The Egg Code (12 page)

“Roll over.”

Sliding onto her back, Scarlet placed her arms behind her head and held them there, imagining handcuffs, silk ropes loosely tied. “And so . . .”

“I’m listening.”

“I know you are. So recently I started thinking about my own life, and how I’ve always been blessed with good health, good friends, enough money to live on.” She closed her eyes and saw it again, the old, familiar vision. “But my dream’s different. It’s hard to remember. I’m weightless, always weightless, and I can dance over trees and through rainbows . . . it’s like I’m the pilot of my own body. My mind takes me there. I can still feel it—oh, all the time, like it’s locked up inside. A part of me says it’s happened already, and that I’ve just suppressed the memory because at first it was almost too overwhelming to understand, and the dream’s only my mind telling me that if it happened once then it can happen again, and maybe Derek can help me and maybe he can’t, but if there’s a man alive, he’s the one.”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to come again if you don’t stop.” A cold wave poured over her body; her eyes looked sad and frantic.

“Mmm. Well. I know something you don’t know.”

“What?”

“Who.”

“Who?”

“Derek Skye.”

Scarlet sat up and seized his hand, stopping it. The words, the name. An instant recognition. “You know him?”

“Well, I don’t
know
him.” Olden drew his hand back, afraid of her now. “I did some work for him once. Fix-ups. He just moved into a new apartment.”

“Where?” Scarlet was already halfway out of bed. Her feet pressed into the mattress as she staggered toward the door.

“Well, I don’t know if he—”

“Tell me. I won’t give you away. I’ll say that I followed him up from the city.” She scurried to separate her clothes from his. “It’s in walking distance?”

“Well, sure, but . . .” The words ran out, and he could only marvel at her efficient way of dressing in the morning. It must come from working in the theater, he thought. All those quick costume changes. Her uncooperative bra wriggled like a Möbius strip, defying all attempts to bring the straps and cups in order. Giving up, she chucked it onto the bed and reached for her T-shirt.

“Look, just give me the address and everything will be cool.” The tight collar stretched around her head as first one pigtail popped loose, then the other. “You have no idea what this means to me. Look, look—” Reaching for her gym bag, she pulled out a spiral notebook and flopped the pages. Both the front and back covers were missing, and the wire binding had come loose at the base. “I add to it almost every day. I’ve got quotes from all the tapes, ticket stubs going back to ’96. I even copied the picture from
My Brush with Happiness
.” Olden saw the drawing flash in a rustle of ink-intensive journal entries. A head, a mustache. A nice tie.

“Okay, okay.” He grabbed the sheet and wrapped it around his waist. “It’s a quarter-mile down the road. Turn right, and there’s a row of apartments near the end of Main. His is the one on the corner. On the corner or right next to it, I think. Second floor for sure.”

“I’ll ring bells.” Crossing the room, she stepped into her shoes.

Olden grabbed her by the waist. “Give me a second,” he said. “I’ll drive you.”

“No.” She pulled away. “I want to walk. I need to figure out what I’m going to say.”

She opened her bag and dug through it. A sock. A gun. A new element entered the picture. Olden froze; the gun looked solid, like a giant lump, with no moving parts. “What’s with that?” he asked.

“Oh, I always do this.” She cocked her eye, checking the bullets. Putting the gun away, she gave Olden a quick peck and loosened his sheet, pulling on the free end. The sheet made a white mound at his feet. “Hold that pose,” she said, then opened the door and skipped outside. Olden brought the sheet with him as he followed her onto the step and watched her go. Her short legs pounded up the hill and over the ridge. She walks like a peasant, he thought. A wide stance. Load-bearing legs. Smiling, he left the step and paraded naked around the muddy drive, holding the sheet over his head, letting the wind take it, a surrender to something.

