Because You'll Never Meet Me

by Leah Thomas

  Moritz rarely leaves his room. He has stopped going to school. He does not bathe and does not sleep. I can hear him clicking his tongue even in the early hours of the morning.

  There is a history of mental illness in his family, but Moritz will allow no medical professional near him, apart from the doctor who monitors his heart. I considered forcing him to see another, but after all he has endured, that seemed too cruel. I cannot commit that act of betrayal.

  This began months ago. Moritz went out with friends in the late afternoon, and when I came home after the late shift, the gloom had moved in with us.

  His friends—the girl in boots and the mute boy—have not stopped by to check on him, although Maxine Pruwitt, his librarian, has come by. She was adamant about seeing him and pounded on his bedroom door for twenty minutes straight. He did not answer. After such a long time, even she seemed to succumb to the gloom emanating from his room.

  He must have heard her. We could hear him clicking. He does not stop, now.

  She pushed school transfer documents under his door and left twice as angry as when she arrived.

  In the early morning or late in the night, he cracks open his door; sometimes I can feel him passing in the hallway, and it wakes me from sleep as if a nightmare has slipped by.

  I recall reading your “dolphin-wave” theory of Moritz’s emotional transference.

  I try to join him in the kitchen when he goes on these excursions. He eats in silence and mostly only uncooked oatmeal. I make coffee that he does not drink, and I sit across from him at the table and try to find words to say, but we have never communicated much in this way.

  He does not wear his goggles. His hair is greasy enough that it looks as though he has been standing in the rain. His breathing is often stilted. I have been careful to check his pacemaker every time he appears, and he does not protest. So at least he is not wishing for death yet. But he will not talk to me.

  He clicks.

  Sometimes he writes to you at the kitchen table, by hand now. Which would make me proud in other circumstances.

  I ask him what’s wrong and he shakes his head. He will not face me. Of course, he does not have to, but he once chose to.

  I ask him how he is and he shakes his head.

  I ask him how you are and he leaves the table.

  At first I thought he was angry with you. But then I read his movements more carefully; the way his ears redden, his lips curl down. It is not anger that has silenced him.

  It is shame. Or fear.

  I do not know what he is afraid of.

  Afraid you will reject him? He underestimates you. He will never again be a trusting boy, after all he has experienced. But his past is not mine to tell you.

  Forgive me for breaching your privacy and invading your correspondence. But as the closest thing to his father, I cannot remain silent any longer.

  This evening I asked him to bathe, and at last he complied. While he was in the bathroom, I broke into his desk drawer and read your letters. I plucked the oldest envelope from his stack, and on my way to work, I will place it in an envelope alongside this note and send it to you.

  I will take a deep breath before I enter the apartment this evening. He will notice the letter’s absence. I do not doubt the gloom will deepen.

  I do not want you waiting and wondering if he has become lost in a wardrobe. His narrative continues.

  My son is only as flawed as any human being, but he is unwilling to accept himself. I know you are willing to accept him. When I met him long ago, I saw myself. Before I met him, I was also always alone.

  Moritz and I have an understanding. I understand his silence, and he understands mine.

  But you are the first person Moritz has truly communicated with. You are the first step into society that he has ever willingly taken, and I am so proud of his progress. I am grateful for your devotion; he is as well, which is perhaps why he finds it so difficult to contact you now.

  I beg you, do not dismiss him. Do wait for him to explain himself. We have not seen all that he has seen. Words are not easy for all of us.

  Gerhardt Farber

  Oliver, I don’t know what I should do. You’re telling me your story, and I can do no more than skim the contents of your letters. I cannot begin to process your words except to say:

  What happened to Joe was a tragedy. In no way was it of your making.

  Now I am the one who cannot focus. Forgive me. I don’t know what to do.

  I am considering going to the hospital. Not for myself. But I am alone in my kitchen again. I am frightened. I do not know whether I should turn myself in to the authorities. Or say nothing.

