by Paul Cleave
From these pages you will learn about your family, how much you love them, how sometimes Sandra can smile at you from across the room and it makes your heart race, how Eva can laugh at one of your small jokes and go Dad! before shaking her head in embarrassment. You need to know, Future Jerry, that you love and that you are loved.
So this is day one in your journal. Not day one where things started to change—that started a year or two back—but day one of the diagnosis. Your name is Jerry Grey and eight hours ago you sat in Doctor Goodstory’s office holding your wife’s hand while he gave you the news. It has, and let’s be honest since we’re among friends here—scared the absolute hell out of you. You wanted to tell Doctor Goodstory to either change his profession or change his last name, because the two couldn’t be any further apart. On the way home, you told Sandra that the diagnosis reminded you of a quote from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and when you got home you looked it up so you could tell her. Bradbury said, “It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life, and then I came along in two minutes and boom! It’s all over.” The quote, of course, is from one book-burning fireman to another, but it perfectly sums up your own future. You’ve spent your lifetime putting your thoughts down on paper, Future Jerry, and in this case it’s not the pages going up in flames, but the mind that created them. Funny how you could remember that sentiment from a book you read more than ten years ago, but can’t find your car keys.
Writing in this journal is the first time in years you’ve handwritten anything longer than a grocery list. The computer’s word processor has been your medium ever since the day you wrote the words Chapter One of your first book, but using the computer for this . . . well, it feels too impersonal, for one, and too impractical for another. The journal is more authentic, and much easier to carry around than a laptop. It’s actually a journal Eva gave you for Christmas back when she was eleven. She drew a big smiley face on the cover and glued a pair of googly eyes to it. From the face she drew a thought bubble, and inside that she wrote Dad’s coolest ideas. The pages have always remained blank, because your ideas tend to get scribbled down on Post-it notes and stuck around the sides of the computer monitor, but the notebook (now to be a journal) has always remained in the top drawer of your desk, and every now and then you’ll take it out and run your thumb over the cover and remember when she gave it to you. Hopefully your handwriting is better than when you get an idea during the night and scrawl it down only to find you can’t read your own words the following morning.
There is so much to tell you, but let me begin by being blunt. You’re heading into Batshit County. “We’re all batshit crazy in Batshit County”—that’s a line from your latest work. You’re a crime writer—now’s as good a time as any to mention that. You write under a pen name, that of Henry Cutter, and over the years have been given the nickname The Cutting Man by fans and the media, not just because of your pen name, but because many of your bad guys use knives. You’ve written twelve books, and number thirteen, The Man Goes Burning, is with your editor at the moment. She’s struggling with it. She struggled with number twelve too—and that should have been a warning flag there, right? Here’s what you should do—get this put on a T-shirt: People with Dementia Don’t Make Great Authors. When you’re losing your marbles a plot is hard to construct. There were bits that made no sense and bits that made even less sense, but you got there, and you felt embarrassed and you apologized a dozen times and put it down to stress. After all, you’d been touring a lot that year so it made sense you were going to make some mistakes. But The Man Goes Burning is a mess. Tomorrow or the next day, you’ll call your editor and tell her about the Big A. Every author eventually has a last book—you just didn’t think you were there yet, and you didn’t think it would be a journal.
Your last book, this journal, will be your descent into madness. Wait—better make that the journey into madness. Don’t mix that up. Sure, you’re going to forget your wife’s name, but let’s not forget what we’re calling this—it’s a journey, not a descent. And yes, that’s a joke. An angry joke because, let’s face it, Future Jerry, you are exceptionally angry. This is a journey into madness because you are mad. What isn’t there to be mad about? You are only forty-nine years old, my friend, and you are staring down the barrel of insanity. Madness Journal is the perfect name. . . .
But no, that’s not what this is about. This isn’t about writing up a memorial for your anger, this is a journal to let you know about your life before the disease dug in its claws and ripped your memories to shreds. This journal is about your life, about how blessed you’ve been. You, Future Jerry, you got to be the very thing you’d always dreamed of becoming—a writer. You got the amazing wife, a woman who can put her hand in yours and make you feel whatever it is you need to feel, whether it’s comfort or warmth or excitement or lust, the woman who you wake up to every morning knowing you get to fall asleep with her that night, the woman who can always see the other side of the argument, the woman who teaches you more about life every day. You have the daughter with an old soul, the traveler, the girl who wants people to be happy, the girl taking on the world. You have the nice house on the nice street, you sold a lot of books and you entertained a lot of people. Truthfully, F.J., you always thought there would be a trade-off, that the Universe would somehow balance things out. It turns out you were right. Most of all, this journal is a map to the person you used to be. It will help you get back to the times you can’t remember, and when there is a cure, this journal will help restore anything you have lost.
The best thing to do first is explain how we got here. Thankfully, you’ll still have all your memories tomorrow and you’ll still be you, and the next day, and the next, but those next days are running out the same way authors have a final book. We all have a last thought, a last hope, a last breath, and it’s important to get all this down for you, Jerry.
