by Pat Connid
Several weeks ago, I'd never have held up.
They could have sat me down and threatened simply to run paper cuts through the webbing of each toe, and I'd have told them anything they wanted to know.
Not anymore.
"No more," I mumbled through loose teeth, triumphantly.
Because they… had inadvertently conditioned me to resist… them.
Trials by molten fire, crushing thirst, unimaginable fear, nearly drowned, nearly blown to bits, nearly fried by electricity… and through it, I'd had to learn to better control my mind.
Better control my fear.
For their part, they gambled that The Mentor's torture would bring back the memories that had been locked away in my brain. The memories that held the one thing in the world they wanted but could not be bought, could not be negotiated for.
But they would not get their extension of time.
Because they hadn't simply brought back my memories.
Because they inadvertently brought back me.
I was back.
Slumped in the chair, my head held like a vice by my tormentor's arm, right then, something in my chest trilled, and it was as if, for the first time in years, a string had been pulled on some gyroscope in my chest.
I felt it right me, center me.
I was back.
The pain on my legs, the burns there, I no longer felt. At the wrist, once electrocuted, that pain was gone. Even the lumps The Mentor had given me only minutes earlier, no pain. No pain.
I coughed away the moisture and held fast. He wasn't going to get any more screams from me.
"Okay."
The fire filled my ear, steam shot quickly down the short passage, it felt as though the membrane was melting in my head.
“All right!”
The grip on my face tightened as if he were trying to snap my jaw between his fingers and, still, he pushed deeper into my skull, burning as he went.
"Stop it," Bluth said from some screen above us. "Put it down, stop it. If that's all there is, well, it's far more than we had earlier."
"It's good," a voice said, floating above my head. "It's a damn good jumping off point."
The hand holding my face let me go, threw me forward. I heard a clatter onto the table, as my head dropped, lolled against my chest.
The Mentor’s voice rolled into my left ear, my right was dead and now forever silent: "What about him?"
Bluth stopped, he was chattering low with the others, and said, "It… he, I don't know. We have what we were after. Please get rid of... everything, no trace. Nothing left but don’t do it there."
I lifted my head and got a sharp rap to the base of the skull, everything going dark. But I had seen it. So small, so simple. There'd been a black, bubbling mass on its metal tip, blood stained its cord.
A simple soldering pen. He'd destroyed one of my ears with a simple soldering pen.
Chapter Twenty-five
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” I felt a slap across my face. The other side stung, too, so my guess this wasn’t his first attempt to roust me.
The Mentor stood in front of me, his hands behind his back, in full daylight. I could only see the black of his face and hands. The rest of him was, as usual, covered in neoprene or dark padding. The bulge in his jacket, I wasn’t sure of. All that time, he’d never shown me a weapon.
"What? Only heard half of that," I said, realizing my resting place was an overturned, rusted filing cabinet. Then, surprisingly, I leaned up realizing that there were no bounds, no restraints on me. Only the incredible headache weighed on me. That and a dull throbbing from the right side of my head.
“What? No chains, no drugging, no lake of fire? You bored of me?”
His hand slowly came out from behind his back, and he was holding an envelope. As he moved, an open door, just behind him, came into view. That could be--
“Last time for you and me then,” he said, standing by the room’s built-in shelves. He placed the envelope on the middle ledge and walked to the door. I watched him for a moment, and then my eyes flicked back to the shelf. Nothing else on it but what he’d put there. In fact, aside from some bits of dirt, carpet scraps, scattered crumpled sheets of paper, there was very little in the office. “Everything you need to know is in that envelope.”
“No big speech? No random facts. You’re just going to walk away.”
He stepped across the threshold, pulling the door behind him. And as it closed, he said those words one last time: “Lesson begins.”
I rose to my feet slowly, having some trouble with my balance momentarily. My first intuition was to race out the door. But, then what? Just get beat down again?
Instead, I ran to the shelf and tore open the envelope. Inside was a single piece of paper, perfectly square. It was from a desk calendar. With today’s date.
The room felt strange. I was in an office. An office building.
But, so quiet. Where were all the people?
Dead quiet.
Turning the square piece of paper over, nothing on the back, blank, I looked at it again. I crumpled it up and was about to toss it, and then pocketed it instead.
A moment later, I went out into the office's hallway. Deserted. I couldn’t see him anywhere. He’d gone either up or down.
What I did see was open doors. Offices along each wall, a few broken pieces of particle board in the center of the room. No desks, no chairs, no lights, no people… out the dirty window at the end of the long hallway, I was surprised to see the Atlanta skyline.
I was many, many floors above street level.
This building, it was like something I’d seen before in post-apocalypse movies. Wasteland office space, some busted up filing cabinets turned onto their sides.
Then it hit me, the date.
“Oh God…”
I pulled the piece of day calendar out of my pocket and read the name at the top of the paper.
“Sun Trust bank. Today. I’m in the Sun Trust bank.”
Outside, I heard the blare of a warning siren. I guess that’s what they do before they trigger the charges to demolish an entire building.
