Sparta (55 page)

He typed in “gabapentin.”

“Warning,”
it said.

You should know that your mental health may change in unexpected ways and you may become suicidal.

Out on the river, the motorboat with the flag was out of sight. Heading downstream was a big scow with a dirty white superstructure. The tide was against it, but it steamed determinedly into the streaming surge, leaving a churning wake.

What the fuck?
He felt everything draining away.

Nothing he had hoped for was going to happen. Nothing about him had been recognized. He was invisible again. He was nothing, his struggle unseen. He was being treated in a way that would make him worse. He had been fucked, was what had happened.

The larger question was, how long would you persist under these conditions? And why would you? There was no end to it.
Tools, opportunity, process.

He closed his eyes. How long would he go on waking up with that black rose of sound blooming in his ears? Seeing the pattern on the wall? Hearing Olivera's broken voice? Finding that any loud noise could set off a cacophony inside his head? How long was this going to go on? How long was his sentence? Because suddenly he was tired again, exhausted, done. There was nothing left for him to draw on.

He had to leave the apartment tomorrow.

The pills wouldn't help; the small plastic cylinders now seemed sinister. The words were still on the screen.
Suicidal tendencies.

He felt darkness cast itself over him like a cowl.

“Fuck,”
he whispered.

Guns were what he knew. That was the real way. Look at Anderson. Though it was hard to buy a gun in New York, probably impossible on short notice. A latex hose looped into a noose would be simpler. He wondered if the shower rod would hold him. Of course it wouldn't. He looked around the bedroom. There was nothing high enough in here. What had he been doing all these months? In-country, you were trained to have a plan to kill every person in the room. He hadn't even completed that plan for a single person.

He went out into the living room. None of the ceilings were high enough anywhere in the building. Nothing was strong enough. You needed a tree or a rafter. Something solid.

A gun would be better. His hands knew guns.

He could get a gun online, but not by tonight. He had to be out of here very soon. The timing clarified things, and he felt calmer. He needed to move ahead tonight.

He couldn't leave a body in the apartment for Go-Go. A nice show of thanks.

And he couldn't get a gun in time. Not before tomorrow.

With a mission he felt better. This would be the end of his worries, the end of everything. He was taking control. It would be the end of pain. There were the two worlds, the lower world and the upper world, and he was moving into the lower one. A relief.

Knives, of course. Pills. Those fucking suicide pills. They drove you to it but wouldn't do it for you.

He wondered about the window, prying it open. The long drop through the air: clean and simple and fast. Surely he could pry it farther open—unless it was made so you couldn't. He pulled back the curtains to examine the window.

But they'd seen him coming. The window would not open farther. Too bad for the residents if there was a fire. He looked down. Too bad for them anyway if there was a fire. No ladder would reach to the twenty-first floor. They were fucked.

He thought again of the people in the towers. That first moment of comprehension, realizing that they would not survive. In that first moment they were still unharmed, but it was in that moment that they understood what was coming. The circling helicopters, the people below, watching. The room getting hotter, the walls. People crowding around the windows, kicking them out. Everyone below, their faces lifted, helpless. Choosing to act. Taking control.

He sat down again. Was he doing it or not? The idea of it was like the Grand Canyon, vast and magnificent, filled with color and shadows.

Deciding to do it had calmed him. Knowing he would do it made him feel that he might not have to. He looked around the room. On the wall was a framed poster of Gstaad in the twenties, during winter sports: a waiter was serving tables on ice skates, balancing a loaded tray, the mountains in the background. Next to it was an Andy Warhol reproduction: Liz Taylor, her lips swollen, her eyes sultry.

Conrad had looked at both of these hundreds of times. It was strange to think that this might be his last day here, his last night. He would never see them again. It was strange to think that. The porcine Liz, the dapper, antic waiter. He would never see these again. The thought excited him, and he stood up.