You’ve got the badly written book this year and, spoiler alert, Jerry, last year’s novel didn’t review that well. But hey—you still read the reviews, is that another effect of the dementia? You told yourself years ago not to read them, but you do anyway. You usually don’t because of the occasional blogger calling you a This is Henry Cutter’s most disappointing novel yet hack. It’s the way of the world, my friend, and just part of the job. But perhaps one you don’t have to worry about where you are now. It’s hard to pinpoint when it started. You forgot Sandra’s birthday last year. That was tough. But there’s more. However, right now . . . right now exhaustion is setting in, you’re feeling a little too all over the place, and . . . well, you’re actually drinking a gin and tonic as you’re writing this. It’s your first of the evening. Okay, that’s another joke, it’s your second, and the world is starting to lose its sharp edges. What you really want to do now is just sleep.
You’re a good news, bad news kind of guy, F.J. You like good news, and you don’t like bad news. Hah—thanks G&T number three for giving you Captain Obvious as another narrative point of view. The bad news is that you’re dying. Not dying in the traditional sense—you might still have a lot of years ahead of you—but you’re going to be a shell of a man and the Jerry you were. The Jerry I am right now, that you are as of this writing, is going to leave, sorry to tell you. The good news is—soon you’re not even going to know. There’ll be moments—of course there will be. You can already imagine Sandra sitting beside you and you won’t recognize her, and maybe you’ll have just wet yourself and maybe you’ll be telling her to leave you the hell alone, but there’ll be these moments—these patches of blue sky on a dark day where you’ll know what’s going on, and it will break your heart.
It will break your fucking heart.
The officer leads Jerry and Eva through the fourth floor of the police department. Most people stop what they’re doing to look over. Jerry wonders if he knows any of them. He seems to remember there was somebody he’d used for the books—a cop, maybe, who he could a
sk how does this work or how does that work, would a bullet do this, would a cop do that, talk me through the loopholes. If he’s here Jerry doesn’t recognize him, then remembers that it’s not a police officer he got help from, but a friend of his, a guy by the name of Hans. He still has the photograph Eva gave him in his hand, and he can remember when it was taken. Things are coming back to him, but not everything.
Eva has to sign something and then speaks to the officer again while Jerry stares at one of the walls where there’s a flyer for the police rugby team that has six names on it, the last one being Uncle Bad Touch. The officer walks over with Eva and wishes Jerry a nice day, and Jerry wishes for the same thing—he wishes for a lot of nice days, and then they’re riding the elevator down and heading outside.
He has no idea what day it is, let alone the date, but there are daffodils along the riverbank of the Avon, the river that runs through the heart of the city and appeared in some of his books—beautiful in reality, but in his books normally a murder weapon or a person is being thrown into it. The daffodils mean it’s spring, putting the day in early September. People on the street look happy, the way they always do when climbing out of the winter months, though in his books, if he’s remembering correctly, people were always miserable no matter what time of the year. His version of Christchurch was one where the Devil had come to town—no smiles, no pretty flowers, no sunsets, just hell in every direction. He’s wearing a sweater, which is great because it’s not really that warm, and great because it means he must have had an attack of common sense earlier that told him to dress for the conditions. Eva stops next to a car ten yards short of a guy sitting on the sidewalk sniffing glue. She unlocks it.
“New car?” he asks, which is a dumb thing to say, because the moment the words are out of his mouth he knows he’s set himself up for disappointment.
“Something like that,” she says, and she’s probably had it for a few years or more. Maybe Jerry even bought it for her.
They climb inside, and when she puts her hand on the steering wheel he notices again her wedding ring. The guy sniffing glue has approached the car and starts tapping on the side of the window. He has Uncle Bad Touch written on his T-shirt, and Jerry wonders if he’s going to play rugby for the cops, or if he was the inspiration for the comedian who wrote the name on the form upstairs. Eva starts the car and they pull away from the curb just as Uncle Bad Touch asks if they’d like to buy a used sandwich from him. They get twenty yards before having to stop at a red light. Jerry pictures the day being split into three parts; the sun is out towards the west and looks like it’ll be gone in a few hours, making him decide they’re nearing the end of the second act. He’s trying to think about Eva’s husband and is getting close to picturing him when Eva starts talking.
“You were found in the town library,” she says. “You walked in and went to sleep on the floor. When one of the staff woke you up, you started shouting. They called the police.”
“I was asleep?”
“Apparently so,” she says. “How much can you remember?”
“The library, but just a little. I don’t remember walking there. I remember last night. I remember watching TV. And I remember the police station. I kind of . . . switched on, I guess, during what I thought was an interview. I thought I was there because the police figured out what I’d done back when—”
“There is no Suzan,” she says, interrupting him.
