Feeling somewhat loose, he decided to mess with Tate a little bit. “Don’t like to be around college kids, huh,” Jonah said.
“Not when I’m out,” Tate responded.
Jonah walked up to the table and hit a shot into a side pocket. Then he asked, “They make you feel old?”
Tate shrugged again. “That’s it, bro,” he said in a sincere voice. “I can’t fit in anymore. I’m so fucking out of the loop. Totally fucking lame, bro.”
In his head, Jonah laughed, exasperated. Tate hadn’t given the defensive reaction he had been going for. Never kid a kidder, he thought.
Jonah hit two more shots before he missed again. Tate stepped up and missed his next shot.
“Never give me a rest, do you,” Jonah said.
“I’m sorry, bro,” Tate replied. “I suck at pool.” Again, he sounded sincere.
He’s good.
Jonah sunk one more shot, then the eight ball.
“Play again?” Jonah asked.
“Nah,” Tate said. “I feel like just chilling out. You want to sit for a while?”
“Sure,” Jonah said, though he didn’t really want to sit. He liked to keep moving when he drank.
They sat down at a small table along the wall.
“You always drink water at the bar,” Jonah asked as he looked down at Tate’s cup.
Tate shrugged. “Beer doesn’t do it for me, bro. Not unless I smoke a little first.”
Jonah stared at his own drink for a few seconds before looking up. Tate was staring right at him, studying him, his eyebrows up, smiling. Then, the laugh. He reached over the table and slapped Jonah on the shoulder, then laughed again. “Yeah, bro. You heard me. And I saw you.”
“What?” Jonah asked.
“Fuck you!” Tate said. “You heard me. Come on, bro.”
“All right, so I heard you,” Jonah said.
A few minutes later, they were in Tate’s car.
#
The inside of Tate’s house was immaculate, not a thing out of place. There were three Pink Floyd and two Beetles posters. There were two framed displays, one a drawing of staircases leading to nowhere, one an 8X12 of Tate at a wedding, standing with the rest of the court at the side of the bride and groom.
Tate put on psychedelic music from some band Jonah had never heard of, then got out a small bag, some rolling papers and a pair of tweezers. As he rolled a tight joint, he explained to Jonah the benefits of rolling over using a one-hitter or bong. Jonah nodded but never really heard him. He hadn’t smoked pot in a few years. He was both excited and anxious.
They smoked part of the first joint. Jonah felt nothing at first, and he thought it might be a dud. A little while later, he felt paranoid. He started to worry that he was not breathing enough. Then he feared that he might swallow his tongue. He realized that he was stoned. During the short paranoid phase, Tate said things. Jonah heard him, but would be left with a sense that he hadn’t understood. He wasn’t sure if it was that he wasn’t hearing Tate right in the first place or if he was just quick to forget what Tate was talking about.
Tate was laughing, but it didn’t sound like his usual high-pitched laugh. To Jonah, it sounded like Tate was coughing. But he wasn’t sure if it was all in his head. Then there was the thought that Tate was creeping ever closer to him on the couch. What was he planning to do? Jonah was a little bigger than Tate, maybe ten or fifteen pounds. They were both pretty taut. But Tate had had on that martial arts shirt the other night. Jonah got a picture in his head of Tate making his way all the way to the other side of the couch and wrapping those thick arms around him. Tate kind of seemed like the stalker type, knowing so much about Jonah. And hadn’t he said he saw Jonah around a lot? Was he gay? And not just likes-to-have-sex-with-guys gay, but likes-to-force-big-guys-into-sex gay? No, that was crazy; there was no such thing. Or was there?
Jonah felt Tate reach over and punch him on the arm. He couldn’t tell how hard it was, though. He couldn’t decide if it was playful or Tate was actually trying to hurt him. Whatever it was, Tate kept doing it.
Smack. Smack. Smack.
Tate was laughing as he did it. Or maybe he was coughing. Maybe he was choking and trying to get Jonah’s attention. What if he died? Jonah turned to him. He saw that Tate was smiling. So Tate was laughing. The next time Tate hit him, it was on the chest, and Jonah responded by hitting him back. If it was hard to tell how hard Tate had hit him, it was even harder to tell how hard he had hit Tate. The shot was to Tate’s chest, and it knocked him back. Tate didn’t stop laughing. But he got up off the couch.
