ever.”

“So…that’s why you’re giving it up.”

“It might be, but I’m not sure…. I’m just done with boxing,” I said.

“…I’m sorry,” he said.

“Why? Because I didn’t get to see it happen?”

“Yeah Bear…that’s why,” he said.

The flashlight now was barely lit.

“We’re losing it Bear. It’s time to turn it off,” he said.

“It’s inevitable.”

“You gonna be alright.”

“I guess we’ll see Max. Turn it off.”

He did, and the trees rustled and footsteps shuffled outside the cave.

…..

Red and blue lights seared through the fog. I heard and door slam, and a voice yell.

“Hey, get your hands in the air, now!”

I raised them, the blood covered, dirty hands, and stood up.

“Turn around,” said the officer. He stood far from me, his gun pointed at my chest. Another cop Walked towards me, got close, his gun pointed at my chest.

I turned around.

“Don’t move,” he said.

I couldn’t have if I wanted to. I was then facing Max.

“Sorry about your friend,” I said, “Are you sorry about mine….Oh, you don’t need cuffs. The freak won’t cause any more trouble, I swear. Look, only my friend is dead. I knocked yours out because he failed and, trust me, failure hurts. I don’t fail all the time, I never lost. I was undefeated. I just keep going. Simple goals, simple life says the freak. You know me, you’ve seen me. You know I’m Bear. I’ve sold you tomatoes, but I’m not as average as I look. I’m fucking gifted. Do you want to know what I’m thinking? I could have told you what you were thinking once. But…C’mon…ask me what I’m thinking.”

“I don’t care right now,” he said.

He grabbed one of my arms and pulled it behind my back, then he took the other one and did the same. He cuffed them so I could no longer see how dirty they were. The other cop put away his gun. Both of them walked me towards the spinning lights on their squad car.

“C’mon…you want to know. Did I do it? Did I kill him? You don’t know. You just got here…. Well I didn’t. Nope. That’s what I’m thinking. No, No, No, No, No. Say it with me. No, No, No. C’mon, you need this, or else you’ll think it’s OK, what you’re thinking and all. That I’m crazy. I’m not. I’m just a freak…I might even be a demon. Tell me, do you think I’ve enjoyed any of this? That I’m happy. No, No, No, No. You misunderstand me? You don’t understand me, do you?”

One cop opened the door.

“I’m impossible to understand. Know why? Huh? It’s because all I’m thinking is No, No, No, No, No, No, No.”

I hardly moved any other muscles than the ones that drove my jaw and the ones that bulged my eyes.

The other cop pushed down on my head and guided me into the back seat. I rolled on the vinyl and sat up straight………and I took several deep breaths.

…..

I am alive now. I will be dead soon.

…..

I sat back there for a while and other red and blue lights arrived outside. I just watched and breathed. I took the time to become a man again, to get my composure back, to act civilized and not like a madman. I was in a bit of trouble, even though I wasn’t the murderer, I had certainly caused a bit of mayhem. The craziness, the pain, and the grief stayed in my silent head, locked behind my thick skull.
I watched everything that was happening outside. The cop I had knocked out was now on his feet. He stood with the other cops and told them his story, told them everything I had done, and nothing of what I said. Then they all turned to look at Max’s body. None of them could take it, they turned back around. They all cringed, and one cop threw up. They spoke again to each other. They all knew that I had not killed Max. They all knew that he was my friend. Also, every cop except for the one who had showed up first knew about my freak out at Rusty’s. They knew I was in a lot of trouble. I had assaulted a police officer, and I had assaulted a boy in the bar. I was definitely going to have to deal with that. But they weren’t unkind. They felt for me, knew the grief I must have been experiencing, to have witnessed such a gruesome murder. Above the eyebrow of the cop I had punched there was a swelling the size of a lemon. It looked like it could pop.

….

I think my gift is death, a present from the reaper. I’ll most likely die soon. I wasn’t fit for this power…. I just hope the eclipse is the last thing I see.

…..

Another cop ran from his car to the officers that all stood together. I couldn’t quite hear what he said because his back was to me as I sat in the caged backseat.
Mourning and loss, but I felt normal and not insane. I could hardly feel my body, and all I wanted to do was either faint or fall asleep. Perhaps my dreams would be calm and not torturous and real like the scene I saw then while awake. But I knew that it couldn’t be. If I slept then I think my dreams would have pushed me over the edged and made a real psycho out of me. I had to sit there and exert great effort in order to feel what I felt and stay calm and normal. But that was a front, I was really still a freak, a solid, dense explosion that wanted to get out of my body. I was in Hell, and I was as calm as one can be in Hell.

…..

Why has everyone forgotten me?

…..

More police arrived, and an ambulance too. Other cars pulled up, and I assumed them to be local reporters. The door opened and a cop helped me out of the car.

“Turn around Mr. Bouchard,” he said.

I did, and he removed the handcuffs.

“Don’t go anywhere, OK. We’re not done with you. You are going to have to come with us in a little while.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Now, are you calm. Did you vent enough? I understand that this is hard, but be smart, and don’t make it any worse for yourself.”

I nodded.

He looked at me, and walked around me, checking for something, I don’t know.

“Hey,” he yelled to another officer, “Get one of the paramedics to come over here.” He turned back and spoke to me. “You’ve got a few bad cuts there, your forehead, your hand, the back of your neck.”

“What? My neck? He didn’t…I didn’t get cut on my neck,” I said.

The paramedic ran over. He was young.

“He’s got a few cuts on his head, his hand appears to have been pierced, and there’s a nick on the back of his neck,” the officer said to the paramedic.

“There’s no cut on my neck,” I said.

“Relax,” the officer said.

The paramedic walked behind me, and was quiet as he probed around the back of my neck.

“What is?Holy shit,” he said.

The cop looked as well.

“What is that?” he said.

“What? Am I really cut?” I said.

“Mr. Bouchard,” the paramedic said, “It looks like…a dog tick has been hooked to you. Did you know that?”

“What do you mean ‘did I know’. Yeah. I left it there…Just pull it off please…Is it still biting me?”

“It would have to be alive to bite you.”

“What?” I said.

“It’s dead.”

“Get it off,” I said.

The paramedic showed the cop. “Look at that,” he said to him.

“Mr. Bouchard. The tick…it’s…burst,” he said.

“I’ll be damned,” the cop said.

“What?” I said.

“Yeah, its abdomen is spread in pieces all over about a half inch of your neck.”

He took his tweezers and pulled out what was left of the tick. He showed it to me. Its abdomen looked like the stem of a small, burst balloon.

The paramedic threw the tick onto the snow, and it bounced before resting in a small spot of blood. My ears no longer rang. It was silent.

Flickr photo by kandyjaxx

© 2009 – 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. The Host: Chapter 9
2. The Host: Chapter 5
3. The Host: Chapter 3

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 – 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

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

Chapter 8

It had become colder.

…..

I should just admit to myself that I don’t know everything, that everything’s not my fault…or even has to do with me at all. Maybe I don’t know anything. Every time I think something it changes. I keep getting hurt when I think I’m happy, and I always think I know why. Am I a detective or just another moron left to sift painfully through the coincidences of life? Have I ever solved anything, known anyone? Have I ever been in love? I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I don’t know a goddamned thing. Mother-fuck-fuck-ass-dick-shit-fuck-nothing-fuck…never!

…..

I drove away in silence.

…..

A forceful, liquid wind washed over us as we walked through the forest, the last afternoon of the Indian Summer. Cary said the leaves flew like confetti. There was an uncertain bliss that slid down the wind-waves, and across the mingled scents of her soft fruit perfume and the acorn and oil aroma of leaves that blew in the surf. The day had such impression, such detail.

The relationship was new and it had that awkward pivot between a few days of passion and a few of curious engagement. In the beginning, when there is yet a rhythm, like the wind’s flow that at times pushes forward and at other times blows into you and makes the walk hard work. In the beginning, when you want to express those feelings that have yet to find their words.

We walked, Cary and I, through the autumn day that pretended to be June. We told stories from our lives, our memories, our families, the foods we liked, noted the quirks of the forest around us. The trees, white, stripped of their leaves and bark, looked like polished chalk. The ground was smooth and rustled with confetti. I’d brush by her hand with mine, and then I’d hold it, and let go, and walk. Smooth rocks peered like game pieces. After we exchanged a smile we’d be silent. I liked that her hand sweat. I felt closer to her warmth. I liked how her hair looked, and how her subtle smile had such an effect on me.

It is so hard to tell what the hesitant moments mean. Was she having second thoughts? Did I do something wrong? Is she wary that the walk may move too fast?

A strange bird flung from a bush, chirped like a cricket, and appeared to have a snout. It was like a pigeon or a quail in size, but hummingbird in shape. It flew forward, an orange shadow, and squawked, awkward against the wind. I looked for it again as we walked some more. Cary laughed and said that we had found an elephant bird. I grabbed her hand and kicked leaves as we walked away. We saw no other animals.

I wanted to tell her how she cleaned me with an unexplainable swirl. An uncertain reaction, to wish time would speed up, that her inner voice would sound in my head, so to alleviate the nervousness and wonder. Was it good to be uncertain? Should I have said more or less?

Sometimes, when our hands would let each other go I thought that it meant I’d have to earn it back, that the attention had shifted from the feel of us as whole to the ambition to understand each other as unique. The day was so beautiful, details shook in the wind. A bee’s hive, a quarry, thorn bushes, abandoned sheds, telephone poles with no wires, water and wind, confetti and perfume, touch and interest, talk and silence, desire, desire, hope, fear, effort and ease, confetti and waves, an unidentified bird, smooth hands, fallen trees, charred trees, white trees, large dried leaves, simple smiles, and loaded conversations. Hope was a catalogue of details, a replaying of past moments.

…..

I drove down New Guernsey’s historic street. The columns of the Old Dutch Church reminded me of a cage. The night sky was clean and the moon was a blue circle.

…..

I am embarrassed and sad. I am a coward. I am weak. She would have stayed with me. I miss her. I miss her. I have had nothing since I had her. What the fuck? I am idiot too…. I need to accept what I’ve done…………………

Max’s big break was his gallery opening in SoHo…. Last week…. He’s on his way now. I could tell that the patrons really loved his work, the way they knit their brows as they paced through the square room and saw tornados on the wall that had come from Max’s brain. There was wine and cheese in the corner, and even though I was enjoying myself, standing in that corner, gorging on triple cream brie and drinking glass after glass of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, I still felt very out of place. With my faded Levis and my white untucked shirt I felt like a random mess, like a painting of a tornado on the wall, volatile, unwelcome, yet unrefined enough to qualify as a piece of art.

Max mostly showed his tornado paintings. Some were of plain tornados in different settings. The crowd’s favorite seemed to be his painting of a tornado tearing through Times Square. He painted the billboards shattering, taxicabs flying, and even a subway car had been ripped out from its underground tunnel. Another one of his paintings was of a tornado chasing an airplane. The end of the funnel seemed to keep reaching for the tail wings of the plane, only to come up a few inches short. The best part of that one was the way Max painted the pilot in the cockpit. Through the small window the pilot was leaning into the steering wheel like he was racing a car rather than a plane. He even had a little sweat on his forehead. My favorite one, though, was Max’s painting of a tornado devouring Loch Ness. The water of the lake formed a second spiral around the tornado, and in the center was the Plesiosaur, the famed Nessie, floating in a torrent above the lake while a crowd on the banks stood, all with their jaws dropped and their cameras to their faces.

I had too much wine, and I started to get a bit dizzy. I had to make a point of avoiding the corners of the gallery where the most people congregated, however, that didn’t make me look any less conspicuous. It probably brought more attention to me. I was the lone, underdressed man with the buzz, hardly paying close attention to the paintings I had seen many times before. But I didn’t give it much credit. It actually wasn’t standing out that I was afraid of. It was being part of that posh group, having to ramble about my appreciation of Max’s work while my breath stank of wine, now that was what paralyzed me. I didn’t want to be part of the crowd, because I was unique that night. I was the best friend of the artist, there to support him and not his work.

Max, on the other hand, stood right in the middle of the largest crowd. He pointed to specific works, talked and smiled, and nodded his head as he listened to their comments. And then he noticed me as I stood in the empty corner, and I watched him mouth, “Excuse me,” to his patrons before he left, and walked over to greet me. He was dressed all in black, black suit, black shoes, black shirt.
“Hey Bear. How ‘bout this? What do you think?” he said.

“This is great Max. You must be feeling pretty good right now.”

“It ain’t bad. I see you put on your best jeans.”

“You know.”

“No, seriously, I appreciate it man,” he said.

“Don’t mention it…. So what’s the news? Sold anything?”

“Five paintings Bear. I can’t believe it.”

“…Good money?”

“Let’s just say that it looks like I’ll be able to buy the bottom floor of the house. I’ll finally have the whole place to myself,” he said.

“That’s awesome man. You’ve definitely earned it,” I said.

“What’s the matter with you ? You seem a little somber.”

“Oh no man…I feel fine…I just feel a little out of place, that’s all. Don’t worry. I’m handling it fine.”

“Really? Is that what’s bothering you?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Your lips are a little red. Let me see your teeth,” he said.

“What?”

“C’mon, smile for me,” he said.

I faked a quick grin.

“Shit Bear, your teeth are purple?look at me… Yep, you’re busted Bear. I can see it in your eyes, they’re a  bit wider than usual. So tell me…you’ve got a pretty big buzz going, don’t you?”

“Gimme a break Max. I wasn’t the one who stocked this show with some really good wine.”

I genuinely grinned.

“That was my agent Patricia’s doing. I actually hadn’t had a chance to have any yet… Good stuff though?”

“Real good.”

Max laughed. He seemed a bit more comfortable, like his normal self. He grabbed my glass and took a sip.

“Shit, that is good?Spicy, mouth-coating, delicious.”

“I told you?now give it back.”

“Alright dude, but don’t go making a scene, OK,” he said.

“You got it.”

We laughed for a while, about memories, distinctly our dorm roof story. After that Max became solemn himself, and his expression was serious. He looked around a bit, like he was looking for someone.

“Listen, Bear,” he said.

“What do you need?”

“”Nothing?just listen. Something wierd’s been happening tonight.”

“You mean when people actually buy your work.”

“No?shut up?There’s this guy who keeps following me, I mean, everybody here keeps following me, but this one guy keeps leaning in and whispering fucked up shit in my ear,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Like, ‘Are you proud of yourself,’ and ‘Nice work Max,’ and ‘What are you going to do now’ and ‘It’s time to do the right thing with what you’ve made,’ and ‘I’m going to keep an eye on you Sandmann’…stuff like that.”

“Those sound like what you’d expect to hear at an event like this,” I said.

“I know, but, it’s the way he says it that freaks me out. It almost sounds like the guy hates me,” he said.

He looked around again.

“Well, what’s he look like? Where is he? I’ll beat him up for you.”

“He looks like everyone else, an older guy in a suit?let me see.”

Max turned around and peered at the single faces in the crowd.

“There,” he pointed.

I didn’t see him, or at last I couldn’t tell which one he was pointing to.

“Which one?”

“Right there.”

He kept pointing.

I looked in that direction, but I saw someone else instead. Not some guy in a suit, but the most beautiful woman I had ever touched. The girl whose heart I broke. The only girl who ever said she loved me.

It was Cary.

“I can’t believe you’d do that to me,” I said to Max.

“What? Did you see him?” he said.

“Max. That’s Cary you’re pointing at.”

Max saw Cary and dropped his arm back to his side. His face opened up a bit, and the excitement seemed to fall off his body.

“Oh shit. I wasn’t pointing at?sorry. I forgot to tell you that I sent Cary an invite.”

“Thanks Max.”

“Well, she’s my friend, and I’ve kept in touch with her…. I guess I figured she wouldn’t come.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I’m sure she figured that you’d be here. I had to be courteous though.”

Cary stood in front of Max’s painting of the tornado over Loch Ness. She chuckled, turned toward the next panting and that’s when she spotted Max and I in the corner. She looked right at me, and she loosed a resistant smile. I smiled back at her.

She looked older than when I had last seen her. She looked a little tired, but she carried herself with more dignity than I had ever seen her carry. She looked…mature in her pink button down shirt under her green v-neck sweater. Her red hair was longer than I remembered, but the color seemed to have deepened. She was still beautiful, and she still had those sweet eyes. She walked slow to greet us…and then she was there.

“Hey Max. Great show.” She hugged him. “I’m so proud of you.”

“Thanks Cary. I’m glad you could come,” he said.

She let go of him and turned, and faced me.

“Well…Benny Bouchard. I guess you’ve given up on suits,” she said.

“Yeah…I guess…. It’s nice to see you Cary,” I said.

I felt dizzy.

“Yeah…you too,” she said.

“Hey Cary, how ‘bout I get you a glass of wine. It’s real good,” Max said.

“Sure Max, I’d love one.”

“OK. I’ll be right back.”

Max left us there.

We stared at each other.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” she said

“Yeah.”

“How’s the grocery store doing?”

“Not bad…for now,” I said.

“My father wants to destroy you, you know.”

“Yeah. He’s pushing for a supermarket to come in to town. I guess when that happens…well…it doesn’t matter.”

“You know I have nothing to do with it, right?”

“I know you don’t Cary.”

The wine glass shook in my hand. I couldn’t think of what I wanted to say. I couldn’t think about anything. I was just dizzy and trying to fight the involuntary quivers in my arm.

“You know Benny…My housekeeper described a man that pretty perfectly matched your description.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she said he stopped by about a week ago, looking for me.”

I looked away.

“Did you want to see me Benny?”

I looked back at her face and couldn’t help but smile a guilty smile.

“I did. I was helping Max set up for his show and…I thought I’d say Hello.”

“She said you left pretty quick. Didn’t even leave your name. You actually freaked her out a bit.”

“I didn’t know you had a son,” I said.

We stared in silence for a few seconds.

“Well…I do,” she said.

She didn’t seem the least bit nervous. She was proud.

“It’s funny. It hardly took any effort at all to get one of your father’s assistants to give me your address…but in all this time…nobody’s ever mentioned that you’re a mother now.”

“Do you want to talk about it,” she said.

“No. It’s not my place to. I just hope your family’s doing well.”

“Don’t worry Benny, we’re doing fine….”

“Good.”

“You know I’m playing a concerto with the New York Phil in a couple of days. Chopin’s First.”

“Wow…. That’s incredible. You must be pretty excited.”

“I could grab you a ticket if you want. I’d get Max one but he’s still banned from Lincoln Center.”

“Do you think they’ll still ban him after he’s famous?” I said.

“Musicians don’t easily forget things like that, famous or not,” she said.

“Well…I can’t go. I have to work, but…thanks. I hope?I know you’ll be amazing,” I said.

We once again stared in silence for a while. Cary kept smiling, like she was flirting, but I know that couldn’t have been the case. The last time I had spoken to her was the day after our supposed-to-be wedding. She was a mess, hysterical, screaming at me, crying, cursing, saying she’d never love again, that she had already had her great love, that she’d never be with anyone again, and now here she was smiling at me, with a child back at home. She looked like I had never hurt her.

“I’m coming up to New Guernsey in a week. I’d…like it if we could have dinner. We should talk some more.”

“Um.”

“I’m not angry at you Benny. We’re a part of each other’s lives. Maybe it’s time we acted like it,” she said.

“…Sure…dinner would be nice…. Just call me when you get into town.”

I smiled back at her.

“Had a few glasses of wine Benny? You could use a toothbrush.”

“Yeah. It tasted so good…. What I really need though is a glass of water.”

We laughed together.

“Well…I’m gonna go. My sitter told me she has a test tomorrow. I might as well be nice and let her go early.

“What’s your son’s name?”

“I’ll tell you next week.”

“C’mon, what’s his name?” I said.

“Matthew.”

“Nice choice. You said you’d have a Matthew one day,” I said.

I don’t think I should have said that because it made the smile disappear from Cary’s face. She looked more serious and a little sad.

“I’m going to go congratulate Max…and tell him not to bother with the wine…. I’ll see you next week, OK?”

“Sure,” I said.

“OK…Bye.”

She leaned in and we exchanged a very quick hug. But even though it was the shortest hug we had ever shared it still felt the same. It was old touch of Cary. As I held her for that one second it was like I had defied all of physics and traveled back in time.

She walked away.

I stood in the same place, and I didn’t move a muscle. I felt sad. Someone else had hurt Cary like I had, but this guy left her with a child…. At least I only left her with memories.

After a few minutes of staring off into space, Max came back.

“How you feeling Bear?

“Demented.”

…..

I pulled into the same parking spot I had left from. I got out of the car, and the broken bottle was still spread across the tar. By now Lester had probably bought another one. He was probably sitting scared on a bench somewhere, drinking as he called me a faggot or a witch. I was glad. I had the last word. I had woken him up, I hoped.

I heard cackles from Main Street. I heard cars drive by, the stereos blasting inside of them. I could hear the bass shake the windows of the cars that crawled down the street. I walked out of the lot, to Main Street. I heard a few kids ‘Woo’ and someone yell ‘motherfucker’.

I felt like I was entering the stadium, walking towards the fight, concealing my limp in an effort to look strong. Both my ring and my opponent was Main Street, or what was concealed in it. I knew somewhere in the center was the phrase as it stared me down, and Max was somewhere in my corner, and the old man was hidden in the crowd with his wager already made. I walked, and nobody cheered. The alley was empty.

I noticed that I frowned, and that I was hungry.

I ended up behind a few sorority girls when I rounded the corner. They chanted a song in unison. “The only fun is Delta Pi fun.” They all wore tight pants, most black khaki, sandals or tennis shoes, and tank tops of all different colors. Most of the girls folded their arms into their chests. They thought the words of their song, they thought about boys, and they thought, shit, it’s cold. They thought they looked sexy, and a few of them were much more proud than the others. Some had specific boys in mind, and some didn’t care who they went home with. However, one girl, the girl in the blue top, knew  that she’d probably make the cold walk home a lone, drunken journey. “The only fun is Delta Pi fun.”

I kept walking behind the sorority on the way to Rusty’s, an unfortunate cross between a frat house and an Irish pub. There was a line at the entrance. I stood behind the girls, and they stood behind an equal sized group of college guys. While the guys waited they turned around to look at the shivering girls. And as the girls shook and rubbed their arms, and laughed and used the word ‘shit’ a lot, the boys catalogued them. Hot, nasty, prude. I’m getting pussy tonight.

Great ass, thought one of the boys on line.

I waited for the line to move. Through the windows I could see how dimly lit the inside of the bar was. The dim light covered up blemishes.

I stared up at Rusty’s neon sign, and back down, through the windows. I saw the people inside, their wide-eyed glances, drinking, smiling their appetites. I wished hard that some answers could be found in there. I had no idea what else to do. I guess I could have been walking around, looking for the old man, or perhaps I could have told the police. Maybe I just wanted to handle it myself, and I wanted to have Max with me, especially if he wasn’t well. Some triumph might have been all we both needed to shake our dementia. I hoped that Max was already inside the bar. I couldn’t enjoy my power with all the problems it showed me, all the mystery. My gift should have eliminated mystery. I needed solid reason, and I needed to grab what it was that eluded me, so I could travel forward and not askew, so I could overcome the insanity that I feared Max was infected with. I was up for a fight, a showdown between the new me and the same old world.

At the door, the bouncer Joe nodded at me and thought…

Bear…yep. Just stand here, look around…any trouble? Everything’s cool. Are they gonna lie or tell the truth? Is that a cop? I don’t care…No way she’s 21.

This man was the same man I was. This man was his job, never moving, day in, day out, in a corner, to watch people in a bar. He thought his sad duty, his shitty duty.

I said, “Hello,” as I walked past him, into the bar. I knew him, he knew me, that was all. To each other we were the same name. Hello.

The bar danced and I stood still. There were clumps of people, and lonely ones too. I looked through the crowd, but could not spot Max. It didn’t surprise me. It actually made me feel better about the situation. This meant that Max hadn’t completely flipped. He was still Max, and Max never was early, apparently, even if he’s losing his mind.

I walked up to the bar and sat on a stool. I still itched and was impatient.

The wooden stool was uncomfortable.

…..

Who would listen to me? I am only alive as billions of others are alive. I am unique only because I exist with my own name.

…..

The bar looked like a volcanic island that rose above the clouds of smoke. Its brass spouts filled glasses with foamy beer, everybody’s poison. Ashtrays laced with fine grey dusts and crooked butts were spread in front of me. Most people in the bar smoked and looked strange as they spit ropes of white, churling air. The polyurethaned bar top was speckled with oblong burns and shimmered when the bartender spread wet film over it with a rag. The bar top was also sticky. There were cardboard coasters that had logos of beer brands. Cocktail napkins lay wet and discarded at my feet as well as a cherry that had picked up grens from the floor. The cherry was covered in dust, hair, whatever else…

In a few glasses on the bar top, cigarette butts floated in a grey inch of beer. Empty Corona bottles with limes and butts in them stood next to the ashtrays.

…..

I’m alive for a reason and I know I’ll die for one too. That’s how it is for all of us…. I think that my death will have something to do with frogs. Either I’ll be mobbed by a plague of them, or one will swim down my throat when I’m swimming at the lake…. I’m sure they’re plotting right now.

…..

Everything there seemed caught, and illuminated with a surreal glow. The dim lights did make the faces in the crowd look soft and without blemishes. A disco ball in the back spun and shot freckles into the crowd, and around it and under it people were laughing.

I ordered a beer from the bartender.

“Excuse me. I’ll have a Guinness,” I said.

“Sure.”  I think that’s the boxer guy who runs the grocery. He’s cute, a little heavy in the stomach, but do-able. Ok, one Guinness…. It’s coming out pretty slow, maybe they should clean the fucking taps like I told them Fuck it. I’m not mentioning it again…. OK, all done. Bring it back to the boxer man. “Four dollars,” she said.

I gave her five.

“Thanks.” He seems nice.

I gulped a foamy sip. The bitter, chocolate malt was creamy and cold.

In one of the corners, by the pool table, a short young man with a bent nose and his hands in his pockets stood and watched the crowd. He paid attention to the bodies, the bounces of different breasts. He likened it to a rodeo. He thought that he wanted to ride some bull. He watched the women move in their tight shirts,  hypnotized by the outlines of their tits. He compared and contrasted the different nipple types he imagined under the tight shirts. He especially liked to watch the girls as they came into the bar from the cold, with diamond cutters under their shirts. He saw the denim they wore and compared it to skin. It’s like their skin, because you see what you get. Damn, I can see every curve on these chicks. Fuck if I screw any of them, it’s like their naked already. Wait. I still want to smack some ass tonight. I’d fuck all these chicks. I want her?yes you, baby, I’d fuck you,…shit, definitely that one. Look at those shoulders. I just want to bite into them. Oh great eyes. Hello sexy. He pursed his lips and nodded as the girls passed him. As they walked away he stared at their asses.

A girl in a silver shirt with only strings tied behind her back walked to the dance floor. She wore boots that came up to her knees, and she had a full head of straight brown hair that was wanton and tasseled about her eyes. When she strode over the floor boys  turned and stared. She looked back at them, long and deep, but also pretended to be only a touch shy. She examined their faces and their bodies, their checkered shirts and their brute expressions.

Take me if you want. It doesn’t matter…shy boy…it’s gonna be fun…who cares. You want me, I know…go for it…have me…I don’t care…take me…talk to me. I’ll do it…it’s fun…he’d be fun…but I’m gonna pretend that you got no shot, shy boy…I’m gonna tease you……..this place is silly.