  I don’t know what to do.

  It is my fault that Lenz Monk is hospitalized. I cannot hide this. It must be written all over my face. All over my soulless eye sockets.

  We made a great game of it. Typically during the hours spent after school in the Sickly Poet. We’d order drinks and plot Lenz’s unfortunate demise. We had a list of ludicrous schemes that read like Edward Gorey’s stories about dead children.

  A is for arsenic in Lenz’s soup!

  B is for burning him down to his shoes!

  C is for cutting his heart from his chest!

  D is for drowning him down with the squids!

  And so on. We joked about performing it at the microphone. We were only joking.

  I did not intend to kill him. Only to frighten him. To discourage him from targeting the tongueless and eyeless again.

  But Fieke wanted more. She dragged on her long cigarettes. Swore under her breath that he had it coming. Her heart rate increased; she seemed almost thrilled. Instilled with a fiery drive for violence.

  I should have shied away, Ollie. I have seen scientists look like that.

  We resolved that the best way to confront him would be to lure him into instigating a fight. If someone witnessed the attack, it would seem he had started the altercation. We waited for him after school today. Under the bridge where he’d fed Owen a fuzz sandwich. First we met at Owen’s dingy apartment. Owen and Fieke live alone. Fieke is old enough to be a legal guardian. Before that, they lived in orphanages. They don’t speak about the past any more than I do. I do not needle.

  Ostzig is unapologetically rough. Their apartment, huddled away in the basement of a brick building, makes the one I share with Father seem glamorous by comparison. They did not invite me inside. They asked me to wait on the sidewalk.

  Fieke led the way from the pavement to old, winding cobbles that curled away beneath Südbrücke, a pedestrian bridge across the stinking canal. I tried to squeeze Owen’s hand once as we approached. My heart beat harder when he withdrew and tucked his hands away beneath his arms.

  He was still angry with me for last night. (Do not ask about it now, Oliver.)

  Fieke and I hid in an alcove between two concrete support beams. Owen stood alone in the center of the pavement. Far too exposed for my liking. The wind picked up; the sour smell of cold canal water pricked my nostrils. There was another scent as well: pumpernickel.

  “He’s coming,” I said.

  Sure enough, moments later, that signature slip-scrape of Monk’s uneven gait led to his appearance before us. He was walking with his head down, looking at the cobbles. Until he nearly trod on Owen.

  “What do you want,” he grunted.

  Owen blinked.

  There was something the matter with all of this. The look on Fieke’s face was that unpleasant smile. I could almost hear it. So creaking. So forced.

  And Lenz …

  He looked angry, yes. But also troubled.

  I didn’t have time to consider this. Fieke pushed me out into the fray.

  Lenz jerked back. Showed his teeth.

  “Listen.” I pointed my cane at him. “You’ve had your fun. Never again.”

  “Leave me alone,” said Lenz, scowling.

  He tried to push past both of us, leaving me with my mouth agape. Fieke stepped into his path with her arms
folded over her chest.

  “Away, Fieke.” He pushed right past her, much like he’d tried to push me in the gym. But she didn’t dodge it. She bared her teeth and took his palm against her sternum. She made no effort to catch herself.

  When she fell, Owen pounced.

  I had thought he was meek as a lamb. But he leapt right onto Lenz’s back and threw his arms around his throat. Nails out like a lion.

  “Moritz, you idiot! Get him!”

  “But—”

  Lenz Monk grabbed Owen by the head. Pulled him over his shoulder to throw him against the cobbles. Owen landed on his back and cried out. A squawking cry that cut me to the core.

  Because the moment Owen cried out in pain and coughed air from his lungs, my heart rate increased and my pacemaker strained, and I saw every scratch that had ever been made in the stones underfoot, every strand of hair in between them, the insects colonizing underneath the rock, the fungi growing on the underside of the bridge, and the minuscule portions of phlegm expelled with Owen’s exhaled lungful of breath, and the tiny particles of flour in Lenz’s hair and the way his eyes were crinkled with rage and hurt. Because I heard all this, I moved before the second was out. Before I knew it, I had done it.

