by Ronald Malfi
Jerry just frowned. “That damn fool. We’re through, Marcus.”
“What happened?”
“I can’t keep turning down fights. And I can’t keep putting people on hold until Charlie gets his life back together. If, of course, that ever happens.”
“How much money does he have left, Jerry?”
“The divorce cleaned him out,” Jerry said flatly. He looked suddenly miserable and, for whatever reason, I felt myself liking him more than I ever had in the past. “He’s got a few grand he can float on for...I don’t know...a few more months, maybe more. I could get him back in the ring, which would improve his bank account tremendously, but I can’t put him out the way he is now. His head needs to be in the game. Unless we deliberately send him into the tank and bet on the other guy.”
I chuckled a bit, although I wasn’t exactly sure Jerry was joking.
“How’d your discussion with him go yesterday?”
“First of all,” I said, “we need to get rid of that portrait in the parlor.”
“The one of Gloria?”
“He’s in there right now, obsessing over that portrait. It’s unhealthy.”
“And did you ask him about going to her house? The harassment?”
“He said he hasn’t been to her house.”
Jerry frowned. “But she was very upset. She called the loft, back when he was still living there, Marcus...”
“Yes,” I said. “I understand.” Rubbing my chin.
An hour later and we were all having lunch at an outdoor café, listening to live music travel down the streets of Old Town, and watching a group of children play outside an Eis Café across the boulevard. My appetite having returned twofold, I ordered currywurst and Pommes, along with two steins of beer. I’d forgotten how good the beer was, and I guzzled my initial stein like a marauder while savoring the second, watching the vesicles bubbling up and pouring over the glass. Across the table from me, Charlie sat looking at his own plate of fries, a half-empty glass of water beside his plate. Trying to be inconspicuous, I watched him eat from beneath my down-turned brow, and it was like watching someone in a zero gravity chamber moving their arms for the first time. To pick up a single fry required what appeared to be great effort, and he did so in slow motion. I could tell he was focusing intently, concentrating on the task at hand. Both Demitris and Jerry, who had been sitting on either side of me, noticed this early on as well, but were not as inconspicuous; soon, Jerry muttered, “Oh for Christ’s sake,” then stood with his beer and walked across the street to the nearest bar. Demitris quickly followed, although he thankfully did not open his mouth.
“Are you having some difficulty?” I asked, trying to keep my tone casual and void of confrontation, after I could no longer sit and watch my friend suffer through this remedial task.
“Just a little off, that’s all,” he assured me, not taking his eyes from the fried potato wedges in his plate.
“Is there something I can do to assist with the—offness?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did you get any sleep last night?”
“Some,” he said.
I took another swallow of my beer and said, “I saw you outside last night. I saw you go into the stable.”
“All right.” He was unimpressed.
“Have you been getting up and going out every night?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t recall going out.”
“You don’t remember going out to the barn last night? Petting the horse?”
“Is that what I did?” There was actually a trace of whimsy to his voice.
Was this what I was dealing with? Sleepwalking? Somnambulism? Or was my old friend just putting me on? Surely he had to know my visit here was not strictly out of friendship but at least partially out of vocation. A psychotherapist doesn’t just up and leave work to drink beers with friends in Germany. When I learned of the horrible state Charlie was in, lie to myself as I might, I knew the analytical part of my brain was piqued. I was hungry to help solve Charlie’s problem and cure him of whatever depressive state was gnawing away at him since the divorce.
6
Before returning to the house, I secured a box from the city post office then walked the length of the market until I located a telephone booth which happened to resemble the TARDIS from Doctor Who. I telephoned the university and requested my mail and paperwork be forwarded to the P.O. Box, as I could not say with any certainly how much longer I would be needed here in Kaiserslautern. Charlie’s situation was indeed more serious than I had originally thought.
Back at the house, I wanted to give Charlie a sedative to help him sleep. However, before he would allow me to do this, he insisted on going out to the stable to feed the horse. I assured him Demitris would feed the horse for him, and that it was important he rested before we went out for the evening, but he would not hear of it. So he staggered out across the field of Rape toward the stable, swaying like a drunkard despite the fact that he’d consumed nothing more debilitating than ice water and some Pommes back in Old Town, and fed the mottled stallion from a satchel of oats. I watched him from the rear of the house, uncertain if I should pursue him into the stable and stand with him, or if I should just turn around and go back inside and await his return. In the end, I opted for the latter, and fixed myself some coffee in the kitchen. Soon, Demitris entered, dressed absurdly in a crushed velvet coat and tails and a top hat of such exaggerated proportions that he looked like a leprechaun in human clothes. Seeing him, I paused while stirring the sugar into my coffee, the look on my face enough to induce him into a stumble of babbling speech.
“I’ve been—I mean, what I mean, Marcus—is I’ve been waiting for the, uh, opportunity to, uh, well—I mean, to—”
“Demitris, why in the world are you dressed like that?”
“For the square dancing.”
“You’re going square dancing tonight?”
“At the Swing Fraction. It’s very good for the soul,” he said straight-faced.