She kept moving. She tested each boy she passed with a gaze. It all depended on how they looked back at her…and also how they looked. She waited to find the man who really wanted her. And only I knew they all did.

At the other side of the bar’s island there was an old man that had sagged cheeks, and his white moustache was stained brown beneath his nose. He drank. He looked into his cup with his fallen eyes. They were veined, and grey where they should have been white. He counted his sips. He was aware of every ‘tap’ and ‘clang’ of toasting bottles and pints around him, but he never looked away from his glass.

Alone, he smoked and thought.

Can I even hurt anymore? Do I feel anything? I’m numb…three sips left. I don’t feel anything. Fuck. Put it all away…drink…2 sips left. I’ll forget. I can’t hurt anyway, anymore. Can I? Maybe I can still feel it, maybe I can’t. But I can forget. I can forget anything…one more sip.

And as he sipped, his mind turned and turned back like that, forward backward and in on himself, always back to hurt. He was the only lonely man in Rusty’s who knew that he was, or at least admitted it. In the crowded maze of the bar, of the laughter and lights that flashed, he tried to be numb, he tried to be blind, and tried hardest to be as lonely as he was. His sorrow took effort, the strength to throw back beers and be sad.

He only blinked when he sipped, or thought the word hurt.

I looked away from him.

…..

It was my mission to exterminate every frog that lived in the artificial, man-dug creeks that veined the eye-blur of the condominium village. Creek Hills Condominiums, with one hill and many creeks. We lived in number 1972. My mother said it was good luck because that was also the year of my birth, which she also reminded me often of it being the first happy year of her life. 1972 Creek Hills, Brook Drive, Blue Spring Circle #12…it sounded like a corner of a nightmare, a block of utopian paradise complete with sewers called Red Rill #2821, and Bucolic Boulevard. People shouldn’t live that way, shouldn’t let themselves be convinced that an abacus is an enchanted forest. I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your hills down.

It was my mission to exterminate all the frogs. Sick little kid I was. Eleven years old, babied always by my mother whose only joy, it seemed, at that time was her limitless involvement in everything I did, wore, knew and enjoyed…but she never knew I killed frogs for fun. It was my mission. I hated them so much, how they’d pop out from the sides of the creek whenever I walked by, jump and make that low chirp, and splash and disappear. I’d wait, soon the frog comes up, eyes and head only. I’d make another move and down it goes again to pop up somewhere else in the creek. You never know where it will go next, where it comes back to, or when, but it always does. Maybe it hides in the plastic tubes that regulate the creek so it don’t overflow, in a network that I, as a boy, imagined to be where the frogs met and stared at each other, and said nothing.

It was my mission to exterminate every frog, for looking at me and saying nothing.

In the creek there was a reflection of a fat little boy who never knew his father and was too loved by his mother, a boy who was sad and angry…and when the head of a frog popped up in the reflection the ripples of water made his paunch squirm and jiggle, and the sadness shook off, and the anger grew to take the space that the sadness had left. All I hated in the world was a silent, staring, floating and disappearing creature, and it became my mission to exterminate it.

…..

I spied another girl walk away from the dance floor.

I looked elsewhere.

…..

The feelings come after you admit you love someone. Before you say it to yourself, or to the other….Before, when you don’t know what exact detail it is that makes you smile. When you replay the minutes of a day spent together. When you find yourself repeating what you said to her yesterday as you stand alone the next morning and shave and brush your teeth. When you have no specific reason for calling her, or repeating her name as a whisper in your brain. Before, when the smell of her perfume is impossible to miss and you find yourself whipping around to stare at strangers because you’ve caught a whiff.

Lost, is a good assessment. You overturn your preset hopes to an ambivalent call that takes you further into pre-destiny, vast as all comfort, and it’s cozy enough to inspire a new march forward, down different trails, at sunset……..even if you’re afraid of the dark.

…..

At another corner of the bar a different girl talked with a friend as she waited for the bartender to see her. She nursed the Heineken that was almost finished and looked around the bar with a broad glance. She was…thick, a muscular girl. She was very pretty with round, baby cheeks. I wouldn’t say she was fat at all. She was full and healthy, fine by me. I had a gut, a big gut.

She stood and talked fast and animated to her friend. On and on…and her thoughts were the same, rambling lines that came out of her mouth.

So we go and we follow this group of guys they’re cute you know, get wasted have a good time. I look so fat in this, why did you let me wear this look at me should I go change? Do you want to stay here. I really want to find them you know we should all hang out together get wasted have a good time are you sure I don’t look fat.

She was mad, non-stop. It made me concerned as I pried into her. I wanted to walk over to her and say, “It’s OK. You look fine. Enjoy yourself, relax. It’s O…K. Have some self esteem.” But I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t say anything. By just hearing her go on-and-on-and-on that way, while the girl she talked to nodded and thought the other looked fine and needed to relax. I realized that no matter what I said I could not soothe her. I could tell that people had tried and given up.

…..

I stood silent as I watched Todd walk into the cornfields. So what, I killed a fucking frog. They’d all die anyway when summer came and dried the fake, ugly creek. They’ll make more, bury their eggs and by the following spring they’d be rampant and abundant, and silent and stupid. Todd’s a pussy to give a shit about a fucking frog. They’re jumping around the creek all the time. I can’t sneak up on them, no matter how slow I walk—and most of the time I can’t even find them until I walk by ‘em and they jump and make that annoying chirp-grunt-croak and then splash. And then I have to stand there for five minutes until they pop up. I’m glad I’m not using small rocks any more. I missed too much and then another stupid five minute wait for those stupid eyes to pop up and pretend not to see me. They can see me, those eyes on the side of their heads. I know they can see all around them. No, I’m glad I’m using big rocks now. I like it, when the big splash gets all over and it only takes a couple seconds for it to pop up, feet first, upside down, tongue out—Wait, there’s one, maybe I’ll try to catch this one. I’ll just kneel down very slowly…and reach out my hand-and-it’s gotta be quick…as fast as I can move, and, NOW—shit, holy shit I got it. It’s fucking slimy, ‘Stop kicking’—stop kicking—Oh shit, I dropped it, ‘Come here,’ shit, OK I got it. You ugly, slimy, stupid, annoying fuck, I’m going to throw you up against that boulder over there. Say goodbye. I gotta throw it real hard so it breaks into pieces. ‘Hear that fucker, I’m going to smash you. Bet that would make Todd puke.’ Let’s see if I puke. I bet I won’t. I’m gonna laugh. Here I go, just run up to it and throw. One, two, three—Oh shit, that made a weird sound. It was kind of like throwing a tomato up real high and letting it hit the street. Oh shit, its jaw is hanging by a thread. Look at that tongue and one of its eyes is smashed. I’m gonna get another one. Over there, there’s more, there’s a lot more. Alright—there’s one—same thing…real slow…reach out—Shit—OK there’s another one—C‘mon Benny, get it—got it—‘Oh, you kick just like your friend did…yes you’re ugly, let me show you your friend…look, look how fucked up he is.’ I bet he’s never seen frog blood before. OK, I’m gonna smash him. Wait—the tree. I know what I’m gonna do with you. I’m gonna tie your legs to that tree and let you hang there…. Now, what do I tie him with. I don’t have anything, shit—Wait. What if I just tie his legs in a knot around the branch. Stop kicking. OK, now just tuck one under the other. It’s not easy—oh shit, the legs broke. ‘Stop moving!’ Ok, fucking shit ugly motherfucking stupid shit shit ass dick frog, there, now your legs are in a nice knot—

“BENNY!”

“———“

…..

It became harder to follow the thoughts of the people one by one, there were too many of them. There was a group of English majors that sat in one of the booths. They talked about Hemingway and how modern writing was lost, how nobody captured anything anymore because there was nothing worth capturing. One of them was waiting for an opportunity to use the word ‘ubiquitous’ in the conversation…and it finally came. ‘Bad writers in America are as ubiquitous as Education majors are in this bar.’ Bravo buddy, Don’t try too hard.

And a different group sat at another booth. It was another hovel of guys. They were individually looking for this other guy named Paul, but they mostly called him dickhead. They wanted to knock out his stupid ass. They planned to get even with Paul because he had kicked the ass of their friend Mike. Mike sat with them and he felt special because his friends were going to avenge him. Mike’s jaw still hurt.

Turn.

There was a guy with blonde dyed hair who thought about ice climbing and how much he loved it.

Turn.

A girl was upset because Bill had spent the night with her. They had sex, but he never called her after. She spots him in a corner talking to another girl.

Turn.

Bill tried to think of a way to get Tamara out of the bar without walking past Anna. He didn’t want to fuck up a possible lay. He liked possibility. The theme of the night is possibility. Next to him stood some bikers in leather vests and torn black t-shirts. Only one of the bikers had on a bandanna, but all of them were very conscious of looking tough at all times. They intended to scare people, or at least intimidate them a bit. That’s right, look the other way. Another biker thought about his bike, and another thought that he should buy a car.  It’s fuckin cold riding in the winter.

The sorority girls I had entered Rusty’s behind were dancing in a close circle. They smiled and sang along with the music. Every once in a while a boy would break the circle and talk to one of them. That girl thought, Wow, does he like me, he’s cute, while the other girls thought about whether or not they approved. This boy’s name was Josh, and some of the girls thought, go for it, and some, I’ve heard things about him, and one, does he even remember me.

Turn

A guy wondered why he came to Rusty’s, and he didn’t have an answer.

The drunk people had some pretty funny thoughts like, He doesn’t respect me like I told him you know shit, or, trust me, you trust me I know silly fight ass-dick.

The bartender was annoyed because Marshall had forgotten to stock the bar. He has no idea about responsibility.

People laughed and thought the sounds of their chuckles.

Turn

Sitting alone at a booth was a young face. He had blonde hair that was natural, not out of place, but let to fall on its own. He wore a black shirt that backgrounded the reflected freckles of the spinning disco ball. He was writing. He stared at the page and turned and stared at the crowd. Back and forth. He rubbed his fingers over his eyebrows. He looked into the crowd, he didn’t just watch it. He searched it and was disgusted. He squinted his deep-set, wandering eyes, and he looked as if he was ready to strike.

I was intrigued by him. He looked out of place. I watched him put down his pen and run his palms over his face.

I had seen his stature before. I had felt his presence before. I remembered his black shirt,… because I had dreamed him, the booth, the scene, the smoke. I then heard him think and my already perched curiosity flapped its wings and flew high above the steep peak it had reigned.

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth. Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth. Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest nature’s rule. Cursed be the gold that guilds the straightened forehead of the fool.

His thought was eloquent and beautiful, and his eyes cowered as he thought it. He was a new mystery, and I felt like I should talk to him.

I was calm. The freakishness of seeing a character from my dream did not shake me. I had already been quaked that day. I just hoped the worms wouldn’t also arrive.

He sat alone. He picked up his pen and wrote. He smoked a cigarette and drank what looked like whisky, and he thought poetry.

I slid off the wooden stool and walked towards him.

His thought changed.

A tornado is reflective reason.

No way. I was right. I was right to come to Rusty’s. I believed now that anything I thought would come true, a side effect of my power. Max would soon follow and then the old man we would thwart. But now I found the first thing that had to be found. It was the phrase. It was him. It was his voice I had heard all day long. There was no doubt in my mind. It was his raspy, tenor-baritone voice that I had heard the night before, and at work, Max’s house…. I had found him, the source, as I knew I would. I now believed that not only could I hear the thoughts of the world, but also in me were puzzles that showed the future.

I couldn’t believe it, the coincidence. I wanted to run towards him and scream, ‘What does it mean?’ with excitement and irate energy. But I didn’t want to startle him. You can’t just run up to someone and say, ‘I know what you’re thinking, so out with it, now.’ No. I had to stay calm and think of a way to start up a conversation…. But I had no idea how to do that.

…..

Turn off brain. Turn off brain. Don’t think Bear. Turn off your brain, stop thinking. Feel things, respond with feeling. You think and think and think but you never act an impulse. You think about it first. You ask your brain about love and listen to what it tells you that you hate….Feel Bear…run quick when you feel. With an empty head you will see God in the end, and your heart will know all that you’ve felt. Start feeling things Bear.

…..

I walked slow to his booth. I watched him write in his unlined journal. Then I stood next to him. He looked up at me, closed the book, and put the cap on his silver fountain pen.

“Yes,” he said.

“What are you writing?”

“Nothing…”

“…”

“What do you need?” he said.

“Nothing. I’m just curious about what your writing.”

What the fuck does this guy want. “Um…not much, really…just something I’ve been thinking about.” He doesn’t look drunk.

“Can I sit down?” I said.

“Sure.” OK, this is weird.

I knew I was staring at him, but I didn’t know what to say.

Is this guy coming on to me? I hope not. I don’t mind talking to someone, but he’s got to talk for that to happen. “What is it?” he said.

I paused a little longer…and then I just said what came to mind.

“I hear thoughts.”

Great, the crazy guy in the bar picks me to talk to. This is interesting. “Really, well me too.”

“See all these people…I know what their thinking,” I said.

“Yeah? So do I.” He took a drag of his cigarette. “It’s written on their faces.” Oh, so he’s the stupid philosopher type. He’s having some flashback to his youth. That’s sad, he misses casual sex. I just hope he’s not after me.

“No…you don’t understand…. I hear them…in their voices, in my head, and I swear I’m not full of shit,” I said.

Funny, he doesn’t look like he’s on acid. He does look crazy though. He probably is a drunk asshole. He just holds it well.

“I’m not some drunk asshole,” I said.

He wavered. I had his attention. He knew that he had just thought that, but still, he wasn’t convinced…. So I said some more.

“What was it?Yeah. Cursed be the…social wants that?”

“No way. Stop…. How are you…How do you know that?”

“I told you. I heard it…I heard you think it.”

No fucking way.

“Did you write it? It’s beautiful,” I said.

He was silent and did not move. His eyes were open large. His tightly shut mouth extended ever-so-slightly over the girth of his face. He wasn’t scared. He was actually a little thankful that something unusual had come along.

Well, this is weird, but…I guess it’ll be something to write about. “Um, OK…Why not?… No, I didn’t write that. It’s from a poem called ‘Locksley Hall’…I’ve memorized it.”

“Really, I guess I missed that one in college.”

He took a full slug of his drink.

“Man, this is fucked up…. You can?yeah, the poem. It’s about a guy who is denied the love of his cousin so he decides to spy on her?” What am I doing?

“You’re just talking. That’s?”

“Alright. Fine. We can talk. I want to…. This is pretty incredible. You sold me. I believe you and, man, I’d love to hear about it?But one rule,” he said.

“Sure.”

“No reciting my thoughts back to me, or answering them even. Cool?”

“Fine,” I said.

I still hadn’t figured out what to say next.

“So, the poem. I like it…because it could have been written today?Did you just hear the words of that song,” he said.

He looked up and winced.

“Excuse me? You mean, right now?” I said.

“Yeah. Here. Right now. Everybody’s dancing to it, dumbass.”

“I’m a little?”

“It went, ‘You and me baby ain’t nothing but mammal, so lets do it like they do it on Discovery Channel,” he said.

The crowd danced and sang along.

He looked angry-excited as he spoke.

“Now tell me that’s not sinning against the strength of youth, or guilding the straightened forehead of the fool. Some moronic fool in some big office building probably wrote that…Or somebody on drugs,” he said. He stopped to slug his drink again. “It makes me feel ashamed to speak English. Fuck. I’d like to meet the man who coined the phrase ‘sex sells’. I’d ask him if he eats through his ass and farts out his mouth. SEX SELLS. Isn’t that the mantra that pimps and ho’s meditate on. Ommmm, sex sells, Ommmm. Is our modern period built on a doctrine invented by the oldest profession on earth.? Whoopee! We have genitals and we’re not ashamed of them anymore, we can be sexual and open minded about it, and THAT”S GREAT. I mean it, but they’ve taken an historical moment of liberation and used it to build a stronger market economy. You get it? Fuck…. I bet they had better sex back when it was forbidden to talk about it…. I’m sorry. That stupid song got me started,” he said. “DANCE YOU ANIMALS,” he screamed to the crowd.

“Lighten up, kid. You look like you’re about to burst,” I said.

“Oh, and the poem, right? There’s a line about Rusty’s in it. ‘Eye to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint. Science moves, but slowly, slowly creeping in from point to point. Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher, glares that on that nods and winks behind a slowly dying fire.’ ?You hear that? Science. Ordered reason, justified events hardly exist in here. If they do, they creep in and hide somewhere. Ask somebody why they come here and they say ‘because.’ No reason…. But I don’t blame anybody, in here. It’s those mysterious fools in magazines. Those bad actors, those adult nursery rhymes on the radio. Oooo, living the ‘Vida Loca’, great. There’s nothing ‘loco’ about doing what the radio tells you to do. I don’t care if it is in song version…but I’m ranting,” he said.
It was hard to follow what he was saying, he was too animated when he spoke. His eyes opened big, his hands waved and pointed, and his body rocked as he preached. The boy also looked as serious as he did excited.

“I hear what you’re saying,” I said.

“I bet.”

“But you’re giving bad things too much credit, and by doing that you also venerate these things you spite. I’m not telling you that you’re wrong, you have a point, but you’re not taking enough into account.”

This guy loves to lecture, I can tell. “Thanks Teach,” he said.

“C’mon.”

“No, really, I mean it. I hear you Nostradamus,” he said.

“What?”

“So, you’re a psychic then. I knew another psychic. This guy?big guy, half black half white, he always has to wear sunglasses when he talks to you, or else he looks too intense and freaks you out.”

“No, I’m not psychic, not really.”

“But you are telepathic, right?”

“You know, I don’t know what the hell I am. I can’t see the future, clearly, but I have instincts. All I know is I can hear what’s going on right now, in everybody’s head. I can see clearly the present, I guess.”

“Hmm. You’ve proved to me that you can read minds, but nobody can see clearly the present. There is no present,” he said.

“What?”

“Forget it.”

He dragged on his smoke.

“Oh, OK, I get it. You don’t want to tell me, you’d rather me get it out of your head on my own. Fine, I’ll just recite it back to you.”

“I told you. Don’t break the rule.”

“Then tell me. I hear it very clearly.”

“What?”

“Say it.”

“Say what?”

“Dammit kid, say it!”

“It’s nothing. It’s just a weird sentence,” he said.

“Say it!”

“Why? You can hear it?” he said.

“Yes I can. And I have heard it…all…day…long.”

A tornado is reflective reason.

“Yes. That’s it.”

“This is fucked up. I’m not?”

He stood up and grabbed his journal.

“Wait. C’mon kid. This is what you want. You want something extraordinary. You hate this place, it’s always the same and you don’t fit in. You used to think that a night at the bar was like a Monty Python sketch being played live in front of your eyes. And the only reason you come here is because every time you hope, you pray that just maybe this time something bizarre and original might happen. Well, it’s happened. I’m here. Write about it some day, I don’t care, make it into something, anything you want…but, dammit kid, follow it through. Live it out,” I said.

He stopped moving and breathed as if he was building up for a fight. It was a little too much for him, but he put his journal back down on the table, and sat down.

“Fine. But no more cryptic bullshit. No playing with my head. And I want you to stay calm. You can look pretty demented when you get excited. Has anyone ever told you that? It’s kind of frightening.”

“Fine. It’s just a little tough to stay mellow today.”

I saw a girl fall down on the dance floor, and I laughed a little.

“What?” he said.

“Nothing, it’s just, this girl just had a pretty funny fall out there. She took two other girls down with her,” I said.

“Yeah, that happens here?so…the phrase.”

He took another sip of his drink.

“Whiskey?” I said.

“No, Scotch.”

He smoothed his fingers over his eyebrows and then he tapped his nose a few times with his thumb. I figured that I’d finally ask him what I wanted to.

“Listen, kid. I’ll tell you. Ever since last night, and all day long I have heard that sentence, in your voice, in my head. I’ve been looking for you…. I need the answer,” I said.

“What’s your problem, man? Are you too lazy to form your own opinion? You can figure it out, they’re only words.”

“Just tell me what it means,” I said.

“Man, you’re fixed on things that don’t exist?the present, the answers. Who am I to say what anything means?”

“But you wrote it.”

“I didn’t write it. It’s not mine,” he said.

“Whose is it then, another poet’s?”

He made an effort to look straight into my eyes. He was still waried by the situation, but now he wanted to talk.

“No…”

“Well?” I said.

“Fine, relax, I’ll tell you. I’m not sure how…if it really was an outside voice, or something that came out of my sleepy mind…but, last night, when I heard it…I was startled and I jumped out of bed, grabbed my pen?” He picked the pen up to show me. “?and I wrote it down in my journal…and I went back to sleep.” He placed his hands flat, palms down on the table. “When I woke up this morning it was the first thing that came to mind, and I checked to see if it was really in my journal, to see if I dreamed the whole thing or not…and it wasn’t a dream. It was still written in my journal.” He folded his hands like in prayer. “So, I thought about it, a lot, trying to define it, but nothing really made sense…. But I didn’t give up.” He pointed at me. “And frankly, my brain hurts from pondering it all day. I was determined to understand it…I have to…because I think it is my thought. But it’s not a conscious thought of mine. It’s more like something my subconscious understands, but I don’t. Am I making any sense?” he said.

“Sure.”

“I think it’s some kind of universal truth. You see, I believe that the truth,  or the answers are in nature, and we are nature. Therefore, we have all the answers, maybe in that theoretically unused majority of our brain. But just because we have the answers doesn’t mean that we understand them.” He took a sip of his drink. “I think a universal truth might appear simple at its core, but really, there are too many facets, to much contained in the truths that are born into us. To fully understand the universe is to be the craziest man in the history of crazy men on Earth. For example, how do we really know that murder is wrong. Because it’s one of the commandments? I don’t think so. We just know it’s wrong. That’s your universal truth, murder is wrong. But for us it’s not that simple, there are too many facets and conditions to go crazy over. What about as self-defense? What about capitol punishment? Can you really punish murderers by murdering them? What about euthanasia, or allowing civilians to die in war? Is war murder, or do certain intentions make murder OK? Is hunting animals murder, or eating meat? It’s done in the animal kingdom, it’s merely survival. Is murder an integral part of man’s survival? I already feel crazy and there’s probably a thousand other circumstances that make it hard to just accept the truth, that murder…is…wrong. It works the same way with the phrase we’ve heard. Listen. A tornado is reflective reason…. Murder is wrong. They’re both the same kind of sentence, they’re both declarative statements. The meaning of the phrase is the phrase. It’s the applications of it that we have to figure out…. And I didn’t give up. I’m glad, too. About forty-five minutes ago, I figured it out for myself,” he said.

“And what’s that?”

I leaned forward.

“Weren’t you listening to me. You have to figure it out for yourself, figure out your stance and your own applications of it. I am not the authority.”

“Fine, you’re right, but I want to know what you think.”

“I thought you could do that on your own,” he said.

The noise of the bar was louder then before. The kid and I had to raise our voices to hear one another.

“Not like that?Listen, you seem like a smart dreamer kind of guy. Understand this. I have heard your voice all day. There’s a reason for that, I hope. I believe that I’m supposed to get your opinion, I believe that you are supposed to teach me something. Just tell me. It doesn’t feel like I have much more time. C’mon, I am putting a great, supernatural value on your thoughts. Not everybody thinks like you, at least in New Guernsey they don’t,” I said.

“Well, I guess I’m flattered.”

“I giving you full license to preach. I know you don’t mind that,” I said.

His face illuminated and he smiled.

This is fun. “OK. So let’s say that the tornado is man, or humankind to be P.C., and that makes sense because everything man touches he changes. Man’s as dangerous as he is beautiful. So, the tornado is man…but a tornado is reflective reason…well. The real question is?What is reflective reason? So first, what is reason? Reason is the basis, or motive, for an action, decision or conviction. Basically, it’s how we justify our forward motion. Life is forward motion. We move in time. Every second we use is lost, and can never be relived…except by one thing,” he said.

“By our memories, right?”

“Right. By reflection.” He sipped his drink. “Reflection is what we used to keep hold of, or relive, the past. What is history but a written down, recorded reflection.”
“Because you can’t record something as it’s happening,” I said.

“No, not truly we can’t. Time moves too fast. Everything is either reason or reflection. Reflection is how we view the past, and reason is how we see the future. With reason, we see what is going to happen.”

“Sure,” I said.

“But what do we use to reason. On its own, without reflection, reason that focuses on the myth, the present, will only yield wayward predictions that the slightest change in situation can nullify.”

“Because there is no present, and to base anything on it is to base it on nothing,” I said.

“Yeah. Try to catch the present, right now…that just happened, poof, it’s gone. Keep trying and you’ll see that it all has happened already. You’re right, you can’t base reason on nothing.”
“So is that what you think the universal truth is?”

“No. Not at its core. That’s too complex to be the core,” he said.

“Do you know it, then?”

“I told you, I don’t know anything. I only suppose.”

“And what do you suppose?”

“That the phrase defines how we move through time.”

“How?”

“We are constantly moving in opposite directions. One way is forward, forward through time, through life, through circumstance, through our hopes and wishes and plans and our bodies. But we are also moving backwards, by reasoning with what we have already done, by seeing the past, everything we carry with us, and using it to define us and to make decisions about where we will go. We move back and forth, living and remembering. That is how we experience time, by reflecting and reasoning?Think about it. When you examine who you are, what you feel, think and know, you don’t base your conclusions on what you think will happen in the future. Unfortunately, we are not what we hope to be, we are what we have done. Because we don’t truly know what is going to happen, unless we equate it with something that has already happened. You know, that’s how I think psychics work. They don’t see the future, rather, they probably see what has already happened in your life, and they reason it?draw conclusions based on the patterns of your past.”

“But there has to be a present, there has to be something that connects the two,” I said.

“That’s right, we are constantly living it, the joint between past and future. We are the present, we are where they meet. You understand? It’s us. Past and future overlapped, contained in one thing, a constant movement of opposite directions, forward and backwards, as one body, as one definable structure, and what moves in two directions at once?” he said.

He pointed his index finger and held it at his eyelevel. He moved it left to right, right to left, back and forth and then with that moving finger he drew a spiral instead of a line, to the left, right, left, right, down until it landed on the table.

“A spiral,” he said. “Two directions connected as one. But a spiral, a plain spiral is just a geometric dream, it’s not real. So what’s a real spiral then, one alive enough to be compared with man. I’ll tell you. We all move forward and turn back on ourselves at once, like a tornado.” And that’s it. That’s what I think. Good job.

He was pleased with himself, he enjoyed himself. It was actually the first time he had coherently organized everything he had gathered in fragments that day. It all made good sense to me.
He drank the small sip that was left in his glass.

“Think about it,” he said. “I’m gonna get another drink. You want one?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Let me guess.  Maybe I got the power too. Um…Um…, where is it? You got a lot of shit in that brain of yours. What? You eat doodie. That’s gross?wait, there it is…Johnnie Walker Black, straight.”

“That’s what you’re having.”

“So are you,” he said.

He stood up. His face had on it a huge grin and a clownish squint circled both his eyes. He was definitely a weird kid, but I was glad that he thought so much. The guy cared about people, as much as he despised them for being stupid. He was both dark and like a jester. He loved life, and most of all, he loved trying to understand it. He walked to the bar with a strut in his step.

