Messenger from Mystery

by Deno Trakas

  “Yeah, sometimes, but I’m too busy for it now. How’s the new girl working out?”

  “Let’s just say you set a high standard, and she hasn’t met it yet.”

  She laughed—I missed her laugh—and said, “Thank you for the compliment.”

  “My pleasure. I have more if you want to hear them.”

  “Of course.”

  Before I could answer, a guy walked up, wearing baggy shorts, a Myrtle Beach T-shirt, and sandals, with a bookbag slung over one shoulder. He had spiky blonde hair and long sideburns that looked like they wanted to become a beard but didn’t have the energy. Delaine beamed up at him, smiling, not embarrassed, and put her arm loosely around his waist. He rested a hand on her shoulder. “Jay, this is Tripp. He’s a first year law student. Jay’s working on a PhD in English. He and I used to work together at the Peddler.”

  I stood and reached across the table. He shook my hand firmly and said, “What’s up?”

  I said the only possible answer to that question, “Not much.”

  An automatic awkwardness followed, which was mine to break. “Well, I’d better get back to work. It was nice to see you Delaine. Nice to meet you Tripp.”

  “You too,” he said.

  “Good luck with your comps.”

  Richard’s door was open, so I said hey as I slumped by.

  “Nicky, come here boy.”

  I stopped and stuck my head in. “I better not, Rich. The Norton is calling my name.”

  “All the more reason to take a minute. I want to tell you about my chat with the general.”

  I plopped into his student conference chair. “So tell me.”

  “First, loan me fifty cents—I need some coffee.”

  I dug into my pocket and came up with a quarter and a dime.

  He took it, shaking his head at my failure to be the friend he needed, and said, “Okay, so first I asked the general if he was screwing my real estate agent, but he denied it. Then I asked him if he wanted to pick up the bombs in my garage, and he sent someone right over, two crewcuts in fact, and they took the gun, the bombs, and everything that looked remotely military, which was more than you would have expected—they did most of the job for us.”

  “Did you actually speak to the general?”

  “Not at first, but eventually. Turns out he knows about the guy who used to live in my house. A nut case. The guy wasn’t associated with Fort Jackson after all—he just liked to tell people he was. In fact, he was discharged from the army for psychological reasons some years ago, but he thought of himself as a military expert and always wanted to share his ingenious strategies with the general—he’d show up on the base and the general’s staff would have to chase him off with their bayonets. The general thinks he might be dangerous. Some of the stuff in my garage was, in any case.”

  “I guess there’re crazy people with bombs everywhere,” I said, thinking of Saad.

  “The general said there’s a guy somewhere in South Carolina who has a warehouse with like 50,000 grenades from World War Two, and lots of other stuff, and some of it’s live.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “What’s up, Mano? You got the comprehensive blues?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Take two aspirin, get plenty of rest, and drink lots of fluids, preferably alcoholic.”

  “I wish it were that simple, Rich. It’s not just comps. It’s Nadia and Azi too . . . .”

  I still hadn’t told him about Azi’s ordeal, so he dismissed her and asked, “What’s up with Nadia?”

  “She has a new boyfriend. I guess I’m just too much to handle these days.”

  I watched Richard settle back into his chair, taking my complaints like sips of a wine he was trying for the first time and didn’t like. Finally he said, “Yeah, you’re a mess, but I’d say you’re much more stable than most of the psychos around here. In any case, you have much better reasons to be screwed up than the others.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Any time. Do you want some advice or do you just want to mope?”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “It’s not new: forget about Azi because she’s 6000 miles away.”

  I wanted to tell him, badly, but I just shook my head.

  Richard watched and said, “And forget about Nadia too, at least until comps are over—they’re only a couple of days away, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’ve come too far, studied too much, to blow it all now.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you’re right.”

  “Trust me. You’re always telling your students to keep their eye on the big picture, right? Well, you need to do the same. The picture is a PhD and a good job.”

