But there was one book I wasn’t able to shake, never have been. It was something John had given me one of those nights by the campfire: Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Oddly enough, it really hadn’t been about motorcycles at all and that’s what had turned John off about it. For me, however, it was a different story. I remember carrying it around for awhile like some metaphysical bible, greedily sucking in each revelation as it burst upon me. It was about attacking problems, anything big or small, seeing things on their simplest terms, realizing how even the greatest difficulties can be solved by a simple progression of fundamental steps. It opened my eyes, continues to, though I haven’t seen a copy of the book in years. Amazing, really, how time slips by. And just recently I discovered I’ve ignored the lessons I learned in that book for too damn long. Until I decided to do something about it.
Deep down I just wanted to save Annie. But I wonder: why exactly have I done these things? Is it guilt? Dissatisfaction? The supernatural fears I’ve felt breathing down my neck for years? I’m not in a good position to judge the first two, and I realize the last could very easily be explained by encroaching insanity. God knows, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was all it was. But I don’t believe that’s it, everything within me says no. I think it’s the voice of my grandmother.
I cannot forget the dream and the talk we had that day as we sat in the leaky house, the wind and rain pounding like malevolent ghosts trying to get inside. Because it’s finally time I told you that part.
***
It had been an exquisitely bad week at school. There had been a fight, a subsequent suspension. I’d listened to my Grandma cry for two nights in a row, crying while I lay in bed, fists clenched, cursing every living person and unknown entity I could conjure. It was the loneliest time of my life, worse even than her death and my stint on the streets. The point when I felt the most helpless, the most insignificant.
We’d had chili that night, early, before the sun went down. Grandma had looked sick, unwilling to talk as we munched through the 5-alarm and a stack of stale crackers. She wouldn’t look at me and that had been the worst, the thing I had the least control over. Because as far as I was concerned the suspension could not have been avoided. That little fucker had made the comment about my old, fucked up shoes and a cluster of girls standing nearby had gotten too much goddamn amusement out of it. As far as I was concerned, I’d just taught a big mouth a much-needed lesson. Of course, nobody else saw it that way.
I’d awoken at some point in the dead time of night, a time like now when every wish or nightmare seems on the verge of coming alive in some beautiful or grotesque manifestation. Or, even worse, in something revealed as secret as the most guarded, personal memory.
I’d come alive with a horribly violent stomach ache. I remember my eyes flashing open to utter darkness, the razor in my belly threatening to spill its contents. The air like a thick blanket in the room because I’d forgotten to turn on the ceiling fan. The curtains were drawn and I’d just as soon been within the depths of an immense tomb for as much as my senses allowed. But the pain in my gut cut through all that primal fear.
I leapt from bed and barely made it down the hall to the bathroom. And then, sitting on the toilet after the first eruption, my knees shaking as I gripped my stomach with both hands, I felt very much a part of the real world again. And it stank of corruption. By the time the cramps subsided ten minutes later I felt better, a little more level-headed. Once more myself. Once more a part of the common course of events.
That lasted about another five minutes.
I remember tip-toeing slowly back down the hall to my room. Careful not to awaken my grandmother. I didn’t want to alarm her with some new threat of food poisoning. Not after what I’d already put her through. Just nerves, I told myself. That’s it. I’d let the problems at school overwhelm me and my stomach had taken the brunt of the punishment. And now it was over.
Or so I thought.
The door to my bedroom was closed and that was the first odd bit. I didn’t remember doing it, had no idea why I would have anyway, and already knew it wouldn’t close on its own. The doorknob felt cool to the touch but I blew that off immediately. I turned the knob and pushed the door back, no more expecting what was about to happen than being mugged by the police in the quiet of my own room. I fumbled the door closed in the dark. Then I paused.
There was a figure standing in the corner.
