“Did you check the time?”
“Here, for heaven’s sake. Give me your arm…. It’s 4:30 p.m.”
“4:30 p.m.?”
“That’s what it says.”
“Does it say anything else?”
“No, of course it doesn’t.”
“It doesn’t tell you what’s supposed to have happened already?”
“God, I’m already so bored of this.”
“But does it?”
“No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t, OK?”
“OK?”
“OK.”
“Then just shut up then.”
***
We were living south of Chicago, just outside Calumet City and its smiley face water towers (Mr. and Mrs. Smiley), when my father murdered my mother by strangulation. It happened in the small two-bedroom house where my sister and I shared a room. I hated it. I was a senior in high school sharing a room with an eighth grader and there was no way around it.
The house sat well off a rural highway, with plenty of ash trees scattered around it. My father strangled my mother in their bed, my sister and I listening to the whole thing from our room. My mother gasped and gasped and the bedsprings creaked and creaked.
Karen got worried and frantic and wanted to do something. I laughed, lit a cigarette, and told her mom and dad were probably just fucking. She slapped me on the shoulder and told me not to be gross. She told me not to use bad words. She told me to put out the cigarette because it’s bad for me and if mom and dad catch me smoking in the house they’ll murder me.
Kind of ironic, now that I think about it.
I told the little brat to shut the fuck up and leave me alone. Besides, they won’t murder me for smoking in the house because they’re too busy fucking to notice.
At that, she hit me again but seemed about ready to laugh.
She didn’t, though, because of the immediate silence.
It was as if the house had been sucked into the mute vacuum of outer space. I was unnerved and about to put The Wall on the record player to fill the void, but Karen stopped me from dropping the needle onto it, not saying a word. She wanted to listen, and she had her hand on my wrist, and her eyes were looking up and to the right in deep concentration. I think she may not have even been breathing.
The bed from our parents’ room creaked. Once.
The record turned on the turntable, a dead merry-go-round.
Karen’s grip around my wrist tightened like a vice and she screamed almost simultaneously with the enormous BANG that came from somewhere in the house, followed by a dull thud-thud.
Soon thereafter it was apparent that one of us would fall off the deep end.
***
I come to in a large room choked with summer light. The room’s overexposed and ghostly, the sun’s extreme brilliance pouring through enormous windows across the room from me. I worry it’s the gamma rays firing out from my eyes, but I’ve kept them narrowed, my will still with me. I’m laid out on a chaise lounge and there’s a tumbler of some foggy liquid with green leaves in it on a small, low table next to me. I lean on my side and grab it and gulp half the mint julep down, grateful for such ambrosia.
Refreshed, I finally recognize there’s two people sitting near the windows. The backlighting turns them into silhouettes, a strange corona of light wavering and lapping at their edges.
“Wha—” I start, unable to focus on their blinding visages or form whole words.
“Whoa there, tiger. Now, just catch your breath. You’ve had quite a time of it lately,” the man says.
“Wha—who are you? Who the fuck are you?” I say, feeling the planet’s revolution slow to an acceptable speed.
“Who are we? Who are we?” he asks, lisping. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Oh, Harold, please don’t get philosophical with the village idiot,” the woman says.
“Hey, who do you—”
“I’d like you to think of a time where you didn’t want to fuck your sister,” the woman interjects, sinister.
“Jesus! What the fuck?” I say, sitting up, feeling dizzy, weak.
“What the lovely Natasha here is saying, Jack, is—if I may—that she’d like you to think of a time where you didn’t want to destroy your sister’s life.”
“Seriously, who the fuck are you?” I say, becoming more desperate. My throat turns to cracked concrete, so I soften it with more of the ambrosia.
“We’re your housemates, goddammit,” the lady spits. “You may as well think of us as family.”
“Karen didn’t tell me there were other people living in this house,” I say, rubbing my eyes, trying to focus on their dark, burning shapes. My mind a-muddle.
“Well, Karen didn’t like you very much, did she?” the guy says, a little saucy.
“My sister loves me,” I tell them. “She’s been taking care of me while I… while I… recuperate?”
