Maybe he was a god.
No. That, I refused to believe. To do so would mean that I’d given up all hope, and that I would not do. I reflected on how far I’d come since my return. In there, I’d been so filled with hopelessness and abject despair that I’d tried to kill myself. Perhaps I’d even succeeded; that part was still fuzzy. But now I was in full fighting mode, mad and ready to take on all comers. I wasn’t about to roll over for anyone.
One day hence, was when the Ultimate wrote that I should come, and I was not sure if the archaic terminology was meant to be mocking or intimidating. It was both, actually, and I suppose that was why I did not drive to the appointed meeting spot early, though I was indeed tempted to do so. I didn’t want him to see me, didn’t want him to know that I was nervous or anxious, didn’t want to show any hint of weakness. I needed to be strong for this confrontation. I would be hopelessly outmatched, and I’d need every possible advantage I could get.
The next day was when we were supposed to meet, when I was supposed to appear before him. For though the letter I’d received at the motel had hinted at a meeting of equals, had been designed to make me think the two of us were going to speak on an even footing, the message in the black envelope had made it clear that he was allowing me the rare and privileged honor of addressing him with my concerns. He was granting me a favor.
The second invitation was by far the more accurate, and I woke up that morning filled with dread. The meeting was not until noon, so I had plenty of time to think about it, worry about it, obsess over it—which I’m sure was his exact intent. Like a young girl going on her first date, I went through my wardrobe, trying to decide what to wear. I wanted clothes that would make me appear as powerful and independent as possible. But I had only a few shirts and pairs of pants and they all kind of looked the same.
I spent the morning pacing around the house, practicing potential conversations, trying out various approaches. Should I leave early in case of traffic? I wondered. Would he be there ahead of time, waiting for me? Was he there now? What if I was late? Would he punish me somehow?
I thought up best-case and worst-case scenarios. I tried to anticipate what might go wrong. I planned how I would defend myself if he came after me, how I would attack him if I found out he’d had Vicki and Eric killed, how I’d escape if things were going south.
And in the end I didn’t show.
It hadn’t been a conscious decision on my part, but if my intent had been to enrage the Ultimate, the strategy worked like a charm. I was deluged with letters by nightfall. They were not merely delivered by a postal worker and dropped into the mailbox, although that happened, too. Many of them simply appeared. I found them lying on floors or furniture, stacked five-deep on the center shelf of the refrigerator, peeking out from behind pillows, leaning against the windows on the sills. From the hall closet, I heard a peculiar shuffling noise, and when I opened the closet door, I saw a veritable cascade of letters falling from the open square in the ceiling that led to the crawl space attic above.
I ignored them all.
I was happy that my absence had infuriated the Ultimate so, had stuck in his craw to such an extent that he was churning out letters by the bucket load. But it was a welcome if unexpected side effect. The truth was that, just like in my confrontation in grammar school with Brick Hayward, I hadn’t shown up because I was afraid and knew I would get beaten. Basically, I’d pussied out.
As stupid as that accidental strategy had been, however, it had worked. I’d never had to fight Brick and had successfully avoided what could have been a disastrous encounter.
Would it work again?
I decided to play this out the same way.
Dear Sir, I wrote the next morning after waking up and finding crumpled envelopes all over my pillow,
You appear to be very upset, but I fail to understand why. I showed in the appointed place at the appointed time, but you were nowhere to be found. I don’t know if you were too frightened to meet with me as promised or too busy, but either way, your behavior was rude and ill considered. I assume your intent was to show me that your time is more valuable and important than mine, but I do not believe that. My time is equally important, and I can’t just sit around waiting on your every whim. So rather than stick around until you showed, I left. If you ever decide that you seriously want a meeting, please feel free to contact me again.
I liked the letter. I thought it critical but suitably polite, and it served to put him on the defensive for something he had not done. As I had with Brick, I was blaming the Ultimate for my own failings.
I walked to the post office, dropped the letter in the slot.
By the time I returned, there was an answer waiting for me.
I left it there until the next morning. Between those times, nothing happened. I received no more letters; no one came to visit me. As I’d thought, as I’d hoped, there was nothing he could actually do to me other than write. It gave me confidence. Sticks and stones may break my bones, I thought, but words can never hurt me.
When I finally opened the envelope, it contained one deceptively simple question: When do you want to meet?
I kept my reply as short as his and sent it to the Shangri-La address. Tomorrow, I wrote. 9:00.
At nine o’clock the next morning I was at the beach, on the pier, looking out at the ocean. I was antsy, anxious. I had a hard time keeping still and not fidgeting. But I also felt good, like I was getting away with something I wasn’t supposed to. There was an adrenaline rush along with the fear and anxiety, and for the very first time, I thought that I might have a chance against him. In my imagination, he was an angry ten-feet-tall geek, raging impotently in the open doorway of that apartment. I still thought he was some type of monster—he had to be—but he was not a monster who drank blood or tore people’s arms off or ravaged cities. He wrote letters. He couldn’t be that scary.
The thought made me feel good, gave me courage.