A figure so clearly delineated against the wall that I still don’t know how I managed to keep the scream down. Perhaps it was the uncanny light that surrounded it, or my own paralyzing fear. There was nothing really odd about the figure, except for the fact that he (I could clearly see it was a man) stood quite nonchalantly near the curtained window, a clip of smile pinned to the corners of his cheeks. And I believe now, as I always have, that it was at that moment I left the world of the living to travel awhile in an unknown realm. In a realm usually exclusively traveled in death.
I asked the figure a question, the simplest I could form with no preliminary thought. “Who are you?” I said into the vacuum that surrounded us. The figure did not speak. He moved his head slightly to the left and I was amazed at the angelic features, the posture that somehow forbid fear. Then he turned and walked slowly over to the chair near my cluttered desk. He reached out a hand and pulled the chair back. Sat down. Turned to face me.
“Someone who can help,” he replied then in vague answer.
I took a step closer, inexplicably unafraid, convinced that the whole flight to the bathroom had been nothing more than an unruly figment of nightmare, some undigested bit of beef or a crumb of cheese, as Scrooge had believed Marley’s ghost to be.
“How can you do that?” I asked.
The figure smiled, crossed his legs. It was then I noticed that his clothing changed with the frequency of a kaleidoscope. One second he was garbed in jeans and T-shirt. The next, a mixture of robes and free-flowing skins. A second later he appeared as a Roman legionnaire or an American Indian, other adornments in which I could not pinpoint the era or place. And it was this detail above all others that affected my grandmother the most, the hinge upon which her revelations of the birthday party were focused.
The figure seemed not to notice, but he did not let the question I’d asked go unanswered. He smiled again, a smile both full of potential happiness and the gripping reality of unforeseen circumstances. “It’s not always clear,” he said. “But, nonetheless, it is true.”
Unsatisfied with the shaded answer, I asked again, “Who are you?’
And he said, “A friend.” He shifted in the chair, leaned down so that his elbows were firmly planted on his knees. I remember noticing he wore an Irish kilt at that moment, though he’d made no move and his eyes had never left mine. ”You’re growing fast,” he acknowledged, as if he’d known me sometime in the distant past.
I merely nodded, wide-eyed. Surely this was a dream, an hallucination even, maybe it was food poisoning, as the costume changed again into some tribal African garb.
His aspect, however, didn’t fade or change with his clothing. In fact, it appeared he took no notice at all of that which held me enthralled. He simply went on speaking. “You have your father’s looks.”
“My father!” I exclaimed, mystified. “You know my father!? Where is he? Can I see him?” and I reached out, but the figure held up his hands to stop me. He pursed his lips and placed a finger to them, a habit I’d seen Sautin pull numerous times. When he shook his head it was so slight as to be practically invisible.
“I know of him,” the figure admitted, now wrapped in the flowing robes of an Islamic imam. “But that doesn’t change the circumstances, as sorry as I am to say it. Whatever functions are required of him will be performed elsewhere. But I see you possess in full the thing he believed of himself.” Now the imam was gone, replaced by what looked to be a Civil War-era colonial gentleman.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about…what is this?�
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“Child,” the figure said tenderly. “I know that, but it won’t make you any less effective than you would otherwise be. I just wanted to see the one who’s causing such ripples.” An Egyptian headdress cascaded down across his bare shoulders. “And I must say, I’m impressed.” He smiled again before standing up abruptly. When he next bent down to stare into my eyes the Catholic cleric’s collar was evident. “When the time comes be firm, confident. Remember,” and he put his forefinger to his lips again, “Nothing in this world is as it appears…”
And then he disappeared.
***
Nothing else remains in my mind of that night. It is only those few, initial moments that have formed their impression, the reality of the stranger in my room, the seemingly nonsensical talk, the feeling that I was involved in some great, cosmic mystery. The odd lack of fear I felt and his assertion that he was, in fact, a friend. Everything else is mere images, shaky photographs that are in no way as clear as the still-shots I’ve mentioned from my childhood. Hazy waves of storms and a cacophony of noise, as if a billion people had suddenly willed themselves together for one shattering moment, though their intent remained unclear.
