Epiphany Jones

by Michael Grothaus

  I’m getting off this fucking boat. I’ll swim to shore if I have to. And then I’m going to the police with the tape. The tape, let her refute the tape. Video doesn’t lie.

  I take a breath and grab the laptop. I’m about to X out of the Firefox window when I notice a small headline in the Chicago Tribune’s recent news ticker. It’s an article about the Van Gogh. It’s been returned to the museum and is scheduled to go on display as originally intended – albeit under tighter security.

  I click on ‘Related Stories’ and find the article from February in front of me. It’s the one about the acquisition of the painting. The one with the photo of Roland and Donald and David Lang – smiles all around. Smiles on all but me anyway. There I still sit in the background, hunched over my computer – one two-hundredths of a second of my life frozen in time. That moment seems ages away now.

  In the ‘Free Events Chicago’ sidebar my mom’s Joan lectures are listed. Above the listing is a small picture of my mom standing next to a painting of Joan of Arc. The photo was taken after I was kidnapped. She’s smiling, but not with her eyes. It’s one of those smiles you wear when the guy with the camera orders you to. But behind that forced smile you give to the world, your life’s really in pieces. And I wonder if she’s received my postcard yet.

  I remember Mom telling Emma and I that she loved Joan’s story because hers was one of the few lives that were recorded under oath during two separate trials – one condemning her, the other exonerating her. Experts like my mom could look over every detail of Joan’s life as if they’d been there. Mom told us that at her first trial many people believed Joan was insane. Scholars have said that troubled people like Joan see signs that aren’t there. They need hope, they need purpose, or they can’t deal with everyday life.

  Even today a number of experts have tried to explain Joan’s visions and voices in neurological terms. Some think she had something now known as Ménière’s disease: a neurological condition that affects the ears. The primary symptoms are ringing in the ears and migraines – both of which Joan suffered from. Some even believe she had tuberculosis – an insult if you believe she’s a virginal saint – but a disease that, in extreme cases, can cause the sufferer to hear voices.

  Voices.

  Ringing in her ears.

  Migraines.

  ‘Occam’s razor,’ my shrink said. ‘All other things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.’

  And what’s more plausible? That Dad wasn’t the man Emma and my mother and I knew; that he bought kidnapped girls for ridiculous sums of money we couldn’t afford and then raped them; that one of those girls talks to God and, years later, He’s telling her that I can help her find her daughter? Or, like Sarge said, Epiphany is so traumatised, the voices she hears are her mind’s way of helping her feel some control over her situation? Hell, it’s even possible that she got tuberculosis from one of the men she was forced to service.

  And then it all snaps into place. I remember the torn-out photo of Donald and Roland and David Lang and the Van Gogh that I found in Epiphany’s yellow bag when I was looking for my 486s.

  Epiphany must have seen the photograph in the Chicago Tribune from February. She tore it out. She saw that the painting was donated by Matthew Mann and read about Roland’s connection to him. She couldn’t get to someone like Matthew, but she could get to Roland. So he became the target of her revenge. After she attacked him it didn’t quench her pain. Her warped mind needed a new plan. It needed a new person to hold power over, because she couldn’t get to the guy who hurt her. So again she saw the same clipping of the photograph hanging above Roland’s desk and she must have seen me sitting in the background, and Roland, he could have told her I was Jonathan’s son. That’s when her mind created what she needed it to in order to feel a sense of hope and purpose again.

  And I need to see it for myself. I need to tell Epiphany that I’ve seen exactly what happened with my own eyes.

  On the laptop I click the QuickTime window to the front of the screen.

  No commercials, no coming attractions.

  The show starts now.

  The window jumps from black to blue, then to a fuzzy peach. A hand moves away from the frame and a person appears.

  His orange little goatee with white sprouts of hair.

  His pock-marked face.

  His yellow teeth.

