by L C Barlow
He opened the door for me and said, "Remember, Jack, though you are unprepared to replace me, you are also incapable to reject me. You are too old. No matter what you decide in the face of this, any halo you ever had has slipped about your neck. It is a noose, and no matter of clawing and twisting will free it. There is no Jack but the one that exists with Cyrus."
"How do you do this?" I asked. "How do you survive the chaos, Cyrus? I am numb. So numb. How can you live this way?"
He smiled at me. "Jack, while you ask that question, I instead wonder the very opposite. How can you stand the borders and handholds in life? It is chaos that is safe. It is numbness that protects. There is nothing better than when there is no knowing, no comprehension, no guilt, but only action, the now, what It wants, and nothing else. It is freeing."
"Too freeing. I am cold in that freedom."
"Stay, and soon the cold will feel warm again."
It was so illogical, this whole conversation - for, I knew that he feared my connection to the Other would override him, but at the same time he beckoned me inward, to be more like him. I was both loathed and desired, like a toy being slowly outgrown.
I shook my head and said the only thing that I could. "I should have eaten one of the other berries. I should have eaten them all."
"That may be true," Cyrus whispered, "but in that case, it is your loss, and yours alone. All I need is yet another child, yet another plate of berries. Unlike you, it is never too late for me to start again."
* * *
I am not sure just what came over me at three in the morning, when the others had gone to bed, and only the wind could be heard wailing against the windows of Cyrus's home.
I am not sure how I knew to do it.
I slunk through the dark, shadowed halls, feeling the gentle marble prick my feet with cold. Out in the night, whips of cool air licked my skin like metal tongues, and though I reminisced barefoot on the dirt and grass all of Cyrus's threats, this wind seemed to wash him from me.
When I arrived at the overturned dirt, where I knew the masses of people, and in particular the girls, were buried, Cyrus's home was just a quarter mile away, and he for once seemed a speck in a distant universe. And I was no longer in that universe, no. I lived in a world where girls did not die, and their families could always protect them.
There was a discarded broken shovel nearby, and I gripped its gritty handle and brought it to the shallow graves. I dug the three up, one by one. It did not take more than an hour.
The girls' cloudy pupils seemed to watch me, their eyes looking like old film frames stuck in a projector, beginning to burn away in the golden moonlight.
The dirt that powdered their clothes did not seem like dirt then, but rather black snow that had fallen and glittered like hematite and ebon spinel. It was all over my hands, and their faces like makeup. It littered my clothes, and I loved the feel of something real against me, for I had not felt anything real in a long time.
I touched one of the girls' cold faces, and I pictured my sister there. I could not stand it. I felt my blood turn hot and hasten, and as I came ever more alive in my hatred, the warmth in my stomach stoked itself again into a sizzling fire, reminding me that the bright man had left something inside me.
When I felt it warm, I watched the eyes of the first dead girl focus, her pupils narrowing, and they turned towards my hand. She had no pulse or warmth or any other sign of life, but I could tell a miracle was on the cusp - a resurrection.
It was what I had always wanted - to complete the circle, like the first time with Roland. I suddenly dreamed of digging up all the men I had ever killed and filling them anew. One by one, I pictured their compressed bodies plump, as though a milk poured from God was sating their dead thirst.
This was impossible, of course. Those bodies were from too long ago and had been either burned, crushed, melted to nothing by chemicals, or eaten by animals deep in the woods. I wished I had known to keep them around - bury them at least - and I stood there like a child feeling nostalgia for a toy mistakenly sold years ago.
I moved my hand around the first girl's face, watching her dead eyes follow me, and I heard her dead flesh squeak with the movement. When I tired of this surprising trick, I touched her cheek.
I let the warm power in my stomach release, and I brought her to life.
And the next.
And the next.
Their eyelids flapped, and their limbs trembled, but they were as supple and alive as before Cyrus ever touched them. They said they had no knowledge of what they were doing there, on Cyrus's property, covered in cold moist earth. I told them to wait there and that I would return.
I went round to the other side of the property, where the girls' families were buried - the protectors that had failed, much in the same way that I would have failed, had I raised even a finger to strike the gray-haired maniac. Just like with the girls, I fleshed them anew.
Only the black dirt was a sign there had been a short gap in their existence. As for their behaviors, I had returned everything to them. They were just as intelligent, healthy, and thoughtful as when they had left - no more, no less. Not only this, but the adults remembered their deaths. Unlike the children, they were mindful that they had been taken out of this world and returned. They thanked me. They cried. And they hated and feared Cyrus.
Because they remembered, there was little need to explain to them why they could never return, but rather must slip from the city, and the state, and find a secret new place to call home.
After I spoke with them to ensure this, there was not much time left in the evening, and I led them to their children. I remember watching as they held the girls close, kissed them, and cried - and I remember how quickly they left me.
Up through the woods they hiked and disappeared in the ghostly mist. They followed my directions, out on a path that would lead them to the main road about a mile away. I have never seen any of them since.
Once their forms vanished from sight, I filled the shallow graves with the dirt, not packing it down, so that it still looks like bodies were below. I left the broken shovel where it had lain, and I washed the dirt from my feet with a hose before I returned to the mansion.
