“They’d think we’re shitheads,” Ralph says. “Ready?”
Pain works the way empathy works, the same neurons shooting around in my brain now as they did the first time, or when witnessing someone else’s pain. My inner clock is off time. Something shifts. This scene, this moment—it’s another key to open the portal. The pain causes a schism. In the circle, three hands violate and three are victims. One hand and one part of my brain is focusing on causing pain and the other on receiving it and the two parts are having trouble coexisting and I’m not sure which hands are which. When you hurt someone you feel bad, but not as bad as getting hurt, but here all that’s transferred and overlapping because the searing pain I’m receiving on my left hand feels like the pain of causing pain with my right. How much time passes for the aliens watching us? Time slows. Am I controlling time? This is part of the original physical pain and my brain fires the same pink and blue lights as before because I’m physically experiencing the same event, physically going back in time. I am a slow-burning gnarl of tobacco leaf.
Miles flinches first, drops his hand away from mine, which causes his hand to lift off Ralph’s which causes his to lift off mine.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” we yell and laugh. “That fucking hurts!” Miles looks close to tears but instead of crying he punches a wall with his unburnt hand. “You’re such a weirdo,” he says and lunges in to give me a noogie. I slip out of his grip and go to the bathroom. All of this could have happened any year of our lives, but we haven’t time traveled.
I run my hand under cold water and look for burn cream but Ralph doesn’t have anything like that. The mirrored medicine cabinet door is off its hinges and leaning against the wall on the floor like in a shoe store, so I look at my feet. Through the door, I hear Ralph ask, “Shouldn’t I be seeing shit with these pills?” and Miles replies, “It’s an antipsychotic, dumbass.”
When I come back out, Ralph is switching from Pink Floyd to the Doors and Miles is passed out on the futon. I sit next to his feet.
“What year is it?” I ask Ralph.
“The year is twenty-fifty-one and we are all computer simulations.”
I try to laugh. It’s now or never. “Do you remember that girl Nicolette?” I say, all casual. “From school. I think.”
Miles leans up to say, “Yeah, that sucked.”
Miles remembers her. Everyone remembers but me.
“That’s the girl who killed herself?” says Ralph.
“No,” I say.
“What are you talking about?” says Miles. “You’re the one who saw it happen.”
“No I didn’t.” I stand up and look down at him. “That was a different girl.” Did I really cause Nicolette to go back in time and jump by telling her about seeing a girl who jumped? Is that the place she dies? If I caused Nicolette to die—
“Why are you bringing this shit up anyway?” Miles says, closing his eyes again.
Of course they’re wrong. I saw someone jump. But no Nicolette I knew ever threw herself off a cliff. And they never found the body. Just because a father said his daughter had gone missing didn’t mean anything. How could they be sure it was Nicolette?
“You know what I just realized?” Ralph says. “You never asked what we’re up to.”
“What?”
“I mean, you got me thinking. We’ve been talking about you all night, and Helen and some dead girl. I know you’re sick and all, so you should get some attention. But it’s like, don’t you want to know how we are?”
Miles lifts his head up from the couch, eyes closed. “Leave him alone,” he says, then plops back down.
Once, Miles and I tried acid together, at the old army fort, facing the water for hours. He said something really wise—life-changing wise—that we both forgot immediately after. I tried for weeks to get him to repeat it. He took acid again and I was the babysitter that time and had my pen and paper ready. But when we got back to the bluff above the water, all he said was that he knew he’d die here. And since death was the only thing we owned and could control, he said, he was going to have his way with it, was planning a date and time, but he wouldn’t tell me when, and then he pointed straight out in front of him, toward the watery horizon. I had him stay the night with me and he let me hold him until morning.
I place my hand lightly on Miles’s feet. He doesn’t notice.
Ralph goes to the window, almost knocking over a full beer in his path. “Forget it. I didn’t mean anything. I got work in the morning, so.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Don’t worry about it. You gave us your pills, that’s cool of you. Not that it did anything.”
Miles wakes up enough to say, “Cool seeing you, though.”
I pick up some bottles and take them to the kitchen but can’t find the trashcan and don’t want to ask, so I slip out the door with them and throw them into the woods behind the house. I wait to hear the crash of glass, but there’s nothing.
Time is running out. This Thursday could have caused last Thursday. Don’t forget. Four days since we stole the painting. Still haven’t found Nicolette.
Eight thirty-seven in the morning now. My dad was supposed to come at seven. Hours waiting at the dingy window from the couch. Watching the street, watching the linoleum peel up from the floor. I guess I fell asleep at some point but I stayed up most of the night on the Web: the easiest form of time travel. But my mom still has dial-up, so it was slow going. Someone removed the information about the landmine house from Nicolette’s website, which has to be a clue for me, not to mention an easy way to deter the Hasidim from going there.
My mom is outside washing her van. The window looks out on the driveway and I jump at every crush of gravel. An undercover police car rolls by, peering at the house. The cop looks familiar and I duck behind the wall. No sign of my dad’s pickup.
