Tomorrow and Tomorrow

by Thomas Sweterlitsch

  A fifteen-minute break with the smokers on 13th—we’re like derelicts out here, milling around in front of Walker Memorial Baptist, bathed in the light of the church’s video board: Do less Facebook, Do more Faithbook. A phalanx of DC police armored trucks pulls to the red light, the cops in riot armor looking our way, their eyes hidden behind black visors. What do they think of us? We’re all tagged, so they must know not to bother with us—they must see our blinking records proclaiming we’re being rehabilitated. The light changes and the armored trucks rumble on. Shop lights in the dusk—the Rite Aid at the intersection with U Street looks like a pool party over there. Jangling my Adware, that’s all. Women in bikinis overlaying the street, splashing and frolicking and sunbathing—every time I glance over, there are different faces and different bodies, different swimsuit styles, slight variations searching to find my ideal, to force my implied consent. What are they selling?

  Pineapple Fanta! Coconut Xocola! Join the party! $5.50—

  No, no—I don’t want any. Not now. I don’t want to buy—

  Ogling white bathing suits and golden skin until Xocola gives up on me and I’m staring at nothing but the Rite Aid, the sidewalk, cars caught at the red light, mildly aroused and my brain still tingling from the failed sales pitch.

  Ten o’clock. The leader encourages us to hold hands and pray—“Our Father, who art in Heaven . . .” We mumble through. The leader reminds us about the sign-in sheet and distributes plastic cups and asks us to fill them.

  “We went through a thermos of coffee, tonight. No excuses—”

  We file into the bathroom. We’re orderly, quiet. We’re all just checking boxes, putting ourselves through the paces. Share to prayer. Fill the cup. No one talks to each other—we just take our turns at the urinals, the words of the Lord’s Prayer already distant as we piss into our cups. We file back into the meeting room. The leader’s wearing latex gloves and collects the samples in a cooler. They hand him their plastic cups, they sign the sheet, they collect their coats and leave. When I hand the leader my cup, he says, “Stick around a few minutes—”

  The last donut’s a sugar coated—I eat it, and pour another Styrofoam cup of coffee. Once everyone’s gone, the leader snaps his cooler closed.

  “One of the more unpleasant parts of the job,” he says. “Collecting the samples. But outpatient therapy’s better than the detox ward. I’d much rather collect urine than deal with detox—”

  “I’ve been through detox,” I tell him.

  “A few times, I understand,” he says. “Don’t want to go back there again, I suppose?”

  “Urine samples after every meeting?”

  “I’m afraid so,” says the leader. “It’s part of the deal. You won’t clear your conviction until you test clean for about a year, give or take, although they’ll put you on probation after a few months if your tests remain clear. By the way, outside of group I’m not Dr. Reynolds. Call me Timothy—”

  “I didn’t talk too much, did I? I hope I didn’t interrupt the group with my story. I didn’t mean to cry like that—”

  “No, no,” says Timothy. “That’s not why I wanted to see you—you did fine, actually. You were very courageous tonight. Sometimes newcomers don’t like to share and it takes time to draw them out. I was actually hoping to talk with you about your work status for a few minutes, if that’s all right. You worked for the Archive, didn’t you? Your file says you worked for the Pittsburgh City-Archive—”

  “Not exactly for the Archive,” I tell him. “The Archive’s run by the Library of Congress. I worked as an archival assistant for a research firm called the Kucenic Group, so I used the Archive quite a bit. Insurance claims, some genealogy—”

  “Do you think you’ll be given your job back once you complete therapy?” he asks.

  “I’m not sure—I guess I don’t think so. Not this time—”

  “You’re not interested in the work anymore?”

  “It’s not that—I’d take my job back,” I tell him. “I loved the work, but I fucked up. Mr. Kucenic has shown a lot of forbearance with me over the years, but he’d trusted me with something important and I failed him—”

  Timothy packs up his papers in a leather satchel. A few moments pass before he asks, “What were you working on? If you don’t mind my asking—”

  The question jolts me—the dead girl in the river mud, her bone-white feet spattered black. Her body flashes in my mind as clear as any memory.