When he reached the bar a fight broke out on the dance floor. It was an interesting spectacle, a pageant of stupidity. First, a circle opened wide around the fight, creating a ring for the scuffle. Two guys. One wore a red velvet shirt that was tight and crept up his arm so his biceps could be clearly seen. He landed most of his punches on the other guys face. I’m kicking your ass, he thought. The other guy wore a iridescent, silver polyester shirt that glowed under the neon lights. His shirt was pocked with sparkles of light from the disco ball that spun over him. He was losing the fight…bad. Fuck, ow, fuck. He went down on one knee after the red guy landed a hard overhand right between his eyes. The red guy also dropped to one knee, but not because he was hurt in any way. He just wanted to hit the guy some more, and look him in the eye as he did it. The red velvet guy landed a killer uppercut on the silver polyester guy’s jaw. Silver polyester was knocked out cold.

Finally, after fighting to get through the circle around the fight, the bouncer tore through to the center. Godammit, get the fuck, move, oh shit this guy’s hurt. He grabbed red velvet, tight, and pinned his arms to his side. The bouncer then lifted red up, and carried him to the exit of the bar. Red velvet thought, I kicked his ass.

The young writer was back with the drinks. He put them down in the center of the table.

“Crucify him!” he yelled into the crowd.

“What?

He sat down and pushed my drink closer to me.

“They just carried the modern Jesus out of the bar. He is. Don’t look at me like that. Red velvet guy is our new icon, the founder of the new Church,” he said.

“C’mon, that’s bullshit. He’s no martyr.”

“Oh, really? Tell me that violence hasn’t become a kind of church. A church proclaims to have the final word. Here, violence is the final word?and I know they weren’t thinking anything. You know why? Violence doesn’t require thought. I bet I could walk up to anybody here and just…make some high-pitched squeal in their face, and if I’m relentless, if I refuse to stop squealing at the guy, no matter how much he threatens, I bet he’ll resort to violence in order to stop me. Now what kind of thought process could conclude with the decision to pair an annoying squeal with a punch in the face. None. No thought equals violence. Just like religion, the final word. Blind faith, senseless violence…same difference,” he said.

He shrugged.

“You’re stretching kid. That theory needs work?and besides, we’re not having this conversation, OK?”

“What, big church-goer, are you?”

“We’re just not going to have it, OK.”

I curled my brow and shot a severe glance at him.

“Sure, man. Drink up,” he said.

He raised his glass. I did the same.

“To freaky shit,” he toasted.

I nodded, and sipped the warm, smoky scotch.

Silver polyester guy was conscious again. Three people helped him to his feet. The circle closed around him and dissolved back into a mob of dancers. Silver polyester thought, Shit, I got my ass kicked.
“So, I think I might have an added take on the phrase,” I said.

“It’s about time you thought for yourself.”

He took the last drag of a cigarette he had lit at the bar.

“OK, explain,” he said as he blew out the smoke.

“I accept what you’ve come up with. Maybe we are the tornado, and we do move forward the same time as we reflect and remember. But, a tornado is destructive. It might be a little too vague to say that because everything man touches he changes or destroys that he is like a tornado. Maybe there is something specific. Something specific that is being destroyed.”
“Alright, what do think?”

“Maybe it’s the real past that is being destroyed, the past we don’t remember,” I said.

“The real past?”

“Yeah…. I think that when you remember the past you actually destroy it.”

“Prove it,” he said.

“Well…think back to the sixth grade. Did you have a sixth grade dance?”

“Yeah.”

He lifted his rocks glass and drank.

“OK, so you remember the chaperones, and the music that played, and the girl you awkwardly slow-danced with, and how it took a little time before the girls and boys started mingling with each other. But…you don’t really remember who you were then. You don’t truly remember what you thought. You remember your impressions, but the exact words that were in your mind are gone. But that doesn’t mean we don’t remember it. We remember the dance as we see it, right now, through this moment.”

“Yeah. So, I don’t think I follow,” he said.

I drank a little scotch.

“You’re not really remembering the dance. You’re only seeing it with the mind you’ve become, everything you are right now. So, that past you’re imagining is not the real past. The real past is how we saw it when we lived it, not the past we remember. So, I realize that when we remember something, when we look back on the past we actually destroy it. It was real before you chose to remember it. It’s like, you can never be what you were, you’re only what you’ve become.”

He laughed.

“Wow. We should make a poster out of that and hang it in the gym. ‘You’re only what you’ve become’.”

He laughed harder.

“Gimme a break,” I said.

“No, I hear what you’re saying, it’s just funny how you wrapped that up with a cute maxim. I do understand though. When we remember something we actually change it because we’ve changed. The original event becomes only what we think about it now. It’s a perfectly valid point…. A little depressing though.”

“I’m depressing? You just compared religion to violence. That’s grim,” I said.

“Alright man. See? This is good. You’re proving yourself wrong,” he said.

“How?”

“You thought you didn’t understand the phrase, and now you’ve got your own theory. To you the truth is that we destroy the purity of the past when we remember it. That’s good, I like it. All of our memories are distorted versions of what we once were. That’s pretty, really illustrates how forlorn we all are. I’m going to remember that. Maybe one day I’ll create this demented, depressed character, and that’ll be his motive. He’ll try real hard not to remember anything, the oblivious sad man. That’s good.”

“Don’t be a dick.”

“I’m kidding, sorry.” He drank again. “But…your trope…it kind of makes your whole story exposition. With out memory, everything’s exposition. It’s almost like you’re saying that the life you’ve lived has no relevancy to the life your living right now. It’s too in the moment?You like pizza?”

“What?”

“You like pizza?” he said.

“Sure.”

“Well, every time you decide to eat pizza it isn’t a fresh spontaneous impulse that makes you want it. You like pizza, and some time ago there was that first time you had it, and it’s then that you decided that you liked it, and because of that you still do. I think you’re a little off. You can’t destroy the past, the most you can do is either forget it or distort it, but it’s always gonna be there. You want my advice?… Get over whatever it is that haunts you and…I don’t know…love life, enjoy your story,” he said.

“Listen, all I’m saying is, there is no way I can truly remember how it truly felt to have pizza for the first time. I can’t forget how it tastes now.”

“This conversation is ridiculous. You know?” he said.

I laughed at myself. I did feel ridiculous. I was really stretching. As I laughed I realized that my point was stupid, rhetoric about perception. The young writer was much smarter than me.

“Yeah, we’ve gone from universal truths to pizza,” I said.

“Cheers.”

He laughed and raised his glass. I raised mine and tapped his and slugged another sweet sting.

“So…My story?” I said.

“You want more of my postulates? More of my theories? I’ll tell you if you do.”

I looked around the bar and Max still wasn’t there. It was 10:50.

“Sure, I’ve got time. You know, I feel better talking to you. I guess I needed to listen to my own mind a bit, rather than feed off strangers. You’re theories get me thinking, so what’s this one?”
He was excited, and happy that he was having a real conversation in Rusty’s. He was a lonely person and it felt good to him that someone cared about what he thought. He wanted me to listen, someone, anyone to listen to him, to the philosophies he had spent his life amassing, figuring and creating. He was definitely smarter than me, but I understood him fine. He was a pure thinker, determined to think more than do anything else. He lit another Camel.

“OK,” he said. “So we’ve decided that we can’t really see the future, right?”

“I think so.”

“Fine, but if we can’t then something must. It is very evident to me that there seems to be a balance to everything, one that naturally occurs. I think that there’s a good time for every bad time we’ve had. And maybe not in exact numbers. Some events are stronger than others, good or bad…. Maybe it’s just a supposition, but even if it’s been good and perfect your whole life, something bad is bound to happen that will carry the weight of all that good. I think history might support that. It’s Pax Romana and the Holocaust.

“I’m not sure about that,” I said.

“Yeah…It’s still a little shaky. I need to spend more time thinking about it.”

“It’s a bit of a generalization, that’s all.”

“But, you do believe in balance,” he said.

“I do.”

“It’s certainly not an original thought, and not new too. The Zen and the Taoists live by it,” he said.

“I know.”

“Well, that’s what I’m arguing. Something must see the future if we can’t”

“God,” I said.

“Now, that’s a generalization. I believe in God, I do, but not as a personified being. I think that there is an answer that is more unique to each of us.”

“Which is?”

“A script, a draft. You see, I believe that we’ve already been written. Like we said, it’s already happened. I think it’s recorded too, that everything has a script, that each of us is a solid story, and that it’s complete from start, the end in the back pages. Look into your past, organize it, understand its shapes, and tell me that it doesn’t seem like your life has been scripted. There is too much irony to think otherwise. Those heavy-handed times made you who you are now. There are themes, there are bit characters and mentors. There are those moments that change your life. There are justifications and grudges, and most of the action is timed perfectly, exactly when it was supposed to happen. Our stories are well written, real, educational, unbelievable, sad, happy, progressive, heady, and sometimes thrilling. We are not freak occurrences, and even our randomness becomes organized as we live new random events. People are meant to do things, they are driven to do things, because it’s been written before and it’s impossible to change that. Einstein was meant to define modern physics, Lincoln was meant to free the slaves. You were meant to hear thoughts, and you were meant to come here, and we were meant to have this conversation. In the end you realize that nothing has been random. I mean…feel it…. Why else would you come here today? Look around, listen to it. It smells like shit in here. It’s loud and the collective smoke from a hundred smokers burns your eyes and makes you blow brown snot out your nose the next morning. You drink things that make you piss a lot, and the only bathroom available is utterly disgusting. And you! Why are you here? You’re probably the oldest guy here, except for the bouncer and those bikers that were here earlier. Did you come here to have a good time and get drunk like the rest? You could have stayed home and spun yourself around while looking at the ceiling and you’d probably feel like you had a few beers. You might even throw up?Look, that guy just spit on the floor. Gross…. I know you say you followed my voice here, but tell me…is that really why you came here?”

“I don’t?”

“No, you don’t have to answer, because maybe you don’t know yet. But you will. Was coming here circumstance or insight? It doesn’t matter, it already happened. Because you’ve been written to be here. Because, when you reflect on this moment that just left, you’ll dream something new, hope for something, whatever’s next, good or bad,” he said.

He leaned back and smirked. I’m right.

“I believe you, but tell me something. Who writes these billions of scripts. Do you  really think they just exist? There’s too much awareness in our stories, and that awareness has to come from somewhere. Wouldn’t you say?”

“I don’t know. I do know that you want me to say God. That’s what you’re getting at, right?”

“I guess so,” I said.

“Maybe that idea is popular because most people do get the feeling, after examining their lives, that everything has been arranged too perfectly to be random. People get the feeling that their living a script?as long as they don’t think that anybody really lives a John Woo film. I sincerely doubt that any one of those billions of ethereal scripts out there are like ‘Face Off’, or ‘Broken Arrow.’ …Anyway, what are you gonna do when you find out that it’s already been written. You pray, that’s what. You pray that you got a good story with a happy ending. But I can’t say any of this with certainty. I know that I just don’t understand God yet, and I’m not sure I should suppose anything about people. Bottom line…I don’t know other people’s motives.” He paused and drank. “But I’ll tell you this.” He clenched his face. He had taken too big a gulp. “Damn…this heaven and hell bullshit. I can’t imagine it. If we really were made in God’s likeness, then God too must understand that not everything has a happy ending, not everything is good. God is all good, and for good to exist there must be evil. But where does he keep this evil? In a Devil. Bullshit. That’s a cop-out. You know what I think? We carry the evil, that’s the point of our existence. We hold onto the evil that defines God as good. Our job is to recognize that it’s in us, and to reject it, fight it, merely hold onto it and never act on it, and when we die, we go back to the good and the same old evil that’s been down here since it started gets picked up by someone new. Maybe that’s where reincarnation comes in. Maybe we get as many chances as it takes to live a life with all that evil in us until we finally get it right, and reject it the whole way through. Maybe that’s impossible. Maybe Christ was the only one to do it and that’s why his entire body went back to the good. I don’t know. But as it stands, man is both good and bad. If you’re a good story, you reject more bad than you accept. But there are also bad stories, bad people. It happens when someone reflects back on their life, too much on the bad, and then they think they are bad, and then they act bad. The answer to your question, though. I don’t know who writes it all. Funny…when I look around here, this place, my vote goes to the ‘Sex sells’ guy,” he said.

“Yeah, maybe? But I got one problem with your idea,” I said.

“Shoot.”

“If people spend too much time thinking that everything’s been written already, then why would they ever give a shit about what they do. It’s kind of a helpless feeling to think that you have no control over your life.”

“Why? Why feel helpless? We never knew what was going to happen. We don’t have a copy of the script. To us it’s all improvisation. Our pasts have scripted our scenarios. Now we either do what fits or what rebels. Only the complete story knows the ending before we do.”

I looked into the crowd. No Max yet.

“But why care about your life at all? That’s what I’m saying,” I said.

“Well, besides the obvious. I mean…Why care about your life? C’mon, because it’s your life…but…fine. It all comes back to our enigmatic phrase. We have to care about what’s going to happen because it’s gonna define us when we look back and learn from it. Stories themselves are opened and closed, but we’re not just the stories, we’re also the characters…and character is what can change in the story, character is what can be interpreted in more ways than the plot can, character is a reaction to the story. You know, that’s why some characters seem so flat and undeveloped. It’s because those characters haven’t watched themselves. They have done little reflective reasoning. They just experience the story,” he said.

…..

I only pray for one thing—To one day forgive myself and blow my load of relief.

…..

“But why bother? What if you don’t expect anything? What if you’ve long thought that your story has a bad ending,” I said.

“Jeeze. You’re dark for a religious man. You’re forgetting about faith. Maybe that’s really where the belief in God comes from. Maybe that’s the big mystery that we aren’t universal enough to understand. Maybe we do have some knowledge of the future, like I said, locked in our intricate, unused minds. Deep in the same crevice that stores our memories of the womb, and being born. That place where the disappeared memories hide. In there, maybe we do have a copy of the script…and maybe…our dreams, while awake or asleep, are just our mind giving us cryptic hints of what lies before us…I mean…. I want to be a writer, I’ve always wanted that, and somehow, I know I will be. That I will succeed. My dream, to me, is like a premonition. Maybe dreams are what gets ahead of the story.”

He stopped and fished his Camels out of the front pocket of his black shirt. He pulled one out and slowly put it in his mouth. Out of his pants pocket he fetched his brass Zippo. He snapped it open and lit his smoke. He blew out a thick drag.

…..

I don’t go to church, and maybe that makes me a bad person. I don’t care either way. The mass is too certain. This is and this is not, and this is how you should live…blah, blah. There’s no room for debate…at least…no opportunity. You’re supposed to shut up and listen. I might go if I was allowed to argue with the father about his homily, or even his vows…if there was a segment of the mass set aside for us to raise our hands and ask the man in black, “Why celibacy Father? Isn’t sexual love an instinct that in being human must also be part God?”  Forget it though. They’ve got tradition on their side. Traditionally we are told to serve God’s servants, the ones who wear black and never have sex.

…..

“That’s a lot of faith for someone who doesn’t believe in religion,” I said.

“Yeah…but I’m young. I don’t know anything. None of my prescriptions are by any means law. I only know what I think, and I don’t know religion yet. I know God though. I know it’s there.”

“Maybe one day you’ll find a church.”

“Doubt it. But I’ll tell you. I am intrigued about the old, the traditional tools,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well…I opened up a Bible the other day and read whatever it was I randomly opened to. It was the 94th Psalm,” he said.

“Yeah. What did it say?”

“Check it out sometime. My ideas, your present experience, it’s all in there. When I read that Psalm I lost a little bit of what I presumed to be unique in me. It was humbling, and kind of a bummer. It made me feel like an original idea is an impossible find. It’s all been written somewhere. Maybe it’s time to restate unheeded ideas…I don’t know,” he said.

He turned his head and faced the dance floor. He rolled his sight around the bar. Inside of him, he was happy, he was glad that I had listened to him, that I gave him credit for what he worked hard to gather. He felt like I respected him, yet he was a little worried and pensive. He felt that some of his ideas were still rough, and whenever he stated an argument the other side of it immediately came to mind. He then thought another line from the Tennyson poem, I assumed.

Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, full of sad experience, moving towards the stillness of his rest.

He turned back and looked at me again.

“I feel bad for you,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because.” He pointed to the crowd that danced under the disco ball. “You know what they’re thinking,” he said.

I smiled.

“See those two girls next to the bar,” I said.

“Which ones?”

“One’s got a denim shirt, the other a white V-neck.”

“Yeah, why?”

“They both think you’re cute. Actually…they’ve thought you were cute for a while, I guess. One was in an English class with you.”

“Denim girl,” he said.

“Yep. She thinks you have a great voice, and she really wants to meet you,” I said.

He sipped his Scotch and then pulled a drag from his cigarette. He blew the smoke out slow.

“Well. That’s great. So maybe she’ll come over here and I’ll say three words and then she’ll say ‘I never met anyone like you’ and then I’ll call her and she won’t return the calls because she’s afraid that I might treat her well, that I might care to know her, and I won’t enjoy ‘going out’ to the bar and partying with her. I’d much rather cook her dinner, go for a drive or see a movie. Unfortunately, I could never be an MTV vee-jay so I’m ruled out as one of those nice guys who, not with her, but eventually will find the love he’s looking for. But I won’t if every girl reacts that way. That’s how it’s been for me. It fucking sucks…. Those girls thinks I’m cute. Great. Who cares,” he said.

“Don’t be an idiot, go talk to her. There’s a good chance you’re wrong.”

I guess I could. I do need to give my brain a rest. And I did used to check her out when I was in class with her. Well. C’mon man, do it. So what if it turns out bad, crazy-mind-reader-dude might be right. It could be good. “Why not…. She’s gorgeous,” he said.

“Good,” I said.

I turned then to look around the bar for Max. I first looked into the one of the far corners…and there I saw the beautiful, blonde waitress, Calzone Girl. She had on a thick, billowed coat that hid, from everyone except me, her pregnant shape. She did a shot of Tequila and chased it with a swig of Bud Light. She clenched the bottle tight in her left hand. She turned back to the bar and did another shot, and then another swig. She coughed a little and then chugged the rest of her beer.

I was furious. I wouldn’t accept it. How could she do that? Who was the asshole who let her in, and which goddamned bartender sold her those drinks? Where were her friends, where was her boyfriend? I felt more concerned for the unborn child than her at that moment, but  both of them at that moment were in pain. I also felt a little stupid, and partly responsible. She must have taken the twenty dollars that I had tipped her and used it to buy that batch of poison. She just inhaled it. It was too quick to stop, it was irreversible. What was she doing? She was pregnant. She just fed her child tequila and beer. I was so angry, but I still don’t know what made me so mad. It wasn’t just her, and seeing her hurt herself. I hated everything in Rusty’s at that moment. Everywhere I looked I found something I could judge. The way the guys looked at the women, like they were lecherous, low-lifes, like evil was in their eyes. Even the women as they danced angered me because they provoked the whole scene. I was disgusted enough and inside I felt a quake. I tried hard to still it. The fervor and the anger swelled shy inside of me. I looked back at her. I loved her. Never really spoke to her. But I felt like I’d jump in front of a bus to protect her. I guess I just cared, and I wasn’t going to let her wound herself…

“So what’s she thinking?” the young writer asked.

I couldn’t tell. The gift changed, the effect changed. It started with the entire crowd as a blur, like a thousand car horns blown at once, as they all jumped into a focused euphoria. They screamed because ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light’ came on. Everyone danced, and sang the words of the song to each other. Their heads shook like they all had been shocked…and their thoughts…the thoughts of every single person in that glow, in that foggy den…blended together. The gift was a loud curse.

It was impossible to avoid the waves of simple words as they roved through my head. There disappeared the separations between the thoughts. Instead I had no sense of where or who they came from. It was like one long phrase and the words alternated with different voices that choired in my brain. I began to hear the whole, the ugliness. The thoughts oozed of the mirth of the crowd, and I felt pressure inside my skull like it would soon explode. Cankerous and wretched, depression with other rotten ill-humored sickness, mixed together and cooed a pungent verse. The thoughts had rhythm, a relentless tick that moved fast and steady, and sometimes coincided with the words of the song. The rhythm was vanity, and all of it together composed the most awful song I had ever heard.

See me take for want cunt what’s he doing and I look fat dick in this goddamned Marshall doesn’t know Chrissy responsibility gonna puke are they real that motherfucker never felt so good never felt so right I feel fine he’s got a boner touch me here is he looking Hell and great tits did you see that break his jaw gotta piss nobody wants me can we go yet I see him get real there’s no fun fuck like isn’t that the grocery store can I hurt he’s a jerk where’s my keys those tits are great I’m touching it’s warm her ass blow me kill that I’m drunk motherfucker more beer will you love me forever bitch don’t know he is looking this song want Hell is great he’s cute great tits dickhead wanna fuck me did he can he she no way she lick my does he she balls me bitch prude a thousand times all night me like a tidal wave what’s her name cock can I hurt ubiquitous fire dancers I’m to get dick stoned pussy bathroom snort don’t know my face hurts kid got want him in pounded in the face he said on someone grabbed what’s face her name grab her ankles I don’t look stand want it I will my she she got to be look don’t touch boner boyfriend she’s cute so I’m praying for the end of time dick and I don’t know Hell Scott want Troy Beth touch is Mary Hell wait no fuck him an asshole yes that motherfucker what’s his problem look look boxer taste shit that boxer dude can we go great ass kick his ass she’s mine he don’t what know my walk away strength bitch want a Oh yeah hurt if I have to spend another minute with you Hell take tornado that motherfucker you should fuck me.

I trembled as I heard the crowd’s fever. All their thoughts were a dank froth. No ideas, only violence and pity and sex, inebriation and that awful song. The lights of the bar seemed to whirlwind through the dry-moist cloudy air. The glitter from the disco ball bounced from one sinister smile to another. Their thought-blend passed through me like silence, a collective, like the silence of by bedroom, the tick, hiss, knock. This one huge ghastly thought was the hiss of the bar, was evil-intricate and it puzzled me mad. These were not the sounds of good times, the sounds of fun to be had. Want, want….want something else, please!

I was terrified. My head hurt. It was too loud and I couldn’t take it. I didn’t want it anymore. This was a bad part of the story. Erase it, can’t handle it. I suffer, I suffered. My stomach hurt. I felt weak and swooned and spun and it all had to stop. What could I do? I had one impulse, and it was to scream, scream terror and panic while the blend of the bar’s thought continued.

Yes no want who’s screaming fuck him he’s the OK let’s go who’s screaming great tits motherfucker whose beer where’s Bear fuck who’s screaming paradise Hell who’s screaming what’s he screaming what’s he why’s he screaming Hell there she is screaming why Hell screaming who’s screaming screaming Hell what that they are screaming vanity what the fuck’s he screaming screaming screaming for.

My throat burned and felt like there were dull pins stabbed through my voice box. The strain felt like fire, the scream rasped like flames. My thoughts were gone. Only pain, pain spiked in my head and I suffered and I hurt.

And then where I looked I saw the calzone girl. She looked at me, but right next to her a kid with a velvet shirt punched a kid who wore a striped shirt. The punch surprised him and he started to fall. He caught his balance before falling, and squared off to fight back. He cocked back his arm fast for an overhand right, and when he did that he elbowed calzone girl hard…on the side of her head.

I flashed with instinct and burst out from my seat in the booth. I charged through the crowd after the kid in the stripes. Everybody moved out of my way and gawked at me like I was demented. The fight broke out between the two kids and a circle formed around it. Calzone girl was trying to push her way out with one arm. The other she held to the side of her head.

I ripped open a hole in the circle and grabbed the striped-shirt guy I wanted. I spun him around and hit him hard across his jaw. He went limp and before he hit the ground I caught him and put him in a choke hold.

Calzone girl ran out of the bar.

“Turn off the fucking music,” I screamed.

I held him tight, choking him.

“Turn it off!…I’ll break his damn neck!”

I stared at the bartender. She rushed to the stereo and turned it off.

“Now…EVERYBODY…clear your fuckin heads. NOW…stop thinking.”

What the fuck he’s crazy crazy is he going what’s he crazy

“Now, do it now. DAMMIT, SHUT OFF YOUR GODDAMNED HEADS.”

“Bear, put him down, OK,” the bartender screamed.

I choked the kid harder.

The bouncer started to push his way through the circle.

“Don’t do it Joe. Don’t charge me. I’ll do it…DAMMIT…MOTHERFUCKER…. I got another wish to make. I wish I could be both evil and generous,” I said.

…..

By the end of that spring it was impossible to find a frog in the creeks, and there never was any more for the rest of the years I lived there…. Today, I’ll swerve to avoid a frog in the road…but I’ll never touch one again.

…..

The circle around me opened wider as they all gave me space.

“I wish this would come down on you. I wish that I could strap every one of you down and then I’d curse you…I’d give it to you. I want you to hear what I just heard…I wish that I could inflict that type of revenge.”

Joe inched forward so I tightened my grip again and twisted the boy’s neck a little. Joe backed into the circle.

“GODDAMMIT…I wish I could judge you…but I can’t…I’m just like you. I’m just as fucked up as all of you, but I’m not proud of it. You are! How much longer is this gonna be fine, how much longer is this gonna be regarded as acceptable behavior? How much longer is this wicked shit gonna go on. You guys are winning, this crap is winning. We are all wicked fucking winners because you don’t know how bad it is. The evil, ugly, rancid and hurtful words you use. The threats. You threaten everything and you don’t even care. We just do what everyone else does, and for some reason we think that it’s something we should brag about. This violence, this way we crave like animals, this complete lack of respect IT SEVERS US. From our families, from our endurance…from any fuckin hope that we could ever have. THIS IS AWFUL. This is murder, and don’t you think that it’ll be noticed, that we’re killing the chance that we could ever be pure. How do you feel…knowing that this putrid fucking behavior is gonna be thrust back in our faces, and who knows how that will happen. WHO CARES? It will though. Listen, you might think that I’m just some crazy asshole but you know what. I heard you. Now listen to me, you guys who just want to fight and cause pain, overextend your desires to be dominant, who got to be brutish, like apes, and even you idiots who don’t know any better, who just follow along…I heard you. YOU CAN BE HEARD. Your bullshit is no secret, not at all. Look at the rage in me, look what hearing you has done to me. Now imagine if there’s something, some force a billions times stronger than me who heard the same thing. What does it think? Maybe it doesn’t, it just reacts. How would it react to us? What if it’s revenge it wants? Revenge is going to come to us very large, because we’ve been watched as we hurt each other. Your thoughts are heard, dammit. There is something that knows everything you do. Imagine that. Do you think you should hide if that’s true. YOUR SECRETS ARE KNOWN, YOUR THOUGHTS ARE KNOWN, AND THEY’RE NOTHING. Just hot air and self indulgence. NOTHING ELSE. The good people know the rules, they don’t hurt each other, they don’t hurt themselves, and they’re the ones who’ll have a goddamned happy ending. But the bad people are gonna one day find themselves in a ditch with nothing but their pain and their ignorance to cover their coffins. And that’s your own doing, and nothing else can take credit for it. The universe doesn’t doom you…we sentence ourselves.”

I shook the boy as I spoke. I hardly noticed that I held him any more, even when he struggled.

