The Terror{blist}

by C. Sean McGee

CHAPTER THREE

  What was he thinking? You couldn’t just walk into a place like that and learn. He’d look like an idiot and he could be sure that everyone in there, especially at this time - in the middle of the day – was at the very least, really good serving the ball and hitting it back. He’d just make a fool of himself and ruin the game for everyone else.

  Tennis wouldn’t suppress the rage he felt inside. There was nowhere for him to go now except headstrong into a terrible outcome, whatever that may be.

  On the sidewalk, the sounds of buzzing cars and shuffling feet and cursing bystanders echoed inside his head and his thoughts circled and spun out of control. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the bottle of pills he’d received from the doctor.

  He looked at the label. His head was spinning so that the letters all mumbled and jumbled around one another and he was sure, even if they settled and his mind was somewhat clear, there were so many letters that no sane person would ever be able to say the name of this drug.

  The bottle said for him to take one and a half tablets in the morning and one more table at night. After a week or two, apparently, he would start to feel some relief, that the heaviness and warmth that scolded his mind and tempered at the tips of his fingers would settle and the drugs would re-climate his thoughts and his feelings and he wouldn’t have to dream about other people getting hurt by accident or himself, in a very public place, taking his own life.

  What on Earth would he think about then?

  Ever since he was a boy, the piece of missing information, the irregular void in the puzzle of thought, reason and existence, to him, would be so much grander than anyone else that he knew or brushed past on the street.

  Most people; when they didn’t have all the information, when they only had one or two parts of a puzzle like their lover’s face and how they feel when they are around and the fact they have been around long enough to assume that this wasn’t in fact, just a thing, most people, being sane and all, they would think the worst about that missing piece of the puzzle; it’s late, they haven’t called, their all alone and where is their partner now?

  For most people, that missing puzzle was filled with fear so their brain would imagine the worst outcome to heighten the grill of their paranoia. Like the child tucked firmly into their blankets, when the light are off, one piece of the puzzle is removed and for the child, that piece is filled with absolute fear that beneath their bed, scratching away at the under of their bums and backs, lies the most horrid creature imaginable, sniggering in the back of their thoughts as it lies in wait, hungering to ensnare them.

  Gavin had much of the same logic. His doctor said it was like a wire was shorting out and he was receiving too much of this and too much of that and when there was something he didn’t know, when in his mind he was imaging what that empty puzzle piece might be, his brain would misfire and provide him an overdose of nor-adrenaline and something as simple as misplacing his keys would be construed as being trapped beneath a collapsed building, unable to breath and unsure if help would ever come.

  And the drugs would make that better.

  Gavin flipped the lid off with his thumb. He saw it flick past his sight and land somewhere in the gutter beside him. He didn’t bother turning to see where that might be. His eyes were drawn upon the little circles inside the small cylinder and as he thought about his mother’s car exploding – not because he wanted it to, but because it would upset him if it did – he threw the container to his mouth and he let the small pills all roll over his tongue and barge their way down the back of his throat. He had to shake the bottle to get the last.

  He wondered then how long it would take for the drugs to work, now that he had consumed fifty of them. Would he feel better by the time he reached the corner? And would he be different then, not in how he thought, but in how others thought of him. Would he have to exclaim then, that he was different, that the drugs had taken effect? And how would he do it? Would he take a stance in line with all the others whose voices charade the ideals that made them feel so good as to always be able to look around, past or through him? And if the drugs came into effect, would they be able to see him?

  Gavin stumbled along the sidewalk with people parting the biblical tide as he approached. And they, the people on the street, they saw a manic beast, dressed in a man’s clothing. This beast was foaming at the mouth, hunched over and gripping at its stomach and grumbling and groaning in a conspicuous gurgle as he or it swayed from one side of the path to the other with the monster’s eyes, like its well intentions, clawing at the pavement and dragging his frail huddled mass in their direction.

  Gavin’s stomach was turning over on itself. He could feel horrid pains in his stomach as if his muscles were melting. He was dying, he knew it. He’d always imagined death being this silent and poetic closing scene where not a word was spoken but a single tear that shed from the girl that he loved and it carried down her cheek unto her chin where it morphed into her fraught expression and splashed upon his bloodied lip.

  This was nothing like that. His bones were searing and it felt like someone was staggering along with him, gyring some imaginary handle that stuck out from his side – like a rotisserie - yanking and grinding his insides around and around so that the skin of his weakened soul came to a crisp and brown finish.

  “You don’t look good there buddy.”

  Gavin reached his hand out and grabbed their leg just to steady himself. He had no idea of what he was grabbing, whether it was a leg of some tall dark stranger or a heavy set post, plated into the earth. It was just a reaction when he heard the man speak.

  “Did you take something? I’m a friend, it’s ok, I’m here to help you.”

  The Tall Dark Stranger unclenched Gavin’s hand and took the empty bottle from it.

