In Nightmares We're Alone (20 page)

As they walk away I can hear them talking about me, but I can’t make out what she’s saying. I catch a couple
fucks
in there, and I hope they’re more in the context of “fuck that guy” and “he can go fuck himself” than “I can’t believe I fucked him” and “I bet he’s trying to fuck your mom.”

I look at my watch. Twenty minutes till my lunch date, and I’m not even sure I can make myself go anymore.

One of my fingertips throbs. I scratch it.

* * * * *

Throughout the string of atrocities that is human history, many a man and woman has been secured to the guillotine, and I suspect that the vast majority have struggled with the ropes. They knew that their efforts were futile, that even if by some miracle they got their hands free, they would at best postpone eternity by a second, and yet they fought. They fought because they were alive and because their animal nature cried out, “Not yet. I will not give in to death while there is life in me.”

That’s how my date with Elaine feels.

I can’t remember anymore how I got it into my head that this love, the love of this woman specifically, would somehow break the bonds of the world’s vendetta against me, but like everything else, it got into me and grew. And being that it’s the one hope I have left to cling to, I cannot let it go just yet. I will not.

“I’m great,” she says, when we make introductions. “Are you okay? You look really nervous.”

“Well, first date in a while, I guess.”

“Me too. How long, if you don’t mind me asking? I guess you’re not supposed to ask about that stuff on a first date, are you? I can’t remember the rules.”

“Neither can I,” I say. “No, uh… I’ve been divorced about three months, but I’ve been separated a few months more than that. So as far as dating goes, maybe… twelve years?”

We laugh.

“I guess we’re in a similar boat.”

I nod. We’re in a more similar boat than she might realize. We’re practically related.

My eyes keep searching the bistro for Heather. I don’t know why. I guess the trainwreck feels so imminent at this point that any possible possible misfortune feels inevitable.

“How are your girls?” I ask.

She takes a deep breath before she answers. “Heather, the older one, is fine. She’s doing okay in school and… lots of friends and everything. She’s had a boyfriend for a little while who I’m not crazy about, but… teenagers. I think she’s doing fine overall.”

Boyfriend. For some reason I’m relieved to hear that and disgusted with myself for being relieved. I try not to think about it too deeply.

“Macie is… being difficult. I took her to a doctor on Tuesday because I thought it might be bipolar mood disorder. Well, he said she’s just being a kid, and the next day she went to school and smashed her doll on the teacher’s desk and screamed at her. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”

I shrug. “Mine got caught shoplifting from an electronics store last year. It’s not pleasant, but sometimes kids just have to mess up to learn how to be good.” She nods and for some reason I keep going. “Not just kids, people. I’m still messing up and learning to better. I mean, I’m doing it all the time.”

I’m about to bring up an example, something small, and I realize I have nothing small. My mind is a flurry of sex, theft, and deception, and aside from another lie, there’s nothing I can add that isn’t foolish. I freeze up like a young boy on his first date, conscious of my paralysis and paralyzed further by it.

“You don’t have to elaborate on that,” Elaine says with a laugh.

I laugh too, trying to release tension, but I’m so used to steering conversations that I’m lost on the other side.

My fingertip throbs and I grit my teeth and make a fist.

Goddamnit, not now. This is the blade on the guillotine dropping.

I will go home tonight and I will be alone. Elaine will not skip work to elope with me so we can never apart for another second. No matter what I say or do, I can’t save myself. So why am I trying? What am I hoping to gain?

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t want to screw this up because I really like you, but I think I screwed up before I even met you. I’ve been screwing up my whole life.”

The lion stood in the clearing and the gazelle stared and braced herself to run.

“I’m in pain,” said the lion. “I’m starving. I can barely walk. I’m going to die without help. Please save me. I won’t hurt you. I’ll protect you, in fact. I’ll owe you my life.”

And the gazelle’s eyes were wide as it took a step back.

“Please,” said the lion. “Please. I need you.”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

How did I slip so far? Even with Rose I never really tried. Was it self-obsession, contempt for humanity, a belief I wasn’t worth anyone’s time? What was in me that made me go this long without ever trying to love someone?