He thought of the hose. How would you ask for it in a hardware store? Surely it would be obvious why you wanted it. But so what, they couldn't refuse to sell you a hose. There must be a beam in the basement somewhere. In the laundry room. Conrad had never used the laundry room: Mrs. Menendez presided over these mysteries. In any case, the laundry room was too public. Anyone might walk in. He disliked the idea of someone walking in, finding him jerking and kicking in the air. It was a private act. Actually, he disliked the idea of even being found, the ghastly droop of the hanged body. He would prefer never to be found. He thought of the river.

His parents would have to learn about it. He didn't want them to know.

He couldn't think of them knowing it.

He thought again of the people in the towers. That first shocked moment of understanding.

He stood and walked around the apartment, his hands in his pockets.

He didn't want to hurt his parents, his family. All he wanted was never to wake up again sweating and shaking, calling out in terror. He wanted never to have the wave of images move over him, blotting out the world in front of him: Olivera whispering, the little boy in the striped pajamas, his head falling limply back. Now Anderson, sitting alone in the dark barn. Conrad stopped and put his hands over his eyes, pressing his fingers into the sockets. He would never be rid of them.

*   *   *

When he got back from the hardware store, the epauletted Russian lifted his chin at Conrad.

“You have visitor.” He spoke scornfully. He nodded toward the mirrored wall, the long red sofa against it.

Ollie was sitting on the sofa, leaning forward, elbows on his thighs, feet wide, waiting.

Conrad went over to him.

“Hey, Oll,” he said.

“Hey,” Ollie said. He stood, not smiling.

“What's up?” Conrad asked.

“Can I come upstairs?” Ollie asked.

“Sure.” Conrad led the way to the elevator and pushed the button. They stood, waiting. The doorman watched them sideways, not turning his head.

“What'd'jou get?” asked Ollie, nodding at the bag.

“Just some stuff,” Conrad said.

As the elevator rose they were silent. The wind rushed alongside the car, whistling and jostling in the shaft. Upstairs, Conrad led him down the hall and unlocked the door.

“Nice place,” Ollie said, looking around. He walked to the window. “Nice view.”

“Yeah,” Conrad said. “I'm leaving tomorrow.”

“How come?”

He shouldn't have mentioned this. “Go-Go's coming back from Hong Kong for a while. I have to get out and let him have the place.”

“Where you going?”

Conrad nearly said Claire's, but thought better of it. The network was too tight; Claire and Jenny and Lydia all certainly talked to one another. “Another guy from Williams. You don't know him.”

Ollie nodded. He sat down on the white sofa. The living room was still dark. Conrad sat down in the uncomfortable red armchair and put the bag down on the rug. Inside it was twenty-five feet of coiled latex hosing, the color of dry grass. It gave him a secure feeling.

“Don't the lights work?” Ollie asked.

“I don't use them in here,” Conrad said.

“Oh,” Ollie said. “Any particular reason?”

“Look,” Conrad said. “What I do here is what I do. It's my place, my business.” There was a pause. “So, Oll. What brings you here? What's up?”

He wanted this conversation to be over. He was afraid Ollie was going to ask to spend the night. He'd asked the man at the hardware store how much weight the hosing would hold. Three hundred pounds, the man said, and pointed to the label.

He'd decided on a tree, one of the ones that stood on the walkway along the river. It would be private along there at night, no one used the walkway after midnight. The idea lay before him like a promise.

“What are you doing?” Ollie asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You scare me, Con,” Ollie said. “What's wrong?”

Ollie leaned forward in the dimness. The light from the window illuminated the side of his face, the smooth, familiar cheek, the unkempt hair. Ollie looked like himself; he looked like the rest of the family, too. Marshall's high cheekbones, Lydia's eyes. They looked like each other. The way he smoothed back the hair from his forehead was Lydia's gesture. For some reason that was painful.

“Oll,” Conrad said. He looked down at his hands. “There's stuff you can't talk about.”