  “I guess.”

  “So why are you talking to me? Why aren’t you studying?”

  That afternoon, when I opened the door to my apartment and saw all the books overtaking the room, I collapsed in my bed. Sleep buried me, and when I woke up, I didn’t know if the dark was P.M. or A.M., but my watch read 4:23, and I slowly figured out it was early morning of my last pre-comp day. I spent it in a schizophrenic state, part lucid, rational, and focused; part confused, delusional, and blurred. In my better moments I studied a little, but then I’d start to think of all my failures, Azi first, but Nadia too, even Delaine, and the hundreds of books I hadn’t read that were sure to be on the exam. I wanted to run away. I wanted to rescue Azi. I even called a travel agent to ask how much it would cost to fly to Tehran—she reminded me that the State Department had forbidden travel there.

  Fear prickled my skin as I took a seat at the long table in the windowless room and opened the envelope that held the three questions on Nineteenth Century American Literature that would determine my future. I had to answer two. One was almost impossible, asking for a discussion of the influence of Wordsworth on Emerson, which I’d never considered and which drew a blank now—all I could think of was nature. Another question wanted a well-developed essay on the 19th century Southern novel from Simms to Chopin, with specific titles and dates. Since I’d only read a few novels that fit the category—I couldn’t use Twain, could I?—I figured I was in trouble. Finally, there was a question on contradictions within the naturalistic novel, which I’d never thought about but which I could answer if I had enough time. Nothing on Hawthorne or Melville, on whom I’d spent almost a month. Nothing on Dickinson or Whitman, whom I knew well.

  I looked at the other two people who were taking the exam with me. Sophie, who’d failed once before and therefore had it all on the line this time, looked haunted, pale and wide-eyed. Inman, on the other hand, had already started writing in his blue book and seemed no more concerned than if he were making a grocery list. I felt the way Sophie looked.

  I started as I’d been advised on the question I thought I could answer best, the one on naturalism. I put my watch down in front of me and gave myself an hour and a half. I went over by fifteen minutes but felt the extra time had been well spent. Then I tackled the Southern novel question, feeling the fear come back as I tried to make an outline. When that didn’t work, I just started writing down everything I knew about the subject. I tried to organize it by chronology, but my mind was fragmented and distracted—I’d think about Azi or a high school friend or bombs or . . . . I couldn’t hold the essay in my head and felt it slip away from me again and again. When Dr. Sheldon’s secretary came in to collect our papers at the end of three hours, I wasn’t finished, neither was Sophie, but I put my blue books in the envelope and handed them to the secretary, who hovered over Sophie as she continued to write.

  Inman was out in the hall, smoking and talking to other T.A.’s who had stopped to find out what the questions had been. I brushed past them and went straight to my office, locked the door behind me, and sat down. Richard had told me I’d feel relieved after the first exam, and the next two would be easier. Bullshit. The area covered by this exam was not my weakest. If I’d failed this one, which I was pretty sure I had, how could I pos
sibly pass Nineteenth Century British, with its tedious novels and depressing odes? And if I failed both, I’d have to take all three over again regardless of how I did on my major field test, Twentieth Century American. And if I’d studied since March and failed, what good would it do to waste another four months, especially when, if I failed again, I’d never get a PhD and never get a decent job—I’d end up teaching five sections of composition in some dismal community college. Or be a waiter for the rest of my life.

  I got up and opened the window, didn’t know if I wanted to breathe fresh air or jump. Everything was bullshit. The big picture. The little picture below me: the square pool that reflected the sky, the ugly metal bird sculpture, and a swarm of students passing their lunch hour in trivial pursuits. All of them were superficial and selfish: they didn’t care about our geopolitical crises; they didn’t care that Azi was in prison; they didn’t care about others at all, not enough to make a sacrifice, even though they flipped the word love back and forth like a Frisbee. The Frisbee from mystery. Or maybe they knew the truth: maybe the Middle East didn’t matter; maybe love was plastic and lightweight, not something you could count on for balance when your world was tilted precariously. I felt dizzy and nauseated, so I ran down the hall to the bathroom and hung over a toilet for a few minutes. It passed, so I went back to the office, grabbed my book bag and left campus.