SCRAMBLING TO THE MAIN hall, then to the elevator, I wasn’t entirely surprised when the buttons wouldn’t light, no grinding of gears. There was no power in the building.
To the left of the elevator, there was a door. On the other side, I could hear the sounds of feet taking the steps quickly. Hitting the long handle, I burst through, and standing at the top of the stairs, my head spun, hit with vertigo, as they seemed to wind down forever like an Escher drawing.
I caught a glimpse of the top of his head, that perfect haircut, and made a decision.
As fast as I could, I took the stairs, four and five at a time, round and around, down lower and lower, nearly jumping from landing to landing, until he was a half-flight in front of me, and he spun just as I leapt, this time knocking us both off our feet, and we tumbled and banged down several lengths of stairs.
I was up first—my fat better than his hard padding—and I kicked him once. He flinched a little and when I delivered another kick, he caught my foot, twisted it and I spun to the floor.
As he stepped over me, I reached up and grabbed legs, and we tumbled another set of stairs together, this time he was grunting on the way down. I’d hurt him a little.
“Dexter, after that siren, we’ve got two minutes to get out of this building,” he yelled, huffing. “You keep this up and we’ll both be dead!”
“I’ve been dead,” I said into his face. “This time, I’m taking you with me”
I hit him with everything I had, my full weight, delivered to the side of his glistening, sweaty face. His head slammed into the cement floor but before I could strike him again, he was up and, grabbing me by my shirt, lifting me and tossing me to the wall.
I hit hard, my skull and shoulders bounced against the cement wall, and I fell hard. He wasn’t done.
“Dexter, that was a fine punch,” he said and kicked my ribs.
“But you’ve got to learn follow up.” He kicked the other side and I flipped over in pain. “Too bad, boy. I think you could have been pretty good. Not great, but pretty good.”
One last axe kick to the back of my head, and I heard him running down the steps again.
A recent pro at getting my ass kicked, I recovered quickly. Flopping onto my back, I allowed a few seconds to breathe and feel a little sorry for myself. Little “me” time.
As I looked up, I saw the number on the wall. Forty-second floor. This, of a fifty story building. In my shape, and if his timing was to be believed, I’d never make down forty-two floors in less than a minute.
But, I might make eight.
I staggered to my feet, the bitter taste of blood rolling around and through my teeth, and started climbing the stairs, slowly at first.
As it’s been established, I’ve got a pretty good memory for things I hear. Not as good as it used to be, but fair. And, aside from having a beer-soaked brain, I can very often visualize images associated with the audio recalled pretty well.
Which is why, as I climbed the stairs, faster and faster to the top, I tried to envision the Atlanta skyline painting Doc Drake had been working on.
Each breath sent white hot cannon balls into my lungs, and I could only assume I had broken ribs on both sides. Still, I pumped my burning thighs, my shattered hands and wrists pulled hard on the railings, aiming for the top.
I decided on small goals. If I were going to die, I wanted to be in the sunlight. Just make it to the top, that’s all I needed. I didn’t want to end my life, not anymore, but if it was my time to go, I want to be looking right at God— because I had a few things to get off my chest.
The number at the next turn: forty-seven. I wanted to stop because I couldn’t seem to get enough air, I felt dizzy, but I knew I had to keep moving up, up, up.
Doc’s painting had been nearly night time, he preferred the eerie light of dusk, but the buildings were exact. Doc refused to work from photos as some artists do. Instead, he would go up and “watch” the city, or whatever he was going to paint. He’d get to a tall building, sit on the roof and let the image burn into his brain until, when he blinked, he’d see it’s negative in his mind—like when someone stares at the sun too long.
Forty-eighth floor.
It’s cliche, but it’s only in those moments that you are about to lose something that you realize its full value. Sad, but true. I thought about my little life. My daily pastry. My handful of friends. The soothing feeling of a nice dark beer drizzling over my tongue. And Mom. I never called my mother enough.
At forty-nine, I heard a terrifying sound. At first it was sort of faint, pop-pop-pop, but continued to get louder, racing upward toward me.
Halfway up that last flight, the pops grew into thunderous explosions, and I could hear crumbling cement and rubble following each, then just below me, last one, I saw part of the staircase blow out and a blade of sunlight cut inside.
The entire structure shook, questioning its ability to stand, as I reached the door to the roof.
It was locked.
The glass was thick, and I couldn’t see anything around me to break it with. I punched it with my weak fist a few times, but it just bounced off harmlessly.
Sliding to the floor, on my knees, I twisted the knob back and forth, back and forth, willing it to open.
I felt the top step below me shudder.
One final pop, very close to me and my eyes and ears filled with dust, my left ear nearly as deaf as my right, momentarily, all I could hear was a high whine. The world had gone silent and dark around me.
But, then, a blade of light. Sunlight, this time in front of me.
The last explosion had a ripple effect and had blasted a crevice in the wall next to me.
My only goal: The sunlight. Just to be in the sunlight was all I wanted.
Willing myself to my feet, I choked on dust, it filled my throat and nose and I pressed my soft body through the crack, and spilled onto the rooftop like being born into the hot Atlanta sunlight.
