The Glass House

by David Rotenberg

For the first time in his life, Eddie found himself grouped with his daughter and her friends—one of their kind.

  Eddie went to defend them but was beaten to it by Marina, who strode forward like a warrior daring anyone to so much as say a word. Suddenly, Josh let out a wail and grabbed his face. Someone had thrown a sharp object that cut him just above his right eye. The huge boy staggered, and Eddie caught him just before he hit the ground. Marina didn’t move towards Josh. No. She headed in the opposite direction—towards the boy who had thrown the stone. As the taunts surrounded her, Marina pushed through the mob, grabbed the boy by the ears and began to yell at him.

  But words failed her, and gibberish came out of her mouth. In rage and frustration she turned to her father, who quickly ran to her, told the boy to back off and pulled his daughter to his side.

  The walk home had been long and silent.

  I’ve never been in a situation like that, Eddie thought.

  No you haven’t.

  Eddie hadn’t realized that he’d spoke aloud. Then he looked at Marina.

  He hadn’t spoken aloud!

  Before he could say anything, Marina said, No, Father, you were not talking. There are many more ways of communicating than simply talking. You think that you and that machine—that computer—are involved in some sort of advanced thinking, some sort of advanced way of communicating. But that’s nonsense. A computer is a simple device. Communication is much more complicated than a computer could ever begin to help you understand. For example, look at me, Father. Are my lips moving?

  Eddie shook his head.

  And yet you hear me, don’t you?

  Eddie nodded.

  This is our way now. You heard me when I explained about living in different worlds and the clearing and the glass house—not talking, but this way. You are hearing me now the way I’ve always heard everyone, everywhere. When you live in many worlds like I do, it’s sometimes hard to be simple and direct.

  Eddie went to speak but Marina had knelt in front of him.

  He looked down at her.

  She looked up, opened her mouth and pointed to her undone shoelace. “Dada help Marina. Please.”

  43

  SETH AND WJ—KEYS

  SETH AWOKE WITH A START. Something was terribly wrong—more wrong than ever before. Yes, he felt the creep of the cancer in his system, but he’d felt that now for the last ten days.

  He shifted on the bed. The handcuff that held him to the gurney rattled. Then it came to him. Last night he’d been sliding out of control in his dream, a rarity for him. He was a master dreamer, if there was such a thing. From the moment he’d left his father’s house he’d begun to write about his dreaming. And before he got so sick he’d completed two full novels about it and left them on the hard drive of a computer at the University of Victoria library. He’d made a reference to them in his journal, but that was well hidden away. However, even in his writing about dreaming he’d never been yanked from one dream to another as he was last night.

  As he thought about that his entire body began to shake. It took all of his considerable willpower to control himself and force himself to concentrate on the here and now—on the inevitable confrontation ahead with the grey-haired freak. He shallowed his breathing and allowed a waking dream. For a moment he didn’t see anything—then, turning a corner, there was his father, sitting on a large red rock, a guitar in his hands. He put the guitar aside and looked at his son. “Explain,” he said. And Seth did: the Wellness Dream Clinic, the grey-haired freak, his kidnapping, and now being handcuffed to a gurney.

  “Tell me how I can help you, Seth. I need to help you.”

  “I need weapons to fight him. I’m here alone, sick as a dog and weaponless.”

  “You are never weaponless. Never helpless, no matter what the situation, because every personal confrontation plays out like a scene from a script. The choices you make lead either to victory or defeat. Because battles between two people are always intimate, invasive and specific. Human vulnerability, not circumstance, determines the outcome. Find the right weapon to attack your acting partner’s vulnerability, and no matter how the scene is written you can win.”

  “This is not some scene from a stupid play!”

  “True—but if you treat it like a scene you may find a way to win.”

  “So you want me to think of this as if I’m playing a scene? That what is going to happen between myself and the grey-haired freak is a scene, a series of scenes, a play?”

  “Unless you have a better suggestion.”

  Seth turned away.

  “Seth, the way to think about it is that both you and your opponent have a key in your respective back pockets. He wants the key you have and you want the key he has. Winning is getting the other guy’s key without him getting yours. You already know what key he holds in his back pocket, what you want from him.”

  “Yeah, my freedom.”

  “But you don’t know what he wants from you—your key. That’s the first thing to work on. Find out what he wants from you. Once you know that you can defend your key—and once that key is defended you can begin to attack him to get his key. But start by finding out what he wants from you—your key.”

  “That’s it?”

  “No, Seth, that’s just a place to begin.”

  Seth saw his father’s image begin to fade. As it did he saw his father pick up the guitar and try to revitalize the waking dream, but he failed and dissipated into the mist.

  Seth was amazed at how deeply he understood his father’s advice—as if the thoughts were his own, not his father’s. He had, as a kid, overheard many of his father’s acting lessons when professional actors came to the house in the Junction to prepare for big roles. So, he thought, maybe I’m just remembering. Then he told himself to stop it. It was time to get ready—to find out what key he had in his back pocket to control the grey-haired freak.

  He heard someone throw the door bolt. Round one—no, scene one, he thought.

