Leaving the fork just where it is, and thankful that the perfect shrimp are in fact already peeled, I pick one up, bathe it in cocktail sauce, and lower it into my mouth. The flesh is sweet and tender and has just the right crunch when my molars come together on top of it. And the sauce, redolent with horseradish and fresh lemon, has just the right bite. I eat the second and the third and by the time I get to the last shrimp I have run out of sauce. I hate that. Also, there seems to be a puddle of blood covering the stone table and threatening to run down the sides.
Someone screams. But the sound is fuzzy, distant, cottony soft. I raise my hand to signal for more cocktail sauce and notice the fish fork sticking out of my inner elbow like a harpoon.
Oh yeah, that, I remember distantly. That was a little dramatic. But it worked. Stopped the buzzing.
I yank the fork out of my arm. There is a sudden spray of blood. Like from a drinking fountain. Then it subsides to a generous trickle. There is a commotion behind me, and when I turn I see my waiter running toward me, a stack of clean white napkins in his hands.
My waiter kneels beside my chair and presses the napkins gently but firmly against the oozing punctures.
“Sir?” he asks. His eyes search mine for an answer.
But I don’t know what he wants to know.
Behind us, back toward the hotel, there is more commotion—a siren, some men in white uniforms wheeling a gurney. But none of it bothers me. It is all gauze and honey and a distant wind and I will ride it.
Floating. Held. Safely in safety. Until I feel falling. The panic of the fall. Not me. I am—was—on my feet. Running. To get there. To stop her. Falling.
My feet cannot move fast enough.
“Hold him down.” There are voices and clattering.
Over the green grass. Across the playground blacktop. To catch her falling body.
“Restraints, now!”
She hits the ground.
“No!”
It had seemed so simple—a Sunday, a park, a family. And now all I can do is run with her held against me—red seeping into white—and drive. And make promises to God about everything I will do from now on if He makes her okay.
The happiness of a simple Sunday crushed under the heel of an accident that was no one’s fault but will be riddled with guilt and blame anyway.
God made her okay. But I let go and now I am falling.
“Noooo!” Panic rising. Overflowing. Into consciousness.
“Can you tell me your name, sir?” a female voice asks.
Who wants to know? I think, awake now, eyes still closed. There is noise and bright lights shine through my eyelids.
“Sir, open up your eyes for me and tell me your name.”
What’s in it for me? I think, still shaking from a nightmare I don’t recall. But I don’t ask. It’s not a good way to begin a negotiation.
“His vitals are stable.” This time it’s a male voice—with an African-British accent. “He’s just being difficult.”
Fuck you, I think. If he thinks I’m difficult now, just wait. I feel my personal space is being violated when, without my consent, the asshole shoves his thumb in my eye, pushes up the lid, and shines a penlight around.
“Jesus Christ, what the fuck,” I mean to say. But apparently I have grown an extra tongue or three. “Eeezz Cryy, whaaa” and some drool is what actually comes out of my mouth. My head feels as if I’ve been dropped on it. From a third-floor window. This feels familiar. Like Stanford. Like Thorazine.
I try to shield my eyes but find my hands are inconveniently tied to the bed rails.
“See, his pupils are reactive,” the asshole says.
The woman rolls her eyes at the asshole and shakes her head. “Page Dr. Mijumbi. Tell him his patient is awake.”
“Mr. Dowd? Mr. Dowd?” I feel a cool hand lightly tapping my cheeks. “Wake up, Mr. Dowd.”
“He was awake a minute ago.”
At the sound of the asshole’s voice, I open my eyes.
“Ah, there he is. Welcome back, Mr. Dowd.”
And for a brief moment I experience consciousness in a vacuum. There is no place. No time. No identity. Only the awareness of Is. It is the single most stress-free instant I have ever known. And it is over far too quickly.
“Come on, Mr. Dowd, wake up. Stay with us.”
Dowd. Mr. Dowd. Nope. I am drawing a blank. But the metaphysical ground has shifted. Now I know it is me, Greyson, who is blank. How disappointing. Why, when there are so many other, better choices, am I back to this again?