  At my apartment, as soon as I dropped into my recliner, I felt the exhaustion that comes from running on nervous stimulation and running out of it. When I woke up it was dark, almost 11:00 P.M., and it all came back, and I knew I was supposed to be studying for my second exam, and I knew I couldn’t.

  I put on sweat pants and running shoes and ran, followed an old route out of habit, down Devine, under the black, salt-sprinkled, mid-fall sky, where Christians look for heaven, where my Dad must be, and I asked him for help, to show me what to do, but he didn’t answer, the moon was mute, and the stars vacillated in their own ambiguity. I found myself at Nadia’s apartment but for some reason decided not to knock on the door. Instead, I slipped around back and sat down under some pine trees on a bed of pine needles. Her bedroom light was on but her blinds were closed. Without any plan or idea of what I wanted—what was I doing there?—I settled down to watch, to clear my head, to get acquainted with the night.

  But sitting with my random irrational thoughts didn’t satisfy me either, and after a while I got up, walked around to the door, and knocked.

  She opened it but didn’t invite me in, which I thought was strange until I remembered she might have her new “friend” inside. “What, Jay?” she asked, alarmed.

  I remembered that I hadn’t shaved or bathed in two days. Nadia, on the other hand, looked fresh and elegant in her silk nightgown and robe, both of which I remembered fondly. “I just had to see you.”

  “Why you didn’t call, or why you didn’t come earlier?”

  I didn’t know how to answer. “It’s a long story—can we talk?”

  “But what about the exams, Jay? You must be studying, or getting good night’s sleep.”

  “I just woke up a little while ago, and studying doesn’t help any more. Let’s go somewhere, just for a while. Let’s get some hot fudge cake at Shoney’s,” I said, tempting her with her favorite dessert.

  “No, Jay, I’m sorry. I have mid-term tomorrow.”

  “I’ve missed you,” I said. I looked for some positive response, but what I saw was that she wasn’t willing to drop everything to help me the way she used to. And I had put her on the spot. She wanted me to leave, to let her go to sleep, or go back to what’s-his-name, without breaking in with my anxiety and untimely affection. The mismatched emotion scene, always irreconcilable, always painful for one and embarrassing for the other. We had played it before with the roles reversed, and it was bad on both ends, but this end was worse.

  She had always been able to read my face and was doing so now, seeing my injury and understanding it. Her eyes, black in the semi-darkness, showed pity, and that hurt me more than if they’d been angry. “Forget it,” I said.

  As I turned to leave, she said, “Wait, Jay. Come in.”

  “I shouldn’t have come,” I said. Then I ran away.

  CHAPTER 15

  As I jogged through her complex, my mind looped through flashing images, connecting all my Azi-Nadia-comps-craziness into one dark collage, and I barely knew where I was, but my feet carried me back to my place. When I arrived, I couldn’t go inside, so I got in my car and drove . . . and ended up at Richard’s house.

  All the lights were off—of course. I almost got out and walked around back just as I’d done at Nadia’s, but I had a moment of realization of how weird that would be, so I turned around and did another weird thing, went back to Nadia’s, as if I had nowhere else to go. I parked on the street because the parking lot looked full, and I was walking through the open gate of the lot when a police car pulled into the street and its headlights froze me like a deer. I could’ve kept going, but then I’d have to knock on the door. So I just stood there, feeling awkward and guilty, and tried to come up with a rational explanation. The car pulled up slowly beside me and stopped. I said hi.

  “Do you live here?” the driver, the one closest to me, asked.

  “No, but I have a friend who lives here. I was just going to see if any lights were on in back, and if not, I was going to leave.”

