by Vincent Lam
“Now I’m confused. So then who’s watching?”
“Really, no one. She’s there in the monitoring room but I’m sure that she’s not paying attention. In a true sense, no one sees us. But you asked and so I just want to be honest and let you know that these cameras are running.”
“Wow,” says Winston, reclining slightly and considering this information. He leans forward and whispers, “The poison gives me special power, so that I know when I’m being watched, like an extra sense. See, before you said it, I already knew that we were being watched. I told you. You heard it. I already knew.”
Having fled downstairs, Winston sat with his back to the door of his apartment, the tea stain cooling on his leg. The Halloween party that he had not thought of for days now emerged in detailed memory.
The pitcher of blue fluid, maraschino cherries bobbing like eyes. Adrienne a harem girl, Claude the sultan. Three Viking brothers with daggers charged at Winston—he screamed until the rubber swords collapsed instead of impaling him. “Are you happy, Winston?” said the harem girl as she shimmied her hips. “What is your pleasure?” Tigger called him Winnie, and handed him a drink. He tore a wider mouth-hole in the bedsheet that made him a ghost, and gulped at the air in fear of the pressing, dancing, shouting crush of people. A tiny female jockey on her strong-haunched stallion charged around the living room, yelled “Giddy-up! Giddy-up!” The horse reared in front of Winston, whinnied, shook its head, almost threw off its glasses. “Silver is spooked by ghosts,” the jockey said. Claude toasted Winston, who said that he was not feeling well, that this was too much for him. Claude said, “I am the Sultan, and I command you to party!” and handed him a tumbler of the blue cocktail that was named Red Sky at Night. With his third drink, Winston began a ghost howl. Phantoms pursued him, and he chased them in return. All around him was the murmur of plotted conspiracy and special powers, and Winston told them of his knowledge that people watched him and yet could see right through him, that he could hear their thoughts even when he didn’t want to, and that he wished people would stop inserting words into his mind. Laughter confirmed and mocked him. Joan of Arc sympathized, said that she had never realized that being a ghost was so trying, but asked him if he had ever tried to go into battle as a woman pretending to be a man. After Winston fell, the harem girl helped him to his feet, shooed people from the stairs to bring the ghost to his apartment, steadied him until he was in bed. “You overdid it, little ghost,” said the harem girl. “I know your thoughts,” said Winston. “And you’ll drift through my room at night, right? Let me get you some water.” The harem girl sat as he sipped the water, watched him drink it all. Only after swallowing did he realize that it had been unusually blue, just like the Red Sky at Night. Then came the harem girl’s dance—perhaps she didn’t realize it was his first time. He was unsure if he wanted her to know how glad he was that his first time was with her, or if he wanted to conceal his inexperience.
Yet now, the details of the harem girl’s dance were blurred. Winston achingly, importantly, wanted to remember the texture of skin, the scent of neck, the drift of veil, but all this was fuzzy. What clearly remained was that Adrienne had ignored the aftermath of seduction in the banality of innocent tea preparation, that she had poisoned him to do this, and that the poison had made him forget but now he remembered. What else would the poison do? The mind’s implosion? Explosion? Possibly, this was not true love. He had to get help, to find the antidote.
Sri says, “You said that Claude and Adrienne have been your friends for a long time.”
“Best friends,” says Winston.
“You wouldn’t hurt your best friends, then.”
He looks away from the camera, at Sri. “Adrienne wants to be with me. That would make her happy, though I suspect it would upset Claude. Yet, I’m wary of a woman who poisons me to sleep with me.”
“What will you do?”
“I must wait, and listen.” He stares straight into the shielded camera lens.
“And?”
“And be vigilant.”
Sri decides that there will be no spoken clue that will allow him to confine Winston against his will. He turns to his backup plan and says, “Also, you need to take pills that I will prescribe. One a day. And come back in three days.”
Winston says, “This is the antidote.”
“It may help you.”
“And the tests?”
“Takes a while for the results. We need to make a deal. If you start to think about hurting anyone, or hurting yourself, you call us first. Can you commit to that?”