I feel the gentle tapping on my cheek again. I open my eyes. Because I must have closed them again.
“Mr. Dowd?”
So if you go chasing rabbits and you know you’re going to fall …
Wait. Maybe I do know that name. Dowd. Elwood Dowd. Seer of large white rabbits. Named Harvey. Nice guy. People think he’s nuts.
And then I remember: As far as the hotel is concerned, as far as Africa is concerned, and now as far as the young man sitting in the metal chair next to my bed is concerned, I am Elwood Dowd.
“I am Mr. Dowd,” I say as clearly as I can, which is not very clear at all.
“Mr. Dowd, I am Dr. Mijumbi. You are in Mugali Hospital. Do you remember what happened?”
I think. No. Nothing. “Ra-b-bit?” I ask. Because I have nothing else to offer.
The three doctors exchange looks.
“You see a rabbit,” the asshole says.
I struggle to peel my tongue off the roof of my mouth. “Mo. I she an ashhole.”
The woman doctor giggles. She is pretty. I like her.
“Sense of humor. Very good, Mr. Dowd,” says Mijumbi.
“Yes, very funny,” the asshole says. “But what does the rabbit have to do with it?”
I shrug my restrained shoulders. They hurt. I hurt. All over. Consciousness is overrated.
“He’s hallucinating,” the asshole says to Mijumbi. He doesn’t even bother to whisper.
Mijumbi shoots him a warning look. “I don’t think so,” he says and turns to look me in the eye. “I think the very powerful drug we gave you is still clouding your mind a bit, hmm? And your memory maybe?”
His voice is soft and slow and it feels good in the heavily trafficked spirals of my cochlea. Dr. Mijumbi sits back down in the metal chair, scoots it up to my bed, and pushes his little gold-framed glasses higher on his nose.
“Mr. Dowd, I want you to think back if you can, to earlier today. You woke up. You had breakfast, maybe? Hmm?”
I nod, remembering none of that. “Good, okay, and after that, can you tell us what happened?”
No. There is nothing.
“You don’t remember how you got here? You don’t remember what happened?”
Nothing happened. But I don’t like the way he’s saying it. Not only like something did happen and not only like I should know what, but like it’s bad. Really bad. He knows. He knows something bad happened. But he won’t tell me.
Willa.
And suddenly, panic starts to seep out of all the cracks and fissures of my drugged-up, numbed-out insides. Before I can stick my finger in the dike, all the empty spaces are flooded with loss. Before I can take a breath, I am drowning.
“What is it? What happened?” Mijumbi asks, concerned.
“Willa?”
I am twisting and turning, trying to get up, but nothing is working right. Grunting and twisting and the pain that rips through my right shoulder is sharp and searing.
“It hurts.”
“Where does it hurt?” he asks, racing to my bedside.
“I don’t know,” I lie.
Everywhere. All the time.
“What does it feel like?”
“I. Don’t. Know,” I sob, lying again.
In the mornings, it is an endless ocean of bottomless loss. By late afternoon, every cell in my body has a bleeding hangnail. But I don’t say that. I never say that.
“Mr. Dowd, who is Willa?”
�
�I don’t know.” The biggest lie.
I feel sick. I turn my head away from Mijumbi and try to vomit over the other side of the bed, but my arm gets in the way. Cocktail sauce and bits of shrimp splash everywhere. On me, on the bed, on the floor, and on the asshole’s shoes. Every cloud has its silver lining.
I think I am crying, but I am not sure.
“Un-die my fuck-ing hans!” I try to scream.
“Of course.” Dr. Mijumbi, despite the crushing heat, wears a crisp white shirt and navy blazer. He unties one arm and then calmly walks around the bed through the muck to untie the other. The asshole looks horrified. “Dr. Ngasi, would you please go find someone to clean this up and bring Mr. Dowd some fresh bedding?” The doctor, who upon closer examination looks like a kid in an expensive prep school uniform, helps me sit up. “Why did you try to hurt yourself?” he asks.