VI

Go Girl

Portfolio

S. Blessing (4/17/74)—Session #1—Mar 3, ’82
Attending Psych.—Drs. Wink, Taylor
Colors Selected—White, goldenrod, pink, apple green, apricot (flesh)

A man’s head. It is hollow. The skull swells to nearly twice its regular
size. A caption reads “Daddy likes the funny floor.” A crude phallus
sticks inside the figure’s throat. The phallus is apple green, and the
base cradles two unusually well-drawn fists. The face itself is distorted; the right eye is three and a half inches wider than the left.
Inside the brain cavity, a secondary line forms an interior chamber,
containing a replica of the patient’s bedroom. A young girl hovers
above the bed; her arms are spread wide and her mouth forms a large
O—either a screaming or a yawning motif. White swirls scatter across
her body, stretching out toward the far end of the chamber. They collect near the top of the dome, where another caption reads “They
can’t get out!”

Scarlet was asked to draw a typical scene at home with her family. When
asked why her father’s eyes “looked so funny,” she responded, “Because . . .
sometimes Daddy . . . he sees things big here, and not big here” (pointing
first at her right side and then at her left). This skewed perspective is
characteristic of tetrahydrocannabinol—thus the observation that
“Daddy likes the funny floor.” More troubling is the image of the
phallus, which the patient herself could not identify. Deep traumas
brought about by the unexpected sight of a parent’s genitals are
common in children of the preadolescent stage. The patient associates
this mysterious appendage with aggression, authority and, in cases of
neglect, a kind of latent violence. This is shown by the placement of
the phallus inside the throat—an instrument of both aggression and
parental authority—and by the metamorphosis of testicles into fists.
Toward the upper quadrant, the patient struggles against an unseen
force. When questioned about this force, Scarlet was surprisingly candid.
“I want to go up . . . but it’s all zoomy . . . and the floor tips . . . and my
shoulders go wham wham . . .” This is a longing for escape, a desire to
penetrate the limitations imposed by her father’s chronic abuse of
marijuana and other substances. The white swirls are spectral elements,
extensions of the patient’s emotional frustration. These same swirls are
also seen pouring out of the father’s mouth, a sign of parental
dogmatism or (possibly) semen.

Session #4—Mar 20, ’82
Attending Psych.—Drs. Wink, Murphy
Colors Selected—Gray, robin’s egg, turquoise, brown, orchid

The word
SMELL
divides the drawing in half. In one corner, a gray
cooking range hovers at a steep angle. A woman wearing a tall chef’s
hat attends to the meal. Looming over the stove, she places one hand
on each of the two front heating coils. Wisps of smoke and flame rise
between her fingers. Near this image, various tentacle-like objects
hang and sway from a disembodied nose, coiling in brown loops that
extend in twisted sausage patterns. The other section shows a bottle
of cleaning ammonia aimed at a giant TV screen, unpropelled by any
human hand as it emits a wide, misty cone. A small figure curls inside
the screen, hands tucked under one cheek. The figure’s long hair
stands in a straight bunch, dancing away from the side of her head.
The ends taper into a swirled peak; an enormous cigarette bends to
light itself on a loose strand.

Acting on the instruction “Show us what you feel like when Daddy
makes the smoky face,” Scarlet has chosen to depict her father as a
mindless, oppressive force. In this context, the word “SMELL” serves as a
metaphor for sensual autonomy. “I like the smell when you put your
hand up to your mouth and breathe,” she says, demonstrating this
technique by pressing her nose against her palm. “And then you go, ‘Oh,
I can smell my skin, and the bone inside, and they smell like brown
cookies, but before they’re hot.’ ” The act of smelling becomes an act of
self-assertion, of passing from infancy to full womanhood. That
femininity is embodied in the form of the female cook. Unable to feel the
heat of the stove, she demonstrates a poor sense of social orientation.
Drug imagery abounds as well. Nearby, a giant nose emits a disgusting
growth of fleshy vines. These vines, which appear at first to be strands of
mucus, are in fact intestines, bits of stomach tissue heaved out in a rage
of cocaine paranoia. “Gore! . . .” the artist stammers, clearly distraught
at the sight of her own creation. Elsewhere, she assumes a more
introspective approach. The TV screen is an example of wish projection,
a desire for a more normal social order, as typified by the spray-on
cleanser. Comfort eludes the patient, even in dreams. With his illicit
cigarette, Mr. Blessing feeds upon his daughter’s essence, consuming her
youth and blowing it out in clouds of narcotic gas. That this drama
should be played out within the context of television only emphasizes the
patient’s feelings of derangement and psychosis.