I cleared my throat and set my coffee on the counter. “I wanted to speak with you about Gloria’s portrait, Demitris. I think it’s necessary it leaves the house immediately.”
Demitris looked instantly ill. “Charlie won’t like that.”
“Charlie doesn’t know what’s good for him at the moment,” I said. That was an understatement; in fact, I could not recall a time when Charlie knew what was good for him. Gloria had certainly not been.
“Well,” Demitris said, “he certainly likes that portrait. I’m not sure if it’s such a good idea, Marcus.”
“I’m his doctor,” I quipped, “so I think I know what’s best for him.”
“It’s just that I think that portrait is half the reason he came here in the first place…”
“Demitris, please. I don’t have the energy right now, okay?”
“Okay, Marcus. Sure.”
Around twenty after eight that evening, Charlie appeared at the foot of the winding staircase, dressed only in a pair of unwashed boxer shorts, his skin pale in the bad lighting, his hair tousled on his head. The sedatives I’d prescribed had been light, but it had been enough to knock him out for several hours. The house was quiet and I was seated in the parlor with the door open and the view of the foyer and staircase in my periphery, a leather-bound Henry James volume on my lap.
“Sleep well?” I asked as he staggered into the parlor.
“I had a dream,” he said. “I was standing outside, out front, looking down the path that overlooks the city. I could see all the buildings and steeples and the Rathaus and, beyond everything, the widening forest. There were lights on in all the windows and even music coming up from the boulevards, but when I looked down into the streets, I couldn’t see any people. The city was alive, Marcus, but there
were no people.”
“That’s some dream.”
“What do you think it means?”
“Oh, Charlie, it could mean a million things. But it probably means nothing at all.” I didn’t put much stock into dream interpretations. To me, dreams were merely the accumulation of all the recent events that occurred in our waking world that have become caught, like filth in a drain, inside our subconscious. Actual “dreaming” was the mind’s way of cleansing the pipes.
“Well, I think I know what it means,” said Charlie.
“Do you?” I humored him. “And what’s that, man?”
“Hmmmm.” I felt his dark, disturbed eyes take me in—every little bit of me—before he turned them to the bare spot on the wall where Gloria’s picture was no longer. “Where’d it go?”
I braced myself for combat. “I had Demitris take it down.”
“How come?”
“Because staring at a portrait of your ex-wife isn’t helping you get through this, Charlie.”
His eyes lingered a bit longer on that empty spot on the wall. Then, without looking at me, he simply turned and sauntered across the foyer and, with much assistance from the handrail, back up the winding staircase.
By eleven o’clock, with Jerry and Charlie asleep and Demitris not yet home from square dancing, the silence of the compound was working me over, pulling my eyelids lower and lower. I eventually closed the book, stood, and made my way to my bedroom upstairs. But before I did, I peered in at Charlie. He was sprawled out on his bed like someone drawn and quartered, snoring like a locomotive.
I showered and crawled into my own bed, anticipating a good night’s rest. This was not the case, however. That same noise that had awoken me last night repeated itself, once again jarring me from a deep sleep. The only difference this time was that I recognized the noise right away, for whatever reason: it was the sound of the screen door on the rear patio slamming shut against its hinges. The utter brazenness of the bastard! In a houseful of people who wanted nothing but to console and baby and nurture him, the recalcitrant son of a bitch was going to get up in the middle of the night and slam doors! It was an act of pure defiance!
Not rising from my pillow, I heard—or imagined I heard—his bare feet padding down the porch steps and into the grass. Then there was a length of silence as he presumably crossed the lawn. Soon, there would be the faint squeal as he opened the stable doors once again.
Finally, I sat up in bed, rubbing grit from my eyes, and tossed my feet to the floor. Shuffling to the patio doors, I slid aside the curtain and could see Charlie’s scampering form, ghostly white in the moonlight, disappear into the partially opened door of the stable. This bothered me, just as it had bothered me the night before, only the repetition of the act seemed to settle heavier around me. And just like the night before, what bothered me the most was why it bothered me. Something seemed so completely off.
I considered going out to the stables again, perhaps even saying something to him this night. But I didn’t. Instead, I stood watch from the patio doors as the tinkle of flame lit the rectangle of space in the stable doorway. I could see a shadow moving inside. How long was he planning to stay in there? All night?
At that moment, I saw him emerge from the stable, and at first he appeared to be alone. Then I saw the horse’s elongated head emerging from the stable. Leading the animal by a set of reigns, Charlie walked clumsily around the circumference of the overgrown pen. The horse followed in its dumb, nebbish fashion. The white patches of hair on the horse’s hide seemed, in the moonlight, to hover in space like a million flashbulb afterimages. They were quite a suitable pair, I realized, watching them both trudge in circles around the enclosed pen.
I crept back into bed, hearing the mattress springs groan beneath my weight, and sprawled out with my hands laced behind my head. I stared at the ceiling. If Charlie was still out there with the horse by the time I fell asleep—and, if I had to guess, I would say that he was—then I knew nothing about it, for I did not rise and seek him out again until morning.
7
Yet morning brought with it its own set of problems.
