“You have a form of post-traumatic stress disorder,” Sandberg said.
“Really?”
“Yes, John.”
“I think we suspected that for a while now, right?” Pilate sighed deeply, leaning back in the chair and finishing off the water. “From when I nearly got killed that first winter in Cross.”
He nodded. “I think that event, as well as several others you have endured since then, have certainly made it worse. But you’ve been dealing with some pretty serious issues since you were a child. I think you developed defense mechanisms to survive some rough stuff that happened when you were a little boy. I think because of your mother’s illness, you also unfortunately learned to despise yourself early and often.”
“Wait just a damn minute,” Simon said. “Is he talking about me?”
“I think this imaginary friend of yours…what’s his name?”
Pilate shrugged, eyes on the floor.
Sandberg flipped through his notes. “Simon.”
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” Simon hissed.
“John, part of the issues you’re having with PTSD, with your anxiety attacks, is that you feel them coming on and you get disgusted with yourself for having them.”
“Well, I just don’t think….I mean, it’s not like I…” He trailed off.
“What?”
“PTSD is for people in combat, or firemen or cops. It’s not like I’ve…I don’t know,” Pilate said.
“Earned it?” Sandberg said. “Most of my patients with PTSD got it when they were kids. I see a fair number of vets and first responders, but mostly it’s domestic stuff. People who were abused as kids, or people abused by a spouse. Most of them think they don’t really have PTSD because they don’t wear a uniform.”
Pilate sat back in his chair a moment; his temples throbbed.
“So, you don’t fully acknowledge the attacks, John. You get mad at yourself. You despise it as some sort of inborn weakness. Over the years it got worse and worse.”
“But I have worked on it,” Pilate pointed at Sandberg. “With you.”
Sandberg nodded, and put his notes aside, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “But John, we’ve hit a spot where you understand it, and you know how to calm down until the attacks pass, but you still press the ejector seat button and don’t get at the full issue. Understand?”
“Not sure,” Pilate said, taking a deep breath, then clearing his lungs noisily.
“It’s a lot like Chinese finger traps,” he said. “You know what those are?” He rose up and put his index fingers together, tip to tip, in front of him.
“Yeah. Got a pair at the State Fair when I was a kid. Chinese handcuffs.”
“Okay, me too. Well, you know how they work. You put these on some unsuspecting person’s fingers, and they get excited—”
“They panic.”
“Well…sort of. Panic isn’t quite the word---but okay. So they get excited and pull their fingers apart. But that does what?” He continued to act it out. “It only makes them tighter. The way to escape is simple. Just push the ends toward the middle. That opens up the ends a bit and frees the fingers.”
“Yeah,” Pilate said.
“Okay. So, your way of dealing with these attacks has been like that. You get so upset about having the attacks, that instead of relaxing and fully dealing with the situation, you get angry at yourself, and that only makes the trap worse. You almost literally beat yourself up for having an anxiety attack.”
“Makes me feel helpless,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“And helpless is something that abused children feel above all else, John. There’s nowhere to turn, usually nobody to appeal to. They just have to cope. Lots of kids create imaginary friends to help them get through it. Then, as they get older, they react to emotional stimuli like this in the same way they did as a child. It helps them survive, but that doesn’t always square with being an adult.”
“Says you,” Simon said.
“And from what you’ve told me, Simon isn’t always all that much comfort. He’s your friend in some ways, but he’s also a tormentor. He’s reminding you of all the things you grew up believing about yourself, that you lack worth, that you are a bad person. This janiform existence isn’t healthy.”
“So I need to get rid of Simon?” Pilate said.
“Perish the thought,” Simon said.
“No,” he shook his head. “You just need to put him in his proper place. When an anxiety attack hits, you have to say ‘hi’ to it, acknowledge that it’s happening, and work your way through it.”
“I have been,” Pilate said, exasperated.
“Yes, but you also have to tell Simon that you’re okay. That he is okay. Simon is that little boy, dressed up in a big boy costume. You need to tell him that you see him, but his help is not required in dealing with adult John Pilate stuff. You need to be kind to him…just hand him an imaginary iPad and let him be a little boy while you handle stuff.”