I feel unsure of something.
“Hmmm…” the guy says. “Is that what she’s been doing?”
“Yes. Yes, I’ve been very… sick, lately. And she’s been, um, taking… taking care of me.”
“Taking care of you, huh?” the woman says. “Like, what? Like, putting a cool rag to your forehead when you got feverish? Making sure you take your medication? Get plenty of rest? Maybe, even, bring a doctor out to take a look at you?”
“Yes. Yes. That’s exactly right. Now, tell me, who the fuck—”
“How are those meds treating you, Jacky Boy?” the man asks.
“I… don’t know. I think… I think they’re starting to help.”
“Ho-ho-ho,” he says. “Do you now, Jacky Boy?”
“I… uh… yes?” I tell them.
“That’s the spirit, Jacky Boy,” he says. “Mind over matter and tra-la-la.”
“Quit breaking the boy’s poor heart,” the woman says. “And quit filling his head with nonsense.” Her dark, fiery form unfurls from her chair and she strides to the other side of the room where there’s a wet bar. I see she’s got a cigarette in one hand and it’s stuck into the end of one of those long, old-timey cigarette holders. Wisps of blue smoke curlicue in her wake.
“There’s no smoking in this house,” I warn her.
“Oh, please, darling,” she guffaws, mixing herself a fresh beverage. “What are you gonna do, huh? Arrest me? Please, arrest me,” she tells me, turning to face me and thrusting her wrists out before her. Her voice regains that sultry tone, “Put the handcuffs on me, mister. Tie me up. Tie me down. Punish me—”
“Natasha, please,” the man lisps. Her darkened shape shrugs and returns to making that drink.
“Besides,” she continues, her back to me, glass and silver clinking. “How else do you expect me to cover up that god-awful stench. Really, Jacky, it’s frightful.”
For some reason I find myself apologizing. “I know, I know. I guess Karen forgot to pay the electric bill and everything has just gone rotten in this house. You know, the summer heat and everything.”
“Oh, the summer heat? Is that to blame?” she says, retaking her seat and crossing her legs, the portals of white light behind them.
“Well, it doesn’t help with the rot.”
“No, no. It certainly doesn’t,” the man says.
“Tell me, Jacky,” the woman demands. “How long would you say this place has been submerged in this unbearable stench?”
“I—I don’t know. Ever since a few days after the power went out, I guess.” I take another sip of my mint julep and try to take in my surroundings. It’s a room I’d never been in before, that’s for sure. There’s large potted palms, sparse but ornate furniture, that wet bar, tall bookshelves, and lots of plants hanging from the ceiling with long, green tendrils.
“You really think that smell has only been around for the last few days? Jesus, you are senseless,” she says, expelling a gunshot of breath.
“No. Oh, no. No, the power went out a long time ago.”
“Did it,” she says as though
it’s not a question.
“I… I’ve been sort of… sort of… stuck?” I tell them, feeling suddenly hopeful that maybe they know something I don’t know.
“Stuck?” the man says, trying not to laugh.
“Yeah. Yeah, stuck. I wandered into some rooms in this goddamned house and got… lost. Well, not lost. I just couldn’t find my way out of those rooms… I guess. Do… you think I can have another one of these?” I ask, holding the tumbler out in their direction.
A smoky black cloud flies at me and next thing I know my glass is gone and the man is over at the wet bar, whistling, making me a drink.
“Your sister hates your guts,” I think I hear the woman say.
“What?”
“We’ll be downstairs. Making dinner. If you want to join, I suggest you take a nap first, then get cleaned up. We don’t like dining with anyone that looks like they live… under a bridge,” she says with an icy tongue.
Natasha glides out of the room. Harold sets my drink on the table, seems about to say something, then follows Natasha’s smoke trail.
***
“No, we’re not the ghosts of your dead parents, Jacky,” Natasha says, delicately carving her steak as we sit around the table in the dining room. Dusk filters the room in a grey light, and candlelight assists in my seeing somewhat clearly.