The next thing I knew I came awake to the morning chill leaking in through my partially-opened window. The chair was back in its place, nothing apparently missing, no strange articles of clothing littering the floor. I felt as if I’d slept a year, barely escaping something that could take the world in its jaws and munch peacefully away for the next long eternity.
It was a Thursday and my suspension for the fight was done. I stumbled down the hallway, ducking into the bathroom before Grandma had a chance to see me. I heard her banging around in the kitchen (she always got up early to fix me breakfast), but I usually took a shower and I didn’t want to break the routine. Not that morning. And when I looked into the bathroom mirror the person I saw staring back was not myself. The hair was too wild, the eyes diabolically bloodshot and swollen; nothing much different, really, than any other morning, but somehow a 100 percent change regardless. Like Moses after witnessing the burning bush, like any of the unknown crowd who viewed Lazarus’s resurrection.
I was changed; that much I knew for fact.
Perhaps that was the moment I became invisible to the world. The moment that my talents as a thief took on their new importance. But I have been misled. I know that now and I hope the actions I took to save Annie’s life will save me from the fire I feel is waiting. Because I am positive death awaits me this morning.
I hurriedly brushed my teeth and showered, trying to scrub away the effects of the eerie presence that still seemed to cling upon me like any number of the strange vestments that had clothed last night’s visitor. I tried to picture the man’s face but couldn’t. I tried to make sense of the things he’d said, but again, met merely a blank wall. By the time I’d brushed my hair and dressed I’d half-convinced myself nothing had really happened at all, but the first glance at my grandmother shot me back in the opposite direction.
“What’s wrong, Jesse?” she said, her brow creasing in its curious, idiosyncratic way.
I just mumbled something incomprehensible and sat down at the table. I began to eat with my eyes on the plate, studying the eggs and bacon, feeling her gaze upon me like a blanket; unable to meet it. I didn’t taste a single bite. She tried again before I headed out the door but I didn’t reply and thankfully she didn’t pursue it any further as I hurried down the drive to the sidewalk, beating a fast retreat to the bus stop around the corner.
School, for a change, went fine that day, probably because I was lost in my own thoughts more than usual, unwilling to bite upon every hook placed before me. I remember nothing of the classes, nothing of my classmates. In fact, it is as if that day never happened at all and that should give you an idea of the joy I found in public education. After no time at all I found myself back at the bus stop, this time getting off instead of on.
I walked back to the house mulling over the way to present my grandmother with what I felt sure had happened the night before. Because I knew somewhere deep inside, the only peace I would get from the experience was through telling it.
Just like this, though I’m old enough and have seen enough not to expect peace anymore.
I heard the television as I opened the door but it clicked off as soon as I stepped inside. I caught her looking over her shoulder when I entered the small but tidy living room, the concern she’d voiced that morning still hanging on her face like a red flag. I waved ‘hi’ and escaped to the kitchen, absently digging through the refrigerator as I listened to her footsteps getting closer. I didn’t even turn around; my hand froze on the pickle jar. Offhandedly I noticed there was a single spear left.
“Jesse?” she said, her tone wavering just slightly. “Is there something wrong?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered, too quickly, losing my grip on the lid. The jar almost slipped from my grasp and I made a concerted effort to make it seem a more precarious situation than it really was. Lucky for me it worked; the moment was diffused. She said something more about lunch meat in the bottom drawer and I listened to her leave the room. Moments later the television came back to life.