I stood looking at the beautiful city for a brief moment. The glitter of steel in the joy of the sun.
“Okay,” I said. “New goal.”
Get off the building.
I wasn’t terribly schooled at the city. I knew where the aquarium was, where you could catch a concert, and where you could get the best hot dog on the planet. That was pretty much it.
But, Doc’s painting in my head, I began to run west as hard as I could. My crazy friend was prone to “artist interpretation” but if I were wrong (or he’d been overly creative), this would be the last act of Dexter Daisy-- a final sprint.
The sun scorching my bare arms, I stripped off my shirt and let it have more, and ran faster, harder. As the edge approached, my heart leapt, hopeful: I saw my target in the distance.
Then, the building pitched, began to rise behind me. It was collapsing underneath me, its groaning reminiscent of the dying moments of some massive, millennia-old prehistoric creature.
Then the sound grew sharper, and a roar started low, shaking the structure. I felt the world collapse and tilt upward.
From what I know if it, which is all the Cobb County library audio collection had to say about it, they’re supposed to fall nearly straight down. Often, the roof will tilt, list to one side as its support crumbles away unevenly beneath it, but the buildings themselves don’t tip over.
Running, running.
Air conditioning units burst around me, vents imploded, a small array of antennas were rising behind me, their tips racing toward my back, and I ran faster, faster, on the downward slope.
When I finally got to the edge, for some reason, I thought of Laura. Because of my full sprint, I could only leap with the one leg, but I gave it what I could and thought, I should call her.
Falling.
falling.
falling.
My eyes had closed because my brain knew this wasn’t something I should see.
For a moment, there was Ruthie’s voice and she was laughing. If I was dead, she probably saw it happen and was now simply getting a huge kick at how stupid her big brother bought the farm. Her voice, her laugh was like a warm home on a winter night.
I said to her, “I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry.”
She laughed again, softly, and said: “I know. It’s okay.” The quiet faded and a roar came up in my left ear. She whispered to me, giggling, “You may want to hold your nose.”
Whhoooooosssssshhhhhhhhhh!!!
A burning… fire, everywhere.
Not fire. Not, actually, burning.
In fact, kinda cold.
Jesus. Damn cold.
The previous few seconds had been information overload, and I'd been unable to process it until a few moments later.
The neighboring hotel with its rooftop pool that I’d seen in Doc’s painting had not been open for swimming, too early in the season yet. As I'd landed at the adjacent building, my eyes popped open for a brief second, and the water my feet were just about to hit looked so unnaturally blue.
Then, hitting the pool’s protective tarp, my heels punched it downward and my world went from light to dark again, hot to cold.
The last thing I remember were the voices of several people who’d found front row seats for that day’s building collapse, and who were now pulling me from the hotel’s roof top pool.
I heard a voice, deep drawl, say: “That was the craziest damn thing I’ve ever saw.”
Before I passed out, I said: “Which part?”
Chapter Twenty-six
About ten months later, I was approaching a beach house in the dark.
Pavan had quit the theater and joined me in my wobbly, start-up house and pet sitting service. We even paid one of his cousins to come up with a cool logo. I’d finished the job for the Dvoraks, despite my run in with the swan song of a bank building. Word had gotten around their posh neighborhood and, well, I guess that sort of job commitment impress
ed enough people to keep us in the black for a little while.
During my weeks in the hospital, I’d registered for a name change. Before I was discharged, and two surgeries on my back and hips later, the change had become official. Pavan had come to visit me at the hospital and when I showed him the paperwork he laughed for a half-minute straight.
“You changed your name to ‘Dexter Mister’?”
“Not really, just for the chart. While I’m in here. Might baffle unwanted visitors, right?”
“That’s some funny shit.”
We were best friends and best friends, as Pavan had reminded me, tell each other the important stuff.
So, right then, I told him the world's biggest secret.
Of course, it meant nothing to him and, truthfully, barely meant much to me either.
After I’d told him the exact sequence and its subset formulas-- it had taken nearly a full minute to detail it exactly as Professor Jepson had told me years earlier-- my best friend Pavan simply stared at me.
“What the... what is all that mumbly-jumbly? You having another fit or something? You don’t look like you’re having a fit.”
I said, setting down in my hospital bed: “I just wanted to say the whole thing out loud, one time. They didn’t get it, man. I wouldn’t give it to them. But, we’re best friends, so one time, I told it to you. From beginning to end, the complete working sequence.”
“Okay, Dexter,” he said and smiled. Then he shot a glance at the door and pulled out a joint. "Now, I paid beaucoup for this stuff, man, since I knew you'd be in here and beat up to hell and shit."
It hurt a bit to laugh. "You want me to get stoned with you?"
"Yes."
"In a hospital, Pavan?"
Fishing for his lighter, he slipped the joint between his lips and said, "Ah, see. That makes it medicinal! Totally legit."
I stared at my friend and saw a tiny, tiny twinkle on one side of his flop of hair.
I said, "Well, if it's medicinal."
"Totally!"
Months had passed since that conversation with my friend, but I still had unfinished business.
There was a light in the kitchen, but I wasn’t very worried. Didn’t matter.