  “I research people who have died in the Archive,” I tell him.

  “That sounds like difficult work,” he says. “Emotionally difficult. Who were you researching? Someone close to you?”

  “I can’t—I don’t think I want to talk about it,” I tell him, but the silence deadens around us so I ask him, “Well, then—is that all you needed?”

  Timothy considers me a moment. “It’s not so much what I need from you, Dominic. This is more about what you need. I think I can help you—if you want the help. No more of this ‘I want to die’ business, though. You’ll need a new attitude about your life and your recovery. I think I can accelerate this entire process for you if you’re willing to work. And recovering your physical and emotional well-being is work, don’t think otherwise. Reviewing your file, though, I just don’t think you’re an optimal candidate for group therapy—”

  “I don’t understand,” I tell him. “Dr. Simka was specific in what would be required—”

  “Dr. Simka and I disagree about your treatment,” says Timothy. “Please don’t get me wrong—I’m sure Simka’s a good doctor. He has an excellent reputation—”

  “He’s been good to me—”

  “You’re in my care now,” says Timothy. “I’ve been looking over your file—Dr. Simka’s compassionate, but lacks imagination. His knee-jerk reaction was to prescribe Zoloft and sign off on pharmaceutical app reconditioning. There’s plenty of published evidence to support the short-term effectiveness of pharmaceutical apps. I’ve seen them help. I’ve seen full-blown heroin addicts off the habit in about an hour following the right download, but I’ve also seen those same men and women using again weeks or even days later, because the underlying causes of their addictions were never treated—that’s what these RN techs don’t understand. They think a brain rewire will solve everything, like a miracle cure. Change is possible, Dominic, but it has to be a total change, body and soul—a reawakening. You, for instance. You’re clean, but nothing’s stopping you from using again. Tonight, even—”

  “I want your help. I just don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me—”

  “Are you hungry?” he asks. “I’ll treat. Or we can just grab some coffee if you’d rather. I’m starving, myself—”

  Timothy erases the chalkboard and rearranges the chairs, pulling them from the circle and tucking them back into the desks. I help him. He’s like the teachers I had back in high school—slacks and a sweater-vest over his shirt and tie, hopelessly rumpled. He shuts off the lights and locks up, leaving the key in an envelope and sliding it under the office door. We leave together—it’s started to snow.

  “Dr. Simka’s recommendation went a long way in influencing the Correctional Health Board’s conclusion following your episode the other night,” says Timothy, “but I believe they fit you into an incorrect treatment program. I feel so strongly about this that I personally requested your case slotted to my group—I don’t know if you realize that. I want to oversee your treatment, so you aren’t pushed in a counterproductive direction. I don’t believe group therapy will help you. I don’t believe Zoloft is a responsible long-term solution. These methods are a foundation built on sand, meant to treat symptoms, not the underlying causes. Once we find the correct treatment for your depression, I believe your other lifestyle choices will change. You’ll become healthier. I believe we’ll be effective in your case—”

  “Good news,” I
say.

  “You’re placating me now, but in ten years when you’re trim and happy you’ll remember this conversation. It is good news,” he says, smiling—genuinely smiling for the first time, I think, this entire evening.

  Timothy drives a powder-blue Fiat, twenty years old at least, parked crooked and scraped along the passenger side. He stashes the cooler of urine samples in the trunk while I climb in, these European cars cramped and awkward for my height. My knees hit the dash. The top of my head touches the roof—I’d be crippled if we wreck, my face windshield-kissed and my knees shattered.