Session #6—Mar 29, ’82
Attending Psych.—Drs. Wink, Blondon
Colors Selected—Red, yellow, orange, brown, violet

A mouth gapes. The teeth are arranged on a lower jaw; they are huge
and oddly spaced. The overall color impression here is hot, summery,
the red and brown brilliance of cherry candies and fresh scabs. A yellow steak knife cuts a lascivious tongue in half. Inside each section,
we can see an intricate compartment, quite like the fuselage of an airplane, though sliced down the middle to reveal the seats and the layer
of steel-bolted insulation under the passengers’ feet. A little boy skips
down the main aisle, carrying a bundle of big balloons. Most of the
balloons bang against the roof of the compartment, though one
reaches around and trails up the side of the page. A tiny girl smiles up
at the balloon. A heap of paperback books lies at her feet. Lastly, an
old woman sits near the back of the fuselage. A pair of reading glasses
hangs from her neck. Inside the lenses, we can see the reflection of
her smiling face, her twisted mouth made huge by the curve of the
glass. Her lips sag and fold around an empty space. The conceptual
continuity of this drawing is remarkable, given the fact that the artist
is only seven years old.

Not only Scarlet’s most successfully executed drawing, it is also the most
upbeat in character. This change of mood is perhaps due to a new
acquaintance with the teachings of Derek Skye, whose book
My Daddy’s Different: A Little Person’s Perspective
was recommended to help the
patient cope with her father’s addiction. She seems to have benefited
greatly from the added assistance—witness the smile on her protagonist’s
face, the happy iconography, even the very nature of her color choices—
warm shades, hot-red derivatives. The image of the divided tongue
continues an earlier obsession with human anatomy, an anatomy
rendered unreal by its hollow, chamber-like design. Inside, we see a cross-section of humanity, spanning all age groups, types and fashions. The
young boy—a peer, presumably—takes most of our attention. The
balloons are tokens of social affirmation—friendship, communion, love.
Society is represented by the old woman in the fuselage—toothless now,
her smile rendered benign. When we asked Scarlet to identify the
woman, she only replied, “At the drug store, you go in . . . there’s pills!
And the old lady says ‘How much?’ ” It seems likely that this person—
whoever she is—is really just a stand-in for another, more significant
figure in the patient’s life. Often when we enter a new phase of
development, we feel the need to deny the image of what we once were—
a kind of emotional shedding-of-the-skin. Having shared the contempt
others once felt toward her father’s addiction, Scarlet can now face the
future as a whole, strong being, unencumbered by fear, ready to love
herself and others. We will have to let Mr. Skye know of his success.

Session #7—Apr 2, ’82
Attending Psych.—Drs. Wink, Brock
*Skye Visiting
Colors Selected—Goldenrod

A thick slash makes an uneven diagonal from the upper lefthand corner to the middle of the page before streaming off into a fine line of
faint color.

This drawing, much less developed than the patient’s previous work,
reflects a distracted state of mind, caused perhaps by the presence of our
illustrious guest. In the future, we will limit such visits to only those
patients less prone to recidivism. In the case of young Miss Blessing, we
fear we are right back to where we started.

The Plot Thickens
Somewhat

1998

The box sat on the kitchen counter in Derek’s apartment, ready to go. Outside, he’d found a fresh dog turd and carried it upstairs in a paper bag. Lining the box with colored tissue paper, he opened the bag and emptied its contents. Like a pampered noble, the turd sat upon its crimson perch as it endured the closing of the lid. He weighed the package in his hands. Light. A nice present. Moving to the sink, he washed his hands in hot, soapy water, dried them, then reached for a roll of electrical tape, which he wrapped twice around the box. Black and shiny, the package resembled a homemade bomb.