This whole first floor is decorated in dozens and dozens of candles planted on tables, windowsills, and anywhere else with a raised, flat surface.
I think they’ve used mostly scented candles, going overboard to cover up the offensive odors. They seem to have cleaned up the rotting mess from the counters and refrigerator, but the stench lingers.
“That’s who you thought we were, didn’t you, you poor boy?” Natasha continues.
“No—I… maybe?” I tell them through a mouthful of steak, relishing it, having eaten nothing but flies and beetles for days on end. No, that’s untrue. There was the one night in the mirror-room where a mouse scampered across the floor, causing all my doppelgangers in the mirrors to throw a fit like rabid monkeys in cages. They pounded on the glass, hopped up and down, screamed, bit their fingers, ripped at their eyes, pulled at their beards, and flung their feces—all in silence.
Not wanting to disappoint them, having grown used to their company and even their glassy evening caresses, I leapt across the room after the scurrying creature. I dove after it, my cupped hands coming up empty, my mouth dripping with saliva. Eventually I hopped after it and landed and felt something like a stale jelly donut squish under my heel.
My lovers in the mirror encouraged me to eat. They knew I had grown so weak lately from lack of food.
I gobbled the crushed mouse into my mouth, its blood and pus and shit dribbling down my chin while I chewed eagerly.
Everyone in the mirrors had a good laugh at that.
I laughed, too, slurping at the end of the tail like a string of fine spaghetti.
“We’re also not the ghosts of you and your sister,” Harold says now, pointing his impaled meat at me, grinning.
These two look nothing like my father and mother, or me and my sister, for that matter, so I don’t know what they’re going on about. I’ve never seen them before in my life and I’m wondering if they’re actually here.
I’m wondering, but I don’t dare challenge their presence, as I’ve had no one to talk to—to converse with—in such a long, long time, it seems. And while my copies in the mirror-room kept me company, kept me from losing my mind from absolute loneliness, they couldn’t tell me about the books they were reading, the thoughts they were having, or how the fuck I could get out of my situation—well, that’s not entirely true. They clearly communicated that to me, I suppose.
“Where’d you get this food?” I ask the intruding couple now, all my concentration on carving, slicing, cutting, and shoving the bloody red chunks between my smiling teeth. They’ve also poured me a large glass of frosty beer, which I greedily draw refreshment from.
“Tell me, Jacky Boy, who did your sister bring by to have a look at you? You did say, correct, that she had a doctor come look after you?” the man says, swirling the ice in his glass of Johnnie Walker, which I watch through half-moon eyes, waiting for it to turn into blood.
“Why?” I ask, chewing, then swallowing mouthfuls of beer.
“Just answer the question, Jack,” Natasha says, stunning me.
“It was, um—it was my childhood doctor, actually. Uh… um, doctor… Dr. Wilson,” I tell them, mildly proud of myself for the recollection.
“Hmmm,” Harold says.
“He’s hopeless,” Natasha retorts.
“What? What is it?” I ask.
“Really, Jacky? Really? Your childhood doctor? Can you please use your tiny little beetle brain for one minute? Can you even do that?” Natasha says, taunting me before lighting a cigarette and leaning back in her chair.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, and swallow the last of my beer and, before I can ask, Harold has snatched the glass from my hand and gone off to the kitchen to fetch me a refill.
“How old were you when you last saw this Dr. Wilson?” she asks, sucking in and blowing out blue smoke.
“Ten… maybe twelve,” I tell her. Harold has returned with my beer and I take it from him and thank him and he winks and I drink and drink and drink, beer spilling out the sides of my lips.
“And, Jacky—come on now, if you wouldn’t mind trying a little cognitive reasoning for a moment—how old was Dr. Wilson at that time?” Natasha says, continuing the interrogation between puffs on her long cigarette holder.
“I don’t know. He seemed pretty old. Like ninety, or something. But, you know how adults look to kids. They all seem like they’re ninety.”
“Ninety?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And did you get a look at this doctor when he dropped by?” Harold lisps.
“No… not exactly. I, uh, was really bad off at the time. I was behind on my meds and I….”