He moved away from Jonah and into the kitchen. A little while later, he came back with two open bottles. He set one in front of Jonah. “Here’s your beer, bro.”
For some reason, that struck Jonah as hilarious. He began to laugh. And he laughed, they laughed, so long that Jonah forgot what he was laughing for. The paranoia was gone. And after a while, so were the giggles. They lit up again. Shortly after, as Jonah was tripping out on some strange thought, Tate’s voice reverberated in his head.
“Yeah, bro. I don’t like being around college kids that much. They just aren’t that fun to watch.”
Jonah, feeling accustomed to being high now, was able to understand Tate, and it interested him. Tate spoke again, before Jonah could think of what to say.
“You ever watch people, bro?”
Jonah thought about that. “No, not really.”
“I do, bro. I get a kick out of people. But not college kids. At least, not the ones you see in the bars. You see one group like that, and you’ve seen them all. They all pretty much act according to what the group is doing. Fucking group think.”
Group think. That wasn’t an everyday term. That was a psychology term.
“I see you’ve taken social psychology,” Jonah said.
“Yeah, bro. I majored in psychology.”
“No. Really?”
“Yeah. I got a Ph.D. in counseling. I work at Thunder Hills Counseling Center, here in town, and I teach a couple of courses up at the college.
“Wow! Cool!”
Tate smiled. “You don’t believe me, do you bro?”
“Sure,” Jonah said, intentionally putting a little bit of doubt in his voice, trying to be vague. That way, whether Tate was telling the truth or lying, Jonah wouldn’t feel like an idiot later.
“Fuck you,” Tate said in a hard to interpret voice. “You don’t fucking believe me.” Tate stood up.
“No, man, I believe you,” Jonah said, again with just a hint of disbelief in his voice.
Tate pulled out his wallet and sat back down. He opened the wallet and flashed a little paper card under the cellophane. “What’s that say, bro?”
Jonah leaned over, then said, “Blah, Blah, Blah. Tate Powers, Licensed Professional Counselor.”
“Yeah, bro. What do ya think of that? Didn’t believe me. Come into my house and smoke my pot, then call me a liar.”
Jonah laughed.
“And then he laughs. Ha ha. Very funny.”
“No, man. Look.” Jonah pulled out his own wallet. “I just got this a few weeks ago.” He showed Tate the limited license.
“No shit. My brother Jonah is a shrink.”
Jonah nodded.
“No shit? What’s your degree?”
“Ph.D., Tate boy.”
They both laughed for a while longer, then Tate said, “A couple of damn doctors, and we didn’t even know it.”
#
It was 2AM, Saturday morning. They still hadn’t come down. Tate was in his head again.
“I bet you hate doing therapy, bro.”
Tate sat on the couch. Jonah was moving about the living room. He didn’t really mind Tate being in his head now. Strangely, Jonah thought Tate was real in a way. But it wasn’t so much that Tate said what was on his mind. It was that he so often said what was on Jonah’s mind. It was a fun little game.
“I’d rather sit through five consecutive root canals.”
<
br /> “Why is that?” Tate asked, the look on his face making Jonah suspect he already knew the answer.
And in that moment, Jonah came up with a new answer to the question. Maybe it was that he knew he couldn’t bullshit Tate, and thus couldn’t bullshit himself, but suddenly the answer was clear. “Because I suck at it.”
“Oh yeah. Oh yeah,” Tate said in a calm, satiated voice. “A good therapist is like a good dancer; you have to be loose and flow where the rhythm takes you.”
“Oh?” Jonah said.
“Oh yes, bro. But you can’t be loose when you do therapy. You can’t be loose, because you do therapy like you play pool. You try not to lose.”
That hit a little deeper than Jonah was comfortable with right now. But he still wanted to play the game. He remembered how Tate had disarmed him earlier. Jonah shook his head and spoke half-heartedly. “You’re right, Tate. I’m trying not to lose.”