Upon rising and entering the kitchen, a newspaper under my arm and the cravings for strong Sumatran coffee on my tongue, I paused to find Jerry speaking in German to two police officers seated about the kitchen table. My German was poor but their cadence and furrowed brows were enough to alert me to the seriousness of the situation. I wondered if that fool Demitris had gotten himself in hot water while out on the town last night.
I nodded at the officers then prepared my coffee at the counter. When the chairs creaked and the men rose, I took a long sip of the hot coffee and listened to their boot heels clack down the hallway as Jerry led them out the front door. When Jerry returned to the kitchen, he looked pale.
“Demitris need bail money?” I questioned, raising one eyebrow.
“It was Gloria,” Jerry said flatly. “She phoned the police first thing this morning. She said Charlie was outside her house again last night.”
“That goddamn child.”
“She feels badly for him and didn’t file charges. She was just upset and wanted the cops to give him a warning.”
“Where is he now?”
“In the parlor.”
“Did the police speak with him?”
“No. I told them he was still in bed. I ensured them I would talk with him when he got up.” He rolled his shoulders. “Turns out they’re big boxing fans, used to follow Charlie’s career.”
“You talk like his career’s over. Bad thing for a manager to be doing, I would think.”
Again, Jerry rolled his shoulders. “He was outside her house on that horse, Marcus. Naked.”
“Naked?”
“As the day he was born.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“He’s really losing his mind, isn’t he?”
Without answering, I carried my coffee into the parlor to find Charlie slumped in an armchair, staring at the space on the wall where his ex-wife’s portrait used to hang.
“You look like hell, Charlie.”
“Good morning.”
“Did you sleep at all last night?”
“I slept fine.”
“I assume you know why the cops were here?”
“There were cops here?” Though he did not truly sound interested.
“She is going to have you thrown in jail if you keep this up, you know. It isn’t making your situation any better.”
“If I keep what up, Marcus?” He looked at me, his face sallow, his eyes muddy in his face. “Keep what up? What am I doing?”
I turned and went back into the kitchen. Demitris was now up, wiping running eggs off the front of his oxford shirt. Jerry was packing papers into a briefcase on the kitchen table.
“Has he eaten anything?” I asked Jerry.
“I had some eggs,” Demitris spoke up.
“Not you, fool. Charlie.”
“I made him eat some toast,” Jerry said. He stuck an unlit cigar in his mouth and closed the briefcase. “Listen, Marcus, I have to go into Mainz on business and I’ll be gone overnight. I’ve got one last chance to make a go at a promoter. I don’t know if it’s a waste of my time yet or not, but I can’t very well sit here day after day watching the poor son of a bitch rot.”
“I can’t, either,” voiced Demitris.
“So you’re both leaving?”
“It’s just one night,” Jerry said.
That evening, I roasted a game hen in the oven and made a side of potatoes, beets, asparagus, and opened a bottle of Gevurztraminer. I set the big table in the dining room and called for Charlie to join me. He appeared briefly in the doorway of the dining room in an open bathrobe and—good Christ—nothing underneath except his shamefulness, where he wavered like a drunkard before pivoting back around on his hee
ls and thumping back upstairs to his bedroom. I promised I would not allow my friend’s insubordination to ruin a perfectly good meal, so I went and put a Vivaldi record on the old Victor Victrola, and enjoyed my hen and wine.
Before bed, I put some sedatives in the dish of mashed potatoes I left on the upstairs landing outside Charlie’s door. I did not want a visit from cops again, particularly with Jerry and Demitris gone for the evening. Then, in my own room, I peered through the shrouded darkness at the barn. The stable doors were closed. I hoped they would remain so for the duration of the evening. Of course, if Charlie wanted to go into town and torment Gloria, he could always take the Aston Martin. But I knew his rationale for riding the horse: with the portrait removed from the parlor, the horse was the only tangible evidence left on this property that Gloria had ever existed in his life. It was her horse, though she had never truly wanted a horse, and Charlie was acting out a sense of defiance in utilizing the beast as a mode of transportation taking him to her house. It was all very clinical, really, but not altogether surprising.
In the morning, the first thing I did after sitting up and popping the weary tendons in my neck, was get up and peer out the windows. To my dismay, I found the barn doors wide open.
I quickly dressed and bounded down the stairs, through the house, and out onto the back porch. Sunlight cut my eyes to slits. Nonetheless, I hurried across the field and to the horse stable, finding myself out of breath by the time I reached the stable doors. It smelled of manure and oats and the wet, doggy smell of a summer rainstorm.
“Charlie?”
The mottled stallion whinnied from its stall.
My eyes fell upon spilled oats, seemingly arranged in some sinister configuration…
“Charlie?”
I stepped farther into the stable. My body blotted out the sun at my back. My boots crunched over the spilled oats and the horse trilled again.
The prizefighter was sprawled over a burlap sack of oats, his head cocked far back on his neck and hanging over the side of the sack, his arms and legs splayed out like a starfish. My first impression was that he was dead—that his heart, deprived of food and sleep, had finally given up the good fight. But then I noticed the slight rise and fall of his chest, and I knew he was breathing.