I smiled as I flicked through the scrapbook. I decided to make a quick phone call. A good dealer always wants feedback on his drug and I needed to know how the others were feeling: did the client enjoy the product? What would you rate it out of 1-10? Would you recommend the product to others?
“Looks like we made the front news,” I said.
The phone was dead silent on the other end.
“Tony? You still there?”
“Yeah, yeah. I heard you . . .”
“Trauma suffered from multiple blows to the base of his neck and skull . . .” I began reciting from the article. I highlighted the sentences as I spoke.
“Tony, are you even listening?”
“Yeah, yeah, just . . . gimme a second, will you?”
“He is remembered through his darling wife and son,” I continued, highlighting another sentence with another bright yellow slash.
Silence.
“He deserved to die, Pete. That's just it. His time was up.”
“Yeah. I suppose it was . . .” I answered. I closed the scrapbook and decided to leave the article out instead. I put the scrapbook back up on its shelf with its unlabelled spine facing outwards.
“Was there anything else?” Tony asked. “Time is money here, Pete, and I've enough investors gunning for me here today.”
“No, I guess that was it.”
“Right so. Later, Pete.”
Shit. He helps kill a man and not even an ounce of regret. This whole thing was starting to spiral out of control.
I called Alice moments later. I needed to check how they were all doing. If this had become too real for any of them.
Alice answered after several long rings.
“Yeah?”
“Hey, Alice. Listen. Have you read the paper recently?”
I could hear her yelling at someone in the background. Most likely some lowly wardrobe designer who had to suffer her wrath over some minuscule details that only her eyes could see. One stitch which looked a little out of place. One side of the dress which somehow made all eighty pounds (or was seventy the new fashion requirement?) of her look overweight. All these things she would obsess over and her perpetually furrowed, icy blue eyes would never miss.
Over the phone, I could hear her unscrew the cap off something and pop another pill. Appetite suppressers, anxiety, depression—she had them all.
“Sorry, Pete. Dealing with a bunch of amateurs here. Anyway, you were saying?”
“About the newspaper?”
“Come on, Pete,” she scoffed. “You know I don't bother with that kind of news.”
“That guy you picked up for the last Playdate died in hospital last night. Had a wife and kid and all . . .”
I could hear her tiny footsteps move to a quieter part of the dressing room followed by the sound of a door closing behind her.
“Shit, really? I mean, it sucks for his kid and all, but I don’t know . . . you saw it yourself, Pete, that guy was a sleaze. That’s just . . . it’s . . . that’s a lot to take in all of a sudden . . .”
“Life goes on, Alice. People die every day,” I found myself reciting.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “I guess it does.”
“You tell any of the others?”
“Just Tony so far. I should probably call Jonathan in a minute.”
“Don’t bother,” she said. “He’s off on another one of his ‘technological isolation’ sessions while he works on his ‘masterpiece that’s going to take the world by storm’. The usual with him, you know? You could try to leave him a message, but I doubt he’s going to bother looking at it.”
“Right, right . . .” I answered.
“Pete, wait—” she hesitated. “It’s my fault that a man died, isn’t it?
“It’s not your fault, Alice,” I said. “We’re all to blame for it.”
“Pete, come on, don’t lie to me. You know deep down that it’s me to blame. I mean, it was me that picked him that night and . . .”
Her voice broke mid-sentence. She paused. A long silence passed before either of us spoke.
“Look, I’ve got to get back to work. Anyway, I’ll . . . I’ll see you soon?”
“See you soon,” I replied and then hung up the phone.
Marcus had no phone so there was no way I could contact him until the next session. I looked down at my watch to check the time.
I felt no need to call Jason.
* * *
It was sometime close to midday when I called Sarah. I don’t know why I did, I think it was just the overwhelming boredom that led me to do it. I hadn’t rehearsed what to say so the entire conversation made little sense to either of us.
“Why don’t you come meet me after my 2 pm session, Pete? Meet me by the local art gallery. I think you’ll like the place. We can chat properly then, okay?”