  ‘This is April fourth,’ Roland says in close-up. His voice is weak. When I left his studio that morning, he was as peppy as could be. ‘Photographing Van…’ The audio cuts out for a moment as he reaches around the camera to adjust it. He comes back into frame and you can hear his voice again: ‘… camera I am using today to photograph the work is a Nikon D1 with the SB-28DX speedlight hot shoe flash.’ Roland gets smaller on the screen as he moves closer to the painting. You can almost see his whole body now. ‘Painting is on aluminium easel, with rubber guidings,’ he says about seven feet from the video camera’s lens.

  Minutes pass as Roland adjusts the lighting in his studio. Then, from an off-screen source, extra light floods the room for a second. Someone’s opened the door to the studio, entered and closed it behind them. Roland looks towards the off-screen door and all the colour drains from his face. He’s silent for a good ten seconds. Granted, the tape isn’t the best quality, but in those ten seconds I could swear I see his orange goatee sprout a few more threads of white.

  His voice shakes. ‘What are you doing in here?’

  The voice that answers, you can’t make it out. The mike on the camera is unidirectional; it only records sounds in front of it and right now Epiphany is behind the camera.

  Show the devil. Just one shot. One frame. That’s all I need and I’m free.

  ‘I swear I don’t know,’ Roland pleads, an answer to some unheard question.

  There are muffled sounds for the next thirty seconds. During this time, Roland cries. As he’s crying, something small and black flies into frame, something no bigger than a quarter hits him in the face, causing his whole body to jerk unnaturally, as if the object was much larger.

  Roland briefly muffles his tears as he listens to someone speak. ‘Why?’ he says as he breaks down again. For another twenty seconds Roland just stands there on screen next to the painting and shakes. He looks like he’s going to wet himself.

  Then the entire video image, it shakes a little, then stops. Roland, he pauses for a moment before begging, ‘Please.’

  And then the video image, it quakes strongly as everything on the screen wobbles from side to side. And even wobbling, you can see just how white, just how ghost-like Roland is now.

  ‘Please,’ he sobs.

  And as Roland screams, the Van Gogh and everything else on screen suddenly slides frame left as the image falls on its side. Then the video image, it flickers a few times before cutting to the default blue status screen.

  And the last thing you hear is Roland shouting. He’s shouting at his attacker. He’s shouting their name. He’s begging for his life.

  ‘Jerry! Jerry! Please, no! Jerry! No!’

  29

  Rape

  ‘Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Give it to me, Jerry!’

  ‘Fuck my ass.’

  ‘Harder, Jerry! Harder! Make me hurt!’

  I’ve got Epiphany bent over the bunk. It’s like I’m drilling for oil. I want her to crack. To bleed. I want to give her pain. I want to cum rivers in her ass so she’ll leak for the rest of her life. And when people ask her what happened she’ll say, ‘I messed with Jerry Dresden.’

  You would do no less if she fucked up your life.

  ‘Is that all you’ve got?’ she grins.

  She says, ‘Your dad was so much better than you.’

  And before I can even cum my dick is limp in my hand. Look at what Epiphany’s done to me. I’m in front of a computer with an internet connection – the first one I’ve had in weeks – all the porn I need is just a click away and I can’t get her out of my head. I can’t even r
evenge-fuck her in my mind right.

  My whole body feels like it’s broken.

  After I watched the videotape, after I boxed up the camcorder and pieced together the globe I punched, Sarge stopped by. He said he was just checking in, but he acted weird. I wondered if he had talked to Epiphany; if she had told him I was being less than cooperative. And I wondered how long it would take both of them to tell Abdul, who will no doubt then have no problem making me do whatever his little smuggled princess wants.

  Outside the porthole the lights of Porto flicker in the night. Late tonight we’ll be docking. We’ll be docking and I’ve got nothing. Epiphany owns me. She’s never going to let me go.

  I look at my limp dick in my hand, chubby and covered in saliva. I begin to sob.

  ‘Get a hold of yourself, Jerry,’ a voice suddenly says.

  My eyes go wide. ‘Rachel?’ My model ex-girlfriend figment is sitting on Abdul’s bed.

  ‘Put you dick back in your pants and let Epiphany have it,’ she says.

  ‘I’m stressed,’ I say to myself. ‘This is what happens when I get stressed.’ I reach into my pockets.