He did not want to do this. The gesture seemed so puerile, so gratuitous. But it was, perhaps, the only message that Donna would understand.

The doorbell rang. Surprised, he hid the box behind the refrigerator and hurried down the steps. The observation window—an octagon, vaguely nautical—showed only the road and the woods on the other side. He opened the door and looked down. “Yes?”

The girl on the step dropped her heavy backpack and fell forward. Derek caught her by the arms, his eyes fixed stoically on the horizon.

“Mr. Skye!” The girl’s voice broke. “Just the sight of you . . . I’m sorry.” She fanned herself with her hand. “I almost had a heart attack.”

Leaning across the porch, Derek looked both ways, checking for open doors, shocked neighbors, the inevitable look of disapproval. Recovering a bit, he said, “I’m not sure that we’ve . . . you’re from one unit down?”

“Oh, no. God, no! I don’t live here. I don’t live anywhere near here.” She stepped away from the entrance and gestured toward the road. “This is crazy, out in the middle of nowhere . . . Derek Skye! I had no idea.”

“Yeah, well.” He shrugged, wedging his hands under his arms. “You got me.”

“Oh! I’m Scarlet.”

She was a groupie—that much was certain. Reggie Bergman must’ve leaked the address. Still, she seemed like a nice kid. He nodded sagely, a full bow from the waist.

“Hello, Scarlet.”

“Scarlet Blessing. I know, it’s a hooker name, but I swear to God I’m not . . .” She brought her hand to her lips. “Oh, shit, that was a stupid thing to say.”

“Right,” he said, studying her now. There was a smell about her—cigarettes and perspiration. Her clothes were a mess, and she wasn’t wearing a bra under her T-shirt. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”

“No, but that’s not why I’m here at all.” Her words came out in a rush. “When I heard you were here, I had to come over right away . . . I had to, you know . . . well, you probably don’t know. I just . . . can I have a glass of water?”

Running out of steam, she bent over and took a deep breath. Derek fanned the door a few times, then held it open with his foot.

“Why don’t you just, um . . . just come on up.”

“Oh, wow. This is so sweet.”

He led the way up the stairs to the second floor. He moved slowly, hearing her footsteps, wanting to hear each one. It made no sense, this paranoia. Still, he knew his followers. They were all nuts.

“I’m sort of in the middle of a project right now,” he said, tired, halfway there. Ten more steps.

“I’m sure you are.”

“But if you”—
step four
—“just need”—
focus on
—“a drink of water”—
your secret strength.

“Oh yeah, totally, I won’t take up any of your time. I just had to talk to you about, well, I mean, it’s kind of weird but . . . I’ll tell you when we get upstairs.”

“Fabulous.”

“Wow. You wear socks. That’s so cool.”

“Careful, the stairs are steep.”

“Do you ever come out here at night and just, like, check out the stairs?”

“No, not really.”

Once inside, he filled a plastic breakfast tumbler with water from the kitchen sink, then walked across the room and gave it to her. She wrapped her lips around the rim and drank it down. “Somehow I thought, Derek Skye, he must live in a giant house, with horses out back and a built-in swimming pool, you know, but then I read somewhere about how you gave like half of your royalties away to charities and stuff, so I thought, Wow, that’s kind of cool.”

“Where’d you read that?” he asked, hearing a lie.

“November ’96,
Midwest Perspectives
. The chick who interviewed you, was she a bitch? ’Cause she kept asking you all of these really rude questions, like, ‘Oh, isn’t it true that you hire people to go out into the audience and say things like “Yeah, I took Derek Skye’s class and all these great things happened to me” when in fact it’s total bullshit—’ oh!” Another quick stop. Endless apologies. He hoped she didn’t get that from him. “I didn’t mean to come barging in here like this.”

“Not at all.”

“I thought you were like, ‘Oh, God, get her out of here.’ ”

“Of course not.” He glanced over her shoulder and checked the hallway. It made him nervous, leaving the door open like that. Now the onslaught. Floods of madness. He retreated to the living room and she followed, unable to resist.