“So, you didn’t see him? This 115-year-old doctor of yours?” Natasha asks.
“No, I guess not.”
“Your arms are marked up pretty good, too, I see,” Harold remarks.
“Yeah. Dr. Wilson—he gave me some shots. Vitamin shots. I think I probably tried to fight him off a few times. I might have bit him. Probably made it difficult for him to properly inject me, so I have some marks from it all.”
“Vitamin shots,” Natasha says.
“Uh-huh,” I answer, looking back and forth between the two through narrowed lids. They’re actually fairly young, maybe even younger than me. They’re both quite pretty, too, with high cheekbones, flawless skin, and styled hair.
Their eyes… their eyes are beautiful, shining. Nothing like mine.
“We’ve got ourselves a real winner here, Harold,” Natasha says, stamping out her cigarette in an ashtray. She stands and turns her back to us, finds a candle, and lights another cigarette.
“I still don’t understand,” I say, feeling revitalized despite the fact that I’ve disappointed them in some way. “Why are you here?”
“Well,” Harold says, kind of exhausted. “We were thinking of raping and murdering you, but Natasha now thinks you’re too stupid to rape and I… well, I don’t have a problem with how stupid you are—but, I won’t do it if she won’t.”
“You’re goddamned right you won’t,” Natasha says through smoke and a Cheshire cat grin, stalking around the table .
“So, we thought maybe we’d roll you in barbed wire and, oh, I don’t know, spritz you with lime juice and lick that off with our salted tongues—but no sex stuff,” he says, seeming bored.
“Or we could strap a bi-pronged fork around his neck, letting one sharp end rest just under his chin, the other against his sternum. He seems to have some form of narcolepsy. It’d motivate him to keep that heavy head from dropping, at least,” Natasha says, walking slowly behind me, puffing smoke.
“And,” Harold jumps in, a litt
le excitedly, “it’d be loads of fun to ask him questions like, ‘Are you a moron?’ and see if he can refrain from nodding yes.”
“I…” I tell them. “I’ve had a rough couple weeks, and… I—I would really like it if you two didn’t fuck with me like this.”
My heart’s palpitating. My breath thins. My head leaves my body, floats up to the ceiling, tethered by a string.
I think I’m having a panic attack. I need my medication.
“Oh, we’re not fucking with you, I assure you,” Harold says.
“I’ve been trapped—trapped in this goddamned house for weeks! Trapped—trapped for days and days in these… these torturous rooms upstairs…. I couldn’t find my way out…. There was no way out. I really… really… don’t need this,” I inform them, running out of breath.
“You were trapped?” Natasha asks, sitting across from me again, her arms crossed. “You were trapped in… what, some magic rooms, or something?
“Uh-huh,” I say, nodding, my head lolling.
“Jacky Boy,” Harold says, reaching across the table and taking hold of my hand. It’s a reassuring touch and I’m momentarily calmed. “Jacky Boy—sweetheart—you weren’t trapped anywhere.”
“Huh? What? Of course I was trapped. I know goddamned well I was—”
Natasha exhales a wicked laugh and says, “Honey, you weren’t trapped anywhere. You goddamned lunatic. Yesterday, in fact, Harold and I stood right here and watched you walk into and bounce off of that wall and walk back into and bounce off it again and again and again—for, like, half the day. It was really quite amusing. Wasn’t it amusing, Harold?”
“Oh, yes. Definitely fine entertainment,” Harold says, squeezing my hand before withdrawing his touch.
“My eyes are… my eyes are…” I warn them, squinting.
“Oh, look, dear, the village idiot is trying to form a sentence,” Natasha says, mocking me.
“My eyes are…” and before I can finish, my plate of mashed potatoes, peas, and discarded fat and gristle finds my face and ushers me into the black void.
***
“Oh, Jacky Boy, this hurts me more than it hurts you,” Harold says, his face right in mine. He pulls my head back by my hair and kisses me hard and then looks at me disgusted while I hope to slip back into unconsciousness for the twelfth or thirteenth time this day.
My Eyes Are Black Holes Page 7