“I don’t know how to say any of what I need to say. I don’t want you to hate me. I’ve been down a bad road for so long I can’t figure out how to get back.”

She puts a hand on top of mine and says, “Casey, don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t know you well enough to hate you.”

You’re damn right. That’s exactly it. That’s the mantra, the self-destructive incantation that put me where I am. If you don’t hate me, you don’t know me well enough.

Something digs in and twists under the nail of my middle finger. I rip it out from her hand and clutch it under the table.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, and then looks embarrassed. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean you didn’t have to worry about—”

“I know,” I say, forcing myself to breathe.

“Are you… okay? Really?”

The gazelle’s legs tensed and her body stiffened, but the lion didn’t charge.

They locked eyes and stood still and neither made a sound nor a movement, out of fear. The gazelle feared that if she moved, the lion would latch onto her. The lion feared that if he moved, the gazelle would break away.

I could hold up my hand and show it to her. I could prove to another person that this is happening to me. I could have a witness. Maybe she’d run, maybe I’d ruin any hope of having her care about me, but at least I’d prove to myself I’m not crazy.

The growth thinks I won’t do it. That’s why it’s growing now. It knows this is too important to me to risk ruining everything by appearing insane. But it forgets I’m strapped to the guillotine already.

I go to raise my hand from under the table, but the twisting agony comes back, this time in my eyeball. I shut both eyes and cock my head to one side.

“Oh my God,” says Elaine. “What is it? What’s happening?”

The growths fight me. Again I try to raise my hand, but a second jolt of pain makes me grab the side of the table for support. I twist my head and force my good eye open. My face crushes in on itself and I contort my body, probably looking like a palsy victim eating sour candy.

“Nothing,” I say. “Excuse me.”

As I get up and stumble from the table, it’s not just Elaine’s eyes on me, but everyone’s. I must look drunk or injured, maybe both. I bump into chairs and tables on my way through the bathroom door.

Inside, I look at myself in the mirror and force my eye open with both thumbs. It’s small and hard to see, especially with one eye soaked in tears, but there’s a small piece of wood sticking out of my eyeball just below the iris. I want to scream and collapse on the floor in the fetal position and lie there until I’m a big ball of weeds for the janitor to take to the curbside, but all I can manage is a sort of low howl at the mirror.

I’m staring for a minute before the stall door opens over the shoulder of my reflection and Arthur limps out on his cane. There’s a scornful look on his face, the same one he had that last day I saw him alive, when I came downstairs hungover and told him I’d had an afternoon nap.

I turn to face him and once I spin he’s not Arthur anymore. He’s a middle-aged balding man in a sweater vest whom I’ve never met. He puts up his hands like he’s afraid I’ll attack him.

I jerk my head to each side looking for Arthur. I look back into the mirror and can’t find him. I put a hand over my face and sigh into it loudly.

“Too much to drink, bud?” asks the balding man.

I run to him and grab him by the vest. I shove my hand in his face.

“Can you see it?” I ask. “The growth! Can you see it?”

“Get off me! Get the hell off!”

“My eye too!” I scream. I shove my face close to his and pry my eye open so he can get a close look. “They’re growing out of me! You have to help!”

He pushes me hard into the sink and shouts “Jesus fuck!” before storming out of the bathroom. Before the door is even closed I can hear him yelling to the staff to eject me from the building. I hear the terms “fucking junkie” and “do something about it” and it doesn’t take a genius to put the rest together.

I soak my hands in the sink and run the water over my face.

“Is that really gonna make them feel better?” asks a familiar voice to my right. “Watering the plants? Might just make ‘em grow.”

I turn to find him standing next to me, leaning on his cane with a condescending you-young-people-think-you’ve-got-it-all-figured-out-but-you-don’t-know-shit smirk on his face.

It takes a few seconds before I catch my breath.

“Your wife said you were dead.”

Arthur laughs. “She’s a nihilist. She doesn’t know what dead is.”

“Arthur, you have to tell me what to do. I’m going to die if I don’t do something, but I can’t figure out what it is. Am I supposed to help you cross over or something, is that it? Finish your unfinished business? I’ll do that. I just need to know.”

