Both of Me

by Jonathan Friesen

  But it was the silence that gripped me. An unholy, chilling silence. The squeals and shouts of little ones replaced by the whispers of wind whistling through vacant crevices and collapsed rides. I was in the cinema flick, one where the hero returns to New York City in the dystopian future and finds nobody. The world was empty, crumbling, and the sense of alone overwhelmed.

  I was alone.

  Well, alone, with both Eliases.

  Into my loneliness fought a rogue memory, a pleasant one of the man I once called Dad. He had taken me to the circus, a temporary invasion of odd humans and colourful tents. And, of course, rides. Taken with horses at the time, I rode the merry-go-round thirty times consecutively. I even named my horse: Phantom. He was dark and fast, and though stuck on a pole, I could imagine him moving much faster than the others.

  Dad never questioned my obsession. He stood at my side, one hand on the pole, the other around my back.

  “You be my knight, okay?” I asked.

  He smiled. “Yes, milady. Where shall we go?”

  “Australia!”

  We circled Down Under, my dad pointing out the Great Barrier Reef and each wayward kangaroo.

  “Brazil! I want to see Brazil!” And so we explored. Don’t tell me it wasn’t real; my mind circled the globe that day, convinced my eyes had seen the world.

  It never dawned on me that the whole time, I had been fixed to a pole.

  Or that in a few years my knight would leave me to travel alone.

  “I don’t want to see any more.”

  Elias glanced at me and back over what had once been. “This frightens you?”

  “I didn’t say frightened. I only said that I don’t wish to see any more.”

  “No.” Elias walked up to the fence that separated us from the spectacle. “You said that you don’t want to see any more. Wanting and wishing are very different.”

  “Oh, blast — there’s a whisker of a difference!” But inside, I softened. This boy heard. He listened, right down to the tiniest piece. It was a first for me, this being heard.

  He waded into the field and approached the gate. “There’s a hole here. We’re almost there.”

  I stepped after. “I will not go inside. Not until you tell me what’s in there.”

  He bowed his head, and when next he glanced back over his shoulder, his eyes were desperate. “Me.”

  How do you say no to that?

  I nodded, and offered a quick shrug.

  “Good. Then we need to hurry.”

  I stroked a shattered porcelain horse near the gate. “What happened to this place?”

  Elias had reached the far fence, turned, and called back, “The owner was losing money, and he figured out that what lay underneath was more valuable.”

  “And that is . . .”

  I crossed the grounds quickly and joined Elias. Poking my fingers between the links, I applied gentle pressure. The entire fence buckled out, ready to crumble.

  “Dirt,” he said.

  I stared down into an enormous pit, filled with impressive mounds and conveyer belts that stretched to each peak.

  “Most people are more interested in what’s below the surface, you know?” Elias rubbed his face.

  “So this is it? This is what you wanted to show —”

  Elias grinned. “Nope.” He backed away from the pit and walked to an old service garage, then pulled up the door. “This is.”

  He flung back a sheet, and beneath was, well . . .

  “What exactly is it?”

  He scrambled on top of the vehicle: part Jeep, part dodgem, part, part . . .

  “I named her” — he swept his hand through the air — “the Elias.” He stood on the front seat and smiled sheepishly. “I could think of a better name if you want me to.”

  I walked around both the machine and its maker. A little in awe. A lot confused.

  “So, yeah,” he continued. “The chassis is mostly from dropped thrill-ride cars, but I harvested the tires from a few service carts. The springs and bearings I found in the repair shed. It looks a little front heavy, but that’s because I had to build the mount and wheel base around the engine from the tilt-o-whirl.” He flopped down in a seat and lowered the lock bar over his head and into the proper position. “Safe though. This place was filled with lock bars and chest restraints.”

  “You made this. This you. The real, coherent you. The you who doesn’t draw can build this kind of vehicle.” I jumped in beside him. “You’re a mechanical genius. You’re . . .”