“And you’ll help me?”
“Yes, and you must come back in three days.”
“Three days, the magic triad.”
“To see how the pills are working,” says Sri. “Before you do anything that might…hurt anyone, you have to commit that you will call us and we will help you. Have we got a deal?”
Winston nods slowly.
Sri gives Winston the prescription.
Winston sits cross-legged at the kitchen table, facing the door of his apartment, next to which stands a narrow green bookcase with a stencilled frieze of red flowers. He watches the bookcase, has already smoked half of the pack of cigarettes that he bought. The butts hiss briefly as he pushes them into the moist soil of the potted gardenia on the windowsill. In the backyard, no red car. On the third shelf of the bookcase is an orange glass dish whose surface is bubbles of thin cold membrane—molten sand cooled, he thinks. In this dish are Winston’s keys, and his wallet, and a small, secretive paper bag that would be too slim to hold even a thin sandwich. Inside the paper bag, whose folded mouth the girl at the pharmacy had stapled carefully as she smiled at him (too prolonged a smile, he immediately realized), there is a yellow plastic canister. He saw her put it in, this canister with its push-down-turn-counter-clockwise-childproof top and the printed label fixed to its side, brimming with green and white capsules. Green and white capsules, the kind with the little ridge through the middle that are slippery once in your mouth—easy to swallow. Now, Winston tries to remember: Did Dr. Sri say it was a cure? Or an antidote? And how long have I known Dr. Sri? But he would have prescribed the right thing, because I told him about the poison. Unless he’s a poisoner himself.
The red car.
The red car is in the backyard. Parked sloppy. The gate ajar. Why parked so sloppy? In a rush? Is Claude in a rush because he has discovered about us? The methodical bump, bump, bump of feet climbing upstairs. Every poison has a remedy—that much is common knowledge.
“Hi, honey,” Adrienne’s voice leaks down the stairs and through Winston’s door.
So the thing is: eating the green capsules? Green and white bullets that must be a cure, or antidote. Cure or antidote? What’s the difference? Will either really do? Why would a woman who loves me poison me? From her own fear, perhaps, but wouldn’t she know that this could sabotage everything between us? Unless she doesn’t really care, is using me. Winston tilts the cigarette into the planter, exhales. Are the capsules part of the deal? The doctor made me make a deal, something about three days, about doing something or other, calling before doing something else. Before doing some particular thing, I am to call someone, and take something. He wants to remember the harem girl’s dance, that part so horribly, tragically fuzzy.
Why should I have to eat pills? Why not an injection, a surgical procedure? This is a perfect way to make me take something, to make it look like I wanted to take it. Is that the deal? The capsules are in the childproof yellow canister with the white lid stapled into the brown paper bag on the orange glass dish upon the green bookshelf next to the door right where they should be. One a night, the doctor said. From where he sits, Winston can see the edge of the bag.
The sound of an explosion, of a grenade launcher, of a malicious rocket; the door being knocked.
“Winston?” says Claude.
The roar of a building collapsing, of a crumbling rock face, of an iceberg splitting; the door being kno
cked.
“Winston?” says Claude. “Are you home?”
“Oh. Hi, Claude.”
“Hey buddy. Adrienne said you came by yesterday, that you aren’t feeling well. You okay?”
“Never better, Claude. Million bucks.”
“Adrienne’s making her chow mein. You’re welcome to come up. She’s making too much, as always.”
The throbbing of an April river, of fingers in the cold, of stop-and-go traffic; his heart. He says, “Sure. Sure. Maybe later, for sure.”
Then the whispering. He dares not move. I should take the antidote now. They will know if he has taken it, because they hear him walk across the room just as he hears them back and forth in their kitchen. Winston follows their footsteps from fridge to counter, counter to table, table to stove. Strange. So much movement for chow mein? Why the laugh? It is about him, her giggling. Such a cruel woman: to poison, then love, then laugh. Claude laughs too. Perhaps Adrienne has let him in on it. All a big joke. I’m a big joke. They may kill me tonight. Why don’t they let me sleep? Die painlessly?