“It’s so nice to hear you say that, ’cause the reason I ask—” She stopped and hit her head, hating herself. “Shit, I’m totally going into a negative feedback loop.”

“Relax.” His hand hovered an inch above her shoulder.

“I’m just a little nervous to be talking to you like this.”

“Well, don’t be.” Irritation flickered across his cheek. “That’s absurd.”

“Okay. Let me do this.” She grabbed the back of a chair, her courage rising, filling her chest. “Okay. Um. Samurai warriors—no!” Her hands flashed up to erase the words. “Oh, shit, that’s a dumb way to start.”

Derek made a fishy expression, not getting it. “Samurai . . . ?”

She nodded, vibing with him now. “Well, you know with the samurai warriors, there’s always the old master, and he usually lives in a remote village, or not even in the village but way off in the mountains where you have to climb to get to his fort, and the young warriors all make a pilgrimage, and only a select few are . . . are . . .”

“Selected?”

She stopped and stared at him. “That’s incredible. How did you do that?”

Derek pointed at nothing, the space next to him. “When . . . ?”

“With the word. I was about to say something, and you were able to . . .”

“Predict?”

She shook her head. “No . . .”

He wavered on his feet. No longer trusting his words, he resorted to babble. “But . . . the samurai . . .”

“I want to be your assistant.”

“. . . the warriors . . .”

“I’ll do anything. Buy groceries. Make photocopies. Do you have a dog? I’ll take care of the dog. I read a book about going to vet school once. I know how to give a rabies shot.”

He wet his lips, coming out of it. “Oh! I get it. Samurai warriors. Old master, young master. Now I see.” He sighed, pleased with himself, then rubbed his forehead, confused again.

“I’ll work for free.”

“Why?”

“Because I need your help.”

“I don’t know what I can do.”

“You can do anything!”

“That’s . . . that’s wrong . . .”

Scarlet returned to the chair and curled her arm around the seat back. “Remember when you told me I should start keeping a dream journal?”

Derek stared; everything the girl said grabbed him by the throat. “Yes,” he said. Stunned, he listened to the dream, the scattered way she described it.

“It’s like I’m really doing it. It’s like I’m really flying. Isn’t that fucked up?”

Dazed, he touched the clammy top of his skull. “Some dreams can seem very real,” he said. Hearing him speak, she let go of the chair, and he felt obliged to lecture. “They
are
real, in a sense. If you know how to . . . if you know how to . . .” A wave of abstractions filled his throat, and he stopped talking.

“But that’s what’s weird. This
really
happened.” She waited for a response, and though he didn’t really understand, he nodded anyway, for the whole thing seemed so sad and unlikely that he figured why not,
what the hell, go along with the fairy tale,
but when she saw his reaction—the nod, the look of approval—her manner became more confident, and at once he felt phony and hopelessly corrupt.

She continued, “The feelings wouldn’t be so intense if it wasn’t true. At some point in my life, I had this special gift, like a temporary power, but now it’s gone, and I’ve got to get it back. You know how it is when a kid gets molested at a very young age, and he doesn’t remember it until he’s like forty or something? And in the meantime he’s just wondering why he keeps having these dreams about big hairy men with ten-foot-tall penises? It’s the same with me. I deprived myself of the power because it scared me, and now that I’m older, my body’s trying to communicate to me through my dreams. It’s trying to say, ‘Hey, look, you did this thing before and you can do it again.’ ”

Derek waited, going over the words. Special power. Trying to communicate. This was Skye-speak. He’d ruined her. He’d killed the girl.
My God . . .

“I’m afraid you might be disappointed in me, Scarlet.” Her face changed, and for a moment he read genuine disappointment in her eyes. It scared him, and he realized that he preferred the other Scarlet— the freak, the mindless believer. Turning, he hurried back into the kitchen and pulled a black parcel from behind the refrigerator. “But there is something you can do.”

“Tell me what you need.” She stood soldier-like, her back straight, hands at her sides.