“Could I give him a martini, a smoke, and a copy of Playboy from 1983 instead?”
Sandberg smiled and nodded. “Whatever he needs to occupy himself. Just hand that stuff to him and tell him you got this. And maybe he’ll stop with the nasty comments.”
Simon blew a raspberry. “Psychological double talk. You need me, Johnny. You always will. Maybe not today, but the next time the shit hits the fan, you’ll be crying for your old pal Simon.”
Pilate cruised down U.S. 1, eyes drifting from the road to the azure waves being whitecapped by the high winds. His mind raced, picturing scenarios about Kate. Was she already seeing Grant, and the email was a formality to let him get used to the idea? Or was she sincerely just having coffee?
“Oh, Grant. You are so erudite and funny. I love the patches on your elbows!” Simon said, mocking Kate.
“Shut up, Simon.”
“It doesn’t help that he’s better looking and smarter than you,” Simon said. “He’s like Ryan Reynolds with a PhD.”
“I know. Shut the fuck up, okay?” Pilate growled internally. If Grant is so great, why is he teaching History in a tiny backwater like Cross College? Then again, legendary author Harley Cordwainer taught there, too.
“And your old pal Trevathan did, too. He was a solid guy,” Simon said. “And you nearly got him killed. John, have you considered that you really aren’t good enough for Kate? That you got lucky and she married you then figured it out? You have it all wrong. She doesn’t want to leave Cross. She wants you to leave."
Pilate winced. Simon hadn’t been quite that hard on him in a long time. Apparently Sandberg had hit a nerve. He thumbed the radio volume up and rolled down the windows of the old Saab. He wished he had put the top down before he hit the highway. Just the wind in his ears and the sun on his face as he barreled past Big Pine Key back to Key West.
He had taken a day to run up to Key Largo for lunch with a friend of a friend.
“Hey there, landlubber,” Ron said, his dark face nearly occluded by his floppy straw hat. He sprawled in a lawn chair outside his cabin not far from the docks, one hand working pincer pliers, the other holding a garish green fishing lure. Static-riddled Junkanoo music, pulled from a station in the Bahamas, played at low volume.
“Captain Ron,” Pilate said, nodding at the lure. “Whatcha got there?”
“Green machine,” he said, squinting. “Got bent by a perturbed Cobia awhile back.” Ron grimaced, squeezing the pliers, then grunted. “There.” He took off his hat, mopping his brow with a faded red bandanna. “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing at another chair. “Just move my stuff over.”
Pilate sat.
Ron eyed Pilate a moment, then put his hat back on. “How you doing?”
Pilate shrugged. “Okay. How about you?”
“Well,” he lay a finger across his chin in an affected gesture. “The esteemed Union of Concerned Scientists say that by the year 2100, more than ninety-four percent of Key West’s inhabit
able land will be under water, so I am also concerned.”
“What about up here?”
“I imagine the scientists are also concerned about Key Largo in a similar fashion,” he said, laughing and shaking his head. “Ain’t that a bitch?”
“It is, sorry I’ll miss that.”
“Shit yeah. There’s an upside to being old, huh? You hungry?”
“I could eat.”
He grunted and smiled. “Let’s hit the Fish House,” he said.
“Let’s,” Pilate said. “I’m buying.”
“Indeed you are,” Ron said, chuckling.
After gorging on yellowtail and clam strips, the pair enjoyed a beer in relative silence. Pilate glanced around the restaurant’s dining room, festooned with twinkling party lights hanging from the ceiling, fishing knick-knacks and pictures jamming the walls.
The waitress dropped the check on the table and collected plates. Pilate slid it in front of himself as Ron drained the last of his beer.
“Seen him lately?” Ron asked, eyes low, elbows on the table.
“No,” Pilate said, fishing a credit card from his wallet. “You?”
Ron nodded. “Yup, he was touching up the paint on the TenFortyEZ. I think he plans to start taking charters again real soon.”