  I had done it.

  MBV allowed me to aim the butt end of my cane directly into the softest pressure point in his throat and stab with as much effort as I could muster. With all the precision of a surgeon installing a pacemaker. With all the talent of an artist with a brush or a seamstress with a needle.

  It took precisely one sharp thrust and then two hands shoved against his diaphragm to undo him.

  Lenz didn’t even raise a hand to me. He gasped for air, clutching at his throat. Tripped backward over Owen’s supine form. When he fell, he smacked his head against the pavement.

  Crack! And in the echoes, his head was swelling, and in his wheezes, I saw he was not rising again.

  What monster am I, Ollie?

  I took three steps backward. I could not escape this.

  “Got him!” Fieke’s eyes shone with inhuman rage. Similar to my own fury moments before. She climbed to her feet. Dusted off her knees. Relit her cigarette before helping Owen up. He was wheezing but smiling. That frightened squawking, that cry that called me to action—was it a performance?

  Did I transfer my rage to them? Was this what I did to normal people? Or was this rage all their own? I did not know. I could not spare the time to care.

  I could hear Lenz’s pulse. But he had hit his head hard. He burbled. In his burbles I heard again how monstrous I am. I heard my nothingness.

  Lenz was sprawled across the cobbles and bleeding between us. But both Owen, wheezing, and Fieke, scowling, stared at me. They were not the ones who’d wrecked him.

  “Why are you looking like that? He had this coming. See if he fluffs with us again. Wait and see.”

  “Call an ambulance.”

  “Are you kidding?” she said. Owen shook his head. He was still coughing. I did not feel sorry for him.

  “Your phone. Give it to me. He hit his head.”

  “Hell no.” Perhaps she was in shock. Perhaps I should have commiserated. Should have realized she could not be as cruel as she seemed.

  I stepped forward, cold and clicking. Fieke took half a step back. I grabbed her. I could see precisely how she was going to move. Suddenly she looked alien to me—a terrified little girl who thought I might hit her—but I only took the phone from her pocket and turned away.

  She replaced her mask of rage. But I had seen that little girl and she was well aware, so she spat out with more bile than before: “Coward! Just duck your head again, all right? Just leave!”

  I did not reply. I called emergency services.

  I hope he is not dead. I hope he has been hospitalized. Not placed under a coroner’s care.

  I left the scene of the crime.

  What have I become? My mother’s monstrous experiment and I can’t pretend to be anything else. I can’t hide behind goggles or masks.

  Oliver … should I go see him?

  You would. Certainly you would.

  You ran directly at that power line.

  I stepped outside the apartment door and into the mildew-ridden hallway. I dropped my keys onto the concrete and clutched my chest and edged back inside once more. I edged all the way backward down the hall and into my bedroom and shut myself away inside.

  I cannot do it.

  If Lenz were the only one, perhaps I could go. But there are others. Others all over the world who have suffered for my sake.

  I can’t tell whether it is my heart disease or something else that makes my ribs ache now.

  But I am not so brave as you, Ollie.

  How can I face you again? How can I face any soul on earth?

  With all that I have seen and been.

  I am no one’s hero.

  Moritz

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Music

  Dear Mr. Farber,

  Thank you for writing. I’m glad that Moritz isn’t stuck in a parallel dimension or something, and annoyed he doesn’t have that kind of excuse for not answering me. I mean, at least if he were trapped in a parallel world, he could say, like, “Oh, my deepest apologies, sir! The boggiest of swamp extraterrestrials is gnawing upon my foot. While I tap inane rap music into his skull. I cannot afford to write you. I must fend him off my beloved toes! Let him rot!” or something.

