The Interloper

by Antoine Wilson

  “What about a surprise party?” I asked. “If you were planning a surprise party, you wouldn’t want me to go through your drawers and spoil the fun, would you?”

  She screamed in frustration, directly at me, then gathered herself. “If you would fucking explain yourself, we might get somewhere. I ‘searched your office’ because I was worried. You seem to be working too hard. You spend way too much time in there. I feel like we have no life together to speak of. I had to know what was going on. For the sake of us. I thought I might be able to help. That’s why I ‘searched your office’—and I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong, and I still don’t think I was doing anything wrong, because we’re married, and you shouldn’t be keeping things from me. Except maybe surprise parties, but this is not a surprise party. This is CJ’s fucking journal. And letters from the man who killed him. And some woman. And it’s creepy that you have this stuff—it’s beyond creepy. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Can I sit down?”

  “Sit over there where you are.”

  “I can’t come sit on the couch?”

  “Not until you’ve explained yourself.” I moved the rotating fan to the side and hopped up onto the credenza. Over the front window curtains, I could see someone standing in the parkway between the sidewalk and the street, waiting for their dog to finish his business, and then picking it up with a plastic bag turned inside out. How idyllic it looked to me, that scene under the streetlights. I would rather have been picking up dogshit with a plastic bag than sitting on the credenza, explaining myself to Patty.

  Once she realized what I had done for her and her family, she would look past the shock of finding this stuff and appreciate my innovative and complex offering. I needed a little more time. Raven was nearly mine. I felt like one of those guys in the movies who barely has a grip on someone’s hand as they’re hanging off a bridge in gale-force winds.

  “It’s for a book,” I said.

  “What book?”

  “I didn’t want you to see it, obviously. It’s research.”

  “You’re using my brother and that scum-of-the-earth Henry Raven as research?”

  “You see why I didn’t want you to find this stuff. It’s sensitive. I know. And I should have asked your permission beforehand, to write about him.”

  “You’re writing a book about CJ? You’re right, you should have asked me first. Take a minute to think, Owen. This is not just another story. This is my life.”

  “I know it’s a cliché, but you have to write what you know. And—”

  “A cliché? Did you hear me, Owen? This is my life. My my my. Not your life. Not yours to pick up and copy into a book.”

  It may not seem as though I was making much progress here, but in fact I was leaps and bounds ahead of the Owen who had walked into the room ten minutes earlier. We had gone from complete incomprehension and horror to a discussion over intellectual property.

  “I didn’t copy it,” I said. “I’m not trying to steal your life. But if you’re writing a book, you have to follow your gut and draw from the well of life. Otherwise you’re wasting your time. My gut led me toward CJ. I had to know more. I had to do research. You were never meant to see it. You were only meant to read the finished product. I would have burned this stuff long before then.”

  “I didn’t find any book.”

  “It’s all in the computer.”

  “You didn’t print it out?”

  “It’s in an encrypted file. I don’t want anyone to see it until I’m done.”

  “You might have done a better job hiding your research.”

  “I’m sorry. I should have hidden it better, you’re right. But I didn’t think you were going to search my office. And I guess I saw it as already existing in the world. Not like the draft of the book. The draft has to stay in its womb a while longer. If it comes out too early it will not survive. That’s why I didn’t print it out.”

  “Can I see it now?”

  “Only if you want to destroy everything I’ve worked on so far.”

  “How am I supposed to know whether I’m going to be comfortable with what you’ve written? I mean, Owen, this is really bothering me. How do I know you haven’t picked us all apart in your book? What’s to keep you from—even unintentionally—really stepping on people’s feelings? Think of my mother.”

  “I’ll let you read it first. If it bothers you too much I’ll write a different book and never publish this one. I promise.”

  She remained guarded, but I could see her coming around. Her tears now weren’t tears of rage or confusion but tears of semirelief. It was all easily explained. Research for my book. Even if it was unorthodox or trampled on everyone’s toes, it was for the greater good, for art. She could understand that.

  “Let me get this straight,” she said. “You stole CJ’s journal.”

  “I borrowed it, copied it, and returned it,” I said. “I felt horribly guilty about it for a while, then I began to figure that he would have wanted me to do it. He contributed in his own way.”

  “I’m still processing this, Owen. I don’t know if I’m okay with that.”

  “I don’t know if I’m okay with you searching my office.”

  “I was trying to help you out.”

  “I’m trying to help all of us out by writing a great book.”

  “What the hell is your book about, anyway? Why do you have to dig into CJ and his murderer and this woman who’s obviously in love with him? What do these people have to do with your book?”

  “You have to respect the process, Patty.”

  “I do respect the process.” She blew her nose, then lay back on the couch. She spoke to the ceiling. “I just don’t know what this stuff has to do with the process.” I remained on the credenza. Cars drove by outside, birds chased each other through the trees. I have always been a synthesizer. At the end of an argument, I try to synthesize what has occurred. I can’t help it. It’s not a matter of having the last word, but more my way of storing the conclusions away in my brain. Patty knew this and was probably expecting my synthesis.

