by Turner, Ivan
She didn’t seem to care. She was the type of woman who had worked her way up the corporate ladder with spit and venom. She treated her superiors the same exact way as she treated her underlings. It wasn’t exactly unfriendly, but it wasn’t exactly friendly either. She was on a first name basis with everyone and if you did your job the way you were supposed to do your job she left you alone. If you didn’t, she swept you out of the way. I think I was just the type of employee she loved. I did my job and asked for nothing. I don’t know whether or not it impressed her that I was at work two hours after I was supposed to have left, but she said nothing and walked away.
I hastily gathered my things and left in the twilight of a May evening. I was already an hour late for my hospital appointment so I decided to skip it. I called to tell them what had happened and they seemed unconcerned. I didn’t speak to any doctors, or even any technicians. The fact that I was missing the appointment because of the very thing that caused me to have the appointments in the first place didn’t interest them. And that was the end of my hospital visits. Just like that.
Grabbing a quick dinner, I hurried it over to my mother’s apartment. She was glad that I had come early and we spent a couple of hours talking and watching television after I finished up the paperwork. If you’ve never had to take care of a sick parent, count your blessings. There were times when I felt myself resenting her, even wishing she would just die already. But those were selfish moments for which I paid the dear price of self recrimination. In truth, she was an extremely important part of my life that I dared not lose.
With the three hour blackout weighing heavily upon my thoughts, I began keeping a log in a paper notebook which I kept on my person at all times. Every time I would notice lost time, I decided I would record it. I shared this with the psychiatrist, but it didn’t help her to discover the cause of my problem at all.
The next three weeks passed without incident. At least, without the incident of a blackout. On May 19th, I received a call at work that my mother had been rushed to the hospital by ambulance and was forced to leave right away. Ironically, they took her to the same hospital where I’d taken all of those meaningless tests. By the time I arrived, the doctors already had her in stable condition and were telling me that she would be fine, or at least as fine as she had been the day before.
Sobbing, I called Jeremy and told him what had happened. Whether he cared less or he was just so stunned by the fact that I was crying, he took the news emotionlessly. The conversation was clipped and short until he asked, quite politely, if there was anything I needed from him or Wyatt. That was the way it was with the two of them. They were free to speak for each other at any time. I suppose he didn’t expect me to accept his offer. I never did. After all of those years, I knew that they preferred their separation from the family. But I was on the verge of truly breaking down and I not only accepted his offer, I begged him for help. Even without the after-work hospital visits, I was truly at the end of my rope. I could feel the layers peeling off of my psyche and my psychiatrist, as good as she was, was not helping. The futility of those visits just made things even worse.
I went home that evening, drew the shades, turned on the television, and prayed that I would get no phone calls. A news magazine show was running a story on the new face of the Arab Nation. Normally, I am not a political animal, but just this once I thought it might be a good idea to see that the problems of the world were greater than my own. A man by the name of Abdelaziz had formed what he was calling the United Arab Nation. Through tremendous charisma and knowledge of his people and their religious beliefs, he had been sweeping through Middle Eastern countries and uniting their governments against Muslim terrorism. In the space of a few short months, he had made great strides toward accomplishing what America had not. And he was very vocal and very public about it. The show was focusing on the world’s view of Abdelaziz and his Nation. Many people glorified the man. They were ready to give him a Nobel Peace Prize. But there were those that were afraid. Continued presence in the Middle East by a growing population of United States troops was creating more and more anti-American sentiment throughout the world. Though Abdelaziz himself never spoke of America in anything but a neutral manner, there was fear that he would simply turn on us when he had the support of the rest of the world and crush our way of life.
It all seemed very large and unlikely to me, if not a little surreal. I had never been able to conceive of the One-Man-Can-Change-The-World theory despite history’s teachings. For me the idea of stepping up and taking charge of anything was completely alien.
I must have dozed off shortly into the program because I came to with a start with little memory of anything but a series of introductory clips. There was something completely different on the television and the clock read 8:56. Rubbing my eyes, I got out of the chair and went into the bathroom to wash up. As I turned off the water, I heard the phone and silently pleaded for peace.
“Hello?”
“Mathew?” It was my boss.
“Yes?”
“Are you sick?”
That was an odd question. “No.”
“It’s after nine.”
Some extra sense put me on my guard. From the living room, I could hear the television spitting out the traffic report. But there’s no news on at 9:00 at night. And there’s no reason to give a traffic report.
“I overslept,” I explained weakly. “I’m sorry. I’ll be in soon.”
She accepted the news and let it go, not knowing that I hadn’t overslept. I hadn’t actually slept at all. And I hadn’t blacked out either. There was no foul taste of sleep in my mouth, no overnight’s growth of beard. I had sat down in my chair and lost more than twelve hours. Somehow, I knew that I had skipped those hours, just like flipping extra pages in a book. The implications of the event were terrifying. I envisioned myself skipping months or even years, coming to in an alien world with people I didn’t know or recognize. I kept these revelations carefully to myself, not wishing to alarm my mother in her fragile state or, worse, illicit sympathy or aid from my brothers. I told only my psychiatrist who, quite predictably, began to see me as more of a mental case than a physical one. I think I stretched the limits of her imagination to the point where she was sure I was delusional. She suggested and even prescribed medication, but I was averse to taking it. Unless I had shaved and brushed my teeth while not knowing who or where I was, then I was not delusional.