In all of this toil, for just a brief second I felt fully alive, as though it was my own life I had resurrected; but as I entered the home again, I felt that sensation collapse. I wondered if it would ever dare return.
Chapter 19
RELAX
I went to Patrick's party that night dressed in blue jeans, a button-up shirt, and my delicious black coat that hugged me tight across the chest and abdomen and left off from my body at my waist. Its shiny black buttons reflected the outdoor light as I turned the brassy knob on the door to let myself in.
Already, there must have been twenty people there, and of course Patrick was in the middle of them all - darting here and there - making sure that he spoke to everyone and that they all had a drink or a dime in their hands. It was a cacophony of laughter, smiles, and crystal glasses.
When I arrived, Patrick bolted to me and said, "Finally, Jack! There are these three girls I want you to meet."
"Oh?" I asked.
"I want you to tell me which one I should fuck tonight." The look on his face was not a joking one, but one of concern, as though he were picking out an engagement ring rather than a liaison. We had never been closer as friends.
"You could have them all," I said, hoping I would not actually have to choose for him.
He nodded his head. "I will, but not tonight. Tonight, just one." He grabbed my hand. "I would entrust this to no one else."
He pulled me through the people, and they barely moved for us, so I rubbed against four or five warm bodies before we got to the three girls.
They were gorgeous. The blonde had crimped hair that looked like silk fibers in the overhead row lighting, and her makeup was done so intensely - dark grey eye shadow surrounded not only her eyes, but ran across the bone of her nose so that she wore a p
ainted mask. Very few could have pulled it off, but she did beautifully.
The second was a brunette that was taller than the blonde, and she wore a matching gold necklace and earrings. The earrings dangled so low they touched her bare and creamy shoulders. Her cobalt blue dress barely came up past her nipples. It made even me want to trail my finger along her breasts.
The third was a red-head with curly hair, dressed as elegantly as the other two, but with a lip ring. It was like Mona Lisa with a piercing, or a statue of Venus with a tattoo. Because it was so unnecessary, it fit so perfectly.
"Which one?" Patrick asked me. I looked at them and was rendered speechless. They all looked like perfect marble statues, and I could not decide which Patrick should bring to life.
"What can they do?" I asked.
Patrick raised his eyebrows, turned to them inquiringly, and said, "Well... what can you do girls?"
"I can sing," said the blonde pleasantly, and before any of the others could answer, Patrick brightened instantaneously and said, "Well let's fucking hear it."
He did not grab her hand, but gestured with his pointer finger for her to follow him. Immediately, I saw what he meant to do. He brushed off the few people sitting on the piano bench as though they were mere pieces of dust, and he sat at the baby grand.
As soon as Patrick settled, he motioned for the girl to stand in front of the piano, and a halo formed around them. My view was crystal clear.
"What would you like to sing?" Patrick asked.
She mentioned a song and listed its E, A flat, A, B, F-sharp, A, recipe of chords.
Patrick nodded his head like an airline captain. He began on the piano with a brisk, upbeat, plink, plank, plink, plank noise. It sounded clean, like it was made by children in the rain rather than Patrick at the piano. A few of the girls in the crowd moved back and forth to the familiar tune. Soon, it was only the cigarette smoke that was still talking. Then, the blonde began to sing.
I looked across the crowd, and there were more people filing down from upstairs, more listening, more singing along softly. Someone had turned off the radio. What truly caught me, though, was the absolute breathtaking beauty of the blonde.
Her voice was an airy one - not thick like others, and it fit with the simplicity of the song. Her silver dress shined like a beacon in the room, a warm light around which all could warm themselves. The dark gray of its spiraling lace matched the eye shadow stretched across her face like a superhero mask, and as she continued to sing, I realized just how impeccably perfect this moment was. I looked at the weight of her breasts pressing against the shimmery fabric, and I knew why Patrick wanted her.
Suddenly, I was glad Patrick had asked me if I wanted him to fuck her, because without that moment there wouldn't be this one - where all of us gathered and communed as part of the blonde's singing and Patrick's playing.
Patrick, in the midst of his striking the keys, hungrily looked at the blonde, and it would have been obvious to anyone that he wanted her - and I wanted him to want her. I wanted to see him want her, because I knew what that want felt like, knew that it made living all the more alive, and I wanted him to feel it.
I admit that this was probably because I loved him. Yes, I did. Yet, at the same time, his wanting her had nothing to do with it. Something fresh had been injected into the room, like a syringe with a novel drug had been planted into the heart of Patrick's loft, and all the liquid went streaming through the air into the cracks and corridors of the loft, and we inhaled it, tasted it, drank it - this pure enjoyment.
I could hear not just the piano, but the very fibers in the strings being plucked. I could perceive not only the woman's voice, but the flesh in that voice and the brilliant vibrations through that flesh.
Thank God Patrick wanted to fuck angels, because then I got to hear them sing.
When both she and Patrick were done, everyone gave them a round of applause, and though many asked for another song, Patrick told them "No," like a child, and both she and he came back to me. Slowly, the conversations that had highlighted the loft returned, and there were noises of hearty humanity again.