Well, I made the sandwich and ate the damn thing without even tasting it. I knew I had to talk to her about the dream, visitation, whatever the hell it had been last night, but I had no idea how. After all, I'd just come off suspension and that had done nothing to quiet her already frayed nerves. What would this do? I was suddenly confronted with the same emotion that had burst upon me the year before while lying in the bathtub reading a comic book. The illustrator had been good, real good; his women were life-like, incredibly endowed, and their costumes didn’t leave much to the imagination. And suddenly I found myself compromised by a tremendous hard-on. I studied it curiously for several moments, my eyes jumping back and forth between the thinly-clad heroine and my dick, and when I touched its glistening tip my body convulsed, completely. I found myself lying in the bathtub with what looked like several good globs of shampoo floating around and on me. It was only then I realized what had happened, and almost frantic, I’d flung the comic book into the corner, trying to halt the crushing wave of guilt that had suddenly taken over. As if turned out, that first waking wet dream had taken the better part of a week to justify, the first few days a misery of how I’d explain to my grandmother. Because for those agonizing hours I really believed I must reveal to her the source of my shame. However, thankfully, in the end reason prevailed and I realized it was just another surprise part of growing up.
But this new thing was different. It could not be hidden; it begged for release, as if the strange man had planted the seed in my head that could not grow until I revealed the planter. So with the last tasteless bite of sandwich inching down my throat I convinced myself of what had to be done. Of course it made for a miserable afternoon, but at least I got all my homework done for once.
The rain started about five o’clock with the brunt of the storm arriving less than an hour later. We were as prepared as possible; we’d lived in the house for six months or so, and it wasn’t the first storm to blow through. We already had the pots out before the rotten spots in the ceiling began to show the pattern of darker brown toward their centers. When the storm started in earnest the small house was a ringing tin drum of offbeat rhythms as each leak played into its own pot. The power went out and we pulled out the box of candles, placing each one in its customary spot. Sometimes it was a storm and sometimes it was simply a case of the money not being there; in any case, it was really nothing out of the ordinary.
So in that wet, dripping, flickering kitchen I took my grandmother’s hand and led her to the table where we sat down. There was a mixture of fear and relief in her eyes. I believe if I could have seen mine there would have only been resignation.
And I told her what had happened.
I told her everything, careful to add the feelings the stranger had inspired in me: the curiosity, the n
eed, the fact that fear had played no part in our meeting. And she had listened in silence, her eyes growing wider in the moving shadows of the room. At one point she put her hand to her mouth as if to stop a sound from escaping, but I continued on nonetheless. When finally finished I shut my mouth and looked at her as if she should now tell me her part.
And she did; not that it made much sense then.
Not that it makes much sense now.
Chapter 17:Annie
And now, finally, I come to the crux of this matter. Everything else has been a mere prelude to this thing that has become my only purpose. Maybe I am crazy but I don’t think so, perhaps lunatics never do. Regardless, I’ve reached the point where I can no longer believe my life is a random crap-shoot. There have been too many dreams, the visitation I had years ago, my tendency of avoiding trouble even while committing it. Especially that, I think. Perhaps my grandmother’s religion is finally exacting its price because I see no other option.
If nothing else, I’ve simply saved the life of an innocent girl at the probable expense of my own. Things could be worse.
Her name is Angela Frenoit, a University of Paris economics major, who up until today was staying in New Orleans on a summer fellowship. Studying the effects of Louisiana’s Napoleonic Law Code upon and among the cities’ poor. Funny, but I wonder if she’ll ever finish that paper now?
So what the hell does she have to do with me? I’ll tell you.
Only this:
I was supposed to kill her yesterday. There it is in one easy sentence, finally the truth. The crux of the matter. That is the only reason for the pile of cassettes already packed into this shoe box labeled with your address.
All this hot air because I would not kill one girl.
It may surprise you that I seem squeamish to the act of murder, since I am, no doubt, a criminal. I wish it were so. There is no doubt I was a thief before I met Sautin; I willingly became a murderer under his employ. You will find enclosed information that should take a few unsolved homicides off the books. Maybe it’s enough to put Sautin behind bars, but I can’t hope for too much. These things will settle themselves in due course. But I have to pay the price I’ve set, and I go willingly enough. It’s important that you know it’s not out of pride I’ve refused him because I don’t consider myself a martyr.
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