* * *
The Ambien took forty minutes to work and lasted three hours. He took one pill to get to sleep, usually around eleven. Sometimes he waited until twelve or one, trying to stretch the sleep. It was like a blanket, never big enough or long enough. He pictured himself pulling at it, tugging to make it cover him completely, make it last all night. When the pill wore off, he woke up again. He’d made a rule: after four o’clock it was too late to take another. If he woke after that, he lay awake.
This morning, when he looked at the clock, it said 4:18. He’d gone to sleep around twelve-thirty or quarter to one, so a little over three hours. He wouldn’t take another. Another rule was that he couldn’t let himself turn on the light or watch TV. He lay in the dark, his eyes sharpening.
The windows were always paler. The three tall shapes in the bay window glowed faintly. He had put up blackout shades, standing on a chair to hammer into the hard old plaster, chips of paint flying. Still, the light seeped around the edges like water. It came in, rising from the streetlights below.
He looked at the shapes outlined in light and then rolled over, turning away. He closed his eyes, but found himself watching. He was staring into the dimness. His whole body tense. Not violently, just barely. His hands were clenched. He opened his fingers. Release, he told himself. The thing was to keep yourself away. The thing was to keep clear. He heard someone walking down the sidewalk outside, the footsteps regular, soft, steady chuck, chuck, chuck. Then a pause: What? He listened; his own breath stopped. The sounds went on. What? When he was listening, he forgot where he was, lying on his sister’s foldout sofa. He was there with the sound. He didn’t like hearing footsteps in the dark, didn’t want to hear them.
He wasn’t going to get back to sleep, he knew that. It was better to lie still. At least if he lay quietly he’d be resting. He could go through the day on three hours’ sleep. He couldn’t concentrate, but he could do it. In-country there had been weeks when he hadn’t gotten more than that.
He was lying on his side, his eyes open to the shadowy wall. He kept unclenching himself, finding new muscles that were tense. Shoulders, neck, forearms. Stay still. Fuck. The thing was to stay clear. Not to let anything get close. Not to let anything into his mind. Though there was no way to do that.
Being awake this late was like being in another country. He was trapped here. He closed his eyes, opened them again. Something twitched in his leg and he sat bolt upright. Nothing. In the distance a siren. Was it raining? Something, some soft pattering sound. He listened. Nothing. The thing was to keep clear. This was the hour of the wolf.
Tools, process, opportunity.
Each process—and there were so many—had benefits and drawbacks. The thing about overdose was simplicity. There was no equipment, no concern over mechanics. It was bare-bones: just pills. There was no problem with venue, you could do it anywhere. A hotel room. The risk was that you couldn’t be completely sure it would work. He’d heard that some crucial component had been removed from sleeping pills, whatever it was that put you to sleep forever. How would you find out about that, and how would you be certain? What you really didn’t want was to have it only half work, find yourself awake afterward, but with only half your brain functioning. Talk about fucked.
Asphyxiation was more reliable, but the mechanics were more complicated. You needed a vacuum cleaner hose, a car, a garage. In Katonah, the vacuum cleaner, its fat blue hose draped around it, was stored in the closet by the front door. You’d make the joint between hose and pipe tight by binding them together with a rag, a towel. There was a stack of kitchen towels in the drawer beside the stove. That was all you’d need: the hose, the pipe, a towel.
He imagined standing inside the garage in Katonah, pushing the button to lower the doors. They rumbled slowly down, the reticulated panels angling around the curve at the top, then flattening into a hinged sheet, the whole contraption sliding noisily on its metal tracks. Thudding to a halt on the concrete, closing you in. Safe. There you were in the dim room that smelled of old wood and engine oil. There you were with the getaway car.