Before either of them said anything, I told Patrick, "This is the one."
"I dare say you're right," he said and smiled. He slipped his arm around the blonde and kissed her neck. She seemed to almost purr, obviously pleased that she had passed the impromptu test.
"Let's go then," she told him, and Patrick smiled, smelling her neck again, but then he pulled back somewhat and said, "Hold on. There's something else I want first."
He turned to me, and my heart stuttered.
"Tell me something about yourself. Something new. Something true."
"What?" I asked.
"I demand you explain yourself. I demand you tell me anything."
I shot him a quizzical look, and I shifted this look to the blonde. But she was going with the flow, going wherever Patrick took her. She smiled at me like she was part of this plot.
"Haven't we done this before?" I asked him.
"We've done everything before," he said. "Well," and he thought to himself, "not everything per se, but most."
"There's no fun in repetition," I said.
"No, Jack," he replied. "Fun is only in repetition."
He motioned his hand out like a mafia godfather expressing concern about his daughter's wedding. "Before I have sex with her, I want you to tell me something about yourself. Where are you from?" he asked.
The questions came, slowly, softly, as though his thinking of them was snow falling. "Where were you born? What is your sister like? Who was your first lover?" He said this last one in a whisper. When I didn't respond, he continued to give me a pleasant plethora of questions. "How old are you? What did you do between high school and college? What interests you? What are your hobbies and favorite foods? What are your favorite movies? Do you hate politics? Do you believe in God?"
I looked at him, his burning orange hair, his green eyes, the lovely freckles and high cheekbones, his lankiness. He was so calm, amidst this hullabaloo of a party. Though the music of the stereo started again, and the blonde hung about him like a Christmas ornament, he noticed nothing, was interested in nothing, but my response. For a moment, I wondered if he wanted me, not the blonde, but then I shook the idea away.
"I thought you said there were other ways to get to know someone," I replied.
"Oh there are," he said, and he stroked the blonde's back, stepped a few feet and lifted a Guinness from out of a silver ice chest. He popped the top off with the sapphire ring on his right hand, brought it to his mouth, and took a long swallow. "But now I'm in a different mood, and I demand an answer."
"You... demand?" I laughed.
"Yes. I think that's fair." It seemed too odd to me to be discussing this as though we were alone, as though he wasn't ready for sex. There were people clustered all about us, bumping into him occasionally and me as well. "You are my best friend, after all. And I hardly know you."
I felt both flattered and confused. Finally, I noticed the others around us again, and I said jokingly, "With as short a time as we've been best friends, answers to these questions could tear us apart irrevocably, and your weed is way too good for me to act so foolish."
He nodded in agreement. "That it is. But what if I said you couldn't have anymore if you didn't answer me?"
"What question do you want me to answer?" I said quickly, like a junkie who needed a fix. I did this purposely in jest. "So you can get on with..." I cast my eyes on the singing woman, "this night."
"For a person like you? The last one. Answer the last one."
"What was it?"
"Do you believe in God?" he said gently, like he was talking to a kindergartner, rather than someone who illegally broke into a stranger's house for his soul.
"I won't answer that one." I looked at the blonde again, and she was smiling at me. The other two girls were now standing close to her. The red one placed a hand on her shoulder, and the movement spoke of pur
e sex.
"Why?" Patrick asked.
"Because you will want a reason, and I don't have quality reasons for anything I do."
"I don't care about reasons."
"Well then," I said, "I won't tell you because you're Catholic."
"What does that mean?"
"You're easily offended."
"So then you don't believe in God?" he asked. "And you won't tell me because you don't want to offend me?"
I started to feel a bit anxious. The crowd of people suddenly felt overwhelming, like a bucket of perfume poured over me. I might start suffocating soon, I thought. "Haven't the things I've already said about fate and the universe given you any indication?" I asked.
"They've given me no indication, because you don't seem like you match what you say."
"I don't understand."
"Yes, you do," he replied like a psychoanalyst. "Your words... your actions... don't fit you," he said louder, battling very gently the other voices in the crowd.
"Oh really? What do you think fits me?"
"Come, please." He asked in a way meant to massage the message from me. "Tell me what you think." He took his arm from the blonde and now touched the back of my left arm gently.
It was like the lighting of a match, what happened in the next few minutes.
Patrick started to ask the question louder and louder. Soon, the crowd started to listen to him. The word "God," for some reason, silenced the people near us fast. Brian - an old friend of his, and a new friend of mine - was close to us. When he heard Patrick almost yell he began watching, concerned. Still, I would not say anything. I stared at Patrick, nonplussed.
"Alright," Patrick finally said matter-of-factly. He looked around at the crowd. His voice had a new, brilliant hue to it. "You answer this question, or...," he pointed at Brian a few feet away from him, "I'm taking Brian's pants off and burning them in the fireplace."
"What the fuck, Patrick?" Brian said from where he stood, his martini gripped delicately in his hand. "I hear you. I am standing right here, and I hear you. There ain't no way you're fucking taking these designer label jeans and burnin' them. You know they beautiful! They've got a soul, Patrick. Jack, just answer his damn question." Now quite a few people surrounding us stared.