  He pulls into traffic, cutting between cars. I brace myself, the feeds kicking in with traffic patterns and weather reports on the windshield display, a snow front rolling in with little to no predicted accumulation. An eruption of nightingales—a flock swarming outside the windshield despite the wintry night: Twiggy’s ringtone, it looks like. Her avatar’s a webcam selfie in black-rimmed glasses and an All Things Considered sweatshirt, her hair a feathery halo. Her face hovers, but I let her nightingales sing as we pass through Dupont Circle, every building facade a fashionporn billboard, every storefront a video from Unwerth and Testino and Gavril—paradise after paradise. Every storefront tempts me—it looks like there are parties behind the show windows, rooms filled with models in slinky skirts sipping martinis and laughing, but there aren’t parties in there, it’s all Adware marketing, illusions. Twiggy gives up—she sends a text, asking for poetry recommendations. Her profile blinks out and the nightingales fly away.

  “My wife and I were visiting her family in Atlanta,” says Timothy, Rhett and Scarlett cartoons breaking through the pop-up filters to offer discount packages to the American South, Gone with the Wind–themed tours.

  “You’re a survivor?” I ask him.

  “I’m a survivor in the same sense that you are,” he says. “We left Atlanta late, passed through Birmingham around midnight, and the highway just tapered off. Country roads overgrown with trees. Pitch-black two-lane interstates. I’ve never seen such darkness—the headlights reached out but I couldn’t see. Just the center line when there was a center line and the trunks of trees and dumpy roadside gas stations, long closed. We thought we were lost. We looked for a hotel, but never found one. Lydia fell asleep and I just drove, thinking I could push through until morning. My eyes would close, would close a little longer. I felt like I was dissolving. I was—depressed, Dominic. I was so sick of life—I know you understand. Headlights approached and I could see them from a long way off and I’d imagine swerving into the oncoming lights, at the last moment just twitching the wheel toward them—but the headlights would rush past and once the taillights disappeared in the rearview we were alone again in that utter dark. I was cheating on Lydia—my wife. More than just cheating on her. I was a terrible husband, very selfish. We’d grown bored and I think we were blaming each other for what we were losing. Two in the morning, three. It was just after three in the morning when I noticed the road change. There was something coating the road—it took time to realize it was blood. The road was covered in blood. I saw a deer’s body in the headlights, and then another two or three bodies, and soon I saw dozens of deer. I must have shuddered or made a sound because Lydia woke up. Their carcasses were torn apart and spread over the asphalt. I don’t know what could have happened. I imagine a big rig in that vast black night tearing through a herd as they crossed, but I don’t really know what could have killed so many. The meat came into our headlights and we saw heads and hoofs and torsos, the road just blood and torn meat and fur. Bones. It took a solid minute to drive through, a solid minute before our headlights lit nothing but the blacktop road—a minute is a long time. I think I laughed once we were out of it and Lydia wondered if she’d been dreaming, but laughed too a little—wondering where in the hell we were. Alabama. We checked into the first respectable hotel we came to, around five in the morning—this was all the way in Tupelo, Mississippi, by that point. We slept. We woke up late in the afternoon. We heard the news about Pittsburgh—no one at the hotel thought to wake us up to tell us. No one from our families or friends knew where we were staying or how to reach us. Lydia just turned on the TV while I was in the shower and screamed—”

  “I’m so sorry,” I tell him, never knowing what to say.

  “We’ve all lost,” says Timothy, smiling without his eyes smiling. “That’s my enduring association with Pittsburgh—when people ask where I was, I see that hotel room shower and hear my wife screaming—”

  “I hear ‘Pittsburgh’ and my mind flashes to that sports bar in Columbus. Ohio State Buckeyes—”

  “God created us with the ability to move on from overwhelming grief,” he says. “Coping involves understanding our own innate worth, understanding that if we’re the ones surviving tragedy, death, divorce or change, then we’re the ones ultimately responsible for sorting our complex emotions in order to fulfill God’s plan for us—”

  “Is that what you believe?” I ask him.

  Kramerbooks & Afterwords for dinner—a café and bookstore, a haunt of students and the chic intelligentsia, young professionals, writers. I’ve been here before, several times. We’re seated among the books, at a corner table. We order pasta—butternut squash ravioli and parmesan cheese. Hungrier than I realized.