  44

  HIDING ACTIONS

  THEIR FIRST ENCOUNTER HAD BEEN a lengthy process of feeling each other out. Neither had scored a serious hit. Seth still didn’t know what key he had that the grey-haired freak wanted.

  The one thing Seth knew for sure was that when his adversary returned, the war between them would escalate.

  He lay back and allowed his mind to roam his memory chambers—not unlike what his father had done while rolling and folding pie dough in Solitaire. And memories came. He had been home from school for some reason. He’d moved into Eddie’s room to nap, and much to his surprise there was an air vent there that connected to the living room downstairs, where his father was working with one of his star acting clients. He’d rolled over and moved closer to the vent.

  The actor was named Fastman—Steve? Sean? He couldn’t recall. But he knew the man’s last name was Fastman, that he’d been one of his father’s clients for many years and had a terrific career playing leads in Hollywood and Canada.

  “Actions have to be hidden,” he heard his father say.

  “Explain that, Decker,” Fastman said.

  “If your acting partner knows what you are trying to make him do, then he can always defeat you.”

  “But I do have to play an action, as in ‘If I have the right to write the end of the scene, what would my acting partner do?’ ”

  Seth heard his father laugh. Then Fastman asked, “What?”

  “I taught you that in the new students’ class. That must have been—”

  “At least fifteen years ago.”

  “Yeah. Well yes, you’re right, you have to play actions, and that is exactly the formula that you have to use, but the issue is how openly do you play them. That formula causes the conflict that drama needs because it’s our nature—when we see that someone wants something from us, we almost always don’t give it to them. You’ve tended bar, right?”

  “What actor hasn’t tended bar?”

  “When I lived in New York City,
I had a high-end pickup bar around the corner from my apartment on the West Side, and they always needed help on the weekends, so they didn’t care that I was a really shitty—I mean a really shitty—bartender. But being a bartender taught me a lot about actions. Someone coming into the bar desperate to find someone never, ever did. His desperation made him play his actions too openly. But sometimes around two in the morning a guy would come into the bar happy with his life, happy with his wife and kids—and women would approach from corners of the bar that you didn’t even know were there.”

  “He was hiding his actions?”

  “You bet.” Then his father had laughed as he added, “Because no one comes into a bar at two in the morning happy with his life, wife and kids.”

  Seth remembered that most distinctly: “No one comes into a bar at two in the morning happy with his life, wife and kids.” Hiding his action.

  So he had to make the grey-haired freak show his hand—play his action openly. Show Seth what he wanted from him. Until now, the grey-haired freak played as if it was 2:00 a.m. and he was happy with his life, wife and kids. Seth had to stop him from doing that. “How?” he asked aloud—and his father answered him: “Don’t go directly for that. Find chinks in his armour and attack those points. Make his insides move and the whole structure may wobble and fall.”

  Seth thought about structures falling. About how to make them fall.

  He felt a roiling in his intestines—such motion was not a pleasant sensation for anyone with cancer alive in his system. He turned on his side and allowed it to pass. It took longer than before—not good.

  But once it did he returned his thoughts to moving the grey-haired freak off his centre, uncentring him, finding a hole in the man’s vision of himself.

  He rolled onto his back.

  Seth thought about his action. If I had the right to write the end of the scene, what would the grey-haired freak do? Well, fuck, he’d release me. Have I ever played that action before? There was that girlfriend when I was sixteen; that bully in grade school; that damned song that had gotten into my head that I couldn’t escape. Leaving my father’s house. Well, that was the biggest one, but I hadn’t needed anyone’s permission—no one was barring my way, except myself. So there was no action to play except against my own fear. Here my fear has a body—the grey-haired freak—although he does not, as yet, have a name.

  His name, Seth thought. Let’s start there.

  He suddenly heard his father’s words again. “The choice of the state of being you sit in when you play your action can contribute to a victory in a scene.” Then his father’s voice was gone. Seth thought about that: “What did I feel while I played that action? What was my state of being? What state of being was I sitting in? Had I forced myself to sit in? I forced myself into I am ascending, I am all powerful, I am alive, I am beautiful. It bolstered me—gave me a running block to push off from. So let’s find that now,” he thought—although his words were spoken aloud.

  He was still a boy chained to a gurney. Nothing overtly seemed to change. But, as he worked, his eyes cleared and a ruddiness came to his face.

  If you knew your medieval painting, you would recognize him—Archangel Michael with his flaming sword, ready to do battle.

  45

  WJ AND SETH—CONFRONTATION, AS WARRIORS CLASH BY NIGHT

  THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED SEEMED to Seth like images seen through a stroboscope. Flickers of brilliant intensity, then darkness. Then sudden intensity again—miniature, violent plays, all performed in his room, chained to a gurney, for an audience of one: the grey-haired freak.

  During one of his lucid pauses, his father talked to him about the power of visualization. “Seth, you have a potent imagination. Project, visualize what you are doing and what you want your adversary to do.”

  “You mean if I had the right to write the end of the scene what would my acting partner do?”

  “You know I mean that.”