  Both of them gave me a slow, skeptical look up and down. The driver said, “We got a report there’s been a stranger walking around the premises.”

  “As I said, I’m not a stranger.”

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  “Nadia Al-Sabah.”

  “What kind of name is that?”

  “She’s from Kuwait.”

  I expected him to make a snide comment, but he didn’t. “You have any identification on you?” I pulled out my wallet and showed him my driver’s license. He held it up to the light inside his squad car and compared the picture to me. “For you to look like this, Mr. Nichols, I’d say you needed to shave about three days of hair off your face.”

  “I’ve been studying for exams. I’m working on a PhD at the university.”

  He nodded but didn’t seem impressed. “Tell me again what you’re doing here at 12:30 in the morning?”

  “I just stopped by to talk to Nadia for a minute, if she was up. It doesn’t look like she is, so I’ll head home.”

  He handed back my wallet and said, “You do that. And try to call on your friends when they’re awake next time, hear?”

  “Yes sir.” They nodded and watched as I walked to my car and drove off. I was relieved but even more spiked with adrenaline than before, so I couldn’t go home. Instead, I drove to the 24-hour Family Mart nearby, bought a couple of cans of beer and a bag of pretzels, and returned to Nadia’s, taking the precaution of parking my car a block away.

  At Richard’s my stupidity filter had stopped me from going up to the house, but it seemed to disappear with the second beer, so after my snack, I worked my way along the street, into the parking lot, and took up my former position in the azaleas at the edge of the back yard. I sat there for a while, letting the reel of irrational thoughts spin at high speed in my head—Azi, Nadia, Athens, Mission, Asset, Nobody, Azi, Sadegh, Spartanburg, Azi, Baizan, Richard, Sheldon, Mom, Dad, the restaurant, Delaine, comps, books, Oman, pizza, Azi, Nadia—they were mainly about Azi, and only Nadia knew about Azi. She was my only connection now, so I needed to talk to her, ask her what I should do. I convinced myself that the police weren’t coming back, then got up and walked around the side to see if the living room window was open because it would be quieter to go in that way, as if that were the key. I was pulling up on it when the police car returned—before I could hide, its spotlight beamed a full moon on me.

  My first thought was, I don’t want to cause a scene for Nadia, so I raised my hands as I’d learned to do from watching TV and walked to the patrol car. Both men had gotten out, one holding a night
stick and flashlight, the other handcuffs. “I guess we’re going to have to take you downtown, Mr. PhD.” They frisked me lightly, cuffed me, read my rights and hauled me off to jail. I didn’t protest. What could I say? If I told them the truth, whatever that was, they’d take me to the asylum on Bull Street and put me in a white jacket. Maybe that’s where I belonged.

  Under any other circumstances, I would hate jail, even the drunk tank, which was a long, dim, smelly, barracks-style room with two dozen beds filled with a dozen of the city’s misdemeaning men, most of whom were snoring or mumbling in their sleep. But it was, at least, a place to crash away from books, comps, everything. My bunk was hard and a little sandy. I fell asleep wondering if this was what Azi’s bed felt like in her cell, if this was now an experience we shared.

  They woke us at about 6:30 and led us to breakfast—powdered eggs, hard biscuits, watery orange-ade, coffee. After eating the tasteless meal, after seeing the dirty cell in the unforgiving morning light that streamed into the high windows, after using the squalid bathroom, I decided I wanted out.

  I asked the guard passing in the hall, a black guy who looked like a young Bill Cosby, what I needed to do to get released. “Don’t ask me, man. What are you in for?”

  “Trespassing.”

  “Have they taken your statement yet?”

  “No.”

  “Well, somebody’ll come get you for that in a while, then you can see the judge this afternoon.”

  “Can I make a phone call now?”

  “No. Only on Monday and Friday.”

  “What about my right to one call?”

  “You were supposed to make it when you checked in.”

  That worried me. No one knew where I was. “When I see the judge this afternoon, is that my trial?”