  “I think we can agree that we have each trampled on each other’s trust. I think we can agree that these events are going to take some time to process. I think we can agree that we are two people who love each other very much and do not want to hurt each other. Okay?”

  “Yes.” She was flat on her back on the sofa, her eyes closed. She said “yes” almost in a monotone. This was the voice of her rational self, overriding the swirl of emotion coursing through her veins.

  “I think we can agree that the research materials you found were never meant for you to see, and that what really counts is the finished product. Can you be patient with me and wait for a draft?” I had to buy some time before I could drive the stake through Raven’s heart, at which point I would explain to her exactly why I was doing what I was doing, and all prior confusion would become clear in that bright, retrospective light.

  She sat up.

  “Can I join you on the couch?” I asked.

  She shrugged. I sat next to her. I put my arm around her. Her shoulders were tense. I pulled my arm away.

  “I don’t know, Owen. I don’t know what to do with the fact that you stole CJ’s journal from my parents’ house. I know I searched your office, too, but that doesn’t make either of us right.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “And why do you have letters—recent letters from the looks of it—between Henry Raven and this Lily woman? Where did you get them?”

  “Research, I told you, it’s all research.”

  “But where did you get them?”

  “I have sources.”

  “Who? The prison?”

  “I can’t confirm or deny sources.”

  She let out a frustrated grunt. “It’s bad enough you’ve got the letters of the man who fucking killed my brother, but the part that made me feel like puking, was how this desperate woman was glomming onto him like he was some catch, and
all the while he’s playing her.”

  “You think he’s playing her?”

  “He’s giving her just enough to get what he wants. He’s a sociopath, Owen. That’s what sociopaths do.”

  “Sure he is, but he’s got a heart, like anyone. She’s got him wrapped around her finger.”

  “He’s a monster, Owen. He doesn’t have a heart.”

  “Maybe it’s because you didn’t read all the letters.”

  “I read enough. How she tries to dangle that teacher in front of him.”

  “Mr. Clancy.”

  “To make him jealous. And he doesn’t even notice. Couldn’t care less. He just wants more pictures and more of those porno letters. I don’t know how anyone in their right mind could write so many disgusting sex letters to such a disgusting person.”

  “But the point of it is, she’s playing him.”

  “What do you mean, ‘the point of it’?”

  “I can’t explain everything or it will ruin the book. Be patient with me.” I shuffled the papers together into a pile.

  “No but you said ‘the point of it,’ as if you knew who had written all of those letters.”

  I didn’t say anything in response. Her hands were shaking.

  “You’ve been writing to the man who killed my brother?”

  “You don’t understand,” I said. “Lily was created for a specific purpose.”

  She ran out of the room into the kitchen. I stayed on the sofa. I knew approaching her would be a mistake. I heard her take her keys from the key-hook. I was stunned. I could hear her moving aimlessly in the kitchen, mumbling “no, no, no” and crying. Finally, she sniffled loudly and went out the back door. I heard the garage open. I wasn’t going to be able to stop her. Right now all she could see was a hundred strange pieces of a distasteful puzzle. I would wrap things up quickly with Raven. I had to remind myself how confident I’d felt before coming into the house. The shock of it all would blow over once I was able to explain what I had accomplished.

  I went into the bedroom to lie down. The closet was open. Some of her clothes were missing. Where were the cats? I walked around the house, looking for the cats, but they were nowhere to be found. I checked the hall closet and their carriers were gone. She had been packed up to go even before I got home. The cats had been sitting in the car the whole time.

  25

  I awoke early the next morning after a fitful, alcohol-induced sleep. The sun burned bright and crisp—the weather refused to suit my mood. I made coffee and went immediately to my home office to begin work on Lily’s next letter. The next few letters would prove crucial in cementing the bond between Lily and Raven. I understood that my strategy was risky, that someone else in my shoes might have chosen to go directly to Patty and apologize and beg and plead, thereby throwing countless months of work out the window. Think about the next letter to Raven: the line between success and failure would be as clear as the difference between a warm bed with wife and cats and a cold bed, or, as it turned out, a whole series of cold beds. A cold cot.

  I worked day and night, making my way through draft after draft. I cannot even count the false starts and rambling explorations it took me to achieve the perfect tone and strategy. The pressure was almost unbearable. I did not answer the phone. I did not watch television or listen to the radio. I did not open the mail. I was an island unto myself. I ate what I could find in the house. I did not shave, I did not shower. I hardly slept, and when I did, it was on the reading chair in my office.

  I dreamt Eileen was still alive and I had to explain to her, as we trudged inexplicably through a blizzard in parkas and cowboy boots, that I had used her pictures for a good cause and that she need not be afraid. Raven was not going to recognize her and think she was Lily and come after her. Eileen wouldn’t listen to my reassurances. She warned me that Raven would indeed come for her, and that he would use her to find me. The dream faded on this warning as the waking world took over.