I spent the day near the beach, walking aimlessly past the surf shops and boutiques, eating lunch at a hole-in-the-wall place that specialized in fish tacos. I was tempted to call Edson, make sure he was all right, but for all I knew my every action was being closely monitored, and I didn’t want to get him into even worse trouble than he was already in.
Sometime in the late afternoon, I walked into the bathroom of a Burger King restaurant to take a leak—
—and found a letter addressed to me sitting on the edge of the sink where I was about to wash my hands.
I looked quickly around, but the restroom was empty except for me. Gingerly, as though afraid it might explode, I picked up the envelope, opened it. Inside was not customized stationery or white typing paper or lined notebook paper. Inside was toilet paper, two-ply, and on it somehow had been written a message in ballpoint pen.
I am coming. Expect me at noon.
It didn’t say where, but I had the feeling that at this point it didn’t matter. He would show up wherever I happened to be. I’d gotten good at reading between the lines, and I could tell that this was it; he was through playing games with me. It was go time.
Where should I wait for him? I wondered. I was tempted to pick some public spot, force him to show his face in the middle of a mall crowd or on the beach among the sunbathers and surfers. But I wasn’t sure that would make me any safer. The Ultimate was not a man who would be embarrassed in public and more subdued or circumspect because others were around. Shit, he probably wasn’t a man at all.
That was one more reason not to meet him alone.
But as corny as it sounded, this was between him and me, and it would be wrong to drag anyone else into it.
I decided to confront him at the rental house. That was the closest thing to home turf that I had, and while it wouldn’t necessarily give me an advantage, at least I would feel a little more comfortable there; at least I would know how the place was laid out and where everything was, and might be able to maneuver around better if called upon to do so.
The question was, what was I going to say to him? I’d been granted the opportunity for which I’d been begging in letter after letter, the chance to speak to him face-to-face, to tell him exactly what I wanted to say.
But what did I want to say?
On a personal level, I wanted him to leave me alone, to let me live my life without any intrusions and to stay away from my friends and family. I wanted him to free the Letter Writers who wanted out, let Ellen and Fischer return to their real families, let my other friends go home. On a broader, more general level, I guess I wanted him to… stop. That was impossible, I knew. I had a tough enough time going cold turkey myself, and I was only in my thirties. He’d been doing this for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years, had been recruiting Letter Writers to follow his lead and do his bidding and had created an entire world for them to live in. For all I knew, he’d been manipulating the course of human events for as long as there’d been written language. He certainly wasn’t going to stop just because I asked him to. But maybe I could convince him to confine his letters to others of our kind, persuade him that it would be better if Letter Writers wrote only to other Letter Writers and stayed out of the affairs of ordinary men.
Who the fuck was I kidding?
I should have some sort of weapon, I thought. Just in case.
What kind, though? I didn’t know how to shoot a gun beyond what I’d seen in movies, and I would have no idea where to buy one illegally by tonight or tomorrow morning—which was what I’d need to do if I were going to use it. So besides guns, what else was there? Knives? Baseball bats? Would anything work on a being that had been around for millennia, that was behind the letters that made up the Bible, for Christ’s sake?
I passed by a trio of grammar school children playing rock-paper-scissors. “Scissors cut paper!” one little boy said triumphantly.
Scissors cut paper.
Why not? I thought. Scissors would certainly be a good symbolic choice. And if I played my cards right, they wouldn’t necessarily seem like a weapon. They did, after all, have numerous nonlethal functions. While they might be awkward to use in case of a fight, they would be effective if wielded properly and might retain an element of surprise.
Yeah, right.
I couldn’t kill the Ultimate with a pair of scissors.
Still, I’d feel better if I brought them, and I vowed to find a pair tonight, to hit a local drugstore if there weren’t any around the house.
There were scissors in a drawer in the kitchen, and they were even better than the ones I’d been imagining. Old and pointed, with sharpened blades, the scissors looked antique but worked much better and more effectively than newer pairs I’d tried. I used them on paper, on cloth. I shoved them hard into a sack of garbage.
Yes, they’d do.
I’d need all my wits about me tomorrow, I’d need to be at the top of my game, so I went to sleep early, adhering to the Ben Franklin philosophy. Any thoughts of arising early were dashed, however, when I opened my eyes and checked out the clock next to my bed: ten thirty.
Only an hour and a half until noon!
I jumped out of bed, took a very quick shower. I could not remember when I’d ever slept so long. I hurried into the kitchen, made some coffee, ate some cereal and toast, looked at the clock. Jesus Christ! It was nearly eleven!
I was starting to panic. I found my scissors, put them in my belt as though I were some movie hero with a dagger sheath. I needed to be ready, just in case he arrived early.
The doorbell rang.
This was it.
My breath was coming in short sharp gasps, my heart was pounding a mile a minute, and my palms were drenched with sweat. I wiped my hands on my pants, unlocked and opened the front door.
A mailman stood there. At least he looked like a mailman. Sort of. His uniform was blue and of a similar style to that worn by post office employees, but the cut was slightly more militaristic, as though he were a mail carrier from some twentieth-century fascist nation. With a barely concealed smirk, he handed me a single envelope. I took it from him, looked into his eyes. He was one of us.