My mother’s visit to the hospital turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Through evidence left behind by her collapse, the doctors were able to pinpoint her problem and begin treatment. Treatments were three times a week and very taxing on my time, but the results were noticeable and immediate. As she got better, I began to settle down. Jeremy and Wyatt had to make fewer trips to the city and things began to return to normal. All through the rest of June and July, I saw my mother through what appeared to be a complete recovery. We went twice together to visit the family and I went twice by myself. Jeremy must have spoken with Martie because her demeanor had changed somewhat. Behind her eyes, I could still see the truth, but she had become cordial. Even Devin engaged me in some conversation.
Things were going so well that Jeremy called and asked if it would be okay for Livvie to spend a weekend with me in the city. Livvie, being the only offspring of my brothers who actually thought of me as a human being, had come up with the idea as a way of both cheering me up and getting out from under the oppressive glare of her mother for a weekend. I was only too happy to accommodate.
We chose the weekend of August 18th for the trip. My mother’s treatments ended on the 16th, a Thursday, so I agreed to pick Livvie up at Grand Central the next day. At about a quarter after five on Friday, I was waiting on the 59th Street platform, surrounded by a throng of hot and uncomfortable rush hour travelers. I was leaning over a bench, staring at a newspaper on an empty seat. The headline read ABDELAZIZ TO SPEAK AT THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO. For me what happened next was the most
uncanny experience of my life. It was almost as if the world had just sped up around me until there was nothing but a buzz left in its wake. And then I was almost alone on the platform. The newspaper was gone, replaced on the bench by a homeless man who slept soundly if not soundlessly. The station was silent except for the hollow wail of the wind through the tunnels. Blinking, I checked my watch and it read a quarter after five on Friday. Immediately I began to relax. If time had not changed, then I had not lost any time. Could it be that I was suddenly inside myself during a blackout?
I didn’t know what to do.
Having a need to feel the air, I moved off of the platform and made for the street. It was dark out, which was odd for this time in August in New York. If that wasn’t enough of a clue that something was terribly wrong, the scarcity of pedestrians was.
I was not on the street a full minute when my cell phone began to vibrate. Pulling it out of my pocket I saw that I had a voicemail message. Perhaps it was me calling myself, telling myself to wake up.
Then I noticed the time on the phone’s screen. It was just about midnight and the date was August 19th. I looked at my watch. It read close to six. But my phone received information, time and date included, from the network. My watch registered time based on its own existence. I had lost two days. It wasn’t even fair to say that I had blacked out for two days. I had not blacked out. If I had, the time on my watch would have changed. I would have been extremely hungry and thirsty. Any number of things about my physical appearance would have changed. These were not blackouts. I had no idea what they were. Perhaps I was being abducted by aliens and tested with the fabled probes. But there was no evidence of that except time loss. And the expanding increments of time lost were becoming truly alarming. What hadn’t been done this past weekend that had desperately needed doing?
Livvie!
Dialing quickly into my voicemail, I listened to seventeen messages. The first four were from Livvie, each of intensifying concern. That poor child had been left alone in Grand Central Station for hours. Calls from Jeremy followed, the first ones angry and then next ones concerned. There was even a call from Wyatt. My mother called several times as well. Jeremy had called her to complain about me, but she had defended my integrity. My integrity be damned! There wasn’t even one message telling me what had become of Livvie.
Frustrated, I dialed out Jeremy’s number.
“Hello?” came Martie’s groggy answer.
“It’s Mathew, Martie. Please let me speak to Jeremy.”
“Mathew!” There was anger in that cry and words that followed, but my brother must have wrested the phone from her clawed fingers.
“Mathew?”
“Is Livvie okay?” I asked.
“She’s fine,” he said, but his tone betrayed no feelings. “She’s home.”
“Thank God.”
“And no thanks to you.”
“Jeremy, I had another…spell.”
“You’re not calling them blackouts anymore?”
“It’s not a blackout. I’ve lost time. My watch still says it’s Friday.”
He was silent for a moment, chewing on my story I felt. In the background, I could hear Martie huffing and puffing, every once in a while blowing a few words my way.
“Livvie’s fine,” he said eventually. “But you’d better explain it to her yourself. Call her tomorrow. Tonight you should check yourself into a hospital.”
And then he hung up, leaving me with no sense of support or even condemnation. Despite his abrupt ending of the conversation, I had no idea how he truly felt. Check myself into a hospital? What was that supposed to mean? Would that solve my problems or would I just be imprisoning myself so that I couldn’t do anyone any more harm. The worst part was that I had to be at work in a few hours without having had the benefit of two days off. I was suddenly exhausted, though I felt jet lagged because, for me, it was only six in the evening. Still, I took the train back to my apartment and went right to bed.