“You can be the judges if you want to be but, god, do it as a good person. Do you know how tall you all can be, how much compassion and strength you can have. Instead I see you all hunched up, a bunch of fucking Igors in here. Stand your damn selves up. YOU KNOW THIS IS BULLSHIT. YOU DON’T HAVE TO THINK LIKE THIS. Fuck, if there’s no good people then who’s gonna make the bad people leave?…I shouldn’t be doing this, I’m nobody to be preaching like this, but I asked to hear it all, and now I have no silence anymore. Something is holding me up even though I don’t want to be standing here. You lowered me to this, so I need you to please think of better things. I need you to save me, not kill me and you are killing me because for the longest time I’ve so little faith in myself. Now you’re making me have no faith in you. We don’t exist if we don’t have any faith that we do. God, do you think we’ll be given anything, do you think you deserve anything? Listen to your thoughts! They’re awful. They destroy everything, and they will destroy us, even the good us. And what’s our defense? Do we just hide behind a rock and wait for all our bullshit to come back to us. We will be forgotten if this is how we live. We will be cut off, and we will be forced to hear our many wicked thoughts…”

fuck him he’s crazy who’s he fuck him think he is to judge crazy asshole where crazy hypocrite police coming

I threw down the boy and stormed towards the exit. Joe jumped in front of me to stop me. I charged and shoulder checked him. He cowered, bounced off the wall, and fell to floor.

I kicked open the bar door, and ran outside. Someone was throwing up across the street. This sucks.

I ran around the corner, and finally heard my own thoughts.

…..

I never wanted to hurt Frank. He was a good kid, a friendly kid, a smart kid. But Pete…I wanted to hurt him bad. That asshole, I wonder how long he waited to try me again. He probably touched himself while he dreamed about beating me up. Unsatisfied prick. He wasn’t happy having beaten me once when I was younger. It was like he couldn’t stand that I had grown up, and gotten bigger and stronger. Sure, I thought about getting him back a long time, and yes it was his face I sometimes imagined to be painted on the heavy bag I spent hours punching. But fuck him. I would never have started with him. I knew that he could never hurt me again. I guess he had to find out for himself. And because of that, his need to renew his pride, Frank got hurt.

I had gotten over it, even though I enjoyed staring him down as he passed me in the hallways of our High School. Maybe I did hope that one day he’d try again, now that I wasn’t so small and round. But years had passed and I wasn’t going to be that immature, I wasn’t going to avenge a fight that had taken place before puberty.

Pete had not gotten over it though. He must have never forgotten, the way he had lived off the pride he felt after beating me, when he urged other kids to join in on the beating. That wasn’t enough? What a bullshit way to be alive, like a predator when the rest of his species had become civilized. He was an animal with a first name, and the smell of me, the girth of the pride he would get from beating me up just four weeks before graduation was just too much for his idiot instincts to resist.

And so it happened, right before the last class of the day. As he walked past me in the hallway he butted me with his shoulder. I would have kept walking if he hadn’t called me “momma’s boy” as he bumped me. I turned around, and he turned around. We stepped to each other and began the staredown. “What are you gonna do Momma’s boy. You don’t want me to fuck you up again, do you? I still remember how much you cried,” he said.

I was silent at first. I just stared at him as the anger inside of me squeezed juice from my adrenal glands. I could feel my insides shake. My hairs felt like they were standing on end.

A crowd gathers fast around a possible fight. Most of my classmates had noticed how much bigger I had gotten over the years. I guess they were curious.

“You’re a pussy Pete,” I said.

His face dropped its goading smile.

“Excuse me?” he said.

“I said…you…are…a…pussy…Pete. Pete the pussy. Pussy Pete.”

“You wanna go, Bouchard?”

He grabbed my shirt.

“Don’t touch me…Pussy Pete.”

He flinched, like he was just about to throw a fist, but before he could I pushed him hard, throwing my open palm into his chest. He flew backwards and dented the locker he slammed into. I took a step back and held up my stance, leading with my left.

He rushed me, his fists clenched but his arms to his side. I took a step forward and jabbed him with a left. I hit his nose, and blood burst out of it, over my fist and his face.. I stepped back again and held my stance. He lunged and this time I landed a right hook on his cheekbone and hurt my hand. I ignored the pain as I got more and more excited, and even more angry. I stepped back again. “Fuck you Bouchard,” he screamed. I watched him wince. “Your mother’s a whore Bouchard. Who’s your father? Do you know? Didn’t think so…most whores can’t figure out which bum got’em pregnant. She fucked around too much, asshole. You’re a momma’s boy to a whore.”

I didn’t wait for Pete to charge me again. I ran right into him and grabbed him by his collar and landed right after right on his chin. My hand was cut and I felt one of my fingers break, but I kept hitting him…knocking out his teeth. He became limp in my grasp and I still kept hitting him. I cocked my arm as hard as I launched it…until I threw my elbow back again….and felt something collide with it behind me. I dropped Pete and turned around to see Frank. He was tossing around on the ground, grabbing his neck and spitting out blood. He had run in to stop me. I guess he knew that I could have killed Pete. I had elbowed Frank in his voice box, and it shattered.

Frank Lewis was the valedictorian of our graduating class. At the commencement he had to have his speech read for him by the principal…. He still can’t speak.

…

The young writer was wrong, about balance. Ugliness could be stronger than beauty, and that was sad. I had thought I was noble and celestial enough to pillage the thoughts of others, to hear their secrets and relate back to them like I was a god. I defied balance with this power. I didn’t have enough strength in me before to be able to manage such a burden. I wasn’t ready to detail the sewers. I was balanced before, when I didn’t know what types of shit flowed under the sidewalk. But it happened. I was made aware of what an idiot I was. I had fished for secrets in the sewer, for secrets that floated with the other excrement, the ugly thoughts, the ugly past that I too had been guilty of. I had once done everything I heard in Rusty’s, and I felt even worse about myself. I should have gone to a monastery instead of Rusty’s.

I stopped running and trembled on the sidewalk.

…..

I have to take this gift away from here. I have to travel. I’m not too sure that I like New Guernsey anymore. I thought I did. Maybe it’s the routine I like. I don’t know when it started, when I couldn’t manage a second with dirt on my hands. Is it guilt? I’m sure it is. I’m guilty. I once exterminated an entire population of frogs. Sick little disturbed fuck I was. I am guilty. I hurt people in fights. I hurt Frank in high school. I am guilty of that. I left an amazing woman, embarrassed her, humiliated her by not showing up at our wedding. What a fucking miserable thing to do. I hurt her and embarrassed her whole family. A whole family should never be made to feel sorry for one of its members. She had to look at all of them when I didn’t show. She must have felt…dammit. I hurt her so much, I am guilty. I gave her up because she didn’t match my DREAM?! I was—I am such a dissolute dick. I gave her up, I hurt her because I was afraid. And now this gift, a call to travel away from here. I can understand people. I cannot be lied to. And as I see everything honest in the world, good or bad, I will know the truth about how we all live. What is our common thread. Is it guilt? I can wash off my guilt with good deeds, with compassion. But I don’t have that. I’m not good enough. In order to be I must lose my past, and move away. In New Guernsey I will always be Benny the boxing, grocery manager, deadbeat, washed-up, guilty maniac Bear. But outside of the bubble I can be a healer, first for all, and lastly for myself.

…..

I felt dirty…and then I heard I sweet voice…a sad thought with a sweet voice.

I don’t want it.

Flickr photo by Thomas Hawk

© 2009 – 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. The Host: Chapter 9
2. The Host: Chapter 5
3. The Host: Chapter 10

Chapter 7

But I noticed the dark as I drove. I noticed the large, orange moon. I noticed the houses that still had their Christmas lights up. I noticed that my knee was still sore from when I banged it on my desk. I noticed the stillness of the side streets, and the squirrels that had yet gone in for the night. I noticed that I was speeding…and I noticed that I still wasn’t happy. I noticed that I really was a sad man, a powerful, mystical, sad man.

It would only take about one more minute to get to Max’s. I thought about how happy he was, with his house. He lived in an old Victorian house that had been converted into a two family. It was light grey with red trim and red shutters, and the exterior suffered. The family that lived in the downstairs apartment had three children. The kids had littered the lawn with toy cars, bouncing balls and bicycles. They had surely picked at the paint, especially on the door. Every time I went there I noticed how behind the paint the wood of the door was dark and old.

Max owned the upstairs apartment. It had an eat-in kitchen, a small living room?That room was always flooded with light. With more windows in the room then there was wall, the light of day was the living room’s most prominent feature. The light showered the contemporary furniture, steel end tables, the black canvas couches, and the large mirror cube that Max had made his coffee table. He had one of those flat TVs, a gift from his parents, that hung on the wall, and around it…Max had built a frame.

It was a brilliant contraption, this frame. It was made up of cubes of four colors, either red, green, blue or purple. The cubes were set in a rectangular track. As a whole, it looked like a border of alternating colored squares, jumbled and not in any specific pattern. But that wasn’t the brilliant part. A loop of the track extended out from the right corner of the frame, and in between the colored squares were small parts that pushed the cubes around the track. Off of the lower left corner the frame had a small motor that drove pulleys, and a small computer, not unlike one found in a hand held video game. When the frame was plugged in the colored cubes traveled around the track, unarranged and random. But every once in a while one cube would go into the attached loop. It would change tracks. When it finished traveling the length of the loop it would fall back into a space in the rectangle, right next to a cube of the same color. It was like a stretched out, self-solving Rubik’s cube. Max never told me how it did that. He had worked with a computer artist from New York to make it. I think he wanted its entire mechanics to be a secret, but he did tell me its purpose. “If the colors ever all line up, so that each side of the rectangle is a solid color, well…then that means that I’ve watched too much TV.” It was a timer, the simplest one the artist could think up.

Max’s workspace was the attic of the house. It was huge, the span of the whole roof. Max didn’t do too much to decorate it though. He just arranged hundreds of candles around it. Some were in holders and candelabras, and some just stood up in the middle of wax-puddles on the floor. He once said, “My creativity is merely the influence of a candle lit room on an unstable individual.”

Max was a wonderful man to understand. He was directed and inspired. He worked hard, and never doubted that he would get the fame he wanted, that he would make something beautiful that people would love much longer than he would be alive. Max was a man of faith, in himself, in his vision, in the quirks that made him crazy and the brainstorms that washed out his life. I was glad to be his audience, to have seen his mind even before I had the gift, and I wasn’t anxious to hear what was inside Max’s head. I had already seen it on canvas.

…..

Max and I were fairly drunk when we went to orientation. We spent the whole time either chuckling at the orientation guides, with their New Guernsey State College sweatshirts and the boiling enthusiasm that they had for the longevity and landscape their college, or we pointed out the pretty girls and made quiet, lude comments to each other. The forties we drank had really worked well. As we walked with the group through the campus we kept bumping into people and tripping over our feet.

We were both pretty unimpressed with the campus aesthetic. The buildings were plain squares and the sidewalks were beige concrete.

“Ivy League’s much prettier,” Max said.

“Yeah. Much more expensive too.”

I guess Max and I both had our reasons for choosing New Guernsey that had little to do with the aesthetic of the campus buildings and layout. Max wanted out of New York City, but not too far out. The painting program at the college was very respected, and the art studios were comfortable and private. Max wanted to be in the mountains, but he mostly wanted to be farther from his parents. I just wanted to be far from Maine and close to New York City. I also liked that the college had a competitive boxing team, but not a renowned one. I hadn’t ever boxed for real, so I guess I chose the least threatening of places to try it out. My only criteria was that there be a team, period. Not a good boxing team. I still didn’t know if I was any good.

One of the orientation guides noticed that Max and I were lagging behind the rest of the group. We were laughing and throwing rocks into the pond as we passed it. The guide walked to the back and confronted us.

“Listen guys, just try to keep it down a bit. Some people do give a shit about this orientation,” he said.

“I’m sorry. We’ll keep it down,” I said.

“Yeah…sure…and guys, seeing as you’re freshman and all, why don’t you chew some gum next time. They can be pretty strict about these things…understand,” he said.

“But gum ruins the flavor of the beer. It might even make me throw-up and then my breath would really smell,” Max said.

“Don’t give me a hard time kid. Just relax a bit. Hold your drink like a man, not a little boy,” he said.

Max belched and walked away. I laughed and followed him.

We walked up to a willow tree on the side of the pond and sat down. It was pretty warm in the sun, so the shade of the willow helped stunt the spinning in my head. Max pulled out a pack of Camels and lit a cigarette.

“So I guess you don’t care much for authority either,” I said.

“It’s not that,” he said. “We were only laughing and having a good time. Nobody was bothered. I just can’t stand it when there’s a situation where it’s expected that you be quiet, mindless, and orderly. It seems a little too militaristic for me. What the fuck? We’re just walking through this relatively simple campus, being told the names of buildings that already have signs on them. How does that constitute a solemn occasion. It’s not like we’re touring famous battlegrounds, or visiting the graves of martyrs. It’s just another school, and I’m not going to tolerate it if it feels like a prison,” he said.

“Sure Max…but we are underage.”

“Yeah, but that guy’s no cop,” he said.

Max calmed down pretty quick, smiled and said, “Fuck it.”

I looked up and noticed two girls coming our way. They smiled at me as they walked.

“Hey Max. I think we’re having visitors.”

“Of course we are Benny. Chicks love a non-conformist…at least…for a little while.”

“What?”

“Forget it,” he said.

The girls were real pretty. One had on jeans and a tight orange t-shirt. She had straight blond hair, a small round nose, and an inch of her belly showed where her shirt failed to cover. The other girl was shorter, and a brunette. She had on jeans and a tight blue collared shirt. Only about a half inch of her belly showed. She had a round face, sort of a big nose, dark eyebrows, and really big tits.
Max and I both looked up at them. I said hello. Max said nothing.

“Hey guys, we saw you leave the group,” the blonde said.

“It looked nice over here,” I said.

The blonde girl pulled out a pack of Marlboro Lights and lit a cigarette. “I’m Lauren,” she said.

“Hello. I’m Benny…and this is Max.”

Max looked up, cigarette hanging from his lip. He looked at the brunette and said, “What about you?”

“Emma,” she said.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you two. You want to sit down?” Max said.

It was warm and humid, but in the shade the breeze felt cool.

“Where you from?” Lauren asked Max.

“New York.”

“City?”

“Yep.”

“Cool. I’m from Connecticut.”

“Sorry about that,” said Max.

Lauren made a slight, intrigued laugh.

“How about you?” she asked me.

“I’m from Maine.”

“Cool. It’s pretty there. My family goes to Scarboro in the summer,” she said.

“You’re right, it’s pretty there, but actually, I’m a bit north of Scarboro,” I said.

“OK,” she said.

“How about you?” I asked Emma.

“Oh, I’m from Mill Rift, Pennsylvania.”

“What’s it like there,” I said.

“It’s a small town. It’s right where New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania meet…. There isn’t much to do except go rafting on the Delaware, or buy crap at the Sunday Flea Market,” she said.

“That’s cool,” I said.

Max finished his cigarette and buried the butt in the grass.

“So did you get bored of the tour, or are you too drunk to participate as well?” said Max.

“Yeah, it did get pretty boring, and I guess you boys looked like you were having more fun,” Lauren said.

Lauren flipped her blonde hair.

“Well…what are you two doing after dinner,” Max said.

They looked at each other and smiled.

“Nothing,” Lauren said.

“We’ve got to go register for classes now, but why don’t you come to our room after you eat. We can have a few drinks and maybe tour this place for ourselves,” Max said.

“OK.”

“Great.”

Max stood up, so I stood up after him.

“We’ll see you later then…Studling Hall, Room 304,” Max said.

“That’s our dorm too,” Lauren said.

Max started to walk away.

“Bye,” I said, and turned around to catch up with Max.

We walked away from the pond in silence. When we got far enough away I said to Max, “Dude, we don’t have to register for an hour.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.

“But you just got up and ditched them.”

“Hey Benny, I invited them over later didn’t I?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, we’ll see them later then.”

“Sure Max, but what’s wrong with right now,” I said.

Max shook his head.

“I gotta piss, don’t you?” he said.

I did. I had been holding it for a while.

…..

I pulled into his driveway and parked next to his house.  When I opened the door and stepped out of the car the smell of Lester’s piss reminded me of how scared he was when he ran away. Maybe he’d go home and change his mind.

I walked down the cement path, past the toys in the yard, to the grey porch. Max’s was the door on the left. The wood seen where the paint was peeled was dark and old. The porch light cast my shadow long, across the porch and the bushes in front of it.

I opened the door without ringing the bell, I didn’t have to. I was anxious, excited…and honestly…I felt important. I could hear human thoughts, who else could do that? I was on top again, like a champ, and who’s gonna tell the champ to use the doorbell. Hell, I might tell your mother what you think of her cooking, of tell your girlfriend where you really were that night. Sure, it was arrogant of me, but it wasn’t negative, it wasn’t rude, to realize that I was special, that I was not to be barred from anywhere. I was a supernatural hero on a quest to find a murderer.

As I stood in the open doorway, spying up the staircase that led to Max’s apartment, I noticed a musk in the damp air. There were filled bags of garbage that lined the length of the stairs. The oak banister looked dull, and there were red-paint handprints up and down it.

I had never seen any part of Max’s be this dirty. He was proud of his house, and with the exception of his studio, he kept it clean, like a museum.

I started to walk up the stairs, investigating the garbage bags and the handprints. The stale musk in the air became a stronger invisible funk. I could taste the damp, diseased smell that lingered. My hands felt dirty sharing the same air as the sour odor.

At the top of the stairs I knocked on the door and waited…. No answer. Normally, I would have left and been satisfied to wait until I met him at Rusty’s, but something felt wrong and I wouldn’t ignore my impulse. Max was my greatest friend, and something told me that he needed me. I turned the doorknob. It wasn’t locked. Maybe he was home after all.

When I opened the door the stale smell became fresh and pungent. His living room was covered in clothing, clean, dirty, it was hard to tell. They seethed in knotted piles. The TV was on, muted, the channel MTV, and as I espied the unkempt room I saw the last green cube fall into its place in the frame. All sides were a single color. A bell chimed from the motor box.

His clothes stuck out of every crevice. Socks strewn over shirts and slacks. In between the couch cushions there were sweaters. On the mirror-cube coffee table there were a pile of crusty bowls, caked with grens. I noticed my face reflected in the cube. I looked as freaked-out as I was. There were dirty glasses that were covered in grips of re-paint handprints. Red paint was everywhere, on the upholstery, the lamps, the windows, the rug, the curtains. It was a sick sight, all of the filth. I walked out of the room, and made sure not to touch anything.

The kitchen was a foul hovel. Fruit flies and houseflies hovered over empty cans of black beans and bottles of Tabasco sauce. The buzz sounded like freezing rain falling on glass. It was one sound made by thousands. They flew in spirals, and the houseflies fought in the air.

The cans were everywhere. They lined the counter and fridge top. The cans were on the floor and on the windowsills, cans smudged with red handprints in which maggots peered and gangs of flies went to spawn. I gagged and cowered, breathing through my nose until the smell made me gag and then opened my mouth to breathe until my teeth felt dirty and I shut my mouth and breathed through my nose until the smell made me gag. The sink was full of beans, paint, dirty bowls, and unrecognizable grens. But there were no dirty pots, no dirty pans, just bowls and spoons.

“Max,” I hollered. “Are you here.”

No answer.

The cabinets were open, and on the refrigerator door, finger painted in blood red…was the word, ‘Hell’.

I was frozen, not sure if I would run out screaming or still search the house…

A tornado is reflective reason

And so I decided…. I would run out screaming.

I whipped my head around, intent on cascading towards the door, but I caught a glimpse of Max’s room across the hall. What I saw made me curious again, but no less worried and no less scared.
Max’s bedroom was perfect. It had shine. It was calm. The bed was made, the blankets were tucked. The furniture looked polished, and I could see clearly the tracks of a vacuum like a grid on his carpet. The awful smell was still present, but the rotten care of his house had not steeped through his bedroom door. Inside his room there was no red paint, no filth. It was cleaner than I had ever seen it before, and I didn’t know what the hell was going on.

The ghost, the phrase was near. It was time to shake the fear. I decided to check his studio. I was letting fantasy take over my brain.

…..

Maybe Max is being held prisoner. Maybe by a gang…or terrorists….art racketeers?I don’t know. Maybe his kidnappers had forced him to call me at work. So no one suspects anything. They could be holding him up there, at gunpoint. He did sound very…forlorn on the phone, and he was very mysterious when he told me that he ‘had to take care of something’. He probably wanted to tell me, but they threatened him with?a pistol whipping, or even worse…sodomy. Fuck. They could have taken his paint and used it to vandalize his house, and painted ‘Hell’ on the fridge as…a reminder…of where they would send him. Maybe they’re force feeding him cold beans and Tabasco…as torture. They could have locked him up there while they ransacked his apartment?wait…shit…look at this. The door doesn’t even have a lock on it. Shit…I’m an idiot, some sleuth. Quit wasting time, he’s probably up there…. Who ever heard of Tabasco torture anyway…. I am not afraid.

…..

I flipped on the light switch at the bottom of the stairs and climbed with ginger steps. I felt panic, but also I felt draped in wool as I, too, felt gentle. It seemed that Max needed my help by the look of things. I felt like less of an egotist and more like a friend. I pushed away the fear.

The smell was just as grotesque, but there was a new element to the whiff. It was the smell of smoke, but not cigarette smoke, or even the cozy scent of burning wood. It was the chestnut smell of a candlewick that has been extinguished. The smell of its smolder.

I was right. In the studio there were hundreds of candles checkered across the floor. Some wide and some narrow. Some in tight clumps and some standing like a sentinel, alone. Some were placed in beautiful candelabras that had the bleed of melted wax hardened on their bases. Some spilled over shot glasses, wooden bowls or were simply on the floor. Some were even floating in water, water in the empty cans of black beans. Wax was on the floor, solid puddles that reflected the blackbody coil of the single light bulb that hung from the ceiling by its cord. There were more dirty bowls, bean cans, and empty paint cans that were tipped over and spilling their last red drops onto the dull wood of the attic floor. There were paintings stacked in the corners, and in the center of the room was a canvas.
The canvas was mighty, maybe twelve feet wide and eight feet tall. It was in the center of the room. That was the only place it could fit without touching the ceiling. It stood under the apex of the roof. It was covered with a black tarp made of plastic. I imagined that it was meant as a pool cover. Around the base of the canvas were cans with brushes sticking out of them and a pile of palates were stacked on top of a small card table that stood like a guard next to the right edge of the canvas.

“Max, you up here?”

I knew he wasn’t. The only evidence that pointed to Max’s having been there recently was the small brush that was posted in a transparent cup of evergreen paint. I walked over to it. The paint was still wet, no film had formed on top.

At first, I figured that I’d leave. Max wasn’t there and I had to find him. If he was losing his mind I could see it. I could be objective and help him to understand whatever his crisis was. And if he did find it, I could help him remove it, remove the thought that he couldn’t handle. He was my best friend, who had been that for many years, unchanged and loyal. There were many times when he had helped me, when he had soothed me when I freaked out. I would return the favor threefold.

I was going to leave, but stopped myself. The canvas, what was on it? Perhaps to see it would help. According to Max, it was he who was concealed under that black plastic sheet. I would uncover it.
I walked up to the canvas and pulled lightly on the cover. My heart eschewed a faster pace with each anxious thump of it. With just that slight pull the tarp slid off and fell in front of the painting?and there it was…the most horrifying vision I had ever seen.

My mouth went dry. My forehead became moist. I held my breath and was unable to react, to think.

It was demonic, painted in every shade of red imaginable. In the background was painted fire that twisted like serpents, or streams of smoke. But the fire surrounded a mass of bodies. They were old, and Max had painted their charred flesh with great detail. The burning people were chained together, and they all had black spheres for eyes. They were chained to the edges of the canvas. The fire ripped through their bodies, tearing holes that spouted blood from their burnt gashes. Some had fire exploding through their skulls and some through their screaming mouths. They were painted small and there were about a hundred of them, lining the bottom background. They were naked and tortured. You could see their pain, but not through their eyes, for the black eyes showed noting. Their pain showed in their skin, wrinkled and blistered, and their mouths, torn and twisted, and their muscles painted tight. Max had painted fear in the skin, in the bodies. …That was just the background.

In the middle of the painting, as hefty as a full-grown person, was the demonic…embryo, but it did not look human, unless in a very early stage of development. It had titanic, black eyes and gills that were opened in its supposed neck. It had a curling tailbone that looked like a bony cutlass, and tiny hands sprout from its ghoulish body. No arms, just hands with round circles for flesh, for fingers. Its forehead was the largest part of its head, and it mounted thin, needle-like horns. The spine was visible against the dark pink skin. The thing had two small, black holes for a snout, and a delicate, straight green line for a mouth…and painted all around the creature, in bright reds, the word ‘Hell’. ‘Hell’ was in the corners and hovered above the beast’s head. ‘Hell’ was painted all over the black sky, each time with a different style, different calligraphy that ranged from Gothic to pure psychotic. I was taken…and for the first time since I had entered Max’s ruined house I didn’t notice the smell. It was a dead sense to me.

I didn’t want to look anymore, but I was trapped, unable to look away. The painting disgusted me, but…was sincere in an evil-effective kind of way. It pulled me into the pain and torture. I could not blink. My sense of sight?a sado-masochist, controlled by the sting, indulged in the pain and pure evil of the scene. So I stared…

…And I noticed something hidden, and I blinked.

There was a fine detail I had missed.

In the center, in each of the demon’s bulbous black eyes was a small blur of green. I walked close to the painting and examined those eyes. I knew what it was I saw…. In each of those eyes Max had painted a tiny, green tornado. When standing back from the painting they looked like only a glimmer, or a reflection of the fire’s light, but up close it was unmistakable…

…And I noticed something else.

The delicate green line that was the beast’s lips, it looked perforated. I got as close as I could, and when I saw what it was…my heart launched into a fervor. It wasn’t a line. It was a sentence, and it read,

“A tornado is reflective reason.”

I was frantic. My whole frame, even my fingernails pulsed and itched. My throat itched. The panic cannoned through every one of my nerves and my blood, my spine, my gut…everything cased in my cold, uncomfortable skin…itched.

…..

Fuck me.

…..

I stared at that curse. I had thought before that it was Max’s phrase, but I was still certain that he was not the voice of the ghost. Max’s voice was like routine for me. I could recognize it at first syllable. No, it wasn’t Max’s voice I had been hearing, that whisper…. But Max knew about it.

Had he heard it? Did he share my gift? Had he always had it? Had it made him crazy? Maybe it broke him, destroyed his home and habits, filled him with images of fire and blood…that phrase.
That phrase was an evil innocence, comfortable to float over carnage and pain. So evil that it chained us all, to burn in hell. It grew out of misery, and kept in shackles those who watched it grow, shattered their minds with an infest of fire. The painting, the phrase, a solid portrayal of what all people fear, the evil dream. It was the creator of hell. The devil was a phrase.

The gift had changed everything and I was spiraling down swift and spinning, towards hell…full of fear of fire. I felt no power, because nothing was clear. I possessed a gift that made me strong as fast as it made me weak. I no longer believed I was novel. I was just like Max.

I was afraid of psychosis, it’s dirty.

But it was time to move anyway. I had been given tasks. I would find Max first, the old man second.

My watch said 10:07.

Maybe Max would get to Rusty’s early. I knew he would eventually be there, and I knew…that I’d enough of his musky lair. Standing in that house almost made me forget that there was a normal outside world that I could harvest secrets from, harvest insight from. I couldn’t ignore that somewhere in New Guernsey lurked a man with the intent to murder someone, and before the gift could ruin me, could make me crazy like Max, I would use it to save a life.