The vacuum cleaner hose was a thick snake, supple coiled springs sheathed by close-woven fabric. At one end of the hose was a metal shaft. You’d slide the shaft end over the exhaust pipe. You’d tie the green-and-white-checked kitchen towel around the joint, doubling and knotting. You’d lead the hose up into the back window, which you’d cracked open. You’d stuff more towels in the rest of the opening of the window. You’d take a Valium for anxiety, so you wouldn’t panic and call it all off. Then you’d get into the front seat and turn the key in the ignition and close the door.
You’d lean back and wait for the pill to kick in. Maybe you’d turn on the radio, look for a late-night music station. He’d learned to like country in the Corps. Country blues, or Johnny Cash, or the high sweet sound of Aaron Neville. You’d feel a deep, quiet flooding, a pooling of relief rising up in you as you waited. Jesus, the relief. You knew what was coming, slow and dark, and then, like a blessed spell, you’d drift off, you’d fall deeply asleep, finally, for good, and you’d be safe. You would never again have another fucking nightmare, never again face those pictures in your mind, the bloody spatters on the wall, Olivera’s shattered chest, or the little boy in his pajamas. You would never wake up again in the morning to find yourself in a panicky sweat, your heart thundering in great bounding leaps of anxiety, or wake to find yourself already plunged down, cocooned in misery, unable to rise from the dead low swale of despair. You would never again have to look at someone and speak to them in one world, theirs, while you were holding that other world, yours, with its black sinkholes, sealed off in your head.
All that was good, but the idea of actually breathing the exhaust was repellent. Deliberately drawing the fumes into your lungs was a kind of betrayal, an insult to the body. The body was brave and innocent, conscientious. As a Marine you respected it. All these plans were an insult to the body, the ultimate insult.
The question of location: Katonah was the obvious choice. Sometimes the quiet nights were lit up by the virtuoso performance of the mockingbird, singing in the cedar tree by the garage. It would be strange to die listening to a mockingbird.
But the night was so quiet that his parents might wake up and hear the car. It would be shameful to be caught in the act. And he wanted to spare his parents. He didn’t want them to find him sprawled in the front seat of the car, his eyes dull and glazed.
What he’d like was for his parents never to know what happened and never to think about it again. He’d like to have himself erased from their memories, just gone, so that they never wondered and never had to learn what happened. Never had to see him afterward. So they remembered him until he went into the service, and then after that, nothing, a blank.
* * *
There were two worlds.
These considerations were part of the lower world. That was the dark, dreaming undercurrent, both nightmare and solace, that ran along beneath this world. That was the world you entered at night, the one that suddenly intruded into your mind, the one of blooming explosions and blood. And that was the world you sank into, that was where you thought of giving yourself up, letting yourself drift downward into the dim, aqueous shafts of light and shadow. That was the world where you yielded to the slow, silent movements of the deep. Where you were embraced wholly, every part of you clasped, water kissing and surrounding you like air, where you were carried, weightless, your limbs loose, your body beloved, by the mindless surge.
But the world below was not where you lived. Where you lived was in the upper world, the one where the light came flooding in, harsh and bright and obligatory, slicing through the air like metal wire. Where something angular and unyielding—duty, a moral obligation to a larger metaphysical system—made a labyrinth across the landscape, defining the path. You had no choice but to walk through it, turning and turning. In that landscape there was no backward. And there was no horizon, no reach, no future, only the sho
rt view. You had no right to stop, to not keep going. Your only choice was to continue the mission.
* * *
Hanging would be faster, and it would be certain. Shooting would be fastest. The taste of oil and metal on your tongue, the absolute shape and feel of the barrel against the roof of your mouth. The great existential question: Would you hear the shot?
Conrad thought about this only when he was alone. He thought about it only at night. It wasn’t a possibility. It wasn’t permissible. But it was permissible to think about it, and he allowed himself that relief.
Sometimes the flashes were intermittent, interrupting him during a conversation. It was like double vision. It was getting Morse code signals flashed from a distant mountain while you were trying to talk to someone right in front of you. It was hard to know which message was the most immediate, which the most urgent.
* * *
In early November, Go-Go texted him: Dude. Dinner?