“Take this package.” Reaching for a scrap, he drew a map of the road leading out of town; in one corner he placed an X. “Just leave it on the step,” he said, handing it to her. She smiled at the box, curious. “It’s a present.”

Scarlet studied the map, then tucked it into her pants pocket. The folded page felt good against her leg. Picky, she straightened some knickknacks on the coffee table. She did not wish to appear nervous or uncertain in any way; it would suggest to Derek that his teachings had failed her. “And after?” she asked, moving toward the door.

“After?”

“After I’m done? Should I come back?”

He felt his mustache, thinking about it. “Oh, I really should be alone this afternoon.” She looked disappointed (again! his power), so he added, “But come back some other day. We can figure something out.”

Perking up, she peered across the room to a dark corridor leading to the other half of the apartment. “What are you working on now?”

Anxious, he gave her the same reply he’d given Reggie Bergman back in August. “The usual. Another book, like last year and the year before. I just go from one to the other.” He caught himself, not liking his own tone of voice. “But this one will be quite different. An important work. Important to me, anyway. If you’re serious about wanting to help . . . well, we’ll see.”

“Even if you just need someone to keep you company every now and then.” Scarlet grinned, her lips spreading to show a row of perfectly square teeth. “It’s always nice to have someone to talk to, especially after you’ve been working all day.” She laughed. “That’s probably the only thing I’ve learned that I didn’t get from you.”

Near the door, she bowed low, making a flourish before going down the stairs. She must be high on something, he thought. Antidepressants, maybe. This was another way Derek’s occupation had ruined his life, limiting his understanding of human behavior to medications and their characteristic side effects. Returning to the window, he saw her emerge from the building and head up the hill to the main part of town. A few dozen yards away, she turned and waved at the apartment, brandishing the black box high over her head. Derek waved back. Goodbye, girl. See you soon.

As the box waited on the steps of the Skye mansion, Donna was many miles away, a good forty-five minutes south of the township and six freeway exits outside of North Crane City. Her companion was Lydia Tree, and they sat in an outdoor café, lunching on Brie and melted berries rolled into tubes of scorched pancake. The day was not going as planned. Lydia seemed distracted, and she kept her big sunglasses on during the entire meal, flashing her black bug eyes first at the maître d’, then at the waiter, then at the brake shop across the road. Donna kept her hands in her lap—head bowed, eyes focused on a strawberry seed stuck to the edge of her plate. It hurt her, this inattention. Here she’d spent three hours selecting her outfit, arranging her hair, matching scarves to shoes, when finally Lydia showed up fifteen minutes late dressed in jeans and a messy shirt untucked at the waist. No one cared, not really. Other women led busy lives, but only Donna took the time to ponder the significance of unimportant things.
Took
the time because she
had
the time. Lydia treated the meal like a feeding session, an hour at the trough. Stuff it ’n’ go. But Donna lingered on each sip, dreading the check, the funereal trip home. Keep drinking. Just put it on my tab.

“He’s being very selfish, and he’s not taking any of your needs into consideration, and the best thing for you to do is to just forget about it.”

“I can’t do that, Lydia. It’s not that easy. We were married for . . . it would’ve been twenty-five years.”

“Don’t cry here.”

Donna fiddled with her utensils, exchanging a fork for a knife. “I mean, what about you and Steve?”

“Not a good comparison.” Lydia looked past the table. White flares of sunlight puddled across her glasses. “The whole relationship is different. The financial structure, everything. If Steve ever left me, he’d be destitute.”

Annoyed, Donna slumped in her chair. “As opposed to me—isn’t this what you’re saying?—where
I’m
the dependent one. And now with Derek gone, I might as well roll up and die.”

Lydia hesitated. “Well, that’s a bit excessive. You’ll manage. It may take some time, but you’ll meet another man—”

“Oh, that’s always the answer, isn’t it?” Donna seized the butter knife and twirled it around. “No other possible way. First there was my father, then Derek, then someone else. I just swing from one to another.”

“Well, you’re going to have to do something, honey. Do you have any IRAs, anything like that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she sighed, not interested in the technicalities.