I glance over at my bandaged hand and arm. I carefully lift the white gauze and look underneath at the mess of crisscrossed black stitching. “Chrisss, I’ll ne’er be able ’a wear a stra’less dress ’gain.”
“You almost bled to death, Mr. Dowd.”
“Really?” I try extremely unsuccessfully to snap my fingers. “Bud almos’ doden’ coun’ does it?”
“Was that your intention?” he asks gently, laying my arm back on the pillow.
“No,” I say sincerely, “I wuz. Trying to. Kill. The bees.”
Dr. Mijumbi quickly scans the brief report in front of him. “There is no mention of bees at the hotel from the rescue workers or hotel staff or anybody who—”
“No,” I say and point to my chest, “that’s because they … they live in here.”
The doctor nods. I take his hand and place his palm on my sternum. “They … they are quiet now. Because of the pain. But,” I close my eyes and whisper, “if you concentra you can still feel the buzzing. Nothing like before. They are res-ing.”
The doctor nods again and withdraws his hand. “So, you stabbed yourself to stop the excruciating internal pain?”
I nod and feel a tear form in the corner of my eye.
“And I’m guessing you haven’t slept in days? Maybe longer?”
“Can’d rememba,” I say groggily.
“Take him off the Thorazine,” Mujimbi tells his minions. “He’s not schizophrenic.”
“Then what—” the asshole challenges immediately.
“I believe Mr. Dowd has had an acute mixed manic episode. I doubt it’s his first. The psychosis is just a symptom. Start him on lithium, six hundred milligrams.”
New York, 1994. We are a no-touching unit. We have a no-touching policy. No touching, no hugging, no violation of personal space. Glenda does not feel this policy applies to her. Watching her violate the no-touching policy provides endless minutes of fun. I don’t report her when I am the one being violated. Lately she has begun tracing her index finger up and down my chest, my back, my thigh, my ass—usually first thing in the morning while we are standing in line waiting to have our vitals taken. She stands on her tiptoes and with minty fresh breath tells me what she’d like to do to me as she runs her index finger along the waistband of my pajamas. Lately my blood pressure has been higher than normal. Just a little higher. They wonder if it could be some rare side effect of the shock. They don’t seem to notice that the huge hard-on I have corresponds to the increase in blood pressure. They are idiots. No touching, my ass.
TENTH
When I think about it, this is all Ellen’s fault. I think. I am here because Ellen gave up on us—on The Team. Stopped caring. Or maybe that was me. Actually, I don’t remember. But I remember the team. Us. Or the story of Us. The ad campaign featuring Us. Us the united front. Us on the same page. Us finishing each other’s sentences. Us liking the same movies, the same music. Arlo Guthrie and the Byrds and Zeppelin and the Who and Mama Cass. It Never Rained in California. Until Mama Cass choked on a ham sandwich.
But why can’t I remember who we really were? The real us. Maybe we were those people. I don’t remember now. I miss that memory. Actually remembering us is unfathomable. Like trying to smell chimney smoke from an autumn fire when you’re standing on a beach in August. It can’t be done. There is an ocean of time to cross, and the dizzying scent of sand and salt and melting ice cream. And no matter how much you want it, you will never find your way back to that smoke and that chimney. You will only feel the empty space and not know why you are so sad. Especially when the day is sunny and the ocean is warm and the sand is soft under your feet.
You won’t know why because you won’t remember what belongs there. You will only feel the ache of absence and know something unnamable is missing.
Beverly Hills, 1961. Ellen. I’d called and canceled our date to Alan’s pool party. Pop. Sears. All those boxes. So I’d had to cancel. The day before our first date. And every excuse I could come up with sounded like a lie. This was my one chance. Now she probably hated me. I wouldn’t blame her if she did. And if she knew the truth …
By noon I had returned the first load and was backing into our driveway. Looking into the rearview, I saw Ellen Goodman sitting on the curb outside our building reading The Stranger. She was little and had wavy dark hair and green eyes with ridiculously long eyelashes. And a great ass.
“Ellen, what are you—”
“Well, I thought we had a date. Am I wrong?”