Conrad named a bar in his neighborhood: Haakon Hall. He was waiting there in a booth when Go-Go arrived. The place was noisy, filled with students. Across the aisle there were two girls leaning toward each other. One had a crew cut and dark purple lips, the other had a magenta streak in her hair. They were talking avidly, using their hands, pretending they were unaware of everyone else in the room. Conrad watched them from the corner of his eye.
Go-Go slid in across from him. “Yo.”
“Go-Go,” said Conrad.
“Hey. Good to see you,” Go-Go said. He looked around the bar. The waiter came over. He wore his hair in a thick ponytail, and a white apron was wrapped over his jeans.
“What can I get you?” he asked.
“Do you have Bombay Sapphire?” Go-Go asked.
“One Sapphire, coming up,” the waiter said.
“With this much vermouth,” Go-Go said, pinching his fingers together.
“Got it,” said the waiter.
“Heineken,” said Conrad.
“You guys want dinner?”
“Burger,” said Conrad.
“Burger,” said Go-Go.
The waiter nodded and went away.
Go-Go leaned back against the booth. He was slumming tonight, wearing the Egyptian cotton shirt and the tassel loafers again, but instead of khakis he wore knife-edged jeans. Student attire.
“So, how’s it going?” he asked. “Being back in school.”
Conrad shrugged. “You did it,” he answered. “You know.”
“Yeah, but a while ago,” Go-Go said. “I was still in student mode then. I was used to it. But you’re older now, plus you’ve, uh”—he waved his hand—“been on the front lines.” He frowned, looking straight at Conrad. “I mean, how is that? Being a student, after being, you know…”
“A leader of men?” Conrad said.
“Eat me,” Go-Go said.
“There are some other vets around.” He nodded toward the bar. “Some of them hang out here.”
“Really?” Go-Go looked around. “Any here right now?”
“Right now,” Conrad said. “But they’re not in uniform. They’re actually in drag, so you won’t spot them.”
Go-Go laughed, but he still looked around furtively.
“Those two guys standing at the bar,” Conrad said, “talking to the bartender? They were in OEF. Afghanistan.”
“Really?” Go-Go said, craning his neck.
The guys looked normal. No cammies. No knives, no guns, no high-and-tights.
“You want their autographs?” asked Conrad.
Go-Go turned back, looking sheepish.
“I’ll give you mine,” Conrad said.
Go-Go laughed. “Yeah, whatever.”
The waiter arrived. He slid the drinks onto the table, and Go-Go raised his. “Cheers.”
They both drank.
“You know,” Go-Go said, “I don’t know how to talk to you about any of this. Being a vet. I feel weird. Like, partly I’m jealous, and—I don’t know. Uh, respectful and—like, silenced. I don’t know what to say.”
“Yeah,” Conrad said. “We don’t know what to say, either.” He looked at Go-Go. “Just hold on to respectful. Just call us master.”
Go-Go gave him the finger.
Conrad grinned and took another swig. “So when did you start wearing clothes like that? You look like a Ralph Lauren ad. Seriously. When did you?”
“I don’t know.” Go-Go squinted and pushed his glasses up his nose. “It started at the office—you dress like everyone else. Then you start dressing like everyone else when you meet them to go out. I don’t know. You know, these are my guys now. I’m used to it. Anyway, I couldn’t go on wearing the stuff I wore at school. Grown-up time, right?”
Conrad nodded. He thought of Jenny’s apartment, his clothes draped in a pile on the good-luck chair. He was still in student mode, and would be for another two years, if he even got into graduate school. It seemed he was behind on everything.
“So is this who you are now?” he asked Go-Go.
Go-Go raised his shoulders. “How do I know who I am?” he said. “Was I the guy with all the earrings? I don’t know. I figure I’m this guy now. Will I be him forever? I don’t know.”
“Come on,” Conrad said. “Nobody changes from finance to architecture. You don’t decide to be a gardener instead of a guy on Wall Street.”