  ‘What are you doing?’ my imaginary ex-girlfriend asks.

  I pull out my little bottle of 486s.

  ‘You don’t need those,’ Rachel says.

  ‘But I do. I’m seeing things again. I’m going crazy,’ I say.

  ‘Look at you, Jerry,’ Rachel shouts. ‘Your whole life you’ve always done whatever other people wanted you to. Everyone walks all over you. Be a man. Take a stand.’

  ‘A stand? Like what?’ an exhausted smile of utter disbelief breaks out on my face. ‘I thought I had her, but this whole time, she’s had me exactly where she wants me. Roland was screaming my name. I know he was screaming for the last person he saw. He was screaming for help, but the tape makes it look like he’s screaming at me. Like I’m there killing him. Epiphany’s the devil; she’s a master puppeteer. She’s taken everything from me without breaking a sweat.’

  ‘So you’re just going to sit here, watch your little movie and pretend to revenge-fuck her in your mind?’ Rachel scoffs. ‘Do something real, Jerry.’

  ‘Real?’ I say. ‘What could I possibly do to her?’

  And looking past all the obvious guns and explosives in the room Rachel nods towards my dick that’s still hanging out of my pants.

  She says, ‘Show her she hasn’t cut your balls off.’

  I say, ‘How?’

  She says, ‘Give her her worst fear.’

  I say, ‘What’s that?’

  She says, ‘That little revenge fantasy in your head?’

  I say, ‘Yeah?’

  She says, ‘Make it real so she never fucks with you again.’

  The hall is empty and when I enter Epiphany’s cabin she’s just getting dressed. It’s the first time I’ve seen her standing since we’ve been on the boat. The blue dress she wore in Mexico is slung over the bunk’s frame. With one hand she’s holding her cargo pants up. They’re still unbuttoned. I can see her underwear through her fly. They’re maroon.

  ‘Jerry?’ Her long-sleeved T-shirt hugs her chest.

  My skin burns. I can’t go home. I can’t see my mom. I can’t be innocent. It’s all because of you, I think.

  You even took away the one pleasure I did have in my shitty little life.

  I can’t jerk off because of you.

  In my mind, Epiphany cackles, Your dad was SO much better than you.

  The bitch. The liar. If her voices were real they would have warned her about this, the false prophet.

  And standing before her, her pants still unbuttoned, she’s staring at my crotch.

  Oh, how embarrassing. I’ve forgotten to put my dick back in my pants.

  Fear spreads on her face.

  There are no rewards. No punishments. No voices. No God.

  ‘Jerry –’

  No one judges you at the end of a tunnel.

  I toss the tape into her hands. It takes her a moment to register what it is.

  ‘You said–’ The caught look on her face, it’s almost enough to make what I’m about to do seem excessive. Almost.

  ‘I lied. Just like you,’ I say. ‘All that’s on there is Roland shouting my name. You aren’t in the footage at all. You’ve known that all this time. The tape was nothing but a lie to trap me into following you.’

  Epiphany speaks quickly, the way the guilty do. ‘I’ve never viewed it. I was only told to take it.’

  ‘By your voices?’ I yell so loudly that Epiphany cowers.

  ‘Jerry, please. I’ll go back with you after we find my daughter–’

  ‘You mean, after looking for your daughter for twelve years, you’ll go back to the States and tell everyone you were the one who killed Roland?’ I say, incredulously. ‘You’ll give up your daughter again and go to jail?’

  ‘What happens to me doesn’t matter,’ she breathes. ‘She’s all that matters.’

  ‘Quit lying,’ I sneer. And before this goes any further, before she can con me into anything ever again, I grab her by the back of the neck. She’s still weak from Nico’s beating. From lying in bed most of a week. Her unbuttoned pants slide down to her knees as I force her over the lower bunk.

  ‘Jerry!’ she screams into the mattress.

  ‘Show her she hasn’t cut your balls off,’ Rachel says from the corner of the room.

  Epiphany, bent over, face-down in the bunk, I cross her wrists behind her back, holding them together with one hand.

