‘I’m going to be a doctor when I’m older so I can do that stuff every day. Saving lives and shit every five minutes,’ the barista says. ‘What a high.’
‘I don’t think it’s like that,’ I say, thinking of every doctor I’ve ever been to. ‘I think most doctors spend a lot of their time behind desks filling out forms.’
‘I’m talking about being an emergency-room doctor,’ she chides me. ‘They’re always running around saving lives every second.’
‘I really don’t think they are.’ And I think of the night my father died. Across the street my figment is pacing in the rain and holding a flat newspaper under her arm.
‘Don’t you ever watch ER? It’s exactly like that,’ says the all-knowing seventeen-year-old. And I look into her raccoon eyes and consider trying to explain that TV shows only the exciting parts of life; that the boring shit that makes up ninety-nine percent of our existence is edited out. But it would just be a waste of breath.
Across the street my figment seems indecisive. When I look at her she looks away. I’m grateful for that. It’s my mind trying to fight off my hallucinations. Still, it scares me that I’m seeing figments again so often. But it’s my own damn fault. I’ve been so lazy about refilling my 486s. And my shrinks have made it clear: it’s the medicine or shock therapy. And I’m not going to turn out like that. Tomorrow I’ll go to my shrink and get a refill; maybe ask him to up the dose. For now I hail a cab. I tell the driver to take me to my place. I’ve got that one pill I saw buried in my carpet this morning. Donald will just have to believe whatever lie I tell him.
By the time I get back to the museum I’m over two hours late. I couldn’t catch a return cab and had to walk most of the way. I’m freezing. The temperature has really dropped.
I run up the marble steps, hurrying to get out of the cold rain, which stabs like ice picks. Donald’s going to kill me.
‘Museum’s closed, sir,’ a security guard says, blocking my entrance.
Closed? It’s three-fifteen. ‘What do you mean it’s closed?’ I say.
‘It’s closed, sir.’
‘Yes, I heard you,’ I say, showing him my red museum badge. ‘I work here. Why is the museum closed?’
‘This is North Entrance,’ the guard says into his walkie-talkie. ‘I have an employee trying to enter. Yes, sir. Sir.’ He holsters his walkie-talkie. ‘Please wait here.’
Minutes pass and the rain continues to fall before Donald emerges from the emergency exit door. He waves me inside where a museum guard waits with two strange men; one is considerably taller than the other. The strangers don’t have museum badges.
‘It’s OK, we just need to talk,’ Donald says with a coldness that almost crawls from his skin.
The five of us walk in silence down two floors. The construction-lined corridors are practically deserted. The few people we do pass are silent. Some look scared when they see me with the two strangers. And then it hits me: these men are from HR. They’re the guys employees here talk about in whispers. They call them financial assassins because their job is to roam around and find useless employees to lay off. Fewer employees mean more money for the renovation.
We enter a small conference room I’ve never seen before. The museum guard waits outside.
‘Please sit down,’ the tall financial assassin says.
‘Why is the museum closed?’ I say.
‘Where have you been for the past three hours?’ the short financial assassin says. He sounds like he’s trying to channel Magnum, PI.
‘Lunch,’ I say, pretending I didn’t take two hours longer than normal. ‘Donald, what’s going on?’
But ‘Please just answer their questions’ is all Donald offers.
‘Do you normally take a three-hour lunch?’ the tall assassin asks.
Mom will be so disappointed if I lose my job. She was so happy when I took it.
So I say, ‘OK, look, I know I shouldn’t have done it.’
My answer, it causes the two assassins to lean closer and Donald to look a little frightened.
I say, ‘I’m sorry, but you’re not gonna believe what happened.’ And I tell them the events of the past three hours. I lie about the medicine though. They wouldn’t understand. You tell someone you see things and they’ll never look at you in the same way again. Hell, they’ll find a way to fire you just because you’re on psych meds. So instead I tell them that after the coffee house I had to go to my girlfriend’s because she was feeling sick.