A tornado is reflective reason

I ran out screaming, absolutely certain that the ghost wasn’t Max. I ran through the house, trying not to breathe. I felt dirty and fragile.

When I got outside and breathed deep the clean air…

…on my neck, the tick was large and full, and it held on and fed some more…. The tick was addicted.

Flickr photo by Pixieslayer

© 2009 – 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. The Host: Chapter 5
2. The Host: Chapter 10
3. The Host: Chapter 9

The day was gone. It was dark. Color was dead and my room was grey again. My heart beat fast triplets. The hiss of the radiator, the tick of the clock, the traffic…. I was once again in the real world, with the ability to hear the thoughts of others. But to do so, I had to leave my house.

I thought about that freakish, riddle-of-a-dream I had just awoken from. At this point, nothing was to be disregarded, nothing was to be brushed aside as mere quirks of an average day. Every detail was important, everything that happened to me. I would take notice of all. I would accept each unusual circumstance, and I would have faith that each minute would be full of meaning as well as be a catalyst for new hope in my life. I had faith that whatever it was that gave me this power had intended me to live it as true and brutally alive seconds. To build a new time, a new being of myself that could destroy all memory of the old Bear, the powerless Benny Bouchard. I would be postured in a perpetual lurch that would only step forward to a new future, one that I could never predict because the days would change with each soul I came in contact with. My days would be as diverse as us…. I was excited to be alive.

I stared at my grey walls. The streetlamps outside made my windows, that were murked with road dust, glow yellow and near opaque. I didn’t want to stay in bed any longer. I asked God for strength, for the strength to overcome any other fits of sickness. No more pain, or passing out. Life was urgent, and I had magic to perform. I needed to find the old man. His mind was already committed to murder, so he was already a murderer, and I was the only one who knew, I was the only one who could enforce moral on him. There were rules, and I knew that murder was a carnal disregard of such rules. But I had to hurry, because I knew there was a chance that I was already too late. I hoped not, because I was up to the task. Two lives were now my responsibility, the murderer’s and the victim’s.

…..

“What were you thinking…Tell me…How could you…Don’t you…What were you thinking!!! Jesus…What were you thinking?”

My mother’s rage. The spit stung. Hot, dense water, chaos tossed from  her mouth. The spit exploded in the air and covered the hot five inches that separated her chin from my eyes. I felt a pinch every time a lucent drop collided with my skin.

She looked at me.

I was the pain and fear in her eyes that blazed hate down the slant of her face. I could only look up at her for a second before I was scared again and looked away.

I thought, I tried to imagine something else, something less frightful than a mother who hates her son.

“What were you thinking,” she screamed again.

My arm still hurt from where she had grabbed me and dragged me through the alleys of the condo-land, through our front door, and onto the living room floor…
I had never hurt my mom. I was scared. I was scared of each second that would come after, for the rest of my life. I knew then that my mother could hate me, too.
She shook. And I was just thirteen, scared as I cried…as I thought…It was only a stupid frog.

…..

The day had seemed to pass quickly, and I wanted each moment left to be rich and fulfilled. So to hear every thought, every secret of every mind, every dream I could borrow and adventure, every meditation I could house and hope to understand, everything new that made me more lean and hungry for the twisted meaning of ‘reflective reason’.

But I wanted an audience, too…. I needed to tell Max. I needed to tell someone.

I threw off the sheets that were laved with sweat and lucid nightmare. My room smelled dank. Outside I heard a motorcycle roar past, and someone on the street yelled ‘Woo’.

I got up, out of bed, and walked to the phone. There was one message. I let the counter blink, and picked up the phone to call Max. I dialed, it rang. I let it ring about ten times before I hung up.

Max didn’t believe in answering machines. He argued that if something was meant to get to him, it would, without any intervention of technology. He saw an answering machine as a third party that robbed him of surprise and spontaneity. Anyway, he didn’t answer the phone, which meant that either he wasn’t home or he was painting. He also believed that art should never be interrupted, because it has successfully kept us from a utopian way of life. Max could help me. Who knew, he might have been able to tell me what the phrase meant. He was a creative dreamer, and I only dreamt.

It was already nine o’clock and I couldn’t wait until eleven to meet him. I needed somebody to hear me. Even though I felt joyous and powerful, I also felt too separate from reality, to disconnected.

Surprising for a man who now possessed a gift that brought him to the most intimate of contact with people.

I felt dirty and uncomfortable, and that would not pass. I represented the spiritual and the mysterious now…and I needed it to show as neatness and cleanliness in my appearance, so if someone were to see me they would say, “There goes a clean man, comfortable and never caught short of anything. A man to watch, an example of the right way.” But at that moment I felt like my appearance would deceive them. I was disheveled and clammy. It itched, the sweat from the horror…the dream.

…..

I need to be clean, my body must feel perfect to me. I must smell like Old Spice. Nobody should ever be wary of shaking my hand. Clean hands, so that every fleck of filth that I may have once been covered in is gone, and there is no evidence that I was ever dirty. Nothing can come back to me. I am now holy and blank. But my memories…my memories are stains. I can see their blotches. I will study them, dissect everybody’s mind…but a surgeon must wash before operating.

…..

I brought the radio into the bathroom so I could listen to music as I showered. I undressed and kicked my dirty clothes into a pile on the floor. I turned on the shower and let the water warm-up. As steam crept out from the stall I walked over to the mirror and stared at my naked body.

…..

The first dinner I had at the college was at best disgusting and at worst, gross. It was an awful cheeseburger with soggy fries. Max and I ate quickly, and then we went back to our room, put on some music, John Coltrane’s ‘Lush Life’, and played some dominoes.

After about five games we heard the knock at our door. Max raised his eyebrow, stood up and walked over to answer the knock. He opened the door slowly.

“Hello ladies,” he said. “C’mon in.”

I stood to greet the girls. Lauren had changed her shirt. It was a blue, tightish, button down. She looked like she had put on more make-up, and she definitely smelled like she poured on the perfume.

Emma had changed too. She had on a black, lycra, V-neck shirt that was tight to her belly, and really made her breasts look humongous. The girls walked in and sat down on Max’s bed.

“You guys want a gin and tonic,” said Max.

“Sure.”

“Sure.”

“Benny?” he said.

“Sure.”

Max fixed the drinks in plastic cups, with the lime, the ice and all. He brought them to us and we all drank, not sure how to start, or what to say.

The conversations were pretty plain for a while. More talk about our hometowns, our probable majors, etc. The girls were very interested in Max’s paintings and asked him a lot about his process. He talked very vague about his interest in tornadoes, his process, and his theories. He didn’t seem like he wanted to talk about it though.

So we had a few more drinks, a few more rounds of bullshitting, the mild and obviously edited get-to-know-you conversations, and then Max asked them if they wanted to go up to the roof. I had no idea that we had access to the roof, but Max was certain that we could get there. We all stood up, and each of us had a little trouble with our balance. We laughed together about how we all swerved when we tried to stand still. Max grabbed a tin flask from his bag, filled it with whisky, put it in his pocket, and led the way out of the room.

“Try to be cool,” he said. “The RA’s got to be around here somewhere.”

But we made it down the hall, to the stairway without being spotted by him. The dorm wasn’t quiet though, rather, it was alive with clamor. The stairs were full of people going either up or down. We went up, and it was a six story climb that we made drunk and giggly behind Max. When we got to the top the door was locked.

“Is anyone behind us?” said Max.

“Nope,” I said.

“Alright, you keep watch Benny.”

Max pulled his new school ID out of his pocket. He worked it between the lock and the molding, and in a matter of seconds the doorknob turned and the door was open. Lauren and Emma smiled big as we stepped out onto the roof.

“We’re not going to get locked up here?” I whispered to Max.

“No. I’ll put a piece of paper in the door.”

It was a great night out on that roof. It was warm and bright moonlight lit a rich blue everywhere. The stars seemed like painted white dots above a black outline of the mountains.

“This is great,” said Lauren.

“Yeah it is,” I said.

Max pulled out his flask, took a sip from it, and said, “To college,” as he passed it to Lauren. We all took a slug of whisky and then went and sat down near the edge of the roof.

“So…. You guys ever done anything crazy?” asked Max.

“What do you mean by crazy,” Lauren said.

“You know, something you thought you’d never do.”

I think Max was tired of boring conversation.

“Well,” said Lauren, “Once…I gave a guy a blowjob on a bus ride to New York City.”

“Did you know the guy?” said Max.

“Well, of course, he was my boyfriend at the time. It’s not that bad. We were in the back seat, and the bus was pretty empty.”

Max smiled and nodded his head.

“Not bad,” he said.

“How about you?” she asked Max.

Emma and I looked at each other, as if to acknowledge that it would be our turns soon.

“Yeah, but mines not sexual though.”

“So what,” Lauren said.

“Ok. Once I went to see the New York Philharmonic, and…I was sitting in the last row of the balcony, as far back as I could be. I was pretty isolated because the balcony hadn’t filled up for that performance. Actually, there weren’t more than…fifty people, and they all sat in the front rows of the balcony. Below, now the good seats were full. Anyway…so the orchestra was playing Shostakovitch’s Seventh Symphony, which is a pretty grand symphony. The first movement really builds up to this tremendous high point. So, I’m sitting in the back, and I’m waiting for this high point. I mean, the low brass is rumbles you, and the trumpets are blaring, strings whirring away, it’s getting louder and more intricate, the hairs on your neck start to stand, and right as it comes, this peak moment…I pull out this navel orange, and throw it, as hard as I possibly can, right at the stage. Now you have to believe me because what I’m about to say is absolutely true…”

“OK,” we all seemed to say together.

“Well…the orange flies, great arch to it, in air for a few seconds, and it lands….it hits the conductor…right on the side of his head as he jumping, flailing his arms, directing this tremendous high point. Smack, right above his temple.”

“No fucking way,” I said.

“Benny. I told you this is true…. Now, it hits the side of his head and ricochets right into one of the violins?now not the violinist, it hits the violin. It was such a quick…chaos…. Boom, the conductor’s whole body jerks, his head flops to the side, he throws the baton and falls to one knee, and at the same time the violin gets knocked right out from under the chin of the violinist, and breaks in half. And then the conductor…the conductor is practically on the floor, and the violinist is like, grabbing his mouth and chin, because, apparently, he bit through his lip when the violin got knocked out?But it gets crazier! The front four rows jump up, practically screaming, but the orchestra doesn’t know what to do because they’re at this high point of the opening to a monster symphony and their conductor is practically knocked out, and one of the principal violinists is bleeding. Most of the orchestra stops playing, but some kind of continue. For a few seconds the music turns into this cacophony, the orchestra slowing stopping, a few instruments at a time while the crowd gets louder, screaming their disgust and rushing up to help the maestro.”

“That’s incredible,” I said.

“Did you get caught,” Emma said.

“Yep.”

“How?” Lauren said.

“Well, I guess the security guards pretty much figured out that it had to have been thrown from the balcony…so before I could run away…they were all over the place. I maybe could have escaped if I had used my head start, but I was too fixed on the chaos below that I had created. So as I’m watching everybody scramble, one security guard notices me sitting alone in the back and he comes up to me. He just grabs my bag, which I had left unzipped. He starts screaming at me. ‘Did you throw it, did you throw it?’ and I say ‘excuse me.’ So, now get this, this is a smart security guard. He grabs my right hand, pulls it hard into his face…and he smells it.”

“What?”

“Yep, he smells it. I was caught then. It smelled like orange…. They dragged me out of there real quick, because the small crowd in the balcony started to scream, and some even tried to come after me,”

“What happened then?” Emma asked.

“I got a big fine, some community service…and I had to sign a statement that bind me to lifelong banishment from Lincoln Center.”

“You can never go back?” I said.

“I don’t have to.”

We were pretty silent for a few moments. We were shocked, and finally when the silence couldn’t last any longer…we burst out, and roared with laughter.

After a while we finally caught our breaths.

“How ‘bout you Emma? What’s your crazy story,” Max said.

“Well…that’s a pretty hard for one to follow, and mine’s not as crazy as yours…but…once…at this party in High School…I got completely naked and walked around that way for the rest of the night.”

I immediately began to salivate. Max raised his eyebrow.

“So what? You were drunk, right?” Max said.

“A little,” she said, “But I mostly just felt like getting naked…. It was pretty funny. Most of the girls at the party were disgusted, and most of the guys had to avoid me because their boners were really obvious….”

“Hmm,” said Max.

“I guess it’s kinda like Max’s story…. I just wanted to see what would happen,” she said.

Man, did something deviant come over me. There was nothing more I wanted at that moment than to see that girl naked.

“But you wouldn’t do that again, right?” I said.

“What do you mean? Right now?” she said.

“No…that’s crazy, C’mon. I mean…it was a one time thing I’m sure. You found out what you wanted to.”

“I don’t know…. I’d do it again.”

“Doubt it,” I said.

“Yeah?you just want to me to get naked…right here.”

“No…well…c’mon, of course I wouldn’t mind if you did, but you just met us, and I can’t believe you’d do that,” I said.

“I might,” she said.

“Then do it.”

“You think this is going to work…this reverse psychology?”

“What? You brought it up, not me. Forget it. I only wanted you to admit that you wouldn’t do it,” I said.

“Why wouldn’t I?” she said.

“Forget it.”

“No. Why not?” she said.

“Because you know I want you to,” I said.

“You want me to?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Too bad.”

“That’s fine. I knew you weren’t going to anyway. I was right.”

Max and Lauren stayed quiet. Emma looked at me, very focused for a minute.

“You think I’m pretty?” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“And when I do this?”

She took off her shirt.

“Yes.”

“And this?”

She undid her bra. They were the largest breasts I had ever seen in person.

“Yes,” I said.

“How about this?”

She undid her zipper, and pulled off her jeans.

Max leaned in and whispered in my ear, “Man…you’re cooler than I thought.”

“What did he say do you,” Emma asked me. She stood up, and only had on her red cotton panties.

“Max said that he and Lauren were going downstairs for a while,” I said.

Max grabbed Lauren’s hand, stood up, didn’t say goodbye, and they both left the roof. He made sure to leave the paper in the door.

Emma sat down on my lap, and pulled off my shirt. I was so excited that it was almost tiring, holding that stoic unconcerned façade while this pretty, voluptuous, mostly naked girl sat on my lap…on the roof of my dormitory, while luke-warm breezes covered us on this, our first night of college life.

“So…What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done,” she said.

Her arms folded around my neck and her nipples were not to far beneath my chin.

“Nothing. I’ve never done anything crazy,” I said.

…..

The bathroom was misted with a massage of steam. ‘Me and Bobby McGee,’ was finishing over the radio as I stepped into the strings of hot water.

I felt an almost euphoric emptiness as I worked myself over with oatmeal soap lather. The song ended, and the weather report jingle came next.

“Classic one oh three six Weather (sung)…Well…it was a warm one today with a high of sixty-one degrees. Quite a nice break from the cold we’ve been experiencing these last few weeks. But, enjoy it while it lasts. Lows tonight will range in the mid to low forties, and by tomorrow…cold again with highs just barely reaching the freezing point. That’s right…winter’s coming back and it’s here to stay, so dress warm and remember to take lots of vitamin C, especially if you plan on watching the lunar eclipse tonight. The moon will start moving into the earth’s shadow at ten-fifty, which means, since it takes about one hour for it to travel the span of the earth’s shadow…totality should occur at about eleven fifty-seven?But good luck getting a clear shot of it. The Weather 103.6 satellite predicts a chance of heavy fog in the Cleartone Mountain Region. Shucks…but don’t lose hope. You might get a few good looks if you stick it out. Anything can happen?Honey, make some cocoa ‘cause this weatherman isn’t missing a total lunar eclipse. No sirree Bob…. This is Destin Wolfcrier for Thunder 103.6, the Cleartone Valley’s first choice for classic rock. I return you now to Butch Silver’s top one thousand and thirty-six songs of the second millennium. That’s right, it’s gone, and so…am…I.”

The next song was “Black Magic Woman.” Shampoo got in my eye, the sting was irritating. I held my face up to the water flow and held my eye open with my fingers.

…..

Mr. Crawford, my boss at the bank, walked me through the cubicles my first day there. My collar felt tight. My suit, no matter how I walked, waddled or strode, stood or sat, it felt uncomfortable the way it hung. The sounds of the office were repetitive clamor, computer keys clicking, small desk radios playing the hits with static, the random phone conversations. “Yes, sir, I understand,” or, “I do understand that, sir, but…” or, “It isn’t a matter of whether or not I believe you, Mrs.?” Nobody smiled, every one was busy. It seemed like relaxation was a state far away. It seemed futile to waste the bank’s time thinking about it.

Mr. Crawford showed me to my desk, my square. There was a phone and a computer there, and a rack to file papers in, and a small cup full of pens, and a calendar pinned to one of the felt walls of the cube. “This will be your workstation.” He made it sound so important. A workstation. A station. A place where a person is assigned to stand, a place from which a service is provided or operations are directed, a social position even. I didn’t want to think of it that way. To me it was only a stopping place, a depot, a single dot on a mapped out, much longer route.

…..

I got out of the shower and turned off the radio while the DJ was talking. I hated Butch Silver. I had met him once in my store. I recognized his voice as he was talking to my clerk. He was not what I expected. He was hideous, about four hundred pounds, his face pockmarked, and it was obscene how yellow his teeth were. On the radio he had created a suave character, always talking about his numerous girlfriends and how their breasts looked, and how wild the sex is with each of them. But in real life, slouched in my grocery store, he was a squirming reject, trying to decide between a box of Twinkies or Devil Dogs. I remember feeling cheated. By knowing the truth I was supporting a man’s lie. I’ll support my own lies, thank you.

I walked naked to my room and put on a clean pair of jeans and a green sweater. It was going to get cold, so I grabbed my thin brown jacket and my keys. The answering machine blinked ‘1’, and there was a broken glass on the floor. I stood and stared at it, the shards, the dust-like sparkle around the stem. I wanted to pick it up, to clean the mess, but I left it…there awaited a greater way, outside, for me to spend my time. I opened the door, locked it behind me, and walked down the stairs.

…..

Why am I still afraid of the dark. I hate this fear. I want it gone. I’m not afraid, make it dark, I’m not afraid. Demons, ghosts, come here, shut off the light. I AM NOT AFRAID. I will not panic. I’ll see you coming. I can see through the dark now. I am calling you, demons. Act, come for me. I will fight you, finally. I repel the fear. I am ready. Shit, send the devil if you must. It’s dark.
…..

At the bottom of the stairs I paused before opening the door to the street. I took a deep breath and focused on the tasks. Find the old man, thwart the murder, find the phrase, and firstly…go tell Max. If anyone would hear me, and help me, it was Max. He was open to anything, no matter how bizarre. He was imaginative. He once told me, “The imagination is the most brutal form of truth. What you dream is what you truly are.” With my gift, by hearing thoughts, I became a common dream, a dream or wish that most have made. I was the truth, I was the possessor of all human’s dreams. And according to Max that made me the true form of all mankind.

However, I should have paid more attention to the word ‘brutal’.

Outside was cold-warm and humid. I felt the approaching cold come in low from the right and the warm blow over my hair from the left. Moisture was building, and the streetlamps made everything glisten with burnt shades of yellow. The sky was bright navy and low in it was hung a full, orange moon. Its face, its man, was screaming.

Max lived a mile away so I crossed the street and walked, swinging my arms, to the parking lot where I had left my red Plymouth Neon.

I saw a man walking. He was thinking about the kind of sandwich he was going to have for dinner. He was stuck, deciding between cheeses. Would Swiss or American go better on Virginia Ham. Swiss, yes. Everything’s changing. I can’t believe I’m moving.

Not too far from him a couple was walking out of Starwishers Coffee. The boy was worried that he had run out of things to say.  This is awkward, um, what could I tell her. The bagel story? The girl was wondering when he was going to ask about her life.  He’s nice, but, if I have to hear one more story?should I interrupt. I bet he’d like to hear about France.

Mullah was standing in front of Frank’s Meats. He smoked a cigarette while he stared at the ground. What is America. It’s just another country. More people, less war, fine. But I’m stuck in it. Did I do something wrong…I only want a wife.

There was a drum circle on the corner. Their thoughts…the individual rhythms they beat with their hands, and the occasional ouch.

I passed a tall, student girl. I should just move home and try to model. I’ve had no luck here, and…Jack’s great, but we’re not…sexually compatible. Ha…I can’t believe he blew it all over my parents’ couch. It was only in my mouth for a second. He was pretty embarrassed…. I know I’m gonna hurt him. She was my height, with very long, strawberry hair.

After she passed, a shorter, male student passed me. He had on a denim shirt. I can’t wait to fucking graduate. This town is beat and I’m not sticking around. Just get a job, move to New York, and play drums as much as I can?Nice chick. She’s too tall though. He blew cigarette smoke with a wide-open mouth.

A few days before, I had found huge dents in the doors of my car. I first thought that it had been sideswiped, but it looked more like some drunk kid had kicked it. Once, there was a slice of pizza smeared all over my windshield. My car. It’s was fucking damaged now, and I knew it was silly, but it bothered me so much. I had wanted to keep it in perfect condition. I always cleaned it, polished it and vacuumed it. It was a clean car…with dents now.

I entered the parking lot and saw my red Neon. I had thought that seeing the dents would make me crazy, but I had no capacity to deal with what I saw instead. MOTHER FUCKER. My car was being desecrated by a monster, by a dirty beast. Lester Jones was standing by the driver’s side mirror. He had a bottle in a brown bag in his left hand, and his member in his right. He was pissing all over my windshield.

…..

Every spider is venomous.

…..

I exploded and ran towards him. Each step pumped rocket fuel to the anger that was a silent, wanton fire in my chest. He was pissing all over my car, a long alcoholic piss. But there was no sense of relief in his mind, there was only scorn.  That bastard can’t control my family. Who is he to contradict me? I always knew he was a faggot. That’s why he left that nice girl. He’d rather get a ‘rusty trombone’ than a good, normal fuck. Cock sucker. I rule my family, not some washed-up grocery store manager…yeah…on his hood.

I ran harder. I was excited and pictured the violence that I so wanted to seize him with.

He lost his balance and pissed all over his hand.

I was getting close.

“What the hell are you doing!” I screamed.

My fists were tight.

He jumped, backed off away from the car and tucked his member back in his pants. He wiped his hands on the ass of his gabardines.

“I rule my family!” he yelled at me.

I got up close to his face, stopped almost nose to nose with him, and stared into his eyes. His eyes, that with the wrinkles that surrounded them, looked like two sketches of a bloodshot sun, black in the middle.

“Irwin is my boy, my blood. The blood of a man and not some fairy. I decide what he does with my blood. I will not be dishonored. What makes you think that I’d allow you to give my boy any of your faggot money? Yeah…he told me, asshole. He came home and told me that you said that you’d co-sign a loan so he can go to that queer school. Well, forget it. He’s not going. Nobody respects a musician,” he said,

I kept still and listened to him. Not because I wanted to smell this snake’s breath, or stare at his frowning chapped lips. I needed time to control my rage, or else, I might have broken his neck…. I could smell his piss in the colding air. He continued to rant.

“Nobody succeeds like a man who is strong, and musicians ain’t strong.” He zipped up his fly. “Read about them. I do, in the magazines. They do drugs, fuck each other. They don’t care about people, average people.” He shook his hand and drops of piss flew off of it. “They think that their fucking lives are more interesting, more important than ours. They love themselves, and it’s us saps that pay good money to watch them be…vain. They are the bastards in the world. Sick fuckers?but listen. They’ll die off if you ignore them, and so will Irwin’s sax shit if we ignore it. Fuck music, and fuck you Bouchard.” He stopped and smiled at me. “Look, we’ve ignored you and you might as well be gone. You’re nothing now, and I won’t let Irwin be like you. He is my blood, and the Jones’ blood doesn’t get put in magazines and billboards. We are workers. We are the fucking backbone of all this shit. That’s how we exist Bouchard.” He pointed at me with his stained hand. “Bottom line…Irwin is my son and he will listen to me. He’s not going to be a faggot people laugh at.”

Lester coughed, hard, and spit at the ground. He stepped away from me and bumped into my car. He was sandwiched between me and my Neon. Alright Lester, hold your ground.

I looked insane. My eyes were beams of hate, and I knew because Lester was taking note, in his head, of how evil I looked.

“You are an awful man Lester Jones,” I said.

“Now listen?”

“NEVER. If I had to choose between listening to you or going deaf…I would rip off my ears in an instant. No contest, Lester. You…are…sick,” I said.

“Fuck you.” I’m not backing down. I don’t care if he was a boxer. Yeah, asshole.

I stepped closer and pushed my knee into his thigh.

“You provide nothing but entertainment for this town. Just like those people in the magazines. You…are a break in conversations, a cute joke so to ease the tension. There is always someone who saw you throwing up on the corner, or yelling at a tree, rolling in the dirt, or badgering young girls. You are New Guernsey’s most entertaining feature. You make us sad, angry, humored, disgusted, annoyed, and even concerned. You evoke it all, you filthy rag of a man. The only problem I have with taking you out and dumping you in the sewer to rot is the fact that the most talented and amazing young man I have ever met is walking around with your blood. And if your blood isn’t poison enough, you sicken his brain, you twist his dreams. You won’t let him love himself, or have any sort of self-esteem?Dammit, Lester. You hardly allow him a self. You want him to be you. That’s fucking stupid, you know?” I said.

Lester pulled his guard up to his chest, but he didn’t move his feet. Oh shit, I want to hit him. He looks fucking crazy, but he’s still a faggot loser.

“Listen you washed-up, faggot loser. You don’t know shit, and you’re sure as shit not worth listening to. I raised Irwin, took him away from the crazies. I protected him. I showed him what a strong man was. I got up every day at fucking four AM, drove that bus to that city with those pigs and degenerates in it. I dealt with all sorts of shit and came home strong so my son could see, so my son wouldn’t be a faggot getting a hand-job in the back of a bus, or a crack smoking street performer. I saw piles of shit every day and I kept it from my family. And he grows up wanting to be a part of that shit? Never. I will kill myself before I allow that. He’s going to be a man like me, not a piece of shit!”

“You are a piece of shit.”

“I don’t want to fight you Bouchard. I’m not stupid, but you make it very difficult…You, fat, quitting, woman hurting, lonely, sad fucking loser.”

He burped.

It was my turn to attack him.

“You are only a drunk, not a father. You have no more blood left. You have pissed it out clear. You only have alcohol inside of you and you don’t realize that you’re doomed. Irwin is the only chance you have to regain some of your blood. You don’t deserve him, Lester. He’s amazing?and I know you think it’s just noise and that’s because you have no heart. You are no man, sir! You are a withered body that booze has sucked dry. You can’t be saved. You don’t know anything, especially about people?and I know you think you do.” I pressed my finger into his chest. “But you don’t. People can’t be characterized as a whole. We are all separate characters. Your son is golden and you, sir, are the pile of shit?and you can’t be helped, because you’re thinking that I’m wrong, that the faggot loving world has destroyed my manliness. You suspect that I play with your son’s dick. You know Lester, you’re just like air. There is nothing I can do to change you other then let you fix yourself, or pollute you some more. You are only influenced by the evil of others and not the good?and I know you think you’ve seen more than I could imagine to see, and I’ll show you how wrong you are. You are the one who can’t see. You distort everything, because you are too drunk to fully understand what stands before you. You’ve tried to distort Irwin, someone perfect and beautiful and you’ve made him into a disease?and yes, he is your son and don’t think for a second that you have enough strength in that poisoned, alcoholic body to get any shot off at me. I am strong, and you are weak. You will always be nothing?and I’m glad that Irwin told you to go to hell and I don’t care if you think I’m an asshole and yes, I am crazy. But you are killing yourself, and nothing will follow you to the grave, and no family will feel for you because you have numbed them to you. You are sick, you smell, you are a joke. No I’m not?No he won’t. He won’t listen to you…. You have no defense but to sit there and scorn me with names like ‘motherfucker’?so, try it then. Do you think it’ll hurt me??And, no, your family does not love you because you do not love them. You are not a father or a husband. You are a drunk?and you should be wary of me, and you should get out of here, and this is happening. Do you want to know how I’m doing that?”