  “Relax. I’m gonna do something. It’s gonna feel like a real bastard version of New Year’s in your head, just for a minute or two. I’ll be quick. Just don’t bite off my finger.”

  The Tall Dark Stranger held Gavin in a headlock, keeping his body from contorting and swiveling out of control. With his left hand cusped around his chin, he could hold Gavin’s mouth open and stop him from biting down. With his right hand, he pushed two fingers deep into Gavin’s throat, all the way, till they slipped over the groove of his tongue and down into his esophagus.

  Gavin convulsed and The Tall Dark Stranger tore away his fingers. He held Gavin steady while his stomach surged and he vomited, on the pavement by his feet, on his shoes and on a driver whose curiosity had him lower his window before he could comprehend what was about to happen.

  The Driver stopped his car and he got out, wiping his arm clean and shouting an abusive tirade at Gavin, whose mind had exploded and was outside of any reason whatsoever. He was, at this moment, a dying star, his protons escaping in all directions as his core surged outwards and there was nothing he could do and there was no way that he could defend himself, not from the likes of the oaf who was running at him now with his arms swinging, ready to beat down on Gavin who – detached from his conscious settings – was not a man as other men are men, he was his stomach, convulsing and spitting out of his mouth. He was every muscle, wrenching and pulling and turning in all directions. He was not his thoughts. Not here, not now. He was awash in the tide of his expulsion.

  “I’m gonna fucking kill you” shouted The Driver.

  Gavin couldn’t see but beside him, The Driver had his hand raised to strike down on the back of his head. It wasn’t the rage of having been vomited on that disparaged The Driver, it having been vomited on in front of other people; in front of women who would hardly desire him and other men, whose pointing mockery would reduce him, without the need for heated debate, to that of a lesser man.

  The Driver sought to strike down on the back of Gavin’s head but he was stopped, something catching his wrist and twisting and turning and then The Driver was on his back and he was weeping and desperately negotiating his way back into his car.

&
nbsp; The Driver gathered the remnants of his masculinity and drove away. He said nothing as he rushed to lock the doors and he fumbled away at the keys. He said nothing too, as the engine started and the cars behind him beeped and pressed him to go on ahead. But when there was good enough distance, when the reflection in his mirror was small enough to be outrun but large enough to be heard, he lowered his window and he stuck out his finger and shouted, like a hungry hungry hippo, expletive remarks, insults deriding the sick junkie and his tall dark villainous friend. And in that second, he found once again, the fount of his pride and he drove away, enraged and masculinized once again, thank god.

  When the bus pulled up, Gavin had stopped vomiting but he didn’t look well. The Bus Driver took one look at him and shook his head.

  “Do I look like a fucking ambulance?” he said.

  Gavin swayed back and forth, but he was held up from falling to his knees by The Tall Dark Stranger by his side. He lifted his head and he could see The Bus Driver scrunching up his mouth like he was picking some dried beef from between his teeth except he wasn’t being mannerly, he was building a mouthful of spit to hurl at Gavin and The Tall Dark Stranger as he pushed on his handle and closed the doors.

  “Go back to your own country” shouted The Bus Driver as he stuck up his middle finger at the two men as the bus drove away.

  “Asshole,” said Gavin.

  He didn’t so much say it as words did, drop from his tongue like a celebratory ribbon.

  “It’s ok,” said The Tall Dark Stranger. “I’ll call a friend. She can come and pick us up. Do you have somewhere that you need to be?”

  Gavin shook his head.

  He had nowhere to go.

  “Good,” said The Tall Dark Stranger, without a hint of conspiracy in his tone.

  When the car pulled up, Gavin’s vision was improving but not entirely. His mind was still clouded. His stomach felt pained and sore. He imagined that this was what exercise would be like and if that were true, what idiot would put themselves through such barberry?

  Gain sat in the back next to a beautiful girl whose hair was so incredibly straight. It amazed him when he looked in her direction. There was not a fatigued line on her head whatsoever.

  “Hi, I’m المغرر, pleased to meet you.”

  She sounded so learned, her voice, aged and cultured so that it spoke like no girl he had ever heard before. But for the life of him, he would not be able to pronounce her name.

  “I’m Gavin,” he said.

  He felt like an idiot.

  The rest of the ride, he said nothing. He‘d look in her direction and when he did, she would return his glance with a common smile and her eyes, they spoke like a philosopher’s tongue of a reason she had for every smirk and every contented smile.

  Gavin felt nervous.

  He had no idea what to say.

  So he looked away and then he looked back again and when she turned with her forgiving eyes and smiled at him, he quickly coiled his sight back to the head rest at his front and the nerves in his belly now were just as afflicting as the fire he had just expulsed.

  “Where are we going?” asked Gavin.

  The Beautiful Girl reached her hand over to his, sensing his concern.

  “Destiny,” said The Tall Dark Stranger.