To Donald I say, ‘You’ve heard me talk about her before. Harriett?’
But Donald just shakes his head. ‘Why would you leave work for so long to visit a sick friend?’
‘Please,’ the short assassin says. ‘Let us ask the questions.’
‘Girlfriend,’ I say.
Donald looks at me like I’m a liar.
‘Fine, ex. We’re on a break,’ my voice cracks. And I say that my ex-girlfriend, she gets scared when she’s sick. Besides, I needed to wash up. And I shove my hand beneath Donald’s nose so he can smell the dried homeless vomit that’s crusted under my nails.
‘It’s not everyday someone gets to be a hero,’ I say.
‘Can we call your girlfriend to verify all this?’ the tall assassin asks.
‘No,’ I say.
‘Why not?’
‘Because she’s back at work. I dropped her off.’
‘Where does she work?’
‘The Water Tower Plaza.’
‘What store?’
Fuck. I say, ‘Auntie Anne’s.’
‘Auntie Anne’s?’
‘She likes pretzels,’ I say.
And I can tell this isn’t going well, so I take the pity angle. I say, ‘Donald, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been so long. It’s been a hard day. Write me up if you want, but please don’t fire me. And please don’t contact my girlfriend. We’re having enough issues as it is, OK?’
And then the outrage angle. ‘Besides, these HR guys don’t have the right to harass her.’
That’s when the assassins look at Donald, who looks back at me.
That’s when he says, ‘These men aren’t from HR. They’re detectives, Jerry.’
Police detectives?
Donald says, ‘They’re police detectives, Jerry. The Van Gogh is missing.’ His steel-grey eyes glaring. It’s the first time I notice that his eyes match the walls of our office.
It takes me a minute to process what Donald has said. The short man folds his arms and keeps his gaze on me. I don’t know what to say. How does a ten-million-dollar painting disappear from one of the most secure museums in the world?
‘You think I took it?’
I sound guiltier than I’d like.
‘You were the last one to see it before it disappeared,’ the tall detective says. ‘You told Donald that you had been in Roland’s studio. You told him right before you went to “lunch”.’
‘That’s not true,’ I say.
Donald eyes me sharply.
‘I mean, it is true that I said that, but I went to look at it with Roland. When I left he was still in the studio with it. He saw it after me.’
The detectives glance at each other.
‘Look, check the fucking security tapes. We’ve got cameras everywhere.’
But then they tell me that for two hours this afternoon all the cameras were non-functional. They tell me this was due to the renovations – some electrical work. Then they ask how long I’ve known the cameras would be inoperable today.
‘I didn’t! I didn’t know about the cameras, I don’t know who stole the Van Gogh, and I wasn’t the last one to see it.’
Then I yell, ‘Talk to Roland, he’ll tell you!’
And the police detective, the short one, he says, ‘We can’t.’
This is where they tell me how they found Roland in his studio. How he had a broken tripod leg shoved through his eye socket into his skull. They tell me how he’s at Rush Memorial undergoing emergency surgery right now.
> A moment of mute struggle passes through me. How do you react when you learn someone you’ve worked with, someone your father worked with before you, has been brutally attacked? I try to think of any movies I’ve seen that may give me some clue.
And look, I know this sounds horrible, but I don’t feel anything over Roland’s attack. That’s just how it is. It’s just how I am. But these guys, I can tell they’d expect anyone except the attacker to be all broken up about it – especially someone who’s worked with him for years.
The three of them, they’re waiting for me to react, to show sadness and fear and regret. To show innocence. So I put my face in my hands and soak up the smell of homeless vomit. I flick my tongue between my fingernails and taste the regurgitated-biscotti-stomach-acid mix. My tongue burns. My eyes water.
Then I pull my hands away, ‘Not Roland. Oh my God, please, not Roland.’
And I let the vomit tears flow. I shiver. I shudder. I’m great. Donald even pats me on the shoulder.