That shape there in the corner, do you see that? Rubbing my eyes doesn’t make it go away. Then a shadow of a man. Dad? I stand up and he goes to the coat rack in the hallway and rifles through pockets like he used to do, looking for his loose-leaf tobacco. He puts on a shadow of a big-brimmed hat like the Hasidim wear. Then he goes behind me to the kitchen where I can’t see him. I hear him peek in the fridge. I hear him crack a beer. I hear him open the oven and stick his head inside. You really shouldn’t do that, Dad. I turn around just in time to see the back door close, the dirty slatted blinds still shaking.
My mom comes in at nine. In the doorway, she stands watching me. “Looks like he’s not coming.” She breathes in deeply. “Sorri, honey.”
“Whatever,” I say.
“I have a message for you, before I forget. From, let me see.” She hunts through a stack of receipts and notes on the kitchen counter. “You left your cell here last night and someone kept calling.”
“You answered my phone? That’s private property.”
“I couldn’t figure out how to turn the ringer off. What was I supposed to do?” she says. “Here it is. A man named Jill. Isn’t that funny? Jill.”
I jump up and stand close, so nothing in her face can get past me. “What did he say? Where is he?”
“He was very nice. We talked for some time. He said it was very important that you meet him tomorrow at 101st Street and Fifth Avenue at six. But doesn’t he know you’re here? He said it was business, or something, a business deal you were in on together. What could be so urgent?”
“What else? What else did he say?”
“I think that’s it. He said not to call that number back, he’d call you soon. And something about your third business partner, let me see. I wrote it down exactly. He talked very fast.”
“What third business partner?”
“Yes, here, he says your third business partner will be there, too, that it all worked out. He sounds older. Who is he? Is he handsome?”
He must mean Claire. There’s no way I’ll let the painting go to her and not Nicolette. Not when I’m so close to figuring it out.
“I can’t bel
ieve you kept him on the phone that long,” I say. “What if the police traced the call? What if they’re coming right this second?”
She squints at me for a moment. “I’m sure no one is coming, honey. Maybe it just feels that way.”
“Of course it feels that way when there are people coming.”
“Who is that man? Are you selling drugs for him?” My mom grabs my shoulders and makes me look at her. “Tell me the truth. Right now.”
But how can I tell her the truth? All I can do is show her.
She follows me to the bedroom where I’ve let the painting frivolously lie on the mattress. I gesture to it.
“What is it?” she asks.
But my throat has stopped working.
“Is this why you’re worried about the police?”
I nod.
She stands very close to me. “Did you steal this, West?”
I nod again.
“Why?”
Before I can nod or shake anything she slaps my cheek. It shocks me more than it hurts. Then it hurts. It burns.
“I had to steal it. It was stolen from someone else and I’m giving it back to the rightful owner.”
“I don’t want to hear it. You go back right now and hand it over to the authorities.”
“The authorities are crooks! You’ve broken the law for a good cause. You’re supposed to understand.”
“That’s different. I was young. And I was me. You’ll give it back or I’ll take it to the police here myself.”
This, I decide, is a good moment to grab the painting and storm from the room dramatically, swiping the car keys from the kitchen counter on my way out.
I don’t know where I’m going, driving wherever the van wants to take me. If you’d just tell me who I can trust, Dear Listeners. Why can’t you speak more clearly? It’s as if we’re addressing each other, but in two different conversations. You’re replying to something I’ll say years from now.
Where do I end up but my dad’s old girlfriend’s place and she tells me that he has a new girlfriend and by all means go bug him there, it’s at the end of Jackson Street by the bluff with a great view, you won’t miss his truck.
My dad is hunched over in the side yard, ripping up roots, as I park across the street. Weeding at a house that’s not even his.
I slam the car door. He stands and turns at the sound, squints at me walking toward him.
“West? What are you doing here?” His face is mostly shaded by his sun-bleached ball cap, so he can hide that he’s eyeing me all over for signs of disease. He takes a step back.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“I was real bummed I couldn’t make it this morning. Got caught up here, you know how it is.”
“Yeah.”
He brushes his hands on his pants, leaving swipes of soil, and leans against the siding. “Beth tells me you’re doing all right.” He says my mom’s name like he’s saying another b-word.
“Yeah.”
“Good. And city living? Is that good? You see your sister?”
“Sometimes.” I shield my eyes for something to do, but the sun isn’t in them.
He frowns at me very seriously and says, “You keep the toilet seat down?”
“What?”
“The toilet seat. You have to keep it down in the city. I’ve heard about the rats out there. It’s in the news. Rats coming up from the sewers through the pipes. Not as rare as you think.”
“Sure.”
“You either keep it closed or you don’t. It’s a yes or no question.”
“Yes. I keep it closed.”
“Because sometimes you can be forgetful.”
“I keep it closed, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
His eyes are shadowy—I can’t tell whose eyes they really are. He waits for me to say something more. Now is the time to ask him about Nicolette and the painting. What would he do in my place? I know he wouldn’t take it back to the police.
“I need some help,” I start.
“Nope. Too old to ask for money. I draw the line.” He takes off his ball cap, studies it a second and bends the brim tighter. “You should get back to keep your mom company. You know how she gets lonely. Next time you’re out here we’ll find the time.”