“He okay?” Pilate asked.
“He’s full of piss and vinegar as usual, but moving awful slow. That Jamaican affair was pretty tough on him.”
“I know. It was..,…” he trailed off, his voice losing energy.
“The wife has him on a short leash,” Ron added.
Pilate nodded. The last words he had with Jordan were more perfunctory than usual, and not kind. He brought the TenFortyEZ back to her from Jamaica, and asked to see Taters, who had recently arrived back home to recuperate from the heart condition that Pilate’s last adventure had badly exacerbated. She told Pilate he was no longer welcome in their home, on their boat, or in their lives.
Pilate respected that, yet he missed his friend.
“You should call him,” Ron said, watching Pilate scrawl a tip and his signature on the check. “Jordan has probably cooled off by now.”
“Yeah, well I don’t think I’m allowed to,” Pilate said. “She said not to.”
“Who gives a shit? She your mother?” He rolled his head around on his shoulders, as if trying to work out a kink, then faced Pilate. “Look man, you didn’t drive all the way out here to buy me lunch because you missed me. For chrissake, you and I only know each other through Taters Malley.”
Pilate shook his head slowly, his eyes on a Christmas light bulb flickering above the table. “I just want to know if he’s alright.”
Ron stood up, crumpling a napkin at his place setting, shaking his head; large, heavy-lidded eyes pondering Pilate. “Makes me no difference, but life’s pretty short as it is, never mind having a bum ticker.”
Pilate looked up at Ron. “Is it that bad?”
He shrugged. “Could be. Could be not. I’m just sayin’ you gotta bury that hatchet. This is between you and him—not you and Jordan. Now, thanks for the lunch, amigo, but I gotta go see Rosarita about knocking the BBs off my neck.”
“What?” Pilate said, rising to his feet.
He pointed at this dome before putting his hat on. “She gives me a nice shave on my head and neck.”
“Oh,” Pilate said, extending a hand. “Thanks Ron. If uh, if you talk to him?”
Ron sighed, hands on his hips. “I ain’t your messenger service, JP, but tell you what, just this once, I’ll let him know you asked after him.” He nodded and winked.
“Thanks Ron, thanks a lot.”
Ron nodded, slipping a toothpick in his mouth and easing away from the table. Two steps past John, he stopped and said, without turning, “Call him soon. I mean it.”
A Long Time Ago
Johnny lay in a ball on top of his bunk bed, his hand drawing an outline around the cartoony James Bond on his Thunderball sheets. He had cleaned up the glitter as quickly as he could, choking back yet another “sorry” before retreating back to the room he shared with his brother.
Johnny climbed onto the top bunk. He felt a lump just under his Adam’s apple, a hardness like a gobstopper had gotten stuck there.
He held his eight-inch Scotty doll from Star Trek in one hand, imagining Scotty in command of the Enterprise while Kirk and Spock were adventuring on the planet below. He seemed like a nice man, though he had a weird way of talking, and he was really funny when he had too much of what his dad called “the hard stuff.”
In his other hand Johnny held a Star Wars action figure, smaller than Scotty--a beat-up Grand Moff Tarkin his older brother had once tied a tissue paper parachute to and tossed from the tallest tree in the backyard.
“You make things worse every time,” the voice said, emanating from Tarkin’s glowering countenance. It sounded like Tarkin’s voice. Johnny thought Tarkin was a smart but mean guy, who also had a strange accent, but who wasn’t at all nice. “I know,” he whispered.
“Quite stupid.”
“I know,” Johnny Pilate said. “I have to quit messing things up and making her mad.”
“You probably won’t,” the voice chided. “Like she says, you’re stupid, and you shouldn’t even be here.”
“I can fix it,” Johnny said.
“You always say that,” the voice said.
“Leave me alone,” Johnny said, rolling over on the electronic memory game he got for Christmas from his grandparents. It hummed and lit up different colored panels in succession, beckoning him to repeat the beeping sequence. Johnny didn’t play with it much as a game, instead pretending it was Scotty’s engine room on the Enterprise. It began the sequence, lights flashing tones beeping.