He shook. He was frozen, mouth agape. I smelled cheap rum.

“This is real, Lester, and I’ll tell you how I’m doing that…. Compared to the evil, sinful, painful, ugly, damaging, repugnant, unsupportable, self-indulgent, manipulative, degrading, unholy, putrid, gluttonous, volatile, slothenly and overall poisonous way in which you exist…I am God.”

I grabbed the bottle from his hand. I took it out of the bag and smashed it on the ground next to his feet. Glass and booze splattered over our legs. He was still frozen.

“You should be scared,” I said.

He was lost, afraid to think. His head swooned and kept fighting off any thoughts. He was trying desperately to keep his mind clear. Don’t think ,don’t think. His hands were shaking.

I kept staring at him, waiting for him to snap.

“Don’t think, don’t think,” I said.

He pushed off the car and ran away in a jagged path like an insect in flight. I watched him go.

I breathed slow and steady as if nothing had excited me. But I was excited.

I was power. I was a monster, bigger and more pure than then the sum of all the decency left in the scum of the earth. I felt unstoppable, like the final word, the end mark of every statement, the end all, the message. I was the catalyst that could make men repent. I was the mirror who showed you how ugly you could be. I had no call to assume anything anymore. In me seethed the truth, and even though I would never speak about my gift to others, I would have them experience it, and if their hearts were black then I would thrust the truth at them. I would give the wicked the burden of their souls, and take their euphoric ignorance away from them. I was the pure, the power of good, and as evil grew I matched it. I could balance gross villainy with infinite providence.

…..

That fat motherfucker hobbled up to me right as I was about to sign in for the championship. My coach had gone to take a leak.

This fat fuck with his oily hair halfway tucked under his New York Jets cap hobbled up to me, breathing heavy through his nose, loud, whistling and sometimes bubbling through it. He had on a stained, white button down shirt and black pants that were smeared with dust all over them. His brown overcoat was torn at the cuffs, and the belt of the coat swung like a horse’s dick behind him. I smelled him before I heard him speak.

“Hey son, got a minute?” he said.

“Can I help you, sir?” I said.

His breath smelled like sour mix and vapors, of what I imagined to be, a lifetime of past drinks. The odor seethed from his pores too. He was the fattest man I had ever seen in person, and he had an expression that looked careless and drunk. With his patchy beard, he looked like the most forgotten man in the world, a horrific fable one tells their kids in order to get them to exercise and eat their vegetables. He moved in close…and I stepped back.

“Well, son…looks like you got a pretty big fight tonight. You could be state champion…. Is that what you want?”

“Well I guess I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t,” I said.

I don’t know what was worse, when he breathed through his mouth and his sour breath took over the air, or when he breathed, whistled and bubbled through his nose.

“Good. Good…. I’ve kept a close eye on you. I’ve followed you in the papers…. I live around here you know.”

“That’s great, but I should go sign in now. I hope you enjoy the fight…Um…nice meeting you,” I said.

I started to turn away.

“The name’s Robert, and you haven’t heard what I want to ask you yet.”

I turned back around and faced him.

“What is it…Robert?… I don’t have much time,” I said.

“Well, son, you see…I’m not doing too well right now…well…I haven’t been doing well in a while. I’ve got a few people after me…they actually took over my home. They got this young punk staying there, and he’s throwing parties and trashing the place. You see…. I can’t go back there unless I give them what they want…. It’s money they want,” he said.

“Mister…I’ve only got five bucks in my pocket. You can have it if you want, but that’s all I got, OK?… Listen, I have to?”

“Son wait. If you really want to help me then…could you consider…losing?”

“What?”

“I made a bet?”

“You want me to lose so you can win a bet. What the fuck is your?alright, we’re done here. I gotta go,” I said.

I turned to leave.

“Why won’t you do me this favor, Bear. I read the paper. You’re set to enter the Golden Gloves, and most think you’re gonna win. It’s already set. What’s this meaningless championship gonna do to change that?” he said. “Hell…you’ll be pro in a couple of years.”

I stopped, turned, and stepped back in front of that fat loser…. I should have continued to walk away.

“Listen, man,” I said. “You’re ridiculous, coming up to a stranger and asking him to blow the biggest fight he’s ever had. I don’t know you, and I’m sorry that things aren’t going well for you right now, but that is not my responsibility. I came here to fight, and I’m going to fight with every intention of beating my opponent…and basically…I don’t owe you anything.”

“Take a deep breath son…because you do.”

“What could I possibly owe you. What?… Did you bet against me once before? Are you pissed because I’m a damn good fighter,” I said.

“No…actually…I’ve made a good deal of money betting on you. I just lost it all…on other bets. C’mon son…help your old man out.”

He grinned.

I seemed to lose all feeling in my legs before the rage set in. My temples felt like cigarettes were being extinguished on them.

“Excuse me,” I said.

I was very deliberate and consciously hushed my voice as I spoke.

“How’s Delia doing? Does she ever talk about me?” he said.

I tried very hard to restrain myself…but it was impossible. I could have killed him. I was angry enough.

I took one step and pushed him…very hard. He was heavy, but I managed to knock him over and he fell, and his shirt came untucked and his fat spilled over the floor.

I screamed.

“Get up you fat fuck asshole, you miserable loser. GET UP. You smell…DRUNK. I hope they burn your house with you in it. I hope you die you disgusting, fat, foul, drunk IDIOT. You’re an idiot. You’re nothing. Get up!”

He tried to get up, but fell down again. Someone came and attempted to help him, but it took a few more people to get him up.

Coach ran up to me.

“What the fuck, Bear, what’s the fucking problem,” he said.

“Get me away from this man,” I said.

…..

I was swelling.

I got into my car, forgetting about the drops of piss on my windshield, and began the short drive to Max’s house.

Flickr photo by timbrauhn

© 2009 – 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. The Host: Chapter 9
2. The Host: Chapter 7
3. The Host: Chapter 5

Bear’s Second Dream

There is a small classroom filled with young kids. I am sitting in the back, the same age as the rest. I am a boy.

The teacher is an old woman. She has a hunched back, wrinkled hands and her white hair is tied up in a frayed bun. But her face does not look old, the skin is smooth. Her eyes are reddish blue, and the angles of her face yield distinguished, dancing shadows. Her voice is wicked and manly, and she speaks as if she delivering a eulogy.

She talks about energy and how it is sourced from either the hands or the eyes. She says that energy travels back and forth from the hands to the eyes, to the eyes to the hands. She says that pain is energy.

On her desk, behind her, is a tin, narrow-bladed knife. She takes it in her right hand and runs the blade through the palm of her left. If you don’t look, it wont hurt, she says. Energy needs two directions. The hand can’t feel with out the eye’s conception.

She digs and turns the blade still through her hand. Blood pours from the gash. She smiles. Her teeth are perfect, white and straight. Her incisors are sharp and pointed. Her eyes have been closed since she picked up the knife.

The kids in the class all stand up and turn to me. They pinch and slap me and call me names like weird, or  ladybug, or loser. I am still my young self. I am confused, and the children hurt me.

Now I am my current age, a grown, grocer of a man, and I am still sitting in the back of the class, crying. I scream, “Let me wash my hands.”

The classroom changes into a sort of den, with a bar in the middle of the room, and benches line the brick walls that encase the den. Above the benches are rows of computers, and men in suits stand in front of them and press their foreheads against the screens. Around the bar, lights flash all colors, blinking fast then slow then faster then faster. There is repetitive, electric, industrial music. Irwin is playing saxophone in the corner, but none can hear his music.

The clanging of synthesized anvils masks all other sounds.

The crowd is now hundreds of human-sized worms. Writhing worms that squirm to the pulses of the flashing lights. Their bodies lick each other like long tongues. The creatures do not look like earthworms, or tapeworms, or any other worm I have ever seen. But they are worms, with mouths that sprout sharp needles for teeth, needles that grow out of their black gums. The crowd of worms tie knots with each other as a cloud of gas begins to cover the scene.

Irwin’s sax turns into a worm creature, and Irwin screams Never, and the worm bites him, and Irwin becomes a cloud of red smoke.
I stand in the center of the mass, of the heathen.

The worms hiss at me, yet their blank-pink eyes assure me that they are frightened. The gas cloud becomes more thick and a green light streaks like a laser through the cloud. It is coming from one of the corners. It is a very bright green light.

I move to it, spinning my way through the mass of worms. Each one I touch leaves a glue-like film on my hands, a slime that is both musky and cold. I continue to walk to the green light.

When I get to the corner I see a young figure in a black shirt. His face has no detail, it is only a blur of green light with two, black, puncturing eyes. The black spheres stare at me. He now smiles a black, thin line that cuts the green light and the cloud of gas. He welcomes me.

What does it mean? He says. What does it mean what does it mean what does it mean? His voice is calm and a little raspy. He stops speaking and just stares at me. I feel his confidence as warm pressure in the green light that hits me. His brow makes yellow wrinkles in the green light.

From behind me the hissing becomes cacophonous. It sounds like radio static. I turn a half turn to see the worms. They move towards the bar, because now there is a bed on top of the bar, and now the bar is a podium, now an altar, and the bed is still on top of it.

The worms circle around the alter, and pull on the white sheet that drapes over the bed, and underneath the sheets a body is shaking and sweating, sweating so much that part of the sheet that is pulled over his head is now translucent.

It is me, as a boy.

I am still grown and in the corner with the green light, and I am watching my young self being poked by the tails of worms. They tie themselves around the draped sheet and pull, but my young self has the sheets too tightly wrapped around his head for the sheets to come off the bed.

GO AWAY, LEAVE ME ALONE, I DON’T FEAR. IT HURTS. FEAR HURTS, my young self is screaming. IT HURTS. I’M AFRAID.

The tone is strained infant and chilled with the pitch of fear.

The figure in the green light says GO.

I look at my hands and they are taped, but not gloved. They are wrapped into fists.

I lunge at the worm crowd and punch and tear my way through. Each beast I hit explodes as a rain of musky slime, covering me in ooze. I don’t stop. I fight my way to the bed on the altar in the center, to save my infant self. But the mass becomes harder to defeat.

They start to predict my moves and punches, and they weave with each other until they form a net that is twitching and pulsing. It surrounds me, pinning my arms and feet to my body. I am stuck, and cannot fight free. One of the worms places its face flush with my cheek. If you don’t look it won’t hurt, it hisses, and it opens wide its mouth full of needles and bites my arm.

I feel pain for a second, and everything disappears.

I am in a place of blackness. I know no sense of direction and I can’t feel my body. All I know is that I am still and I am paralyzed.

Ahead, a spec becomes pronounced against the black setting, it is an insect, somewhat resembling a spider, but with a larger abdomen and a smaller face. It is a tick, and it is growing, fast. Its body swells.
Now it is as large as a person and it still grows. I can see the fine hairs on its legs and its mouth is covered in blood. It grows, bigger than a house. Its abdomen beats and its black eyes reflect my face. Now I can barely make out its whole shape, only a portion of its black body. It is the size of a stadium. It is the largest shape my mind can conjure.

I hear a low rumble that sounds poignant and quick, like an explosion, but it is a low boom of a murmur. It has burst.

Waves of blood cover me. I drift, completely submerged in an ocean of blood.

The worms sink past me, because they have no hands to swim with. It is entirely black again, but I no longer feel paralyzed. I swim, looking for a change of color, trying to find where up is, so I can breathe. I make out a light, a surface to the blood sea.?

I am in my bed. My room is normal, but it is silent. Now I hear footsteps coming fast towards me. I can’t move. I feel anxiety as haze on top of me. The footsteps are louder, a black shadow figure soars aside my bed. I try to move. I am not afraid of you?

I woke up. My sheets were soaked and I was cold.

Flickr photo by skugg

© 2009 – 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. The Host: Bear’s First Dream
2. The Host: Chapter 5
3. The Host: Chapter 10

Chapter 5

Much like a child, jubilant and exhilarated, and seemingly ignorant to what it all meant, I ran wild from the store. I was content with this new type of vision with which I could sacrifice my view of the past. My unfixed, roving eyes blurred the parking lot, turning it to a wave of color on wheels, glean-glows, and sparks of sun off windshields and painted plastic. My heavy breath was fitful with lust. I ran out of the parking lot. I ran down the hill. My starched white canvas sneakers kicked up mud and fine granules of salt-laced gravel, poxing my pants with winter’s filthy sediment. I ran without grace. My gut writhed like a pendulum.

I could hear thoughts. I wanted to hear them. I wanted to be curious again, driven to learn. The gift would break me from the mold of my daily rituals. I had a new appetite, for the unknown, for change, for this exciting difference in my life, for this power. With the gift I felt brilliant and ingenious, and full of hope, of plans to see truly what drove the lives of each of us, and as a bonus to see secretly the impression I had on people. To Bosco I was a lunatic though, but he is just one. I felt chosen, fueled with power and all I had done to gain it was want it. I felt as if all my life I had been an unsuccessful fisherman, far out in the unbordered ocean, repeatedly casting my line into a deep that housed no fish at all. But now, the sea is changed and I have cast my line and I have felt it pull tight, and I would reel in the glory that could appease and soothe me. I thought of the universe, about my life, now stocked with potential catches…. This is how I felt…ignorant to the true, brilliant, deadly storm that threw the waves against this fisherman…and I would never see it coming, never truly see it.

I was still running down the hill when I heard the phrase again.

A tornado is reflective reason

I tripped, tumbled over a melting snow bank. My hands fell into a black puddle that splashed up over my face little pieces of wet dirt. I got to my knees quick. My ravaged eyes catalogued the street, looked for the source of the phrase, for a face to put with that soft voice. Cars passed and some drivers turned to see the fallen man on his knees in dirty, wet snow. The sinking pitch of their engines was all they left behind. Sounds approaching and rising, and disappearing and falling.

My will was unabashed, my great strength unaffected. I was determined to find that thought, the one thought that became the cause, became everything. It was the only thing bigger than me. It was the only mystery left.

The street had only a few people walking on it. Two women, with similar height, build and boots, were on the opposite side of the street. One was black and one was white. They held hands and weren’t saying anything to each other. They both smiled as they swung their palms to the beat and the sway of their walk. Their minds had no words. I heard nothing, and I knew that they were just plain happy.
Not far from them, two high-school aged boys walked out of a drugstore. Each was dressed in black with metal chains attached to their clothing, and black boots. One had green hair and the other had fruit-punch red hair. The green haired one had a post through his septum, the other had a ring through his eyebrow. They looked at each other, smirked, and nodded their painted heads as they looked at the two women. The red haired guy thought, muff-divers, jungle fever dykes. The other thought the black woman was beautiful.

…..

Not them. Where is the phrase? Where the hell is it? I just heard it. It can’t be far. Keep looking Bear. If you find the person who thought it, you can learn about it. And then I’ll understand it…. The black woman really is beautiful.

…..

There was only one person on my side of the street. He was walked towards me. It was a man, maybe in his fifties, dressed in khakis which were cuffed and they broke over his polished loafers. He had on a red wool, v-neck sweater that he wore over a white button-down shirt. The double Windsor knot of his striped tie was large and had a pronounced dimple. He was tan, with white hair and wrinkles through his forehead. His nose was crooked and bent down like it had been broken many times, and his face was serious…and his eyes showed pain. His voice was coarse in my head.

That sonofabitch I’ll kill him…I’m going to kill him…that miserable bastard I’m going to kill him. I’m going to fucking kill him. I …am…going to murder…him.

Holy shit, I freaked out. My heart jumped, the adrenaline surged. The man was about five feet from me, and approaching. I looked down the hill and saw the policeman I had seen earlier. He lingered, oblivious. I had to get his attention. I didn’t know what to do, but I had to react. I had to stop a would-be murderer.

“Help,” I screamed, and pointed down the hill.

The cop turned and looked in my direction.

“Help,” I screamed again.

The old man in front of me stopped and was startled. I looked at him, right into his eyes…and then I tackled him.

I fell on top of him, and he was on top of dirty wet snow.

“Get off me?What the hell?” he said.

He tried to push me off.

“I know what you’re going to do.”

“What the hell are you?”

“I heard you say it. Who is he? Who are you going to kill?”

He paused for a moment. His eyes became large and broad. I had him pinned on the ground, my hands on his shoulders, pressing them into the bank of melting snow. His tie had come out from under his sweater. He smelled like Old Spice.

“What are you talking about?” he said.

His lips pursed and he breathed full, long hisses.

“Shut up?I know. OK.”

“You don’t know anything. Are you a lunatic son?”

“Shut up…I heard you,” I said.

He became calm, his eyes still wide but now focused and aimed only at my pupils. I felt a chill.

“Son…if you do not get off me right now, then you leave me choice but to remember your face.”

“What?” I said.

“If you do not let me up…right…now…. I will remember you…. Do you want me to remember you?” he said.

He raised an eyebrow. His voice did not waver and he spoke slow.

“Shut up. I heard you. You’re gonna?”

My voice was high and panicked and my words moved quick.

“Son…I don’t know what you think you heard…or how even, but the best thing you can do, right now, is to make me forget about this…and you can do that by simply…letting me go…and leaving. You’re crazy…yes…but this that you’re doing?it’s suicide.”

I froze. I really didn’t know what I was dealing with.

The police officer was running up the hill. I looked at him, but my body was still frozen, pinning down the old man. The cop was about ten feet away when he yelled, “Hey!” It was a matter of seconds before he grabbed my shoulders to pull me off. He was a much smaller man than me, and he didn’t have the strength to pull me off. He couldn’t have budged me, but I didn’t want to hold the old man anymore. I didn’t want to touch him at all. The thoughts in his head were frightening. He was constructing my face in his mind, and I felt like I was looking into a mirror. I was seeing my own face, projected in my mind by a dangerous old man who was constructing it for himself. He imagined blood on my chin, and I saw it. He thought, shall I remember you, shall I remember you. Shall I kill you too?

I let the cop remove me without struggle.

“Get off him,” he said as he pulled up on me.

I moved off the old man and stood up slow. The cop looked me over, closely, worried that I may have had a weapon. He knew who I was. It’s Benny Bouchard. He took his eyes off of me and helped the old man to his feet.

“What’s going on here?” the officer said. “I heard you (pointing to me) yell for help and then you tackled this guy (pointing to the old man). What’s the problem? It looked like you assaulted this man Mr. Bouchard. Is there a reason? If not, I have enough to bring you up on charges.”

Once again he pointed to me.

I did not want to talk. I couldn’t. I couldn’t construct a single thought of my own. The cop was actually more amused than he let his face show us, and the old man was still picturing my face, putting more blood on it, and carving one of my eyeballs out of its socket. Inside my head there was only the voice of a cop who wanted to laugh, and a picture of my face being mutilated.

The old man spoke.

“Officer, it’s my fault. I said something I shouldn’t have and this gentle man took offense. I’m not a very polite man, and for some reason I couldn’t silence myself. I know it was impudent of me, but…just look at him. He’s ridiculous, that big gut waddling down the street. He’s whipping his head around back and forth. He has an idiotic face…and right before I insulted him…he passed gas,” he said.
“Wait, you said?”

The old man interrupted me.

“Officer. I’m willing to forget this awful man, with his violent temper. He’s obviously a loose cannon, strung out on something. He’s an unpredictable brute, and if I know one thing…I know that one shouldn’t have anything to do with an unpredictable character. They’re dangerous. Therefore, I do not wish to press charges, nor do I wish to see this matter go any further than right here. I do not even want to see this man anymore. So…goodbye.”

“Wait a minute,” the officer said.

“No sir,” he said. “I have broken no law and I do not wish to press charges on this man. Therefore, I am no longer involved. I leave this man to you…Goodbye.”

“Sir…I…”

“GOODBYE,” he hollered.

He walked up the hill. Both the officer and I watched him until he disappeared behind a crest in the hill. The officer turned quickly to me. He was angry, and felt no dignity because of the old man’s rudeness.

“Did he do anything to you?” he said.

“No sir.”

I erased my demented feelings for a moment.

“He said something insulting to me and I just lost control…so I tackled him,” I said.

“Then why did you cry for help?”

“I was just trying to scare him. You know, mess with his head a bit, psyche him out. I overreacted though.”

“Yes. You did. You can’t just go tackling anybody who insults you.”

“You though it was funny though. Right?” I said.

“Mr. Bouchard, I’m not laughing, am I?”

“No sir.”

I bowed my head. He wanted to lecture me, and he wanted me to be subordinate while he did.

“Listen. I’ll forget about this, but if I ever see you do something like this again, I will lock you up. What you did could constitute an assault charge. You got it?”

“Yes. Officer. Thank you.”

“I know who you are, and I see you a lot. So, don’t think I won’t be watching.”

“No sir,” I said.

“OK. You can go.”

“Thank you sir.”

I walked away from the lecture-cop. He stayed put, and watched me leave.

He couldn’t help me at all. In between his own feelings of belittlement, the low feelings that the old man’s curt action had brought upon the cop, between that and his overall judgment that I was a lunatic, there weren’t any thoughts in his head that made me feel like asking him for help, like telling him what I knew. He only ran a list of things that he’s supposed to say. This list he had long learned to follow. Assault, Disturbance of the Peace, Disorderly Conduct…etc. There was nothing original or inspired that surfaced in his mind, other than how he should handle things. He and the law were inseparable. How he was going to give me a break. In his mind were mundane lectures that harbored pre-constructed rules as his creed. He could not help me. I was too new a beast. I was above his rules.

…..

This is what they will remember me for. For my power. They will forget any pain I ever caused anyone. They will forget how I have done nothing for a while. They will forget about my fights, and how I abandoned the future they had planned for me. They will only remember this day, and what I was given to give back to them. It’s great to no longer be thinking only for yourself.

…..

I moved slow as I walked down the hill. Birds chirped dissolute spring songs. The sun was hot, the air was mellow, and some grass could be seen in patches where the snow had all melted. I peered over my shoulder, hoping to see where the old man had gone. The cop was still watching me. I kept walking.

I had to do something. It seemed like my gift had shown me a purpose for its arrival. I had come in contact with the old man, heard his evil thought because it had to be heard, because he had to be stopped. I was the only person who knew what he planned. I was the only person with this gift of insight and therefore I was the only person with cause enough to stop him. I was the only one who knew that he was dangerous. But, I was scared of him, and would have to find the courage to chase him down. He could kill me too…or I can win, and nobody dies. If I caught him I could kill the fear. I could run with fear and have it always, or chase it away by catching it.

Who was he going to kill? Some stranger? What if the stranger deserves it? Does anyone deserve to die? Did I? Was I willing to risk my life, willing to lose my gift?

Yes.

I should have felt as if my life was the most important treasure on earth. I was a seer, a soothsayer, an anomaly capable of truth and persevering knowledge. I knew the thoughts of man, but why risk it? Why be willing to face something that might kill you?

I would never feel the power unless I used it. Power is kinetic.

I was still walking away when something changed inside of me. I was taken again. I immediately felt very faint. Something was wrong. I felt sick again, but different. In my office it was stabbing and electric, but this time is was more cold and like drowning. A glow covered my eyes and the street disappeared into a blur of light and shadow. My hands were moist and a chill seeped through me. I had to get home, quick.

My door was about a tenth of a mile down the hill. I ran again, this time with a clumsy stagger, down, closer to my door. There wasn’t much time. I could see the door now, the shadow of it, the blur of the entrance. I was almost there.

But there was a silhouette of a being in front of my door.

Closer, I could tell there was a boy at my door, just standing there, looking larger with each awkward stride I made. I could still barely distinguish his detail, his face, his clothes. The white light blur was, at times, blinding. A pure white screen and I knew it meant I would faint soon. As I squirmed closer yet to my door, the face of the boy became clearer. I could make out his little white squares, his teeth, I knew, because I saw one black square, just left of center, where he had lost a tooth. He watched me stumble and squirm closer, but I couldn’t even say hello. I had no strength and was about to pass out. And as I opened the door, I heard his thought.

Wow! He’s big.

His voice was pure and soft. It was a curious voice, a dreaming voice. Pure and easily risen, pure and inspiring, free of certainty, free of sarcasm. It was beautiful.

I crawled up the stairs. Pain began to swell in my head. The white glow had almost entirely shelled my eyes, and I could barely see shadows anymore. Pain came to my gut. Sweat was a layer of slime on my skin. Time was fading. I got to the top of the stairs and leaned against the wall. It was tiring to pull my keys out of my pocket. I could smell the pizza from across the street. My keys were hard to handle in the grip of my glistening fingers, but with my crouse-clumsy-ill arm I undid the lock and tripped across my living room. Everything was white light and the smell of pizza.

I swerved and felt my way to the bedroom. I hit a glass and hear it break, not a sharp sound, but muffled and low. I was faded. I was as weak as I could be, approaching the blue bedroom, the sounds of traffic.

And I fell into the soothe of my crimson sheets.

Silence. Sleep.

And … as I lay, passed out and overcome, the tick was feeding. It grew as it gorged, still, focused and slow. No hurry … it was enjoying its meal.

Flickr photo by Corey Holms

© 2009 – 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. The Host: Chapter 9
2. The Host: Chapter 10
3. The Host: Chapter 7

Chapter 4

…..

Is there anything I should be doing?

…..

Irwin’s favorite CD was beautiful, melancholy music. Erik Satie. The pulse of the music was slow, the melody repetitive too. It made me imagine an old man climbing up stairs. Each step seemed deliberate and premeditated, a small victory as the old man gained a small distance from his start. After only a short time listening to the music, it became familiar to me as it kept its steady pattern and inspired only the diminished gamut of sensations between a sigh and a sough. It made me feel peaceful, and with a quiet mind I tilted my chair. The paperwork was light and my hands were clean.

…..
I once heard Bach on the radio while I drove to the mountains with Max. It was such intricate music. It made me concentrate on the mountains that grew before me. I drove faster, so aware of each curve and each steer. Max closed his eyes as he listened, but I couldn’t. Of course, I was driving … but besides that, the music held open my eyes and made me understand how important details can be.
In college, my pride grew as fast as the mountains I was racing to.
Not only do the mountains grow as you approach them but they change color and become rough, and the music turned like the mountain roads until the song was over and the car was parked, and the proud mountain could be grabbed … or even chewed up and spit out in song.

…..

My office intercom buzzed. I leaned up in my chair and pressed the button to answer the call.

“Yes,” I said.

“Boss, I just want you to know that I told Irwin to stack the road salts next to the entrance. They’re in big demand this time of year.”

“Do you mean ‘winter’, Bosco.”

“Yes sir. I figured you’d agree.”

“Sure Bosco, that’s great.”

I tried hard not to sound glib.

“There isn’t anything else you had wanted him to do, is there? Like I said, I thought it would be a good idea?Oh, and I told Marla that she should take her lunch break, OK?”

“Was she hungry?” I said.

“…I don’t know.”