‘There, there,’ he comforts mechanically.
I’ll take my Oscar now.
For the next hour the detectives ask me about any bitterness over Roland’s raise. They ask me to repeat my story again and again, looking for inconsistencies; hoping I’ll slip up. At the end I’m so exhausted from answering the same questions over and over, from fake vomit-crying again and again, I can hardly stand. When I do, the tall one puts his hand on my arm. ‘It’s very important you didn’t lie to us about anything just now. It would look bad for you. If you need to make any corrections, now’s the time.’ My thoughts turn to Harriett, but I remain silent. ‘We’ll have follow-up questions in the coming days after we verify your story,’ the detective warns. ‘Don’t take any trips.’
‘Why don’t you go home and get some rest?’ Donald says, as he walks me out. It’s dark now and Michigan Avenue is black and shiny from the cold rain. A cab is waiting. ‘It’s been a hard day for everyone. Try to relax tonight. Go home and watch some TV. And take tomorrow off.’
Before I get into the cab I try to lighten the situation with a joke. But here’s the thing: even though the joke is stupid, Donald, who never smiles at me, lets out a laugh so theatrical I get the impression that he thinks if he didn’t laugh I might hurt him. I also get the feeling that he only walked me out because he wanted to make sure I left.
A dim light shines from the distant downtown skyline through my living-room windows. I walk through the darkness into the kitchen and turn on the ceiling lamp above the table. I run the faucet and scrub the dried vomit from under my fingernails. That’s when I’m surprised to find I’m weeping a little.
Who could put a tripod through Roland’s eye? Why would someone? Then I think, what if they’re some kind of art-museum serial killer and I’m next? And as I’m standing at the sink, scrubbing homeless vomit from beneath my fingernails, I suddenly get the feeling that someone’s watching me.
But pangs of hunger quickly replace my paranoia and I grab some milk and a bowl of Trix and plop down hard on the aluminium kitchen chair.
I should call Mom. I don’t like Roland that much, but he’s been a good friend to her, especially after Dad died. I should call her; tell her he’s in the hospital. I wipe my odd little tears away and take a spoonful of cereal into my mouth. Later. I’ll call her later.
The crunch of the cereal echoes in my skull as I go over everything that’s happened today. The sludge in my head hasn’t left. It still feels like I haven’t slept in weeks. And as I eat, gazing into the darkness of my living room, I still feel someone watching me. And then, with a spoonful of coloured children’s cereal frozen in front of my gaping mouth, I catch two green eyes leering at me from the darkness.
Without taking my eyes off the eyes watching me, I grab a kitchen knife and inch my way into the living room just enough so I can feel around the wall and find the light switch. And that’s when I see it.
The Van Gogh.
And what do you do when you find a stolen painting worth millions sitting on your living-room sofa? You lock the doors first of all, and then you close the blinds. Then you search your house for the person who put it there. Then a thousand thoughts fire through your mind like bullets. How’d it get here? I should call the cops. No, they’ll think I stole it. I should call the museum. No, they’ll think I stole it. I should sell it. No, I need to calm down.
I turn on the TV. I need to relax. No such luck. A reporter is talking about the stolen Van Gogh. She’s on location, in front of the lion statue outside the museum.
On the TV, the reporter says, ‘On loan from an unnamed benefactor…’
She says, ‘Estimated value: over ten million…’
She says, ‘Employee attacked in his studio…’
I am in so much trouble.
Then on the TV, the reporter says, ‘Sources close to the case have just informed us that they may have a lead.’
And this is where I expect the reporter to tell me to wait just where I am. The police will be right over. Finish your Trix.
‘Police are saying that they have questioned and released – for the time being – a “person of interest” in the case,’ the reporter is saying. Then the image on the screen cuts to footage of the museum from this afternoon. You see a man with his fat wife and plump little Mexican children. They’re standing in front of one of the big, green lion statues outside the museum. ‘We shot this footage today for a story about the fifty-million-dollar renovation of the museum’s west wing,’ the reporter says. ‘It’s now thought that this was around the time the theft occurred.’