“No. I mean, I thought you understood. When I called …”
Ellen smiled. “You said you had to do something with your family. You didn’t say I couldn’t come along.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to explain. So I just stared at the cracks in the driveway. And her legs in the cutoff shorts she was wearing.
“Grey?”
Shit. Fine. “This isn’t some barbeque or my grandmother’s eightieth birthday and it’s certainly not a damn pool party.” The words came out sounding angry. I hadn’t meant them to. But I was. Just not at her. I was screwing this up completely, blowing any chance I ever had. But she didn’t even blink.
Instead she threw her head back and laughed. “You think I would’ve come if I thought it would be anything as boring as a stupid pool party?”
Malibu, 1976. Ellen groaned as I took her hand and hoisted her out of the car. “I can’t believe you said we’d come.”
I stood back and admired the job I’d done squeezing the Jaguar into the tiny legal-ish spot I’d found only five houses up PCH from Didi and Hugh Lazar’s spectacular wood-and-glass beach house. “As opposed to what, sitting around waiting for you to go into labor?”
Ellen stopped walking and put her hands on what used to be her hips. “Screw you, Grey, you know that’s not what I meant. Three nights ago a cop brings you home because you can’t remember where you parked your—”
“I’m fine now. Okay. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You wanna lie to yourself, go ahead, but you can’t lie to me. I’ve seen this movie more than once and the ending never gets any better. So don’t try to convince me—”
“Okay, Ellie, you’re right. It’s just—it’s the stress—which I know is bad. I’ve been under a lot of it lately—”
“You’re not the only one,” she huffed.
I ignored the accompanying eye roll. “Between the studio stonewalling on Victor’s deal and—”
Ellen smiled and waved as a couple passed us on their way to Hugh and Didi’s. “And it’s always going to be one goddamned deal or another,” she said, lowering her voice. “That’s not going to change unless you change it.”
“I get it, I get it. Please, Ellen, for today, just lighten up, okay? Dr. Taysen said I should relax. This’ll be relaxing. And you know you’ll end up having fun.”
“What I know is you’ll end up doing business.”
There was no point disputing it. I had made and broken too many promises to the contrary. I’d also hammered out some major deal points on Didi’s deck that couldn’t get done in studio offices.
Didi was a full-time f
riend. She had hundreds of them. And she loved them all and made each one feel special. It was the same with her dogs. There was always room for one more.
“I swear to God, if Jimmy or DeSanto or McNulty or any of your other wacko clients touches my stomach I’m gonna cut their friggin’ hands off,” Ellen said, resting for a minute to catch her breath. “No belly-rubbing. I don’t care how many Oscars they’ve got.”
Didi—olive-skinned, dark-haired, and long-legged—was still talking over her shoulder when she opened the door.
“He’s really old, sweetie, so you have to pick him up gently and you have to keep the diaper on or he goes wee-wee on the rug.”
When Didi turned around and was confronted by Ellen’s stomach she gasped and reverently put both hands to her heart, just above her macramé bikini top.
“My God, El,” she said, “look how beautiful you are!”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen the kind of smile that broke out on Ellen’s face. I certainly didn’t remember the last time I’d been the one who put it there. Didi reached her hand out tentatively in the direction of Ellen’s belly.
“May I?”
Ellen took Didi’s hand in hers. “Of course.”
I found Victor sitting cross-legged in a corner playing Mastermind with his two younger kids and balancing a bottle of Labatt on his knee.
“Jesus, Greyson, where you been? My legs are numb.”
“You’re a big boy, Victor. You don’t need your agent to help you mingle.”
“Mingle. What the hell does that even mean? I want to go for a goddamn walk on the beach.”
I looked down at Lilly and Thomas. “He’s kind of cranky, isn’t he?”
“He hates parties,” Lilly whispered.
Victor looked exaggeratedly irritated. “Now you have to tell him why.”
“Because,” Thomas said, leaning in to make sure no one else could hear, “he’s really a pirate.”
I looked to Victor for a cue.
“It’s true. And we’re a very antisocial bunch. Now don’t tell anyone or I’ll have to kill you, right, Lil?” Lilly nodded solemnly and ran off.
Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See Page 17