“Yeah,” Go-Go said. “I don’t know. You think, This is it? Am I going to end up on the front page of The New York Times?”
“As what? As master of the universe?”
“As released under one-million-dollar bail,” Go-Go said. “In custody. I don’t know. Sometimes I wish I was back in the garage, writing songs and turning up the volume.”
Conrad nodded. “You were good, Go-Go.”
“No,” Go-Go said. “I sucked, but I had fun doing it.”
Their hamburgers arrived. The girls across the aisle ordered more drinks. Magenta Streak had a high, shrill laugh. The bangles on her wrist clattered.
“So what’re you up to?” Go-Go asked.
“Next month,” Conrad said, “it all comes down. I’m taking the GMAT on the eighth. My final is on the twentieth. Grad school applications are due around the end of December, beginning of January. Spring semester starts a couple of weeks later. I’m going to take another econ class.” He was thinking about volunteer work, too, maybe working with vets, counseling.
“But you’ll be in the city next semester?” Go-Go asked.
Conrad nodded.
“Because my company is sending me to Hong Kong for a few months. I thought you might want my apartment. No charge if you’ll pay for cable and the cleaning woman. It’ll be until April, probably.”
Conrad raised his eyebrows. “Hey. Go-Go. Are you serious?”
“Works for me.”
“That would be a fucking godsend.” Conrad lifted his glass. “Dude,” he said, “you’re a lifesaver. That is some offer. It would be great.”
Go-Go nodded, pleased with himself. “The thanks of a grateful nation,” he intoned.
“I’ll pay for the cleaning lady and cable,” said Conrad. “And I’ll throw in some autographs from those guys at the bar.”
23
Possibly it had been a mistake to schedule the GMAT so late. He was taking it on December eighth, and the econ final was on the twentieth. He’d done this deliberately: he’d thought that the longer he’d been studying, the better he’d be at taking the tests. His mind would be working better. That had been the plan, though it didn’t seem to be working. Whatever was messing with his mind was still there. When he opened the study guide and began to read, he began to sweat. The headache was right there.
Right after Thanksgiving—he’d gone out only for the night—his mother started leaving messages about Christmas.
Why don’t you come out early? The week before? We’d love to see you.
Ollie texted him: Im through the 18th. When r u coming?
Conrad replied that his final was the twentieth and tha
t he’d let them know.
He wasn’t too worried about the econ exam. Whatever was wrong with him had phases, and sometimes he felt pretty normal. He’d gone slowly through the textbook, rereading the theories until they made sense. He pretty much knew the material. If he didn’t get the headache, he’d do all right.
The GMAT was different. These weren’t theories that he could learn and absorb; they were unrelated problems that required analysis. Sometimes his mind was fine and he could focus on the problem, drill right into it. Sometimes his mind went off track, and he could feel it grinding, like a car in a snowbank. The GMAT was more important than the econ exam. It wasn’t actually a stretch to say that the results would determine his future.
You found out the results, except for the essay score, right after you finished the test. If you really screwed up, you could have the results erased. But you had to decide right then, after you finished but before you saw the results. And even if you erased them, your record would show that you’d taken them and had the results erased.
Conrad thought that if he went in there and the headache came down, he’d screw it up. He might screw it up anyway by not being able to focus. It gave him a sick feeling.
The night before the test he took a pill, got to sleep around eleven, but woke with a nightmare at two-thirty. He took another pill and slept until five, when he was jolted awake by a siren. It was too late to go back to sleep. He got up and put on his running clothes. Outside it was not quite night, though the streetlights were still on. The sidewalks were empty and the streets felt greasy. It was cold, and he could see his breath vanishing ahead of him in little pale drifts. When he reached the reservoir, the sky was nearly light, and he ran through a silky dimness. He heard the sound of steady footsteps around him; he could hear the runners before he could see them. Gradually the sky appeared: it was overcast. The water was a muted pewter gray, without reflection. Conrad ran four laps and then headed back. It was fully light now, and he felt better.
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