I awakened feeling groggy, disoriented, and in a panic. That panic grew as I began to wonder whether or not it had happened again. Had I gone to bed and now gotten up a month later? I quickly checked the clocks and, because I didn’t trust them anymore, turned on the television. The time and date confirmed that I had remained firmly rooted during my slumber, but that I had in fact lost an entire weekend to my enigmatic condition. I considered calling in sick from work but rejected the idea once my head began to clear. There would be nothing else that I could do and I desperately needed some form of routine at that moment.
On the subway I looked over the Monday morning crowd. Many of those people I saw every day and recognized them. Others I saw every day and did not recognize them. They were students and workers, parents and children. They were a melting pot of shapes, sizes, and races. In the years that I had been working, more and more books and newspapers had disappeared, only to be replaced by MP3 players and PDAs. A girl frowned into a textbook. An older lady chuckled at something that went directly into her ears and her ears only. A man cursed loudly at no one in particular. I wondered who they were and what problems they faced on a daily basis. Did they have stressful jobs or sick relatives? Did any of them lose large chunks of time at any given moment? Could they read that on my face? Was my freakish condition apparent to them?
I waited until lunchtime and then started making my phone calls. The first was to my mother to let her know that I was alive and well. She asked what had happened and I gave her the story in vague terms. I did not confide in her my true fears, but instead told her that it was likely due to stress at work and it would pass. The latter was a desperate hope. The former, an outright lie.
Next I called Jeremy’s house and asked to speak with Livvie. Jeremy was always home in the summer. I don’t know how he pulled it off, but he had more days off in the two months of summer than I got all year round. He told me she was out, but I knew that he was lying and I pressed him. I think that alone is what swayed him. I never pressed Jeremy on anything. I never pressed anyone on anything. But Livvie was important to me, maybe the most important person in the world. I couldn’t let her think that I had simply abandoned her. Even if she thought I was going insane, it would be better than her hating me.
She was cold when she took the phone.
“Livvie, I need to explain what happened.”
“Do you have any idea how I felt?” she asked me accusingly.
“No,” I answered. “But I know that I would never put you in that position intentionally.”
“Mom told me I shouldn’t listen to your ‘cockamamie story’.”
I felt rage. Did Martie hate me so much that she would sabotage my relationship with Livvie? Apparently so. Apparently, she was seizing this opportunity and squeezing every last drop out of its fruit. “Your mother’s always hated me. You know that, don’t you?”
She was silent for a time, probably gauging how to respond. It was hard for me to remember that I was talking to a fifteen year old girl. Livvie was so smart and, often times, seemed so much like an adult that if you didn’t have her right in front of you, you couldn’t always tell.
“I’m sorry, Livvie,” I told her finally. “I don’t want to put you in between me and your mother and I’m sure she doesn’t either. I just called because I want you to know that you are the most important person in the world to me. If I had a daughter, I would want her to be you. I couldn’t stand it if I thought you hated me or thought I would do something to hurt you. And I know my story sounds cockamamie, like your mother says, but it’s the truth. And…”
“No more, Uncle Mathew. Please…”
“You need to hear this, Livvie.” There was a desperate tone in my voice and I knew later that it wasn’t she who needed to hear it, but me who needed to say it. “I’m not sick and I’m not crazy. And I’m not blacking out, like your parents may have told you. I thought it was blackouts, but it’s not. I’m literally disappearing and each time I do, it gets longer and longer. I don’t chang
e. I don’t age and I don’t move. I just reappear a minute or an hour or a day later. This time it was two days and the next time it may be two weeks or two years. And one day, one day, Livvie, I won’t come back. So I need to know that you know that I love you more than any other person on this planet. Can you tell me that you know that, Livvie?”
She was silent again and I knew that I had crossed the line. I waited a few seconds to see if she would respond, but she didn’t so I asked her to put her father on the phone.
“What the hell did you say to her, Mathew?”
“I just told her that I love her.”
“She looks like you smacked her in the face with a fish.”
“I’m sorry. Just tell her I’m sorry, Jeremy. Okay?”
But I hung up before he could respond and he didn’t try to call me back. After that, I went back to work and did almost nothing for the remainder of the day. The man in the next cubicle, Morty Yovanovicz, took notice of my catatonic appearance and commented on it.
Morty was a nice old guy, a couple of years from retirement. He was friendly if not my friend, but today he had a look of genuine concern on his face. He tried to tell me that things were sometimes good and sometimes bad and it was always worth it to weather the bad times so that we could enjoy the good ones. If only he knew my problems. When he invited me to have dinner with him, I accepted.
I must have been desperate for human companionship. It’s not that Morty was hard to get along with. It’s just that I was never the social type. When I was younger, I was too intimidated to make many close friends. As I got older I found that what had started out as timidity evolved into disinterest. I set my own routines and settled myself into them like a comfortable chair. I did not like to have to get up. But now my condition was causing increasing interruptions in my schedule and was beginning to have dire effects on my life. I had long since learned to live with the bad blood between Martie and me. In fact, it had grown into an accepted and acceptable factor of my life. I don’t know what I would have done had she started to like me. But fighting with Livvie I couldn’t handle. I needed to find a way to get through to her.