Arthur laughs. “It’s an old question. ‘I’m going to die. What am I supposed to do?’ Very old question. I wonder how long before someone answers it.”

“For Christ’s sake, enough fucking riddles!” I scream. “You and the sycamore. The whole world. Plants and trees and growths and everyone’s the same and all actions are selfish and on and on and on, but never a push in the right direction. Never an answer to what it means or what I’m supposed to do. Just say it! Fucking tell me or make me stop hurting!”

He stares at me a while like he’s gathering his thoughts, but he never says anything. After a minute, the door opens behind me and I turn, and I guess I’ve watched enough bad horror films to know instinctively that Arthur has disappeared.

“What’s going on, pal?” asks the restaurant manager in the doorway. At least it’s not Elaine.

“I’m just in pain. I’ll go.” I turn and walk for the door.

“Need me to call someone?” he asks. Two seconds ago he was a hard-ass but now he’s pulled a one-eighty and sounds genuinely sympathetic.

“No,” I say. “I’m in it alone.”

I walk out into the restaurant and head for the exit. When I get outside I look over at Elaine’s table and she’s got her cell phone to her ear. She looks up at me with a distraught expression.

Heather, says my gut. Elaine told her about the date and she just learned from Rory that I’m a fraud or a sexual deviant and now she’s calling her mother to warn her like a good daughter does. Serves me right. I look down the street and then back at Elaine. I debate whether I should keep walking and forget about her.

I can almost feel the blade of the guillotine on the back of my neck.

It’s all I can do to walk to her table with one hand still covering my eye, lean in, and say, “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

She looks up at me and nods. “I, uh…” she says. “That’s fine. I think I do too, actually.”

I nod and turn away.

She covers the phone and says, “Casey. Are you okay?”

“I’ll live,” I lie.

A roar came out of the jungle. A roar that seemed to be the roar of the jungle itself. And it was not only the gazelle, but the lion too, who fled.

* * * * *

“Listen, before I start, just please don’t hang up. This is Casey, your husband’s medium, and I know you probably don’t want to talk to me, you’re probably disgusted by me, and you’re probably going to hate me more the more you talk to me, but I need to talk to you.”

“I…” I hear Edna gathering words on the other side of the phone. “I don’t hate you.”

I don’t know you well enough to hate you.

“I’ve been a shitty person. I manipulated people’s emotions and lied to them about their loved ones and took money from them. I justified it to myself by saying I was giving them peace of mind, helping with their suffering, but… but that’s just how shitty people delude themselves. What I did to your husband was terrible and I would understand if you hung up the phone, but I need you not to.”

“What do you want?”

“I… This is going to sound horrible, absolutely disgusting. It’s going to make me sound like the worst person in the world, but just… just think of it this way: if I was really as loathsome a human being as I’m about to sound like, would your husband have ever trusted me?”

“Say what you called me to say.”

“Okay… Mrs. Harris… I… I’ve been suffering. I’ve been… My body is deteriorating, or my mind is, or both. Something’s going horribly wrong with me. And… And I’ve been seeing things. Visions. And one of them… Mrs. Harris, I’ve been seeing your husband.”

A heavy silence goes on for so long I wonder if she’s hung up on me.

“Mrs. Harris?”

It’s outrage and skepticism in her voice, but maybe somewhere deep down there’s a desire to believe. “And? And? Yes, you see my husband, and…? What does he say?”

I pause. Up until recently, I built my whole career on the answer to that question, and now that it’s honest, I don’t have a satisfying answer. I can’t say anything reassuring or interesting or meaningful. I can barely say anything at all.

“Nothing. He… I’ve just seen him. He spoke a couple sentences to me, but they were just riddles. I told him you said he was dead and he said you were a nihilist and you don’t know what dead is.”

There is another long silence. “I didn’t hate you when I picked up, but I think I’m beginning to.”

“I don’t blame you. Will you talk to me anyway?”

The disgusted breathing on the other end of the line seems to go on forever.

* * * * *