Slamming the door in his face, I turned my attention to the envelope he’d handed me. It was ordinary paper, a security tinted envelope of the sort people used to send checks or money orders. There was no stamp, no writing on it whatsoever. I took the scissors from my belt, used them to cut off one end of the rectangle. I placed the scissors back in their makeshift sheath and took out the folded letter inside, opening it.
There were characters on the page, but they were not part of the English alphabet and did not look like any letters I had ever seen. Neither Cyrillic nor Asian, they appeared almost alien, although they were written in horizontal rows that nevertheless approximated human writing. This was the Ultimate’s original language, I thought; this was what he’d brought to us.
I found myself staring at the note, unable to look away, hypnotized by the strange unfamiliar shapes that suddenly seemed to be moving on the paper, reconfiguring themselves before my very eyes. I could almost understand what had been written here, I thought, and if I just stared at it a little longer, if I just gave my eyes and brain the time to adjust…
The house faded around me, the world I knew disappearing into gray featurelessness. I stared fixedly at the letter, certain that if I just concentrated a little harder, I would understand the message that had been sent to me. It suddenly seemed all-important that I knew what these words meant.
And then that intense focus dissipated. As though retreating from my sight in a rearview mirror, the letter seemed to shrink in my hands, the movement of the characters stopping, the sense that understanding was close at hand dissolving as quickly as my need, my desire, to know what the letter said.
I looked up.
I was back in the land of nightmare.
My nightmare.
5
The first thing I saw was the circus tent.
I was walking down a dusty road, just as in my dream, and before me was the circus tent. I turned around, hoping to see some indication of reality behind me, but there was only the road winding through the desert, its origin lost in the shimmery heat waves that blurred the distance into an impressionistic smudge. Since last experiencing the nightmare, I had forgotten none of the details, and the overwhelming sense of dread that the dream had produced in me reappeared instantly, causing my jaw to clench, my muscles to tighten.
There was no movement of the hot still air, not even a breeze, but the dirty white-and-red-striped tent flap flipped open as though propelled by a sentient wind. Within the exposed triangular breach lay a darkness that seemed uncomfortably like the one in apartment number 3.
Shangri-La.
Where exactly was I? Had an entire world been created out of the contents of my dream, the Ultimate breathing life into my nightmare images? Had I dreamed of a real place, somehow glimpsing with my sleeping brain this alternate world? Or was I imagining it all as I lay on the floor of the rental house, hypnotized?
I had no idea. All I knew was that I was scared and didn’t want to be here and would give anything to be somewhere else.
The canvas flap fluttered in that unfelt wind, slapping against the side of the tent, beckoning me.
I pressed forward, through the still hot air, sweat dripping down the sides of my face. Reaching the tent, I did not even pause. I walked straight inside.
There were no old children with white hair, no prehistoric skeleton, no crucified Christ, his body dead and stinking on the cross. Instead, in the center of the ring was a mirror, a mirror at least fifteen feet tall. In it, I saw a distorted reflection of myself. From somewhere unseen came the tinny sound of Victrola music. Fats Waller or Jelly Roll Morton. Someone playing stride piano. Two men were in the empty bleachers on opposite sides of the tent, both scribbling furiously on paper attached to clipboards. One was Mark Twain. The other was Truman Capote.
Neither of them looked up; neither of them spoke.
&nbs
p; “Hello?” I called. My voice sounded hesitant and uncertain, tinnier than the Victrola music and far fainter. Already the tune being played was starting to grate on me, the relentless parade of notes becoming ever more dissonant in my head as my brain failed to focus on the melody.
I glanced over at the mirror and realized that it did not reflect the writers, the bleachers or anything else within the tent. There was only me, elongated and hideously misshapen, suspended in a black universe.
On their opposing bleachers, surrounded by sawdust and popcorn boxes and crumpled paper cups, Mark Twain and Truman Capote continued to write on clipboards.
The feeling of dread had not lifted, had not even abated. I was not claustrophobic, but I felt trapped and stifled. I was still sweating from the heat, the music was driving me crazy, and underneath the scent of sawdust was a faint foul stench that made me want to vomit. Trying to hold my breath and inhale as little as possible, I approached Truman Capote, the writer closest to me. I circled the concrete edge of the center ring—
And he hissed at me. Like a feral animal. I jumped back, startled. He giggled in a smug effeminate way, and for a second I thought I had an opening. But then he was writing again, head down, scribbling on the clipboard. I was glaring at myself from the mirror, all twisted body and misshapen head, and I knew that if I did not get out of the tent at that instant I was going to either pass out or be sick.
I ran back out through the opening, past the still-flapping canvas, stopping by one of the pegs anchoring the tent to the ground. Looking around at the desert, I tried to figure out what I should do next. From inside came that maddening old-time music, and I thought of the mirror and the writers and that faint sick smell and knew I could not go back. But where should I go from here? Down the road? Which way? I was stranded here in this haunted nowhere land and didn’t know how to get out or what I should do.
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