  I swallowed, and tingled. I glanced at Elias. You’re a part-time mechanical genius and a part-time artistic, autistic bloke all balled up in a handsome package that seems to manage with the two personalities trading places inside.

  There was no bettering him. I could not predict him or understand him or ever know him. Elias was the ultimate variable, and my stomach turned.

  “No, no. Not a genius. This is like what reading is for you. You look at the squiggles and the loops, and the puzzle opens until suddenly nothing means something, something more than the sum of the parts, right? I see one hunk of metal and then another, and the puzzle opens. They turn in my mind and just make sense. Together, they all mean something.”

  Blast. In an instant, I leaped the chasm from fear to affection. I wanted to kiss him. No, I wanted him to kiss me, and I didn’t know why.

  “Before I do something stupid, you can’t tell me a thing about the pictures you drew, or part of you drew? You swear you don’t know any more about me than what you showed me . . .”

  “I don’t even know what sketches I, er . . . he showed you.” He held up his pointer finger. “I know your name.” He raised a second. “I know you’re smart and . . . pretty.” A third finger shot up. His voice trailed off, and he turned a fetching shade of pink before wincing and adding a fourth. “And I think I held your hand. Clara, the time has come to take her out.” He reached down and tinkered with a metal switch.

  “Wait a moment — you haven’t tested it?”

  “Nope. Juan only lets me sit in it. He watched me build the engine, but he wouldn’t let me start it. Today’s my day. Lower your bar.”

  “I’m not about to be involved in . . .”

  Elias punched a button, and his namesake roared to life, immersing us in a plume of bluish smoke. “It works. It so works!” He peeked over at me. “Now, those fumes? That’s because I didn’t have the right type of oil, but it’ll do. It’ll do.”

  I stood to get out, and felt a gentle grip on the arm.

  “Please. I want you to come with me on the maiden voyage.”

  And the request felt like a kiss. An intimacy.

  Another first.

  “Fine, then. One short ride.”

  He lowered my lock bar, which snapped against my waist, and winked. “I don’t know about short.”

  He fluttered the accelerator and we sprung forward. Elias shouted, and I screamed and fumbled for the shoulder harness. Wind and dust whipped across my face, and I don’t know if it was the harness or the park or Elias’s driving, but the contraption sure felt like a thrill ride.

  Elias spun the wheel and we slid a neat circle and stopped, our nose facing the fence and the pit.

  He looked at me, and I recognised the gleam.

  He wanted permission.

  “Right now,” I yelled above the engine, “we should be in your mum’s car, and I should be driving calmly back to your home and getting ready to . . . leave.” I paused.

  “We should be, but we’re in my car!”

  He floored the pedal, and we lurched forward toward the fence. I tried to duck, but my restraints held me fast. I covered my face and waited for the clank of metal on metal. I never felt it. The next sensation was down, stomach-dropping down, the same down I experienced plummeting onto the Bamako airstrip in Mali.

  We were airborne, and then came the bounce. Our front tires found earth first, sprung up toward heaven, and crashed down again. The Elias never faltered. All
four wheels clawed forward through dirt, kicking up a spray of brown and finally slowing at the bottom of the pit.

  “Ho!” Elias looked at me, joy and grime covering his face. “That was, that was —”

  “The most idiotic ten seconds of my idiotic life!” I yanked at my restraints, but they wouldn’t give. “Get me out of here. Get me out . . .” I started to laugh. “. . . Out of here.” My laugh gained force and volume and I screamed again. “I have never come so close to dying before! Insane. Bloomin’ insane!”

  He looked at me, wild eyed. “Thanks for going with me.”

  “Didn’t know I had a choice.”

  He slowly shook his head, and we took off again, peeling around the mounds and tractors and small makeshift buildings that dotted the bottom of the pit.

  “Just one last thing,” he shouted.

  Anything. Anything!

  We flew toward a mound, up, up, up. The Elias churned and roared and slowed . . . and pitched left.

  “Uh, Elias? The tire that just fell off your vehicle, that’s now bouncing down this heap . . . would that be a problem?”