“Sure.” I kick a hedge on the way to the car.
“West, listen.”
I stop and listen.
“You’re not a kid anymore. You have to get your shit together,” he says to my back. I keep walking. “Hey, you hear me?” I can’t believe I thought he’d actually say something nice. “And look out for your sister. She needs you.”
I turn in the middle of the street. That’s the first true thing he’s said. I can’t help saying, “Did you hear the news?”
“What news?”
“Didn’t Jules tell you?” I give him my best fuck-you smile. “She’s pregnant.”
“What?” My dad takes a step toward me, but I walk fast across the street.
When I’m in the van and down the block I say, “Go shove it.”
It’s the best I can do.
My dad was a distraction, a setback—he’s against me. I have to get back on track. And the only place for that is the old fort. The place where Nicolette dies.
The long, narrow path up to the bluff hasn’t changed: a clue in itself. The neglected army fort with its network of tunnels is still a haunt for potheads and skinheads both. On the backside of the hill, where there used to be mortars, are big circles overgrown with weeds and wildflowers. The old gun battery on Artillery Hill, overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
With the painting rolled and tucked under my arm, I pass all the usual landmarks, breadcrumbs Nicolette must have left: used condoms chucked into bushes, tinsel; swastikas spray-painted on cement barrack walls; wasps’ nests; deer. The perfect tableau laid out for me. My cell lights the way through one of the windowless stretches of tunnel. There’s an old Indian canoe, and beyond it, where the tunnel opens into a room, there’s a couch, tattered and threadbare, an empty frame hanging above it, no painting—a living room from hell as a reminder: I’m running out of time. Young stalactites hang from the ceiling.
Back out in the bright fog, the weeds reach from between cement cracks, growing more rampant than I remember, fingers vibrating toward me.
I stop a few hundred yards from the bluff edge. The trees have grown since I was home last, and the view of the water is obscured. Is this the spot? No, ten feet to the left. I stand where Miles and I did acid together.
I creep between the trees, close to the drop-off. The sea goes wild on the rocks below. But I’m focused on the air straight in front of me, where Miles pointed out his death, where Nicolette jumped. The great space between the clouds and the sea—that is the nexus.
When I told Nicolette about the girl jumping from the bluff, she stared at her canvas and started laughing. She put her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes to hold in the laugh. She couldn’t stop. She was a lunatic, laughing to herself like that. She laughed hard enough for tears to spring from the corners of her eyes. “I’m not laughing at you,” she hiccupped, “I promise I’m not.” I sat there, on the edge of my chair, stunned into listening.
I wasn’t hurt by it. And the more I heard the laugh, the more it sounded like a bell signaling some turning point. I thought she might be laughing at some inside joke between her and her art, or from delight at the mere act of painting. The privilege of sitting there at all. But now I see! She was laughing because they never found the body!
It was Nicolette who jumped. But she doesn’t die here! Of course they never found the body. It landed in the future.
But why does everyone else remember her as the girl who jumped, as if it always happened, while all I have is a memory of the back of a girl’s head? What makes me special? Yes, Genius Voices! As soon as Nicolette traveled into my past, easy memories must have been inserted into the others’ minds. Time rippling through and changing their memo
ries. But since I’m the only one who knows Nicolette in the future, the present, my memories couldn’t be changed because that would result in a paradox. Because how could I fall in love with her in the future if I knew her as the dead girl in the past? To suddenly have memories of past Nicolette wandering the halls of school in a daze, dropping her Hawking book that people teased her for reading, or asking the teacher if he was condoning underage sex by assigning Shakespeare.
Jump? Why would I jump, Dear Voices? No, I can’t. That’s way too dangerous. But you are right—why do you always have to be right? Her jumping from the bluff was a scene in an instructional video. A How-To Beginner’s Guide to Time Traveling! When she jumped off the cliff, she was showing me how to propel myself through time.
And what if you’re wrong? What if I jump and the portal doesn’t open and I’m just stuff on the rocks below? Then I’ll never find Nicolette. I can’t risk that.
But she risked everything. She came all the way to my past, to right here, to show me how to time travel, how to find her. Why else would she do that? How can I not trust her?
You’re right, I must jump. The logic is sound. Axiom 2. Or was it Axiom 4?
It’s beginner’s stuff, needing a running start and flying into the abyss, but I can admit to being a beginner. I back up a few feet and get into a lunge, trying to ready my mind—if I do this, I have to do it right. It’s not just jumping. It’s like doing a marathon while reaching nirvana. Nicolette showed me all the tableaux and it must be for this purpose, for this moment. I try to hold all the tableaux in my head: my childhood bedroom, cigarette burns with Ralph and Miles, pie with Mom, the fort and bluff—they’re lost paintings newly recovered, with sections of code written on them. All part of the complex of scenes I must know precisely, in true relation to one another. A pain chain. Don’t forget pulling Jules’s hair.
I wonder what Jules is doing right now. If she’s worried about me, what she’d say about this jumping business. I wonder if she’s safe.
The Suicide of Claire Bishop Page 28