“What are you going to do?” Ollie asked. He made each word distinct.

Conrad said nothing.

“You won't answer my messages or call me or come to see me. You don't answer anyone's messages. You look so dark, Con. You look like it's the end of everything.”

“I can't explain things,” Conrad said. “I don't want to talk about this.”

“About what?”

“Anything.”

They sat in silence. The light from the window seemed stronger as their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. Outside, the sky was overcast, the cloud cover illuminated from below by headlights and streetlights, the city's glow.

“Look,” Ollie said. “I know what it's like—”

“You have no
fucking
idea what it's like,” Conrad said, looking at him. Everything was rushing up inside his chest. “Don't ever say that again. You have no idea what it's like.”

“Okay. I don't. But tell me what's wrong,” Ollie said. “What is it?”

“I don't want to see people,” Conrad said. “I don't want to be around people who don't understand this.”

“Iraq,” Ollie said.

“No one understands it. Half the time everyone pretends it's not there.”

“So what are we meant to do?”

Conrad laughed, angry. “I don't know what you're meant to do. Not my problem.”

“You don't want us to pretend it's not there, but you don't want us to talk about it.”

“Look, I'm not writing the rules,” Conrad said. “I'm not a fucking debating coach.”

“Okay,” Ollie said. “Okay.” He put his head down in his hands. “So. I came in to see you.” He paused. “Because I'm afraid.” He lifted his head but did not look at Conrad. He went on. There was some difficulty in his voice. “That you are going to kill yourself.” He didn't look up. “So I want you to tell me that will never happen.” His voice broke.

Conrad squeezed his eyes shut.
The fuck.

Ollie looked up at him, his face in shadow. “Con.”

“Look,” Conrad said. “There are some things—”

“No,” Ollie said. Now he was crying. “
You look.
Don't you tell me there are some things you can't talk about.
You are my brother.
I know there are things you will never tell me. I know that. I know there are things you did over there that are part of another world. But you are still my brother. You are still part of my world. You are still living here with me. You can't make that not true even if you—did it.”

“Oll, you don't understand what it's like,” Conrad said. “You can't ask me to do something for you. You don't know what this is like.”

“Then do something about it, for Christ's sake!”
Ollie shouted at him. “Don't sit around looking like a funeral parlor, like you're going to die, and do nothing.”

“I did do something,”
Conrad said, raising his voice. “I just went to the fucking VA and saw a fucking doctor.”

“You did?”

“I did,” Conrad said. “He gave me pills that make you suicidal. How's that for treatment?”

Ollie stood up. “Okay, I don't give a fuck what he did!” He was shouting. “You can't use that as an excuse! I don't care what he gave you. You have to go on. You have to go on.” He stopped.

“You're telling me what to do?”

“Con, this isn't the end,” Ollie said. “I don't care what you did. You had to do it. You had no choice. You can't take the blame for it.”

“I see. But what if the blame falls on me?” Conrad put his head down. “You don't know what I see at night.”

“Go and talk to someone! Talk to other vets!” Ollie said. “You don't think there are other people out there with the same thing you have? You think they don't see things at night? Other people did what you did. Talk to them about it! Don't sit here alone!”

Conrad stared at him. “You've been coached,” he said. “Who told you all that? You little fucking weasel.”

“So what?” Ollie said. “Yeah, I have. I've read up on this. I've found out everything I could about it. Unlike you. You've been sitting here in the dark with your head stuck up your ass.”

Conrad snorted. “You have no idea what you're talking about.”

“What if I do, though?” Ollie said. “What if you don't? What if you die, you fucker?” He stopped. Conrad could hear his breath. He was crying again.

Conrad waited.

Ollie drew a large breath. “So, what do you have in that bag?”

“I won't tell you,” Conrad said.

Ollie leaped up and strode over to him. “You fucker.” He reached for the bag, but Conrad yanked it back. He held out his left hand to fend Ollie off.