  “I got this!” He winced. “I’ll need to straighten her out and —”

  Elias spun the wheel, but control was lost. We slid down and backward, and then sideways, and then the Elias flipped.

  It was odd. We were sliding upside down, but the bar above our heads and the roller coaster harnesses kept us suspended from danger — at least I felt no danger. It felt the perfect ending to a perfect ride. I turned toward inverted Elias to tell him so. To let him know all was well.

  One look from Elias, and I knew. The gentle browns of his eyes clouded over, and he looked lost.

  He had fallen through.

  We skidded onto hard pack, dust settling around us.

  “Okay then,” I coughed and fumbled for the bar release. “How do I get out?”

  “You will not get anything from me. You can suspend me forever. I will not break.”

  You’ve got to be joking.

  “Elias, it’s me, Clara, and I need you to look up and find the seam in whatever you’ve fallen through, because I don’t know how to release these restraints.”

  He took a deep breath. “Ask the one who made this device.”

  “I am, Elias!” I lowered my voice and started to cry. “I am.” I wasn’t hurt. I wasn’t scared. Tears made no sense. I only knew that I would likely spend the night upside down with a boy I knew everything and nothing about, and that soon I would pass out, and then blood would explode my brain.

  But that wasn’t why I cried.

  “Elias!”

  The voice was faint, but familiar.

  Guinevere!

  “Elias?”

  “Here! We’re here!” I reached my hand free of the frame and waved. “We’re both . . . underneath.”

  It took ten minutes for Guinevere and Juan to reach us, ten more for them to free us from our cage.

  It would take much longer to explain how we got there.

  CHAPTER 7

  Has Ms. Phinn spoken to you?”

  Juan eased down beside me on the bench. Directly in front of the inn, I had found this place . . . a calm eye in the midst of the city.

  This moment was not to be shared. It was for my diary and me, thoughts of Elias and a Loring Park pond that would not ripple. From the moment Elias stepped out of his remediation, I had felt at peace. The boy had that effect. Elias, too, seemed in that state — floating peacefully on the surface, his mind at rest — and then in an instant we plunged beneath. Violent, unexpected.

  “Clara?”

  I spoke but did not glance. “Guinevere. No, not since she drove Elias home from the pit. She probably wants me to go, but I can’t leave.” I massaged my tattoo. “Not until I know . . . Not until I try to bring him back.”

  “That’s not possible.” Juan sighed. “Ms. Phinn’s taken him to the best doctors in the country. His crazy is getting worse. It lasts longer, comes more often. He comes and goes on his own.”

  “He’s not crazy,” I hissed.

  Juan flicked a pebble into the water, where it disappeared, leaving a tiny ring that spread and widened, touching and changing the surface until the rings vanished. My pond was no longer still.

  “Okay, to you? Maybe he’s just troubled. But, Ms. Clara, his troubled part has created another world. He thinks we all live in it.” Juan chuckled. “That’s what he’s done. There are two of him. One Elias lives in the USA, one in Salem, his country. He’s named it. He draws it. That’s crazy to me, no? I mean, what do you call a guy who’s always searching in the clouds?”

  He knows there’s a crack. He’s looking for the way out.

  I faced Juan. “But even you don’t bring him back from remedials straight away. Sometimes you, too, went into that park. You’ve seen what he’s capable of building. Crazy can’t do that. If he’s so mad, why chum with him, Mr. Five-hour-winner-of-the-lottery?”

  Juan peeked at me, wondering, I think, what to share and what to reveal. His voice dropped. “Because maybe, Ms. Clara, I’m crazy too. Maybe when I talk to Elias while he’s in his crazy world, I feel I might someday belong. I don’t fear. He requires no proof of citizenship. Salem isn’t real, but when I’m there I remember what it feels like not to hide.” He lowered his gaze. “In Salem, I have a real family, a real place.”

  “And here you don’t.”

  “Here I don’t.”

  Juan stared out over the pond. “I think you’ll find a lot of the boarders want Elias to remain in his crazy place. Will they admit it? Maybe not. But why else do they all keep returning to an inn in the middle of downtown, with all its cars and crime?”