“Now Bosco, why would you send her to lunch without knowing if she was hungry? What if she isn’t. She might get hungry later, and you would have made her use her one break. What happens if, later, she passes out on the sales floor. All of the customers are going to think that I mistreat my workers. Thanks a lot Bosco, sending her to lunch and not asking her if she’s hungry. What are you, a jerk?”

I couldn’t resist teasing him. There was a short pause. I had done a good job at sounding serious … even if it was a bad joke.

“Oh…I didn’t?”

“Bosco, relax. I’m joking…It’s fine.”

“Oh…. OK.”

He sounded confused.

I hung up. A furtive smile bridged my face.

…..

I wonder what keeps me here. What makes me shirk the future and carry on without giving a shit? I think I know what my epitaph should read. ‘Here lies Benjamin Carol Bouchard, the only man on earth who could not see the future … a dreamer of old dreams, until he was dead.

…..

The intercom buzzed again.

“Hello,” I said.

“Boss, I have a little problem.”

“Is this Bosco again?”

“Um … yes sir.”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t sound like Bosco.”

“It’s Bosco sir …  Man, you’re weird today,” he said.

“Alright, what is it now?”

“Well there’s this guy here who wants to use a dollar with graffiti on it.”

“What do you mean graffiti?” I said.

“Well, there’s a phrase of some kind written on it.”

“What, one of those prayer dollars?” I said.

“No … It says, ‘Takes from Chachi from pledges not throwing up,’ and it’s written very large with a black marker.”

I was quiet for a second.

…..

My relationship with Emma was four weeks of sex. We knew that we didn’t have any real feelings for each other. We were just freshman, living a life that was free from our parents’ judgment. We explored our freedom with booze and sex, and then she dumped me after finding a different guy to be free with. I was bummed, but was glad. It was a fun way to get acclimated to college life.

The day after she dumped me I went to a frat party with Max. Even though it went against Max’s principles to be seen at a fraternity, we went. We had to. We were both underage, too young to get into the bars. Parties were the only places we could go to get beer. Max made that small sacrifice.

At the party there were all types of women, from all different years, with many different shapes and colors, and only a few different of outfits. A lot of jeans, a lot of tight t-shirts. That’s where I first met Chachi. He was a lacrosse player, and a sophomore. He was in charge of the pledges. He introduced himself to me.

“You’re Bouchard. I heard about you,” he said.

“Really, how so?”

“Tim, one of my brothers is on your boxing team. He told me how you flattened Mike with one shot, said it was the coolest thing he ever saw.”

“Thanks man. What’s your name?”

“Chachi.”

“Is that your real name?” I said.

“Yeah it’s my real name motherfucker. What … you think I made it up?”

“No. Sorry man. It’s just different.”

“We all can’t be John. Am I right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“How many beers you had?” he said.

“This is my first.”

“Well, get moving. The keg’s not gonna last all night.”

“Sure.”

I took a sip of the beer I held.

“Listen.… You want to pledge? You look like a cool kid. We could use another tough guy around here.”

“No thanks man. No offense, but this just isn’t for me.”

“No doubt. You seen the bitches here?” he said.

“Bitches huh.”

“Look at that one over there. She’s mine. But you can have any other one.”

“OK.”

“Man, you see the tits on her.”

It was Emma.

“Nice catch Chachi. Enjoy yourself,” I said.

“You bet hombre. I’ll check you later.”

“Sure. See you later.”

Chachi went to Emma. She looked over at me, smiled, and when Chachi got to her she put her arms around his waist.

I drank fifteen beers that night, and the next morning, when I woke up and it felt like a fat man was sitting on my head, I decided that there was something wrong with that life. Not so much the party aspect, but the women one. I didn’t want to call women bitches. I didn’t want any more empty sex. I loved women, I respected them, and even if I couldn’t stop men from treating them like mere carriers of tits, ass and pussy I wasn’t going to be part of that. I wasn’t going to help bullshit survive. I wanted a girlfriend. I wanted to feel vulnerable with a woman, not animal.

Max walked into our room a few minutes after I woke up. He had gotten laid.

…..

“Boss, you there?”

“Bosco, now listen very carefully,” I said.

“OK.”

“Now … what side is it on?”

“What side of the dollar?” he said.

“Yes.”

“It’s on the back,” he said.

“OK … good … now turn it over … and tell me who’s face you see.”

“Um … George Washington, sir.”

“Are you sure?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Good, now … is he smiling?”

“What?”

“Is he smiling?” I said.

“No, sir.”

“Then what you have there is a dollar bill.”

“Right…” he said.

“…”

“…”

“Just take the goddamned dollar.”

I hung up.

…..

Now, that was pretty funny. I always wondered if I’d come across one of Chachi’s dollars. That thing must be about six or seven years old… He threw a pretty good party back then. Loud music, cheap beer, drunk dancing girls, lots of laughs. Too bad it was at a fraternity. Chachi made me an ‘honorary brother’. That was only because I boxed well. He was the fraternity president by his junior year. Phi, Upsilon, Kappa… He really beat up on those pledges. I remember when he explained it to me.

“Get this Bear.”

“What Chachi?”

“See those pledges over there.”

“Yeah, what about them?”

“Well, I got a rule, that the pledges have to be throwing up whenever they see me. If you watch, you’ll see a few hiding from me. Cause what I do is sneak up them, right.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah … I sneak up on them and yell, ‘Pledge, why aren’t you throwing up! Pledges must throw up,’ and shit like that, you hear me.”

“You’re spitting on me.”

“Oh, sorry Bear…Wait?listen to the best part.”

“What, you stick your fingers down their throats?”

“Fuck you man. I’m sick, but I’m not fucked up … No … If they’re not throwing up, which usually they’re not, I make them take out a dollar bill and write ‘Takes for Chachi from pledges not throwing up.’?You get it. Those are my takes…right.”

“So what do you do with the dollars.”

“Shit Bear, you gotta see my room. I got those fucking bills pinned up all over the place. I only take them down to help pay for more parties.”

“Well, that’s kind of clever Chachi.”

“Yeah man, you know what else I tell my pledges.”

“What else?”

“I tell them that my ‘takes’ is gonna be circulated all over the place, and one day, maybe they’ll find their dollar and remember where it came from. The way I figure, that’d make for a nice laugh one day when we’re old SOB’s, right.”

But Bosco had found one of Chachi’s ‘special dollars’.

Chachi ran up to me one night. He had just finished doing a beer bong. Same place, another frat party of Chachi’s.

“Yo, Bear, c’mere.”

“What’s up?”

“Remember my dollar experiment I was telling you about?”

“I do Chachi, why?”

“Well I want to show you this. I’ve noticed that sometimes this happens.”

“What?”

“Check out this bill.”

“Yeah, it’s got the writing on it.”

“Yeah, but read it.”

“OK. ‘Takes from Chachi from pledges not throwing up’.”

“You see that. ‘Takes from Chachi’. Sometimes they’s so drunk they write ‘from’ instead of ‘for’. That’s funny, right. It’s ironic, you know. I’m taking from the pledges, not the other way around … Bear … that’s funny. I got a few like that.”

Chachi’s an ad rep for Rolling Stone now. I never though he’d go that far in life?Who am I to judge. I don’t know people’s paths, or if people even have paths.…

Chachi is a salesman.

I run a grocery store.

I bet my path surprises people, but I’m used to it now. Even in school people thought I was wasting my time, studying and reading. Bear’s gonna turn pro, fight for the big bucks. The fact that I graduated Magna Cum Laude was only the ancillary frill around a dream they had already woven for me. I was a fighter, I was Bear, and they had the plan for me.

…..

The intercom buzzed again and I ignored it.

…..

Once, while I was touching Cary’s breasts, I realized how sensuous it is to be alive. It struck me like hundreds of static shocks, and I think that joy dripped from my fingers, because her breasts became the most beautiful of textures, and by feeling them I made her come, and I nearly came to.

…..

The intercom was still buzzing.

“What is it now, Bosco,” I said.

“Boss, we got another problem.”

“Do you remember what I said about being able to deal with problems on your own, Bosco?”

“Sure boss … but I think this one’s more for you to handle.”

“Why? What’s up?”

“Well, there’s a boy here who tells me that his friend just went behind the store to have a fight. He thinks his friend’s gonna get hurt.”

“Shit. I’ll be right there?Where are you, at the front?”

“Yes”

“Wait there!”

I stood up fast and tried to jump over my desk but I wasn’t graceful or agile enough to pull off the maneuver. Rather, I slammed my knee into the corner of my desk. I didn’t stop though. I ignored the pain as I threw open the door to my office and started to run down the aisle of cans.

“Hey, Mr. Bouchard,” I heard someone say, but I didn’t stop. My knee hurt, but I ran fast anyway.

When I got to the front I saw Bosco standing with the boy. The boy was trying to free himself from Bosco’s hands, and he looked panicked and pretty pissed at Bosco.

“C’mon, let’s go. It’s happening now,” the kid screamed at Bosco.

The customers in front had stopped whatever it was they were doing to stare at my assistant manager as he stood and restrained a screaming boy.

“Let him go Bosco,” I hollered from the base of my squirming gut. It startled Bosco. He immediately let go of the boy and moved out of my way as I tore through the checkout.

“Show me son,” I said to the boy.

We squeezed through the slow-moving electrical doors and ran outside. My knee still hurt. It pinched like a bee sting, but I ran as fast as I could, around the corner of the building to the back of the store to the shipment docks. As soon as I rounded the back corner I saw a clump of five boys. One boy was being held, his arms pinned behind him. The others hit the helpless boy in the his stomach and face.
“Hey. Stop,” I screamed, just as loud as I had yelled at Bosco. A flock of gulls took flight. The kids that were doing the punching turned around immediately, saw me coming and took off. The boy who was doing the holding let go and ran after the rest of his bully friends. Immediately, the boy who had been beat bent down and picked up a large piece of loose tar. He threw it at the boy who had held him. The tar spun in he air before it hit the running bully on the side of his head. When it hit his head the boy who threw it screamed. “Fuck you. I’ll kill you.” I saw the boy in the distance grab the side of his head, and he kept running.

“Fuck you. I’ll kill you. Fuck you!”

I ran up and grabbed the boy as he jumped and screamed. “Calm down, alright. It’s over,” I said to him. The bullies were gone, the had all run away. There was no use for me to chase them.

“Come here, kid. Let me see you,” I said.

He was a skinny, short and frail kid compared to the ones who had run away. His left eye was swollen and his lip was bleeding. He grabbed his brown, messy hair and winced. His eyes had been washed clear, and his bottom eyelids each held a few tears I knew he would try hard to keep from falling. His swollen left eye made it hard to hold the drops, and water creeked down his face…. He blinked and tried not to look at me.

“Are you OK, how’s your stomach?”

“I’m fine?” he said.

His friend picked up the baseball hat that laid against the brick wall. “Here you go,” he said as he handed it to his friend.

“What’s your name?” I asked the boy as I bent down look at his swollen eye.

“Scott,” the kid said.

“Scott………………..don’t throw rocks at people, even if they do deserve it, please,” I said.

He pulled away and nodded his head. I stood up straight.

My heart still raced. After hitting my knee on my desk, sprinting around my store, seeing Scott get hit, and then seeing that other kid get hit in the head with that menacing clump of tar, I felt more messed up than Scott. I felt like my heart was punching my insides.

Scott breathed heavy, and he bit his lip. His fists were clenched. A line of blood from his lip fell slowly down his chin, like syrup. His tooth was red above the cut he was biting.

I wanted to know exactly what Scott was feeling. I felt that I could not help him. I didn’t know if he wanted to cry or scream, if he blamed anyone or if he was thankful that his friend had run to get me.

Was Scott ashamed of himself for what he screamed at the boy, or did he really mean it? Could his anger be so deep as to encourage that level of hate? Did he understand what it meant to wish that someone would die, or to say that he would kill them? Did Scott’s friend feel sorry for him, or was he proud that Scott had thrown the tar and hit the running bully? Did Scott feel like he was beaten, or did surviving the fight alone give him a sense of victory? Did he feel cheated that I had come? What had brought on the fight? Was there really a good reason? Why did he agree to go behind a supermarket with four boys, alone, the smallest one? Did he feel brave, or was he sad, and did he hope that maybe by fighting he could turn that sadness into something else, something that made him want to fight everything, his own troubles as they too might be ganging up on him? I wanted to see inside of him. I wanted to relate to him rather than lecture him about throwing stones. I wanted to say the one thing that would be most meaningful to him as he stood, looked frustrated, and bled.

He walked over to the wall and kicked it, gentle as if it was only an action to burn off what was left of his rage. But I didn’t know that for certain. I realized that I didn’t know anything, and that these boys weren’t going to tell me anything either. I had to know. I wanted to help.

“What were you thinking Scott?” I said.

He didn’t move from where he stood, facing the wall and kicking it. His friend walked up behind me and pulled on the sleeve of my sweater. His breath smelled like cinnamon and his teeth and lips were still red from the atomic fireball he had probably eaten earlier.

“Can we go now?” he said.

“Why don’t you two come with me inside. Scott…you should get cleaned up, and we should call your mother.”

“She’s not home,” Scott said.

“Well, I can’t just let you leave. I have to tell someone. Do you understand?” I said.

“Why?” said Scott’s friend.

I felt a strong current of sadness shock me. I also felt a tinge of panic. I didn’t know what to say.

“Because, that’s what I’m supposed to do,” I said.

“Why? Do you have to? Who said?” his friend asked.

“I don’t know who said … and … I guess it doesn’t matter. What matters is what they’ll say if I don’t.”

“Who?”

“… Everyone, I guess. You shouldn’t be fighting,” I said.

“Why, did you ever have a fight?” his friend said.

“… Yes, I have.”

“Did they tell your mom?” he said.

He looked innocent to me.

“No,” I said.

“I don’t think people should tell on anyone,” he said.

“But maybe it isn’t telling … it’s helping,” I said.

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“… You’re right,” I said. “Listen, Scott … just come into the store and let me have you cleaned up, then … I’ll let you go?If your injuries aren’t serious.”

Scott was still kicking the wall, but his friend was smiling.

“OK,” his friend said.

“Scott…come with me.”

I put my arm around him, my hand on his shoulder. I pulled him away from the wall. His hand clenched around his cap.

“Come on, Scott,” I said.

He turned and looked at me. His eyes were more swollen than they were before. He sniffled. My own sadness became heavy and tiresome. I needed to sit down before I fainted or either broke down and cried myself.

“Let’s go,” I said.

I walked him back to the entrance of the store. His friend followed behind, and stayed silent.

When we walked back into the store everybody in the front turned to see. It was quiet, and the contemporary radio station that played over the speakers of the store seemed loud, as if it was important to hear the words of the song. It’s a little too ironic, don’t you think? I paid little attention to the customers, and I remember feeling that the sunlight outside and the sound of cars in the lot was the peace, and the irritating fluorescent lights and whiny pop music that droned my store was clamor. People still looked at us as Bosco rushed up to me, Scott, and his friend.

I ignored Bosco, and told Irwin, who had been stacking salt near the entrance, to come over to me.

“Boss, is he OK?” Bosco said.

“Irwin, do me a favor.”

“Sure,” Irwin said.

“What do you need?” said Bosco.

“Irwin … this is Scott, and his friend?What’s your name?”

“Ben,” he said.

“Really? My names Benny,” I said.

Ben shrugged.

“Irwin, take them to the washroom and help Scott to clean himself up, OK.”

“Sure boss?Come with me guys.”

“Thanks,” Ben said to me.

They walked away. The people still watched.

“I could have done that,” Bosco said.

My sadness met rage.

“Bosco,” I said, under my voice. “Don’t ever lay a?fucking?hand on anyone in my store again…. Restraining a screaming kid like that. What? Are you fucking crazy? What do you think the customers thought of that, let alone how the kid felt to be restrained and held like a criminal? What were you thinking Bosco?”

I clenched my jaw until it was tired. Bosco stood quiet for a few seconds. I stared him down.

“But?”

“I’m going to my office,” I said.

I walked through the checkout, the aisle, and into my office. I saw nobody.

…..

I have come from there to here. I was ten when it happened, there, in the schoolyard, during recess, behind the swings near the edge of the playground. I was only noticing how nice spring smelled outside of school. But, the kids didn’t like me. Because I was strange? What was so strange about me? I was nice to everyone, quiet in class. What? Quiet? Daydreaming is strange? Because I was a chubby kid? Strange is the fat kid who daydreams out the window? Sometimes I feel like it didn’t matter how they felt about me. They just needed a victim. Like young tigers learning how to hunt. They had no reason for what they did, it was only their instinct to follow what they had seen the older ones do. So they were lean when they came up to me, they were gawky and traveled in a pack. Pete was the leader, he was the biggest. “Hey Bouchard, come here.” Why did I go to him? Did I really have no idea about what was going to happen? Right when I got close to him he grabbed me, pulled my windbreaker over my head, pinning my arms above me in the air. He punched me, and then I saw more feet than just his, and felt more punches, in the stomach, in the face, in the stomach, in the stomach. I saw their feet through my zipper. They were in single file. A punch and move to the back. A punch, laugh, move to the back. It hurt as I squirmed. I heard Pete. “Fat fuck Bouchard.” He hit the hardest, all over my head and abdomen, my neck, and then he threw me down on the ground. A kick in the stomach and then the feet were gone.

I got up, fixed my windbreaker, and fell down again, rolling on the dirty ground. Mrs. Mason found me. “What happened?” I said nothing. I remember the sweet-salt taste of blood in my mouth. I couldn’t answer her. The blood would have covered my chin. I never told. I never told. But I changed, so angry that it seemed a destined change. The anger pushed it, not me. I couldn’t ever be helpless again. Never, never futile and weak, never dumb and naïve, never trusting, never, never weak, never weak again. Mom never asked about the bruises. I had lied to her before she could ask, told her I fell, and begged for a set of weights. She bought me the set and she never asked why I needed it so badly.

Five years. Angry, going to school, going home to lift. Violence could be a part of any day, so be ready. I became firm, not pampered and soft. And then one day I’m fifteen, and I’m the largest and the strongest in my class, and I’m never threatened, never challenged, and I still needed to take it further. The gym was down the street from my mother’s coffee shop. I walked in one day after visiting her, and once I saw it I had to join. Martin let me join for free. Such an old style to Martin’s gym. Nautilus what? Never. All free weights, and in back, through a green hallway, was the ring and the bags and the boxers. First, I only lifted weights, and went back to watch the boxers train. They were powerful, calculated and fear didn’t exist on that other side of the green hallway. I had to learn what they knew, to fight for sport. And then Martin saw that my interests were not going to be swayed, and he trained me. I hit the heavy bags and the speed bags. The boxers accepted me because I was strong and I trained hard. They also saw how hard I hit the bag. Martin spent so much time teaching me, but never let me get into the ring to fight. I was too young, he said, and he made sure that none of the men would spar with me. But patience, and balance, and speed and intelligence?these are what Martin never kept from me, and finally I possessed them. And there I’m graduating from High School…and I’m strong and confident, yet ashamed…because?

I let the shame disappear from my goal’s picture though. I was large and unbeatable, and had worked hard with Martin who never doubted me, who almost fathered me into a great fighter, one who had forgotten the beat-up ten-year-old I once was. I now had a purpose, a skill that made the anger vanish. A sport. I had all the tools to become one hell of a boxer, and it was time for me to go away and box for the first time.

And there I’m in college, and I try out for the boxing team … and I’m nervous. I became very aware, as I waited to be called, that I had never really boxed before. But Coach called my name, and I said OK to the match that he assigned to me, the most inexperienced of would-be boxers. The kid I had to fight was big, my size, but mean?ugly mean. He was a sophomore, light heavyweight. He had experience in the ring. He spit when he stood still, on the ring, on the floor of the gymnasium, everywhere. He had wrinkles all over his face. He had pimples on his shoulders, and I told myself not to punch him on the shoulders, not to get puss on my gloves. My shiny, new gloves that Martin had given me. My opponent smelled like a County Fair elephant, but, even though I was wary when the bell rang, I charged with silent, staunch enthusiasm. I had no choice. I wanted to fight him … and I kicked his ass with one punch.

He was able to hit me a few times. We grappled and bumped each other. I tapped him in the stomach, but that wasn’t really a punch. I felt him, felt the way he was going to move. I could tell where he would open for the hurt, how his arms spread right before he lunged, and I saw it coming and threw an uppercut that sent him backwards into a dark knockout. It was ecstatic, the feeling.
Boxing seemed much easier than I had expected, so much easier than hitting a bag. The bag never tells, never flinches?but a man, his eyes and his skin and how it shifts before the motion, and the way the boxer’s feet move. Those things tell. Those things tell where and how to hurt the most. The point of boxing seemed to be mainly a hunt, with observation as your soundest weapon. The point was to get the information, and to make it unbearable for the opponent to tell you anymore about him. After that first fight I was on the team, and each fight went the same way, almost. Hit till the fright flows out like secrets. Forget blood, ignore the blood, not many were really scared of seeing their blood?but fear. The fear of seeing your secrets revealed, my opponents bled that fear when they saw my focused eyes, my revealing eyes that reflected back to me projected on their eyes, that day in the schoolyard when after I went home and coughed up blood and my mother asked me what was wrong and I told her that I fell, tripped over a rock and landed on my stomach over another rock. All of that played like a movie inside of me when I boxed. It was my motivation, and sometimes maybe I fooled myself into thinking that it wasn’t my motive for boxing, that I truly did love it … but whatever it truly was, it was what made me a victor. It came out of me as muscle, strength and well landed punches …but it came back to me as hate. Hate … with everything else I see in my memories, and it’s funny, because an activity that had so much to do with old hate brought me new love from a new community. I became the pride of the school. Students, townspeople, teachers yelled ‘kick some ass Bear’ as I walked by them. Two Regional Championships, and one State, and then I graduate, and I stop boxing…, … I wasn’t going to hit people for a living….  And now I’m here, replaying my past.

…..

I was alone in my office. It smelled like old coffee. The poster of Jimi Hendrix on my wall made me think the same thought that it always did. It was a picture of him, eyes closed and playing his guitar and he looked like he alone, at that moment when the camera clicked, was the had every answer to every question. Deep, purposeful thought. His face looked like it was covered in dream, but his body and posture, bowed towards his instrument, looked awake and in motion as he told the world everything about his dreams, everything they meant to him, for an audience he couldn’t see.

…..

There was quite a crowd of strangers in the dormitory the day I moved to New Guernsey. I had chosen to take a bus, rather than let my mother make the nine hour drive back to Maine alone. Truth. I didn’t want her there. I didn’t want to be one of those guys whose parents help them set up their rooms, and take them out to lunch, and insist on buying them start-up groceries, iced tea, bag of fruit, box of cereal, and a twelve-pack of soda. I wanted to check into my new home on my own, make my own agenda, and I was glad I had come alone. There were enough strangers, and strangers’ stranger parents in the dorm to make it seem like if one more person had entered the walls would have crumbled to the ground. Yes, my mother would not have fit.

I hadn’t brought much from home, just a couple of suitcases, one bag with CD’s and a small stereo. I had spent the summer working at the gym in Maine, and the money earned, in addition to the money I was given by the men there, was more than enough to use for whatever else I needed.

It was a big, square, drab dormitory and it looked the same on each side. It was the ugliest place I had ever been happy to be.

The paper in my pocket had printed on it, ‘Room 304.’ I didn’t bother to ask for assistance. The Resident Director looked too enthusiastic and I was a little too tired from a long bus ride to deal with a healthy dose of civil happiness. I just figured, third floor, room number four, and I was right. My entire high school education had brought me 580 miles, three floors up, and two doors down the hall, on the right. Where would college take me?

The room had perfect symmetry. Two beds, one on either side. Two identical dressers, one on either side. Two open closets, one to the left of the door and one to the right. Two identical desks, one on either side, flush against the wall-sized window at the head of the room. The only unsymmetrical feature was the sink, which was directly to the right of the door if you were facing the window.

I was there before my roommate, so I had my pick of sides. I had no preference, they were both the same. It was left or right. I figured, “Well I’m right handed,” so I took the bed on the right.

I put my stuff away, and periodically stopped and looked out the window. The room faced a large pond that had a few willows on its bank. Around it was a paved path. It looked like a good place to do some running.

The whole dorm still buzzed with clamor. Through the walls I could hear a father as he lectured his son about the evils of alcohol. I figured that the kid would be drunk by midnight. I heard another father telling his son to study hard, that this was college and it was time to think serious about what you want to do with your life. Listening to them I theorized that when people have children their memories of life between the ages eighteen and twenty-three get erased. I can accept that having children is a form of trauma…but…. Wake up!

I wonder what my father would have told me? Probably to booze it up and be a fucking asshole at all times.

It only took about twenty minutes to set up my side of the room. When I was finished I decided to go for a walk, but my roommate walked in before I left.
He was dark. He had on black, buck shoes, blue jeans that were faded down to the horizontal threads at his knees, and a black short-sleeved button-down shirt.
He looked Jewish. I can admit that there is a certain type of appearance that … is Jewish. He had a big blunt nose, dark eyebrows a triangular jowl and a full, loose and curly, black afro. I immediately thought he looked like a cool guy…. I was relieved.

“What’s up?” he said.

“Hello.”

“Max,” he said.

As  he reached out his arm the strap of his bag slid from his shoulder to the inner joint of his elbow. I shook his hand.

“Benny,” I said.

“Some grip you got there big guy. You look like a jock, are you?”

“No. Not at all,” I said.

He threw his bags down on the empty bed. One of his bags was a very large, leather rectangle with handles.

“No. I guess if you were a jock you’d go by Ben, not Benny. Benny sounds a little too harmless.”

“Thanks.”

“But you do play sports, right?”

“Not really … but I am going to try out for the boxing team.”

“Boxing’s a sport, Benny.”

“Yeah, I know, but I’ve never actually boxed before. I’ve only trained for a couple of years,” I said.

He began to put away his clothes. A few pairs of jeans, a few black shirts, and a lot of white undershirts.

“But you’ve sparred before right?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“I trained at this little gym in a small town. Most of the men there were much older than me. They said I was too young, that they wouldn’t hit me. But I think it was because they all knew my mother,” I said.

“Really, sounds interesting,” he said as he raised an eyebrow and stretched out his words.

“Shut up, it’s not like that. She runs a coffee shop a block from the gym. Most of the guys went there for breakfast while I was at school. I guess they didn’t want to have to face her if I got hurt.”

“Maybe she asked them not to,” he said.

“Yeah … it could’ve been that too.”

“Well, have you ever been in a fight,” he said.

“Let’s change the subject, OK?”

“Sure,” he said.

Max finished putting away his clothes and his CDs. He had one huge red duffel bag that looked like you could fit six pairs of skis inside of it. Besides having removed his clothes from it, he unpacked about twenty paperback books. A lot of them were by Kerouac and Vonnegut. Two were William Burroughs and the rest were Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin. There was something else in the bag, but he did not take it out.

“What’s your last name, Max?”

He unzipped the large leather rectangle.

“Sandmann,” he said.

“Sand-man?”

“Do me a favor. I’ve heard most of the jokes, so—spare me. Do that and I won’t bring up whoever it is you killed.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“Hey. New subject, right?”

It was a portfolio bag. From it he pulled some paintings, and some drawings.

“Where you from?” I said,

“Manhattan. We live up on Central Park West.”

“Pretty fancy,” I said.