Fifteen minutes later, a machine gun, a tooth whacked out; the door being knocked.
“Dinner’s on, Winston. I put snow peas in it,” says Adrienne.
She does love me.
“Are you okay in there?”
“Fine.”
“You didn’t seem well yesterday.”
“Just fine.”
“If you’re not feeling well, you should see a doctor.”
“I saw a doctor.” Why did you say that?
Claude’s voice now: “You’re okay, then? They didn’t slice you open? Good for you. Noodles are hot, buddy. Come on out.” He said buddy in a homicidal voice. Slice me open. Why would I be sliced open?
Adrienne’s voice: “Ignore Claude. He’s being stupid. Did you get some pills or something?”
“Yes.” That was a mistake, dummy.
“What kind of pills are they?”
“What pills?”
“The pills you got from the doctor.”
“No, there’s no pills.” That’s better.
“If you got some medicines, you should take them, Winston,” says Adrienne. The witch who loves me casts spells through the door.
“I said yes but I meant no, because I don’t need pills. The doctor said I don’t need anything.”
“You want some noodles?” she asks.
“I ate.”
“He ate,” Claude says to Adrienne. “Let’s go.”
“I ate!”
“Gotcha, buddy,” says Claude through the door.
As they go up the stairs, Claude whispers to Adrienne.
The reply comes in her higher-pitched hiss: “Be nice, Claude.” Their door shuts with the clang of a manhole cover.
Winston watches television, allows the sitcoms, infomercials, and reality TV to speak their special messages to him. Three hours later, he writes.
November 7, 1 a.m.
Was about to take pills. Now see, just in time. So clever—green & white & poison. Pharmacy girl smiling, just smiling away.
Obvious.
Adrienne said about doctor. Wanted me to go to the doctor, she knew, knew the doctor. Part of it.
It is dark. Winston debates whether to make a run for it. But where to? And Claude has a car. He could steal the car, but it is booby-trapped, wired with explosives. He should call his mother, but the phone is tapped. Winston pulls out the gardenia, holds the stalk and lifts out the pot-shaped mould of dirt, empties half the pills into the flowerpot, leaves the yellow plastic canister open on the table—casual, no, he moves it three centimetres to the right where it appears even more casual. He slides it a centimetre to the left. What time of night is it? Are we headed away from light, or toward it? But maybe if I don’t take the pills they will kill me anyway. They will know that I know too much. Winston picks up the telephone and dials the emergency number that Dr. Sri gave him.
“Dr. Sri? I have crucial information to transmit.”
“This is Allied Paging,” says the chipper female voice.
“Calling Dr. Sri.”
“I can page him. Is this a medical emergency?” Her voice bobs up and down in a xylophonic manner.
“Yes.”
“Your number?”
“My what?”
“Phone number, please.”
“I’m not giving you my phone number.”
“Dr. Sri will need it to call you, sir.”
“Would you give your phone number to just anyone?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I could send a text message if you prefer.”
“Answer me. Someone calls you and asks for your phone number. Would you just give it?” says Winston.
“But sir…if someone called you, they already have your phone number.”
“Your point?”
“Also, sir, I didn’t call you, so there’s no need to be alarmed. You called us.”
“That’s why you don’t have my number.”
“I’m not sure I can help you,” says the female voice, bouncing octaves up and down.
“Doesn’t Dr. Sri have my phone number?” asks Winston, seeing that this woman (too cheerful) is also part of the string bag drawing tight around him.
The woman says, “I doubt he has your phone number handy.”
He will outsmart them. “Send a text message.”
“Thank you, sir, go ahead.”
“Say that Winston is taking his pills, and doing very well.”
“Thank you, sir, good night.”
A narrow miss.
He smokes.
Winston inhales the buzz and the calm, smokes the cigarettes down to the filters, holds one until it smoulders and singes a brown line on his index and middle fingers. Lights another. Each cigarette more jittery, more tight, each puff fails more and more to soothe.