“Be quiet, Simon. Just hush up.”
Today
Pilate roughed his dried-out, jerky-like tongue over cracked lips. The cruel headache that had set in hours ago, driven by gin and dehydration , pulsed behind his eyes. He sprawled, a couple of thin beach towels between him and the metal floor, his Hawaiian shirt rolled up as a pathetic pillow.
“This particular finger trap is an absolute bitch.” Simon said. “You have to get out of here. And pardon me for saying so, but I already read this issue of Playboy and I’m fresh out of smokes.”
Pilate lay almost motionless, a scant shiver running through him.
“Listen up, man. That froot loop thinks he’s Annie Wilkes, and doesn’t have the brains to see he’ll kill you if he leaves you in this box.”
“Remember my bunk bed? I was on the top bed so Kyle could have his Kristy McNichol poster taped to the bottom of my bunk?”
“If your brother only knew…”
“It was hot up there sometimes, by the ceiling,” Pilate said.
“Yes. But harder to reach you up there,” Simon said.
“Unless the belt,” Pilate said aloud.
“John, let’s focus on getting out of here,” Simon said.
“You look like Peter Cushing again,” Pilate said in his head, though chuckling aloud.
“Not a good look. Don’t be a silly ass. I look like you, not Grand Moff Tarkin. I’m a much better looking, younger you, remember?”
Pilate lay there a moment, panting in the humidity.
“Simon, you gotta get me out of here. Go figure it out.”
“Wait a minute, you aren’t seriously suggesting that if I get through the wire…”
“I am the cooler king,” Pilate groaned, sighing and rolling over, a sharp stabbing sensation in his left arm. “Dammit.” He felt a shard of broken glass in his arm, and gently carefully pulled it out. “Thanks, Nora.”
He gently padded on all fours, fumbling in the dark, finding the largest pieces of glass. Besides the bloody shard, he found the base of the glass with the stem intact and about two inches of sharp shard at the end. He carefully put it aside, against the wall of the container.
“Not all wounds are meant to harm,” Simon said.
�
�Not all wounds are intentional, you mean,” Pilate said. “Some people can’t help hurting people.”
“You really believe that?” Simon said.
“Some people are just screwed up. They can’t help themselves. They just hurt or have some crazy itch inside that they can’t scratch and they hurt other people dealing with it.”
“You think that’s what your admirer is doing?” Simon said, retreating to his corner.
“Who says I’m talking about him?”
Pilate signed a book, his childish scrawl marring the cream-colored paper, smiled, and handed it to the woman who stood before him.
“I hope you find it interesting,” Pilate said.
The woman accepted the book from him and made a face. “Oh, I don’t read that true crime stuff, it’s too depressing. This is for my granddaughter.”
“Oh,” Pilate said, capping his pen. “Well, would you like me to inscribe it to her?”
She shook her head. “No, that’s alright. She likes to sell these online after she reads them. It’s best if it’s not to one person.”
“Gotcha,” Pilate said, glancing over her shoulder.
“Well, I will move along,” the lady said.
“Thanks again,” Pilate said, looking over at the stack of books that was hardly dwindling next to his cup of cold coffee and a half-eaten brownie, courtesy of the bookstore staff.
“Cheer up, you miserable bastard.”
Pilate looked up and saw a face he hadn’t seen in years. Steel-grey hair and an off-center eye, clothed in a flannel shirt.
“Peter Trevathan?” Pilate stood up, knocking over his chair as he skirted the small signing table. Elated, he opened his arms to give the old man a hug.
“Can’t do that,” Trevathan said, recoiling.
“Why?”
“Because I’m gone,” Trevathan winked, smiled and faded away.
Pilate opened his eyes. “Oh.”
“You must be delirious if you’d rather have an old dead fart visit you rather than me,” Simon said.
“I gotta get out of here,” Pilate rasped, his words tumbling onto the dirty, hot floor.
Pilate's Shadow Page 3