  Seth thought about that, worried about it, since once he visualized something it was not always in his control—it was out there in the world. He assumed that people with the “right” eyes might be able to see what he had visualized—people who sensed the existence of the clearing beyond the forest.

  When WJ finally returned to the boy’s room, he immediately aimed his remote and the entire space once again became the Duomo. His projection, Seth thought.

  “Neat trick. Got another one, maybe something in puce?” Seth saw the grey-haired freak break rhythm, so he quickly demanded, “What’s this stupid place you keep trying to show me anyways?”

  “It’s from the synaesthetes’ website. Surely you haven’t forgotten it already.” He paused, then added, “And it’s not stupid. Of that, trust me.”

  Seth instantly knew that was true, but he said, “Really, you skipped the porn sites and landed on—”

  “On the synaesthetes’ private website.”

  “Really?”

  “Would I lie to you?”

  His father’s words came to him: “Get him to roll from his centre. Nudge him one way then the other. People are secure when they are on their centres, and you can’t get them to reveal anything if they’re in their place of confidence. But if you can poke him so that he leaves his centre, get his very being in motion, then he may betray his vulnerability. Once he does, attack that.”

  Seth smiled and said, “It would be better if you didn’t.”

  “Why’s that?” WJ asked.

  A bit of motion, Seth thought. So he doesn’t know—good. What he said was, “Because.”

  “Not a very enlightening answer.”

  “If you’re looking for enlightenment, you kidnapped the wrong guy.”

  “No.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that I didn’t kidnap the wrong person—of that you can be sure.”

  A truth, Seth thought. “How comforting to know that you got the right guy.”

  “Oh, I got the right guy.”

  They locked eyes. “Project what you want. See it. Make it real!” His father’s voice seemed to be screaming at him.

  Seth took a breath and instantly an image from a ludicrous kung fu movie popped into his head—warriors in full Japanese fighting regalia flying through the air, swords raised. They clashed twenty feet off the ground, sending sparks to the heavens. With a tremendous force of will, Seth caused the image to pause—then he turned the combatants to face him. One was the grey-haired freak—the other was him. The images broke free of his control and flew away from each other only to turn in midair and head back at full speed towards each other. But this time their swords were covered in blood as they clashed, silhouetted against a full moon that had not been there a moment ago.

  Seth felt a sharp pain and stared at the grey-haired freak. Had the man cut him? He quickly glanced at his hands and for a moment thought a finger was missing from each.

  The grey-haired freak was smiling.

  “What?” Seth demanded.

  “I saw them, the fighters—I saw into your dream!” He snapped off the lights and left Seth chained to the gurney in total blackness.

  • • •

  “When you use your gift it influences those around you.”

  “Nice of you to tell me now!”

  “Seth, you can only be treated like a child if you permit it. Control the relationship you have with your acting partner and you can win any scene—any scene. Force him to treat you as an equal. First brother to brother, then try to get to older brother or even father. Sometimes calling an actor by his full name establishes a director as a father to a son.”

  “You mean like those times you called me Seth Roberts?”

  “Yeah, like that. As older brother or father you’ll be able to move him off his centre.”

  • • •

  It was the fourth day, and Seth had been following his father’s advice about controlling his relationship with the grey-haired freak for two days. And slowly he was feeling a subtle shif
t.

  The strange man who had kidnapped him was changing their relationship from a bizarre father/son—like a police officer stopping a car that ran a red light—to an older brother/younger brother. Or was it to lover/lover?

  The grey-haired freak suddenly stopped mid sentence and stared at Seth.

  Seth stared back, then the freak left the room—forgetting to turn off the light.

  • • •

  Both men were weary. Two spent swimmers adrift on an ocean—of what?

  Both knew that they couldn’t continue this way indefinitely.

  It was their eleventh bout—and both doubted there would be a twelfth.

  WJ stared at the young man—a boy really—now handcuffed to the chair across a table from him. The boy’s cancer was clearly spreading. His cheeks were a jaundiced, ghastly yellow. His breath was raspy and taken in short gulps, his weakness of limb obvious. But the boy sat proudly in his chair, his mind clearly awake and unaffected by the blight in his body, his eyes dark, clear and piercing. A smile creased his face.

  More than ten days of brutal interrogation and the boy still smiled. WJ stood—as much to prove that he could and the boy couldn’t as any need to change his perspective or stretch his legs. He tried to find the off beat, to speak when the boy exhaled. Once he found it sound burst from his mouth; “Wherever it is you go when you dream, take me with you.”

  “Why?”

  “So that I can feel . . .”

  “Feel what?”

  “Anything.”

  He’d said it.

  Seth almost couldn’t believe it, but there it was—the key that he had in his back pocket that the grey-haired freak was so anxious to get.

  He clearly hadn’t meant to reveal it, but it had tumbled out of his mouth as surely as his teeth and tongue would have expelled a rotten grape. And there it lay between them, totally changing everything.

  “Take me with you!”

  “So you can learn how to feel?”

  “Yes.”

  That single word had removed whatever leverage the luring, The Institution charade and finally the kidnapping had gained him. “Take me with you,” WJ said again. No need now to hold back. “Wherever it is you go in your dreams, take me with you.”