  Man, I miss him. Please tell him that I can’t wait to hear from him again. For now, I’ll try writing knowing he’s on the other end. I’m relieved to know he might be there pretty soon.

  Please make sure he gets this letter. Even if he doesn’t write back, I don’t know how to think anymore if I don’t write all my thoughts down for him.

  ~ Oliver

  MR. FARBER STOP READING THIS NOW

  Just testing. I guess it doesn’t matter, really.

  Moritz, don’t talk like that. You aren’t a monster. You were scared and your friend was hurt and fick me for telling you to be heroic. I don’t think you meant to hurt him like that. It’s like you lost control, and that’s something I understand pretty well.

  And maybe I’m terrible, because all I feel right now is relieved. No matter how terrible a situation you’re in, you’re alive. So maybe you’re not a hero, but you’re not a villain, either. You couldn’t leave him bleeding when he’s left you bleeding more than once. I don’t care if you came from a petri dish or Frankenstein’s table. I don’t care where you came from anymore, because it’s enough that you exist and you keep trying, Moritz. That’s the most human thing.

  Let me say what you said to me: Get out of bed. Stand up.

  I hope you can find the motivation to see Lenz. I wish I could go see Joe. Then again, I’m grateful I have an excuse not to.

  I don’t have excuses for everything. Sometimes I really screw up. The party was a disaster, and I wish it didn’t matter.

  Relieved as I am to know you’re somewhere, I wish you were here, Mo.

  On the day of the party, I sat on the porch and stared down the driveway, twiddling my fingers and wiping sweat from my forehead and standing up and sitting down again while Mom watched me, sipping a mug of warm cider.

  I was wearing a hand-sewn “Zombie of Roderick Usher” getup, all coated in red food coloring and dirt with painted circles under my eyes, and she was dressed as an undead version of Miss Havisham. She’d agreed to act the part after I joked that she was always single anyhow, so why the hell not take advantage of it? (Miss Havisham is this old woman from Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations. She got left at the altar on her wedding day and stopped all the clocks in her house and never changed out of her wedding gown, even when she turned into a scary old dinosaur.) Maybe she looked the part too much. When she came out of her bedroom having exchanged her wig for a tattered bridal veil and dress, looking like a jilted widow after all, I almost asked her to change.

  The party was supposed to start at noon. It
was already 1:00 PM, and the long brown line of the driveway stretched before us, vanishing into trees rustling in the wind, and not a soul had come down it. By 2:00 PM, I could have sworn the driveway was more obscured by overgrown bushes than ever. I was craning my neck to see and I thought there were suddenly more trees, like maybe they were growing on the driveway and maybe people were coming down the driveway, seeing the trees, and turning back because our cabin doesn’t really exist—

  “You’re pulling your hair, Oliver,” said Mom.

  “They won’t come, will they? Not like it matters. It isn’t a big deal. But they aren’t coming.”

  “Calm down. You’re making me wish I were a zombie.”

  “What, dead?”

  “Just brain-dead, so I couldn’t feel anxious. Sit down.”

  I tried to sit back in the rocking chair and managed it for maybe four seconds before I heard a branch snap or an animal rustle in the woods, and I was up again, leaning on the railing.

  “Maybe we should wait inside.”

  “You used to be the one who couldn’t sit still.”

  “No sense wasting energy,” Mom said, easing her way to her feet.

  “What, because they aren’t coming and you knew they wouldn’t and I shouldn’t have bothered with this at all, because who would want to come out here anyway?”

  She put her hand on my shoulder. “No, Ollie. Because I’m tired.”

  I still haven’t asked her about the fence, you know. At first it was because what happened to Joe was just so much bigger than that electric fence I hadn’t known about. Later, I didn’t ask, because I was scared she would lie to me, or lock me inside the house for good this time. But now seemed like an opportunity, like my chance to ask her why she’d never sent me to school in a hazmat suit, why she’d never let me roll around in a bubble or something. Why she wouldn’t talk about Dad. Things that used to seem important.