  I frowned, and Juan stood. “It’s not right, but Elias’s Salem gives people what they need. They can be whoever they want to be.”

  “That’s horrible. Everyone using his delusions. You all want him to stay sick in the head? Well, I had a brother — a younger, precious brother — who also had a different type of mind, and we would’ve done anything for him to heal.”

  Juan took three steps back toward the inn, and paused. “Is that true, or was your brother somehow just right as he was? Clara, if the world in Elias’s mind is a kinder, safer one, why not enjoy it? I mean, we’re all running from something.”

  I listened as his footsteps faded, and a distant door clacked shut.

  I flipped open my diary.

  What has happened here? What is it about this place, this utterly ordinary place that acts like quicksand to my feet? The inn is beautiful, an oasis in a screaming city, but beautiful things never stopped me before. In Minneapolis, Kira was the draw, but she is not the hold. That, I fear, falls to a boy with two identities named Elias. The question is why, aside from his ridiculously elevated POE score.

  I’m afraid. For the first time since I’ve left, I’m truly afraid. Worse than that, I’m not entirely certain that I’m afraid for myself.

  Which means the unthinkable is happening. I’m becoming entangled with Elias.

  And whomever I care about, I seem to lose.

  I slowly closed my diary.

  “FFA, I wish you were here. We were doing just fine, the two of us.”

  “Elias!” Guinevere hollered, and from deep inside the inn, a door slammed.

  I rose. The time to own up had come.

  I slipped through the back door and stilled. My confession was rehearsed, and I’d assumed I’d first need to calm Elias’s mum to deliver it. But there were no sounds inside — not on the first floor or on any floor above. The air felt thick, filled with the residue of a thousand heavy words.

  I’d missed the heated moment.

  Now was the cooling.

  A knock sounded at the front door. Nobody came out to answer it. Another knock. I glanced about, crept into the foyer, and slowly turned the latch. The door swung open.

  “Steve Ringmann from EyeSky news, the local UBC affiliate. We’d like to speak to Elias Phinn.”

  I peeked beyond t
he reporter to the cameraman behind him. He was already hoisting the camera into position.

  “I’d like to speak to him too,” I said.

  “We received a tip about a trespassing-related accident. Are you related to Mr. Phinn?”

  “Related? Would you like me to be?”

  A light from the camera shone in my face, and I shielded my eyes.

  “Just look at me.” Steve smiled. “I just have a few questions for you. Could you first say and spell your name, just so we get it right?”

  Why was I answering? Maybe it was guilt, unused contrition. If I couldn’t confess to Guinevere, why not tell the world?

  “Clara Tomey. T-O-M-E-Y.” It was a lie only by degrees. My mum’s maiden name had often been my cover.

  “Clara, can you describe your relationship with Mr. Phinn?” Steve thrust the mic in my face.

  A quick glance back through the door. Nobody was coming to my aid.

  “It’s complicated. POE of twelve? Quite the mess.”

  Steve blinked. “But you are connected in some way . . .”

  I searched his face, looking for the answer to his question. Beyond the right fountain, just over the fence, a small crowd of neighbours gathered, likely curious about the news van. Yet they were all staring at me. Staring and waiting for me to answer this question, which suddenly felt heavy. Heavy like a wrecking ball.

  Connected?

  I needed to explain that I couldn’t be. That connections and affection and death and pain were dominos, and that if I had reached the tipping point there was no purpose in continuing with this trip, and if that were true I should fly back to my hellish England where all of Marbury Street would scarcely recognise the return of their greatest failure. My hands shook.

  “Your connection, Ms. Tomey?”

  Heavy footsteps creaked the foyer floorboards, and I glanced over my shoulder. A gentleman lifted an umbrella and tossed it over my head and onto the porch, causing the cameraman to duck. “Get away from this inn.” Strong hands squeezed my shoulders and gentled me aside. “Consider that my prepared statement.”