  “Lydia and I—our marriage wasn’t strong enough,” says Timothy. “After Pittsburgh I confessed everything about Emily—”

  “Emily must have been the woman you were seeing?”

  “Emily was there for me when my wife wasn’t,” says Timothy. “She was a beautiful, bright young woman, but she had self-esteem problems and before I fully realized what I was doing, I was taking advantage of her. We met through the clinic. I’m not proud. I still miss her. Of all the people I lost that day, I still think of Emily the most—I wish things had been different. I’m telling you this because I understand how you’re suffering—”

  “Letting go’s difficult,” I say.

  “Well. It is difficult,” says Timothy. “Lydia and I tried to work through it, but never stood a chance. Healthier for both of us, I think, when we separated. I moved out here to work in the psychology department at Georgetown—I was listless. I bought into a full suite of Adware—top-of-the-line stuff, at least for back then. I used to come home from campus and lie down on the basement couch and lose myself streaming the Victoria’s Secret catalog, that sort of thing—the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Agent Provocateur vids. Soft stuff, promotional kink—there was a scenario where two girls went to a country manor wearing nothing but lingerie. I streamed it so often that even now I could close my eyes and lead you through that manor house room by room, telling you everything that happened to those two girls. I didn’t do anything else with my life—I didn’t go out to eat, I didn’t have any friends, I’d just eat cereal or SpaghettiOs for dinner and stream this stuff. I’d spend entire days searching for perfect faces in the streams, trying to find the perfect model, the perfect scenario, and I’d snap from the Adware dehydrated and aching, my eyes bloodshot—”

  The waitress delivers the check and Timothy pays for both of us.

  “I was once like you,” he says, “drugs to realize the streams, my brain hardwired to pornography, secretly photographing girls in my classes with my retinal cams, girls I’d see on campus. I sank very low, Dominic—you wouldn’t believe what I was capable of. Think of the worst type of man—that was the man I was. I need you to know it’s possible for a man to change. Do you believe that a man can change, Dominic?”

  “I don’t know,” I tell him.

  “A man can change—”

  “The scales fall from our eyes, is that it?”

  “I’d spend twenty, twenty-one hours a day streaming pornography, but I bottomed out—I blacked out in Georgetown Cupcake, of all places. I just collapsed. I woke up in the back of an ambulance, hooked up to an IV. Familiar?”

  I nodded that it was fa
miliar, yes, “Numerous occasions,” I tell him. “But you pulled through—”

  “I didn’t pull through. I was saved, Dominic—”

  “Saved?” I ask him.

  “I experienced grace—”

  “Look, I appreciate your interest in me, I do, but I’m not religious. I’m not looking to be saved. I don’t think I’m interested in this pitch—”

  “I know better than to evangelize to my patients,” he says. “This is about finding the light within you that has gone out and flipping the switch so it comes back on—”

  “Responsible immersion techniques, that sort of thing? How you get along with the streams?”

  “Matthew 18:9,” says Timothy. “‘And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.’”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “I plucked it out, Dominic. I cut at my scalp with an X-Acto knife and pulled out the wiring. You can peel it right off the skull plate and just yank it out of your brain. I was in the hospital for three months recovering, but I was saved. Corneal laser surgery for the damage pulling out the lenses, but I was saved. Even if I would have lost my sight or lost my life at that moment, I would have gained my soul. When I recovered, he was there waiting for me—”

  I glance at him and notice now that the scar tissue showing through his thinning hair is different from the usual Adware scars, not the grid ridges most people have, but an ill-healed white tangle.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me if you think I’ll tear out my Adware—”

  Timothy laughs. “My story—my personal story—is that I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and my faith in Christ gave me the strength to overcome my addictions. I don’t know what your personal story will be, Dominic. I’m hoping to help shepherd you to that crisis of change, and I’m hoping that you’ll come through that crisis a new man. I have a proposal for you—”