He opens the window, feels the damp, cool air in the circles around his eyes.
A meowing sound, the private moan. Winston wants to listen, then thinks that he should not. Then the creaking, the flexing of his ceiling, their floor—the dry wood fibres made to twist. Claude’s low grumble, the warp of him into her, the soft slapping sound—at this distance like the clock ticking—again Adrienne’s insistent cry like something being pulled from her. Winston decides that he should not listen. They want to see if I’ll listen, see if I’m guilty enough to kill me.
He wants to listen.
Ultimately it is habit, the habit of pleasure, of cigarettes, of inhaling and exhaling the promise of alertness and calm, that overcomes his panicked resistance, that wins him over so that, in habit, he crouches and then lies down next to the jammed-open, painted-over ventilation grate that it is not his fault he cannot close, listens to the growing noise of their fuck.
He unzips his pants.
Afterwards, Winston wipes his lower belly with a tea towel but the skin remains sticky. Their animal time has faded into jungle breathing, and he smokes the last cigarette in guilty panic. Now I’m dead.
He writes.
November 7, 3 a.m.
Soon, will be over soon.
Eluded green and white pill poison, but the tea poison is in me. No sleep. Super neurotoxic drug enhances my super hearing. The voices clear now, the plan. Pack my suitcase. Hope. We may kill Claude.
Adrienne says, “Don’t eat all the chow mein. Leave some for Winston.”
Claude says, “He spies on us.”
“You only know that because you listen to him. Claude, I love him. I’m sorry, but the other night, the party, I poisoned him to be with him.”
“Tomorrow I slice him open. Stem to stern.”
“Maybe I’ll kill you to be with him. Don’t eat it all. Winston will be hungry.”
Winston’s mother says, “You think I don’t feed him?”
“You’re his mother. I should tell you that tomorrow either I’ll kill Claude or we’ll kill Winston. Depends how I sleep.”
Claude says, “I listen to him because he’s
spying on us. Right now.”
“He used to listen to his father and me,” says Winston’s mother. “We knew.”
“He’ll be hungry. Stop eating like that, Claude. You’re full.”
“I feed him, you know,” says Winston’s mother.
Adrienne says, “He’s taking his pills. He’s a good boy, and I love him.”
“He never used to take his pills,” says Winston’s mother. “Used to hide them in plants.”
Claude says, “That flower.”
“Winston,” says Adrienne, “take your pills. Do you know that I love you? If I kill Claude, I’ll need you to hold him. Wasn’t the other night wonderful? We may kill you though, then you’ll have to hold still.”
“Will you keep on poisoning me?”
“Take the pills, my love.”
“When will you decide who should die?”
“Oh, it depends how I sleep, dear.”
“Will you keep on poisoning me?”
This conversation repeats three times, four times, five times, again.
All night they talk. Later, Adrienne admits that, yes, it is her poison that has made his hearing so sensitive.
In the morning, Sri arrives at the clinic an hour before the first patients are scheduled. He writes missing details on the call forms, the records of his nighttime conversations. The forms are relatively complete until around midnight, and after that consist of dates of birth, jotted thoughts, a few phone numbers, words that seemed striking at the time. On one sheet he has written, Right ear pain. On another, he has scrawled, Child screams twenty minutes then settles. The call forms must be completed. There must be a record of the nighttime fears, of the questions that come in the dark. A woman called to ask the correct temperature of bathwater. A man called on his Toronto cellphone, while on a business trip in Texas. He wanted a prescription faxed to him in his Austin hotel room, was angry that Sri refused.
Sri scrolls through the text-pager, sees the unanswered message.
WINSTON> IS TAKING PILLS> DOING WELL>
Sri brings up Winston’s number on the clinic computer. He didn’t have the number at home, last night. He calls. It rings for a long time. He puts the phone down. Sri finds Dr. Miniadis in the observation room with her morning coffee. Tosca. In the mornings, it is usually opera.