Tate spoke loud and abruptly. “In everything, in every way, that’s your dilemma. You don’t want to lose.”
“Right again. My whole life is just trying not to lose.”
“I knew it when I introduced myself to you and the first thing you did was size me up.”
Jonah felt as if his mind split off in different directions. Part of it went to that night at Denny’s. Part of it stayed in the game. “That’s what I did,” Jonah said. “Sized you right up.”
“Sized you right up,” Tate said, mimicking Jonah’s slow southern accent, mockery Jonah felt but tried to hide his reaction to. Tate laughed, not the coughing laugh either, the high-pitched-mocking laugh. It was as if he saw through Jonah’s façade of indifference. Tate spoke fast again. He said, “In your head, you wanted to know, if it came right down to it, would you be able to take me. Not because you wanted to win, though. Because you didn’t want to lose.”
Jonah laughed. It was a fake laugh, though, a desperate attempt to hide his vulnerability.
“You did it at the bar tonight. I watched you, bro. Every guy that came in, you’d look him up and down, assess if you could take him. I saw the girls you looked at.” Tate laughed, and Jonah felt naked. “Don’t look at the foxes, do ya. No, you don’t dare even fantasize about a chick that might be out of your league. You look at the ones slightly heavyset or with a little complexion problem. But you won’t even approach them. You wait for them to come to you. That way you won’t lose.”
“You’re—”
“Can’t lose, if you don’t play.”
“But,” Jonah said.
“But,” Tate said, southern accent mimicked, eyebrows up, then the laugh.
Jonah tried to find something to say, but he couldn’t. He tried to stay in the game, but, even in his stoned head, his thoughts raced too fast. “Fuck you!” he finally said, then headed for the door.
Tate got up and blocked his path. “Where you going, bro? Come on, don’t be a bitch.”
“Fuck off!” Jonah said, then pushed past Tate.
Tate snagged one of Jonah’s wrists. Jonah whipped it free. “Keep your fucking hands off me!” Jonah shouted. But he was no longer moving toward the door. He was looking straight into the eyes of Tate, who now, with his solid angular face and intense still eyes, looked like a demon to him.
Jonah felt it rise up inside. It was powerful, even more intense than the man in front of him. But it died down fast. Then Jonah thought, I’m not in a corner.
Jonah turned and opened the door.
“Come on, bro,” Tate said. “Don’t go yet. Let’s smoke some more.”
Jonah walked out, leaving Tate yelling.
“What the fuck, bro! Go then!”
Jonah stopped outside and listened to Tate ramble on, like he had something inside him that wouldn’t let him stop. He shook his head. “Crazy bastard.” He pulled the pack of smokes from one pocket of his jeans and took the lighter from his other pocket. He fished out a smoke, lit up and took a drag. That was when he saw the orange cat again. This time it was about fifteen feet away, standing in the parking lot, its mouth open, its teeth on display. It stared at Jonah for a few seconds and then moved away.
#
It was a week before he and Tate talked again. It wasn’t near as awkward as Jonah thought it would be, standing outside on the sidewalk, shooting the shit like nothing had happened. They would talk about the previous Friday night, though, that very night. But not before they had smoked their first joint.
Chapter Two
Jonah had been cold before, and it had snowed a few times during his lifetime while he lived in South Carolina. But nothing he had experienced had even begun to prepare him for his first Michigan winter. Michigan cold didn’t just chill the skin. It went straight through, into the bone and deeper. It bit you first when you went outside in the morning and then stayed with you the rest of the day. Turn your car’s heater on full blast, drink your hot coffee, and wrap yourself in five layers. It didn’t matter. Once you were bit, you were destined to feel the chill inside you for the rest of the day.
And it didn’t end. In South Carolina, there were cold fronts. That meant a few days or maybe a week of exceptionally low temperatures. A Michigan winter didn’t have cold fronts, only colder fronts. Day after day, the chill came back. No breaks. There were places where snow got pushed and piled up. From the middle of December to the middle of March, Jonah did not see the ground under those places. Spring came, but not really. Then summer was more like Spring was supposed to be. Once, in early August, the temperature got into the early eighties. Once.