The light turns green. He thinks about Suzan and how she doesn’t exist outside the pages of a book he can barely remember writing. He feels tired. He stares out at the buildings that look familiar, and is starting to get an idea of where they are. There is a guy arguing with a parking attendant on the sidewalk, poking his finger into the attendant’s chest. There’s a woman jogging while pushing a stroller and talking on her cell phone. There’s a guy carrying a bunch of flowers with a big smile on his face. He sees a young boy, probably fifteen or sixteen, help an old lady pick up her bag of groceries that has split open.
“Do we have to go back to the nursing home? I want to go home instead. To my real home.”
“There is no real home,” Eva says. “Not anymore.”
“I want to see Sandra,” he says, his wife’s name coming out without any effort, and perhaps that’s the key to tricking the disease—just keep talking and eventually you’ll get there. He turns to Eva. “Please.”
She slows the car a little so she can look over at him. “I’m sorry, Jerry, but I have to take you back. You’re not allowed to be out.”
“Allowed? You make it sound like I should be under lock and key. Please, Eva, I want to go home. I want to see Sandra. Whatever it is I’ve done to be put into a home, I promise I’ll be better. I promise. I won’t be a—”
“The house was sold, Jerry. Nine months ago,” she says, staring ahead at the road. Her bottom lip is quivering.
“Then where’s Sandra?”
“Mom has . . . Mom has moved on.”
“Moved on? Jesus, is she dead?”
She looks over at him, and because of that she nearly rear-ends a car that comes to a quick stop ahead of her. “She’s not dead, but she’s . . . she’s not your wife anymore. I mean, you’re still married, but not for much longer—it’s just a matter of paperwork now.”
“Paperwork? What paperwork?”
“The divorce,” she says, and they start moving forward again. There’s a young girl of six or seven looking out the back window of the car ahead, waving and pulling faces.
“She’s leaving me?”
“Let’s not talk about this now, Jerry. How about I take you to the beach for a bit? You always liked the beach. I have Rick’s jacket in the back, you can put that on—it’ll be cold out there.”
“Is Sandra seeing somebody else? Is she seeing this Rick guy?”
“Rick’s my husband.”
“Is there another guy? Is that why Sandra is leaving me?”
“There is no other guy,” Eva says. “Please, I really don’t want to talk about this now. Maybe later.”
“Why? Because by then I’ll have forgotten?”
“Let’s go to the beach,” she says, “and we’ll discuss it there. The fresh air will do you good. I promise.”
“Okay,” he says, because if he behaves, then maybe Eva will take him back to his home instead. Maybe he can carry on with the life he had and work on getting Sandra back.
“Was the house really sold?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Why do you call me Jerry? Why don’t you call me Dad?”
She shrugs and doesn’t look at him. He lets it go.
They head for the beach. He watches the people and the traffic and stares at the buildings, Christchurch City on a spring day and if there’s a more beautiful city in the world he hasn’t seen it, and he has seen a lot of cities—that’s one thing the writing has given him, it’s given him freedom and . . .
“There was traveling,” he says. “Book tours. Sometimes Sandra came along, and sometimes you came too. I’ve seen a lot of countries. What happened to me? To Sandra?”
“The beach, Dad, let’s wait for the beach.”
He wants to wait for the beach, but more is coming back to him now, things he would much rather forget. “I remember the wedding. And Rick. I remember him now. I’m . . . I’m so sorry,” he tells her. “I’m sorry about what I did.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
The shame and the humiliation come rushing back. “Is that why you stopped calling me Dad?”
She doesn’t look at him. She doesn’t answer. She swipes a finger beneath each of her eyes and wipes away the tears before they fall. He goes back to looking out the window, feelings of shame and embarrassment flooding his thoughts. Up ahead cars are coming to a stop for a family of ducks crossing the road. A camper van pulls over and a pair of young children climb out the side and start taking photos.
“I hate the nursing home,” he says. “I must still have some money. Why can�
�t I buy myself a home and some private care?”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Why doesn’t it work that way?”
“It just doesn’t, Jerry,” she says, using a tone that lets him know she doesn’t want to discuss it.
They keep driving. It’s crazy that he feels uncomfortable with his own daughter, but he does, this giant wall between them feels unbreakable, this wall he put up by being a bad father and an even worse husband. They get through town and head east, out towards Sumner beach, and when they arrive they find a parking spot near the sand, the ocean ahead of them, a line of cafés and shops and then the hills behind. They get out of the car. He watches a dog rolling itself over a seagull that’s been squashed by a car. Eva gets Rick’s jacket out of the trunk, but he tells her he doesn’t need it. It’s a cool wind, but it’s like she said—it’s refreshing. The sand is golden, but there are lots of pieces of driftwood and seaweed and shells. There are maybe two dozen people, but that’s all, most of them young. He takes his shoes and socks off and carries them. They walk along the waterline, seagulls chirping overhead, people playing, and this—this right now, feels like a normal day. This feels like a normal life.
“What are you thinking about?” Eva asks.
“About when I used to bring you here as a kid,” he tells her. “The seagulls used to scare you. What happened with your mother?”
She sighs, then turns towards him. “It wasn’t really one thing,” she says, “but a combination of things.”
“The wedding?”