And on the TV, the Mexican family has walked out of frame and now we see a group of Asian tourists with cameras around their necks. And behind them…
‘We’ve learned that, due to electrical work on the renovation, the security cameras were apparently disabled for an unknown amount of time this afternoon,’ the reporter says. ‘Authorities aren’t yet sure if the thief knew of the lapse in security.’
Behind the Asian tourists stands a woman.
A woman with skin like cream.
And hair as dark as a raven’s folded wing.
A woman with a mutilated ear.
The footage on the television, it shows the woman, the one from my dream. The one in the silverware factory. The hallucination at the coffee shop. The one who’s nothing more than another figment of my imagination.
But it can’t be.
Figments can’t appear on film.
5
Occam’s Razor
I covered the Van Gogh with a sheet and haven’t looked at it since. Then I watched the news all night to see if there was any new information. And to see if they would play the footage again in which I saw my figment. But no subsequent story ever showed the same footage. Even if one had I’m sure she wouldn’t have been there again. Once you’ve stolen a Van Gogh and you start seeing your imaginary friends on TV it’s easy enough to connect the dots: I’m going crazy because I’ve come off my meds and now I’ve put someone in the hospital.
At seven this morning I stole my neighbour’s Tribune from across the hall. The headline on the front page read ‘MAYHEM IN THE MUSEUM!’ Words from the article jumped out: ‘PHOTOGRAPHER’, ‘CRITICAL CONDITION’, ‘CO-WORKER’, ‘PERSON OF INTEREST’, ‘STOLEN VAN GOGH.’
I threw it back into the hall.
At nine I called my shrink’s office and got an appointment for three.
‘I think I’m sick again,’ I tell my shrink, before I’ve even sat down. I say I think my figments are coming back.
‘Slow down, Jerry,’ he says. ‘What do you mean?’
And I suddenly wonder if my shrink watches the news. I wonder, how far does doctor-patient confidentiality go? So I lie and say that I was at the video store at lunch yesterday. I wanted to buy a DVD, only I had forgotten my wallet. When I left the store I saw one of my figments across the street. Then, when I got home that night, I discovered the DVD sitting on my couch.
I ask him if it
’s possible that my psychotic depression is getting worse. That instead of just seeing people who aren’t there, is it possible that I am becoming them? Is it possible I have some kind of split personality and unconsciously carry out actions under their persona? Is it possible to do all this and not remember?
‘Which of your figments did you see?’
I say, ‘A new one. Not Rachel.’
‘One you haven’t seen before you were on the mifepristone?’
I nod.
‘And when did you start to see this figment?’
‘Several weeks ago,’ I remember. ‘Only I didn’t realise she wasn’t real. I saw her once on the sidewalk in front of the museum. Then sitting in the garden at the side of the museum. I thought it was coincidence when I noticed her in a few different places, but then I remembered that I dreamt about her years ago. That’s when I realised I had gone off my meds. I knew I should have come for a refill sooner, but I kept putting it off. I thought she’d go away. But then I saw her at lunch and she felt more real than ever. And now the DVD…’
‘Continue, continue,’ he says.
I originally went to this shrink when we moved to Chicago because my shrink in LA recommended him. But for my tastes he’s too talky. My old shrink would just prescribe medicine and be done with it. This shrink loves to hear about my feelings.
So I tell him how I’ve started dreaming this old dream about her. How in the dream she’s terrified; how she fights off intruders.
My shrink listens and then says, ‘Last time we spoke, a few months ago, you had just been turned down for a raise, am I right? This would be around the same time you started seeing this figment, correct?’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Maybe three weeks later.’
‘Right … two months ago was early February,’ he says, watching me closely. ‘Three weeks after that – well, Jerry, that’s around Emma’s birthday, isn’t it?’
Epiphany Jones Page 3