But all of this Jonah survived. He might not have survived it, he thought, had he not spent most of his time inside. In that first year, he saw over 1,500 SSI clients. They just kept coming. Monday through Wednesday, Jonah was at the office. Fridays, he had supervision in Lansing. The rest of the time, he was usually at home working on his reports. Otherwise, he went out to eat, shop, and workout. And, of course, one night a week, he and Tate got stoned. That one night, as annoying as Tate sometimes was, made life a little easier for Jonah to bear.
September had rolled around again, and it was yet another Monday of the same tedious routine. At 8PM, Jonah saw his last client of the day.
#
His last client had been an MS/IQ. That meant the regular interview and an IQ test. Luckily, the client had been very retarded, which made both the MS and IQ fairly brief. So, before his eight o’clock showed, Jonah had a little extra time to kill. He walked a block to a little corner store where he bought a hardy looking deli sandwich and a pint of milk. He finished this off before he got back, and when he got back, his eight o’clock client wasn’t there yet, so he got to stand outside and smoke a cigarette in peace, not having to worry about anyone waiting.
He was actually, for Jonah, pretty relaxed, sitting back in his office, his stomach full, his nicotine craving sated, when he heard the front door open. Jonah moved out into the lobby, where he met a tall lanky man of about fifty years. The man was completely bald on top with strands of gray-speckled black along the sides. He walked bent over with a metal cane. His clothing was old, but neat, a button-up Oxford and a pair of slacks. His eyes were covered with small, round, silver glasses.
“Hello,” the man said as he smiled warmly. He shifted the cane from his right to his left, then awkwardly held out his right hand. He said, “You must be Dr. Meade.”
Jonah gently took the man’s hand. Clients received a form with this office’s information and David Meade’s name on it. “No, I’m Jonah, but I work for Dr. Meade. I’ll be doing your evaluation today.”
At this point, many of the clients would look at him hesitantly. A couple had even asked to see his credentials. But this man just said, “Okay.”
Jonah smiled and said, “Are you ready to get started?”
“Yes, sir, I am”
Jonah led the way back to the office and waited by the door. He’d scanned the paperwork SSI had sent about the man. Schizophrenia, paranoid type, was the referral question. That usually meant on
e of two things. The client was faking the disorder and would talk bluntly about his symptoms. Or, like a true paranoid schizophrenic, he would deny any mental illness.
When the man walked by, Jonah noticed one knee was significantly larger than the other, which probably meant the man had a legitimate physical reason to receive the benefits, so he wouldn’t need to fake the psychological reason. The task in this interview would be to get at this man’s mental symptoms without the man knowing it.
Do you ever feel people are out to get you? Do you ever see things other people can’t see?
The man walked to the front of the desk and sighed. Jonah walked over and pulled one of the chairs back for him.
“Thanks,” the man said. “It’ll take me just a minute to sit down.”
“Do you need me to help you?”
“Oh no. I’ll be fine if I take my time.”
Remembering a client from a couple of months ago who had fallen, Jonah was tempted to stay behind the chair anyway, but the man obviously wanted to do it himself, and Jonah didn’t want to put a kink in how well they were getting along. He moved around to the other side of his desk and sat. He looked down at his clipboard. Yes, the interview form was there. He lifted the clipboard. Yes, the information release form was there. Jonah looked up just on time to see the metal cane coming down on him. He didn’t have time to move.
About half an hour after coming to on the floor, Jonah had been oriented enough to realize that he had been attacked. He had been tempted to just lock up and go home. He’d report the client as a no show and finish out the week like nothing had ever happened. Then his routine life would not have to be complicated. The only two people who knew for certain that it happened were Jonah and the client. On the off chance that the client said anything, it would be his word against Jonah’s, and whom would the authorities believe, a man with a documented history of delusions, or a man with a Ph.D. in his title? The only problem with this plan was the tell-tale goose egg on top Jonah’s head. Jonah had reluctantly gotten on the phone.
Scribner Horror Bundle: Four Horror Novels by Joshua Scribner Page 3