  I put my knee on the back of her thigh to keep her from kicking.

  My dick, hanging out of my fly, it wiggles against the inside of her leg.

  I press my other hand into the small of her back to keep her from rolling over.

  And into the mattress, Epiphany bellows, ‘Don’t become your father!’

  She bellows, ‘Don’t!’

  She screams, ‘Don’t, Jerry!’

  And I say, ‘I can’t.’

  I say, ‘Because he never did any of those things to you.’

  And I reach between my legs and grab my limp dick and push it back into my pants and zip up my fly.

  It’s cold in here. No one likes shrinkage, you know?

  Then I reach into my pocket and pop my bottle of 486s open and, lying on top of Epiphany on the bunk, I pull her head back by her raven hair and force the contents of the entire bottle into her mouth. As she struggles against my weight, I hold her mouth closed. I hold her firm on the bunk and try to remember how long it took the pills to affect me that night in Chicago when I swallowed half a bottle. Five minutes? But Epiphany’s much smaller than I am and in less than two minutes she’s stopped struggling. When I push her to the floor she barely squirms. The green fires in her eyes have clouded over.

  As I walk out the cabin door Epiphany just looks at me all paralysed-like.

  Rachel says, ‘My way would have been more fun.’

  And within minutes I’m at the rear of the ship. There’s one crewman out here, but he’s across the deck playing with a remote-controlled car once bound for a toy store in America and doesn’t notice me in the dark. I double-check that the roll of Nico’s cash is snug in my pocket. The yellow lights of the city twinkle in the distance. I lean over the railing, waiting for my heart to catch up with my plans. The sea is dark like oil. ‘I can’t do this. I can’t. What if there’re sharks?’ I say to myself.

  ‘No. Take charge for once, Jerry. You have to do this,’ Rachel demands.

  And as I press my eyes shut and blindly jump into the night, I pray that this swim goes better than my last.

  30

  Portugal

  Traveller’s Tip: When a shark attacks, it strikes from the bottom. It rams you with its snout. While you’re stunned, it swoops back around and takes a bite. And when it has you in its jaws it’s easy to panic, but you must stay calm. The only way you’re going to get free is if you point your fingers like they’re a gun and jab them into the shark’s eyes. You jab and
you jab until it releases you. Then you just pray you can make it to dry land.

  I know this because I read it in that Time article and it was all I could think about as I swam to shore. And being at night, not being able to see what could be in the water three feet away made it that much worse. But it turns out the only thing I had to worry about was my tongue. Sucking salt water for an hour makes it swell.

  Traveller’s Tip: After you jump ship and finally make it to shore you’ll be more tired than you ever thought possible. Swimming a mile isn’t your afternoon walk. Not one muscle in your body is at rest when you swim. And as you get close to shore, as your feet meet the sandy ocean bottom, it feels like you’ve swum past the stars and landed on the moon – that’s how tired you are. The first thing you’ll want to do is sleep. But you can’t. Not right on the beach anyway. You need cover. Thankfully the locals have lined the beach with purple-and-yellow-striped huts. I crawled into one and was out before my face hit the sand.

  I woke, my tongue still numb from the salt water, to a drone of voices. I peeked out of the hut. It was morning and the beach was packed with locals. Fat locals, thin locals. Locals with iPods and books and inner tubes. The freighter, now visible in the daylight, had moved to the port a mile down shore.

  Traveller’s Tip: When you land on strange shores there is one thing you can always count on: the younger locals will speak English. They’ll speak English because they’ve all grown up watching Hollywood movies, just like you.

  I stopped a teenage couple on their way to the water. ‘Ith thif Poro? Wfher can Iffind anth infernef caffé?’

  ‘Desculpe?’ they said.

  ‘Ith nefd anf internef caffe. Internef!’

  They looked at each other. ‘Sorry,’ they said. ‘Do you speak any English?’

  ‘I thpeak Englith! Wfher can Iffind anth infernef caffé?’ Fucking salt water.

  Eventually they understood and told me that the beach I was at was in a suburb of Porto and that any internet cafés would be in the city centre.