  I included a Lily picture with this letter, an image unlike any of the prior ones. It was my favorite picture of Eileen, the one that made me feel I could have loved her my entire life had she not been my cousin. The set-up of the shot is unremarkable. She’s sitting at a picnic table wearing a floppy hat, a bottle of mineral water in front of her. She smiles directly at the camera. If you look closely, you can see that there is some food on the table, half-wrapped in plastic and paper. An impromptu picnic. Way in the background, out of focus, is a cinderblock wall, and the middle ground is a grassy field. She had been in rehab for about a week when I went to visit her. She’d asked me not to take this picture, but when I did anyway, she smiled with such evident joy, with such optimism in her eyes, that I thought she might actually make it to a normal life someday. I had always seen in that photograph the Eileen who might have been. Might have been a positive young woman. Might have been a good friend to me. Might have been a doctor, a poet, a teacher’s aide. A good wife to someone. I sent it to Raven unmodified.

  Dear Henry,

  You are the most courageous man I have ever known. And don’t worry about what you would do with yourself if I wasn’t here to write to. I will always be here for you, and you will always be there for me. If it takes time for you to open your heart, all the better for I will have known it was worth it.

  Life has slowed down at school—Greta is back (her cancer is in remission) so I don’t have to keep track of so much—and as a result I’ve got considerably more time to devote to our correspondence. I was thinking maybe I could even visit you sometime if your place allows that. I can’t stop picturing it for some reason—the two of us, finally face-to-face, after all the intimate things we’ve shared already.

  Late at night I lie here alone and I realize that you are the only thing in my life worth living for. I will let that stand even though I can’t believe I wrote it.

  I have enclosed a new picture. I hope you like it. It is my favorite picture of me. If you feel like looking into my eyes, go ahead. You will see there both promise and expectation. You will see the future, and it will be a long future. You will see the two of us, in the future. But it would be so much better if you could see me in person, and I could hear you speak, could see you smile. Mr. Raven, if it wasn’t obvious to you before, I have fallen for you. The honesty of your last letter touched me in a way I have never been touched before. I haven’t been drinking vodka and cranberry. I know you’ve fallen for me the same way. I just want you to tell me so. Tell me how you feel.

  Very Truly Yours,

  Lily

  Every day I went to the Mailboxes Store and checked the box. I knew it was unlikely Raven would have received my letter, read it, and replied in such short order, but in situations like this, one hopes against hope. I did not want to miss his letter on the off chance things unfolded more rapidly than usual. More than once, I arrived before the postal service had delivered the mail, and so I found myself hanging around the Mailboxes Store, sometimes by myself, sometimes with other eager would-be recipients of mail.

  On the seventh or eighth day after I posted the letter to Raven, it was just me and the man who ran the Mailboxes Store. His wife/sister was nowhere in evidence. (I wanted to ask him how his wife was, but I knew he would respond that she was his sister; if I asked him instead how his sister was, he would have told me she was his wife.)

  My mailbox was empty. “Mail come yet?” I asked.

  “Shouldn’t be too long.”

  We stood around in silence for a while. I browsed the padded envelopes.

  “Growing a beard, huh?” he asked.

  “Why not?”

  “Expecting anything good?”

  “The usual.”

  He nodded.

  A few minutes later, the mail truck arrived. A young female mailperson placed the mail in the PO boxes. Nothing. Another day of nothing. The man behind the counter saw me close the box without retrieving anything.

  “Excuse me,” he said, motioning me toward the counter.


  I walked up. He frowned like he was going to say something unpleasant.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but …” He looked me squarely in the eye. “Is there someone I can call for you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We’re all okay and everything?”

  “Are you asking me if I’m okay?”

  He stepped back from the counter. “Forget it. It’s none of my business.”

  “I guess not.”

  He laughed uncomfortably.

  I went over this conversation in my head on the way home. I wasn’t quite sure what had happened. He had tried to reach out to me. That much I could tell. But I wasn’t quite sure what he wanted. Was it about his sister/wife? I wondered for a moment if I was dreaming. How could I know for sure that I was not dreaming?

  In those cases when I have had a dream-within-a-dream-within-another-dream (the nightmare of facing mirrors and shifting time all rolled into one), I have always known I was truly awake when the resolution of detail suddenly increased. This is difficult to explain. Put simply, dreams seem real while you’re in them, sure, but life feels, smells, looks, sounds, and tastes real. When we’re dreaming, all the stimuli are patched in directly. When we’re awake, we have to filter out all kinds of insignificant stimuli in order to assemble a picture of reality. You can feel the filtering going on. My old test used to be: Can I taste the spit in my own mouth? If I could, it meant I was awake for sure. But the dream-mind caught up with this scheme. Weeks after I had devised the test, I had a dream in which I could taste the spit in my own mouth, but also in which I had sprouted wings and my penis hung to the floor, and I awoke from it in a state of great confusion.

  26

  I pulled the car to the curb. I reached into the glove compartment and retrieved the owner’s manual. I found the index and looked for the fuses section. I scanned the fuse chart to make sure everything looked correct. Now I knew I was not dreaming. The fuse chart was there, and it presented itself to me in such exquisite detail, I could only have been awake.