“Yeah, I guess. My dad’s in investment banking and my mom’s a superintendent of schools. They’ve got money, so I guess I’ve got money … which I guess is fortunate to have, if you’re an artist. I don’t think they’d let me starve, although my father likes to tease me with the idea—Hey, you mind if I put these up?”

“Whatever. It’s your side.”

“Alright. So how about you?”

“How about me what?” I said.

“Where you from?”

“Camden, Maine…. It’s a suburb of Bangor.”

“And you parents, what do they do?”

“I told you, my mother runs a coffee shop.”

“Oh, yeah,’ he said.

Max’s paintings were bold and bizarre. With the exception of a few demonic faces, most of them were paintings or drawings of tornadoes. Many colors and sizes, bent funnels, straight funnels, some turbulently extended from the skyline to the ground and some faintly reached up from the clouds, and they looked like tents.

“What’s with the tornadoes?” I said.

“You really want to know?”

“I asked.”

“OK, well … the condensed version…. Nature creates a tornado and the tornado destroys nature, destroys man. To me, the tornado is nature acting like a human. Man creates things that are meant to destroy things—and I don’t just mean bombs and guns and Satan worshipers and stuff. Man creates ideas that destroy, promises that destroy, investments that destroy, politics that destroy, and so on.”
He was very still, as if he had forgot what he was doing.

He remembered and continued.

“To me, a tornado is like man’s reflection, what we see when we look at ourselves through our own eyes, driven to change everything it touches.… But there is one big difference between man and tornado. Man is predictable, tornadoes aren’t…. Art shouldn’t be predictable, I think.”

“Pretty deep Max,’ I said.

“Well, I don’t know about that, but I could ramble on for hours?I won’t though,” he said.

“I like your work.”

“Thanks man,” he said.

I stood and looked out the window while Max hung up his art. I was both happy and relieved. Max seemed like he’d be an interesting guy to live with.

I turned around as Max pulled a small wooden box out of his enormous red duffel bag.

“You play dominoes, Benny,” he said.

“Actually … yes, I do. A couple of guys from the gym used to play on Sundays. They taught me.”

“But would they let you play,” he said.

He smirked.

“Yeah, but they wouldn’t let me drink beer with them, no matter how much I pleaded.”

“Bummer,” he said.

He put his portfolio case on the floor and dumped out the dominoes on top of them. He sat down and scrambled them with his thin hands.

“Fives?” he said.

“Yep.”

“First double, spinner?” he said.

“Yep.”

“To 150, three houses,” he said.

“Sure.”

“Know how to score?”

“Yep.”

“Good. You keep score,” he said.

He went to his desk and grabbed a pencil and his letter of acceptance.

“Here, write on this,” he said.

I had never played dominoes with anyone my age before.

Max stood up and walked over to his duffel bag and pulled out a large brown paper bag, as well as a picnic cooler.

“How did you carry all that stuff by yourself?” I said.

“You’re not the only one in this room with muscles, man.”

I nodded.

“Besides, we’re only three floors up,” he said.

“But didn’t you take a bus?”

“No. My parents dropped me off.”

“They didn’t want to come in with you?” I said.

“I didn’t want them too. They didn’t care. They’ve seen the town and the buildings a long time ago. They met here.”

“Cool.”

Max brought the cooler down to the floor.

What’s in the cooler?” I said.

“My mom filled it up with soda before we left.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah.”

He opened the cooler and took out two forty-ounce bottles of Colt 45.

“The soda’s under my bed at home,” he said.

“And the brown bag, more beer?”

“Nope…Vodka, Gin, Bourbon, Scotch and Tequila—but don’t tell anyone else on the floor. We’d have a lot of goons trying very hard to be our friends if they knew we had a stocked bar under my bed, and at least one asshole would tell the RA.”

“No problem,” I said.

We twisted off the bottle caps. Max raised his bottle.

“New shit,” he toasted.

“New shit,” I toasted back.

The malt liquor was cold, and tasted like old bread.

“So we’ll play a few games, finish these forties, and go to that orientation meeting at three. We should have a good buzz on by then,” he said.

We both picked up our seven dominoes and held them four in the right hand, three in the left.

“One thing Max,” I said.

“What?”

“Don’t be giving me any bad dreams, Sand-man.”

“So did you break his neck, Benji?”

We both nodded our heads and smiled sly smiles. Me on the right side, Max on the left.

“Double six.”

“Nope.”

…..

My office chair creaked as I swiveled. My desk was covered in invoices that I didn’t give the slightest shit about. My sadness, my concern, my uselessness pushed my head down to a droop … and made it seem unlikely that I’d ever get up from my chair.

…..

If my house were to burn down, and I were to be in it with no hope for escape, then I would lie down on my bed and watch my trophies melt. I wouldn’t hear traffic or people or any sound save for the crack and break and roar. I’d get under the blankets and breathe deep the soot and poison, as I wait for the pain.

And when it comes, then maybe I’ll dream something different. Maybe I’ll realize that I’ve only healed from the mysterious pains I’ve caused myself. That I’ve ruined myself by carving pristine figures of demons, and that the demons are merely sculptures of me. I’ve worn my fear. I’ve slept under my own created ruin, but I’ve never felt pure, raging, destructive, natural pain.

But … maybe when the flames would reach my feet, and I think first before I scream, I’d realize that I could never hurt myself as much as nature could hurt me….I might even be sad to see my trophies melt.

…..

I sat there. Irwin’s CD had never stopped playing, and the songs were sad and unpredictable. I was annoyed at Bosco, but I also realized that I had been too sensitive. I had judged him and treated him unfairly. I imagined that I would apologize to him. He did a lot for me. He always provided what I asked him to provide, a loyalty to me as one type of person, a boss who needs loyalty to maintain his duty, to make the situation that was handed him profit and yield well for farther days.

That’s bullshit.

I sat some more.

…..

I fell in love with Cary the first time I heard her play piano. At the end of the fall semester, sophomore year. It was her winter recital. She looked beautiful in a long, evergreen dress, her hair clipped back with berets on both sides, and a pearl choker sat at the base of her soft neck.

She held herself proud at the piano when she sat down and stroked the keys a few times before she began to play. I sat in the back. Her father, the Mayor, and her mother sat in front. Cary hardly noticed them when she had walked in to the hall, but before she played she had looked through the crowd, found me, and smiled.

She played Grieg’s Sonata in E minor. It started out liquid and smooth. Her body leaned forward, her arms seemed weightless. The first movement became full and poignant. It balanced fast, furious lines with smooth, round intervals. It was triumphant and sad at once. She played it as if she didn’t exist, as if she was only music, as passive as only the notes on paper are.

I listened to the music and watched her body eschew the motions of the lines she played, and as I saw how her emotions covered her eyes I fell in love with her. And then I felt special. She treated her heart with meticulous attention, no feeling she could have would be light. She wouldn’t touch anything that didn’t move her in the process. I was under her fingers, I was a deep look in her eyes. I was music.

She had such a pure talent, and the audience, stoic and silent, took from her the feelings that she dressed each moment with. It was as if individual memories had no place in that room. There only existed the talent Cary had for expressing her heart, and it effected and changed the feelings and the imaginations of the crowd.

She was a powerful woman.

During the slow movement I got chills.

By the end, when the sadness lifted off the music and the sounds were joyous, I truly loved Cary. I loved what she did to me. She took what was inside of me, my regrets, grief and guilt, and she turned them into joy under her fingers. When she read me, when she sang me, I became better, I became imagination, and most of all I became a beautiful coalition of all my past and all my hope. She had changed me in that room. She had made me selfish, and by realizing that I was selfish I was forced to look at only myself, inside of myself, to realize that I loved her.

…..

Awake again, the CD had stopped. I took a deep breath…and heard a voice.

A tornado is reflective reason

I heard it clearly, and picked up the phone. Dial tone. I checked to see if I had left in on speaker mode. I hadn’t. Nobody but me was in the office. I looked around. I stood up, frantic, and whipped my head from side to side as I searched my small office. I hurt my neck a little, a light pain in the pivot of my neck. My eyes were stretched wide. I was certain that I had heard a voice. A tornado??Max. ‘Max is obsessed with tornados,’ I thought. But Max wasn’t in my office. I was alone. I repeated the phrase to myself. ‘A tornado is reflective reason.’ What was that? Who, what was that voice? And then I remembered lying in bed last night, I remembered the voice, the same phrase…and I was scared. I stood alone in my office, afraid. Was it a ghost? Was I being haunted, haunted in spaced out moments, returning like the night terrors I had felt as a child. I tried to calm myself, because I was trembling. I had long given up on supernatural fears, dark fears. I searched for a rational reason for the voice. I didn’t feel like it was telling me anything, like somehow I was being given a message. This sounded more like an idea. Yes. Maybe it was my own inner voice, although it sounded nothing like the voice I dreamed with. But whatever the voice was, it carried with it an idea that seemed virgin as I had yet to understand it. ‘A tornado…?’ I no longer believed in ghosts, in demons. I had beat that fear, the terrors hadn’t come since. I didn’t know. My fears had left. This voice had to be my idea, my own juxtaposition of the work of my friend Max. I grabbed a loose piece of paper from one of my desk drawers and wrote down the phrase. I said it again to myself, still trying to stay my trembling body….

I couldn’t even feign an explanation. ‘Reflective reason?’ It had no meaning to me. It didn’t even spur a direction, a thought pattern. It was like gas, colorless, odorless, and more random than any other state. It was random in my mind, yet the eerie voice that had brought it was certain, was real, was not mine, and was in my office and my bedroom. The voice had followed me. What was it?
I stopped thinking about the phrase, gave up on trying to decipher it. I put down the pen, looked around my office again, bit my lip, felt my arm hairs stand, and was afraid. I was afraid. I was spooked. Scared, like when I was a boy, when the monsters came at night, and I felt them pull on my sheets, the sheets I had wrapped around my head and body. Fear, like music, like shrill whistling that oozed from my millions of pores. A clamor that was silence as I breathed, and shook…and jumped when the phone, with its computer-church-bell-chime, rang. I stopped thinking, took a deep breath, and answered the phone.

“Hello”

“Bear…is that you?”

“Max?where are you?”

“What?…I’m home?Why?”

“Don’t fuck with me Max. Are you in my store?”

“Bear?What? You sound crazy.”

“C’mon Max. Are you here?”

“Dude, what the hell are you talking about,” he said.

“…”

“Bear?”

“…”

“Are you there?”

I was acting ridiculous.

“Yeah? Max, listen…sorry.”

“For what?” he said.

“I don’t know. I’m having a weird day.”

“Yeah? What’s wrong.”

I grabbed a pencil and rolled it through my fingers.

“I don’t know. I feel…like I’m finally losing it…like I’m losing my mind, like everything I know is being sucked out of me.”

“What’s that Bear?”

“Forget it. You’re not even listening,” I said.

“Dude?I’m listening.”

I snapped the pencil in half and threw it against the far wall.

“I just feel like a crazy man today. Everything’s in my face…and some things are really strange. Maybe I’m getting sick,” I said.

“You think?”

“No…I don’t feel sick….just tired I guess.”

“Still not sleeping well? I’m telling you…it’s time to move out of that place.”

I scratched the back of my head.

“Yeah. The noise from Main Street’s getting pretty bad. You know, last night somebody was yelling ‘How’s your pussy’ over and over. ‘How’s your pussy, how’s your pussy, how’s your pussy’,” I said.

“That’s kind of funny, Bear.”

“…I guess. But that with the ‘bitch’, ‘motherfuckers’ and the ambivalent ‘woos’, well…I guess that’s not the kind of noise you want to fall asleep to. It gives you bad dreams.”

“So move?I’m saying this for the thousandth time,” he said.

I sighed.

“Yeah. Maybe?”

“You OK?” he said.

“Hey, good show last week,” I said.

“Shit Bear. It was great. They’re going to write it up in the Times.”

“Nice, Max. I think you might have made it,” I said.

“’About time.”

“…Congratulations.”

“Thanks man…so…did you have lunch with Cary yet?” he said.

I took my last cold sip of the thick, bitter coffee.

“No…I’ve been dodging her calls,” I said.

“Can’t deal, huh.”

“I just don’t think I can handle it, talking about her ex…her kid’s father…. It’s obvious that, you know, we used to?and…to hear about who came after me. That’s tough,” I said.

“Sure.”

“And…I left her, and then this guy leaves her with a child. It amplifies the guilt. She was to good to be left once. But twice? With a child?”

“Bear. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You haven’t spoken to her in a very long time. Who says this guy left her. She could have left him… Or maybe it was a one night stand gone wrong…. There’s no love in that…so no broken hearts,” he said.

“Except for the kid’s”

“But not if he never knew his father. There’s no memory to contend with. There’s no loss to remember having. It’s just how it is,” he said.

“But Max. Trust me. It hurts…to have an imaginary father…who might turn up and shatter whatever dream you thought he was.”

“…Sorry Bear…I.”

“No, forget about it.”

I picked up an invoice and ripped it in half. Fuck it.

“So…Are you going to call her?” he said.

“I don’t know.”

“Well…listen. I can’t chat much longer. I have to go somewhere.”

“Where?”

“Nowhere…I just have to take care of something,” he said.

“Take care of what?”

“Nothing…I don’t want to talk about it.”

This was a hushed Max I had never heard before.

“Troubles?” I said.

“You could say that.”

“Just tell me Max.”

“Listen, Bear. I can’t now…”

“…Alright, well…How ‘bout catching a drink later, we’ll talk then?”

“Yeah. I’ll need one…and it sounds like you’ll need one too.”

“I need one now,” I said.

“…Yeah…me too.”

“What is it Max?”

“Later, Bear. OK?”

“…Sure. How ‘bout meeting me at…Rusty’s…eleven o’clock,” I said.

“Rusty’s?”

“Can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right?”

“Bad idea Bear. After ten that place turns into a zoo.”

“Yeah. But maybe a little nostalgia is what we need. It could be good.”

“That’s weird Bear. But…sure,” he said.

“Sound’s good. Then I’ll se you later,” I said.

“Hey Bear.”

“What?”

“Maybe you should get out of work, go home…I mean…seven hours in a Warhol painting could disturb anyone,” he said.

“It’s still a bad joke, Max.”

“Not funny? Not at all?”

“No”

“You sure?” he said.

“Positive.”

“Damn. I still like it.”

“That’s because you’re corny Max.”

“Well?Who’s closer to corn right now. Not me, grocery man.”

“Stop, alright. You’ve annoyed me. You win,” I said.

“OK. You’re the boss of broccoli.”

“Ugh. OK, I said you win.”

“Commander of cans. Lieutenant of latkes.”

“Latkes?”

“OK. That’s bad. I’ve annoyed myself,” he said.

“Alright Max. Go do your mystery something.”

“And you keep getting your mind sucked out of you,” he said.

“Al right bro. I’ll see you at eleven,” I said.

“Rusty’s?…You’re crazy.”

“Bye Max.”

“See ya…General grocery.”

He hung up.

I felt better.

Max loved to make bad jokes until you got so annoyed that you screamed. When he stops, it’s funny and we laugh, but during his onslaught, it makes you squirm.

…..

I hate puns. They remind me of elementary school. Say lettuce…spell cup.

…..

I smiled and took a rag from my desk, and polished my phone. Not a smudge left behind. I liked it to be clean. Its crisp, off-white, plastic luster. The only spots on my phone were the miniscule shadows that my lamp caused the Braille on my buttons to cast. Not a fray or a knot in the cord, no coils stretched. I kept it in perfect condition, so each day it looked new. Each day followed the next, yet my phone was always new. My office was always clean, and when I closed it I left no trace of me ever being there. Even as I sat in the middle of it.
I stared at the broken pencil on the floor, and the torn invoice in front of me.

…..

I am waiting for her, my  dream. I have always been waiting for her. When I was engaged to Cary I looked for a crack in the world, where my brunette would slip out. It wasn’t that I had no love for Cary. I did, and I miss her now. But I was too weak to tell her that in my mind was a different dream. One that I did not just admire for her poise and talent, one that I did not cherish because she was sweet and kind, and destined to succeed. And more importantly, one I didn’t venerate just because she chose me. My dream was like every all-human dream. To love without words or reason, without details and reminiscences. To love someone because they had already existed in your heart and mind, long before you even had a body. A perfect love, a circumstance already set in the realm of all time. I chose that ideal over the only woman, besides my mother, who ever admitted to love me…and instead of marrying her, I went to work and hid with my dream.

…..

The phrase. I was calm about it now. Still puzzled, still a little frightened…. All I knew was that I did not want to be in my office anymore.

In the brief moment it took for me to rise from my chair and shift my shoulders towards the door, I was consumed and cursed with pain. A piercing howl, a high-pitched ring came on quick, pulsed through my ears and it felt like the ringing tore through me. This was not normal. It disarmed me as the shriek was a siren, as high pitched as a human can hear and a shade louder than one could handle. I grabbed my ears with almost enough force to rip them off. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. All my focus was on the painful sound. All my strength went towards dealing with the pain. I could feel my ear parts shake, beat and almost stretch. My eyes started to water. The light in my office blurred in the wet salt. Tears covered my vision and the drops licked my face. The light dimmed further. Blurry, dark, blurry dark until I was blind to everything except for the squirming shadows I saw in the blur. I could taste blood in my mouth, faint. No texture, no real blood, only the taste of it. The pain, the ringing, the blind-blur, the taste wouldn’t stop. I felt pressure in my skull as if first in a vice, pressing inward, and then as if my skull filled with air and the pressure was outwards. Every one of my muscles seemed to tug in opposite directions. Spasms spread through my back, my legs, my arms and my neck. The sound, the howl stayed as I felt like my body was being pulled in half and my brain was being sectioned by a piano wire, with electric currents running through the cutting wires. The pain made it seem like every synapse in my body was being held over lit matches, burning severe pain into me. I fell to my knees. I groveled to only the blurred shadows that looked like the outlines of specters as they stood around me and watched me writhe. I begged them to make it stop. I begged the ghosts that were opaque around me. I started to feel the pain in my stomach as well. I felt my stomach fold, caving in itself, and the acids and stomach liquids lurched up, burning my throat. I felt the gag coming when everything stopped.

Silence.

I was on my knees, shaking, sweating. My gums hurt. My breath was quick and shallow and I coughed dry, empty tastes. Hot and parched. Tears covered my face, a glisten of film that fell in drops from my nose to the floor. Still shaking, cold and frightened. I lay down with my back on the floor. My body twinged as it lay there. My mind was only focused on the soreness. I lay. I tried to slow my breath, and became cold as if I was about to fall into a state of shock. Drooling, clenching my fists and slowly blinking to clear the blur from my eyes…. And then, all of the pain was gone, all of the tears were dried, and the floor was hot and soothing. I was fine, as if nothing had happened. Except, I remembered, I knew what had happened…. My goddamn head almost exploded.

A tornado is reflective reason

Again, the voice, and then I was insane. I felt cornered, trapped by ghosts, by voices, by delusion. I was confused. I felt my hands shake and a sweat came out hot from my pores. Was I dying? Not the pain again. Not again. I’m crazy, I’m dying. And then, instead of the ringing in my ears and the body pain I expected, a different reaction fizzed up and boiled through me. It was rage, and it was a giant fast. I trembled, I sweat, I broke. The rage burst through my wall, and there was no restraining it. “What the fuck is going on,” I screamed from deep below, through my wide open throat. I started to pace circles around my office. My fists were clenched, my knuckles white, and sweat now fell from my brow in creeks. I twitched and picked up the phone, grabbing and squeezing it with both all of my strength and all the restraint I had left. I threw it hard against the wall and it shattered. The deformed pile that was left of it, on the floor, I stomped on, speeding shark’s teeth of plastic and little transistors across my green office rug. A haunting, again a fucking haunting. I will not be scared. This was not a true haunting. It was a tease. That voice, that phrase?nothing to me but a temper of confusion. Fuck?I took my tight clubbed fists and smashed them through the wall, over and over again. Dusts of sheetrock danced like cigarette smoke in the air. Fragments of the wall flung fast across the room whenever I pulled back my fist. I stopped punching and turned to my desk, kicking one of the wooden legs until it snapped off. I moved to the next leg and kicked harder. When it broke, the desk fell to a tilt and most of the papers on my desk fell to the floor. I kicked them up in the air, and then I picked up each one and ripped them into pieces and threw them all over the room. I moved to my swivel chair and picked it up over my head, and slammed it into the floor. It bent, and bounced into my coffee maker. The glass pot broke and the three cups of coffee that were thick inside of puddled and stained my green carpet. It looked like shit on grass. I stepped on the pens that had been thrown from my desk. Fuck. I picked them up and broke them all in half. The ink ran over my hands. The office smelled like a locker room and a dusty, dank garage. The ink covered my hands and spread sticky and black. No. Not on my hands. I ran to the sink in the corner, turned on the faucet and was frantic as I worked a white lather, which turned grey when mixed with the ink on my hands. I covered my hands in the foam, and rinsed, and lathered, and bit my lip, and started at my grey, foamy hands and rinsed until every drop of ink was off. My breath was quick. The t-shirt I had on under my sweater was soaked, my hair was wet, and I looked up into the mirror and freaked further when I saw the puffs, the wrinkles around my wide, frantic, scared eyes.

A tornado is reflective reason.

God dammit. I ran across the office and grabbed the CD player, ripping the plug from the wall. I threw it, into the mirror, and Irwin’s CD that was in it flew, twirling like a flipped coin in the air, and landed on the tilted decline of my desk…in tact, groove side up. Fuck. I looked at it and stood erect, taut and still. I breathed deep, shook, and closed my eyes. I opened them after my breath had slowed.
I walked carefully to my broken desk, opened the drawer, pulled out the case for Irwin’s CD, and put Erik Satie inside of it. I was fragile … about to break again.

The door opened.

“Boss, what’s??”

“Bosco, get out!?Wait.”

I threw the CD case at him.

“Give that to Irwin,” I said.

Bosco was stunned.

“But, what the?”

“Get out now!” I screamed.

He shut the door fast.

I once again shut my eyes and breathed.

Rage left.

My office was a disaster, a bombsite. Everything was broken.

…..

I have to leave, I have to leave now. What’s going on? Shit, I’m lost…OK…but how can I walk out there? The whole store probably heard that. No, the music’s on. Maybe just a few people in the back of the store. I just won’t look at them. They don’t know anything. They don’t know what’s happening to me, and…who fucking cares? This is my market, I am the boss. I don’t need to be explained. They fear me, with these big arms. Yeah, big arms. From what?do they remember when I used to train? Yeah, these big bulging arms, with a pen in one hand. Strong arms, from what?paycheck signing? They’re afraid of me? For what? Because I do check-ups, because I do the same thing every day? They don’t fear me, they humor me…. I can’t stay here. I gotta go. Maybe I just need a nap. I just going to walk out, as if nothing has happened. Nothing’s happened. Nothing happened.

…..

I locked my office on the way out.

A small group of customers scattered when they saw me come out of my office. Some looked over their shoulders as the walked, and some did not look back. Two kids stayed put, and came up to me.

“Are you going crazy?” one kid said.

“Yeah, it sounded like you were,” the other one said.

“Yes,” I said.

I winked at them and walked away, down the pasta aisle.

Bosco wasn’t to be seen.

I kept a sincere smile on my face as I walked, easy and without hurry, to the front. On the way I passed Maureen and nodded. At least I looked calm. The wet t-shirt under my sweater was making me cold.

When I got to the front I saw Michael, a clerk, Windex-washing the windows. He was young and tan and a few wisps of his hair were always out of place, sticking out from the back of his head. A sporadic, pubescent moustache laced the ridge of his thin lips. I cocked my head, and said to him, “Not a smudge.”

“You got it boss,” he answered, low and monotone…and from the back of his head, deep inside where the folds are, a sound formed for only him to hear…a thought. His eyes were teased to a coy glance. He looked like he was cleverly plotting. All I saw was a faint smirk wrinkle his meager lips. I walked past him…and I heard his voice.

Loser

I turned around quickly and posted an evil-dictator type expression.

“Excuse me? What did you say?” I said.

His eyes widened, he looked nervous, caught and cornered … and then I heard his voice again.

Oh shit, did I say it…I don’t think…oh shit, I didn’t realize I said it out?Did I?…fuck, Ok…deny it.

“Nothing, sir…”

I didn’t move. My jaw loosened and fell limp. I had heard Michaels voice but his lips didn’t move. He didn’t say it out loud. But I did hear him, in my head, as if the voice I normally thought with was now Michael’s. It was clear in my head. It was loud, louder than my own inner voice.

He’s just looking at me…What’s wrong with him?…What do I do?

It was the same, clear in my head. As I watched him, his face became different, with less mystery and more life. I looked back into the store, and the gift then gave in full force. The voices rang in me, single file, one after the other. Man, woman, woman, man, child, employee.

At one register a woman was unhappy with how carelessly Simon was bagging her groceries. She was debating with herself whether or not to say something to him. Her voice was like a clarinet. I don’t want to be a prude. Her voice.

Over in Aisle 4, a man in a flannel shirt realized that he left his wallet at home. His cart was full of groceries. He was deciding to leave the cart where it was. He was going to pretend that he left it in his car. Shit. He walked to the exit, patting the pocket of his jeans with his hands and shaking his head. As he passed, he looked at me and said out loud, “I left my wallet in my car,” and left. But I also heard what he didn’t say. He was really going to go home, get his wallet, and go to another supermarket a few towns over.

Will was thinking about the shape of Maureen’s nose, how cute it was, and how adorably her lips curled when she spoke.

I looked for Maureen. She was still in the pasta aisle. She was thinking about Will, but she was having doubts. She was confused because she didn’t want to have a relationship with someone she worked with, but she loved how funny he was and she liked the way he combed his hair. Her voice was like a marimba.

Jimmy, the deli clerk was thinking, the older you get, the stupider you get, and the old man walking away from the deli counter thought, now there’s a polite young man. It’s good to see.

A young guy with a Yankees hat was about to be rung up. He had a bag of limes and a case of Corona. He was nervous. It was the first time he was going to use his fake ID.

Irwin, still stacking salt thought, Tattoo, and Bosco appeared as he came down the toothpaste aisle.

He’s nuts. I know it, most people know it, but he doesn’t have to treat me like shit. I do everything for him. He’s always late, just shows up whenever, and I don’t care. I’m just trying to succeed. This is what I want to do, and I like it. He doesn’t have to be a fucking dick. He’s crazy. He trashed his office. There were holes punched in his wall. Should I tell someone? Oh?there he is. He’s looking at me. Hi. Fuck you boss, fuck you. I should tell him that I’m not going to stand for this. He’s gonna show me the same respect I show him. Fucking lunatic.

Now he stood in front of me.

I was too shocked to say anything. The voices kept coming, different people, different plans for dinner, all in my head. I heard it all, the minds, the mundane. I was amazed, had no idea how to explain it … but I was happy. Michael was still scared, and Bosco was trying to gain the courage to tell me off. I turned my back on them, and left.

It was warm outside. A spring day in winter’s reign. I accepted it…I embraced it. I didn’t care what it meant, or how it happened. But I believed, because I had no choice. I was the evidence. I was the voyeur, I was chosen. Whatever the reason for it was, or if it was for the sake of circumstance alone, it didn’t puzzle me. I was not vexed. I had made a wish, many times in the dark, and now it was granted.

I heard thoughts.

Flickr photo by lanuiop

© 2009 – 2010, Henry E. Powderly II. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. The Host: Chapter 5
2. The Host: Chapter 3
3. The Host: Chapter 9