I agreed and let her hang up. Looking around my tiny apartment, I realised I had very little clothes. I’m not one for caring how I look to the outside world, but with Sarah, it’s different. She’s my one true connection to the outside world. She helps me keep grounded. Makes me feel part of society.
Partially it’s because of the rush of my dirty little secret she can never know about. The only difference between me and most other people is that the monster I hide, I fully embrace as an integral part of myself. We all harbour our own skeletons in the closet. We all tell little ‘white lies’. Some have so many that if they could manifest into a singular being it would be a monster that would devour them whole.
After some deliberation, I dressed in the cleanest black shirt I could find and a pair of slightly creased jeans. I ran my fingers across my face and felt the sharp hairs of my beard sticking out. My hair was shaggy on the sides and back with an ever-thinning crown.
When did I last shave? When did I last get a haircut?
I knew deep down a woman like Sarah would never fall for me. And some part of me was fine with that. In a different life, Sarah would have been like a drug to me. She could have been all I needed, but sadly, that was not the person I was to become. I had my own drug, one that I could administer to others and myself in a heartbeat.
And I was nothing but a washed-up junkie in denial to it.
FROM THE DIARY OF PETER CLAYTON
The crows pace eagerly across the face, pushing off from the corners of eyes and the corners of lips as they seek purchase for their first and only flight. The crow of life we nest inside each one of us, nurtured through our words and deeds. Perhaps some are doves.
Mine seems to be a grey bird of some commonplace description. Some fall, too weak to fly. Landing upon our urban jungles to be picked clean by bustling carrions.
Others will crawl back inside, hiding behind blank facades and sullen faces; leaving prints of each failed attempt to serve as memory. In yellow-stained teeth and creased faces, the crow draws each exasperated breath in defiance. In time, the mind will outlive the body, for it is eternal and older.
While the body slumbers, nurturing the crow within, the mind speaks to it in volumes, spinning wonderful yarns to others before it. It speaks through images, thoughts, and feelings, for in the mind the barriers erected by language are broken down. Fragmented and spread across the winds, only to be fragmented and spread even further until it is all but dust and a faded memory.
But inside me, my grey bird slumbers, asleep in the embryonic fluids of thoughts, of hopes, and dreams; warmed by burning resentment and fast-fading faces. Rocked in its cradle, akin to myself, as I am cradled off to sleep within the cold metal confines of a speeding train about to be derailed.
Was I uniting people through rage or just dividing them? Fuck it, I guess. Better to watch yourself head for disaster than live through it.
CHAPTER 16
It was a quiet Monday evening when we went for a walk through the local art museum. I liked these kinds of days when there was no one around. All the noisy kids would be at school, and the chatty middle-aged folk would be busy toiling away at some menial
, pointless task to earn enough cash to sustain their standards of living for another day.
The peace and quiet was what I loved. The hushed silence as the pained work of suffering artists bear down upon you from their illuminated podiums, and you stand there, judging them solely from the cover; judging them at purely face value, with little to no knowledge of the stories that lay behind such fantastic pieces of art.
They would have made great rage clients, I pondered as I moved past each painting. True pioneers of the drug. Far better than that failing artist Jonathan I had somehow recruited along the way.
With some paintings, I could feel the rage and suffering etched upon every inch of the canvas. Most people look at art and see the beauty—I saw the pain and the anger that drove them to do it.
Who did they want to prove wrong? Who said they couldn’t do it?
I would always leave the museum with a stupid, crooked smile on my face.
Sarah and I strolled through the gleaming gallery, our footsteps echoing down the winding, white-coated labyrinth.
She gazed up at the painting with the same motions of a young child: inquisitive, yet tastefully disinterested within moments. But with some paintings she would stop, and when no one was looking, rest her hand upon the raised canvas, fingers tracing across each slightly-raised brush stroke. For a moment, it would seem like the picture was somehow channelling its voice through her. She would nod in understanding, perhaps acceptance, with a slight smile.
“Look at how Jesus is depicted throughout these scenes.”
There were no security guards around so Sarah rested her hand against the painting I had just mentioned. The tips of her fingers lovingly grazed his raised cheeks.
“I didn't know you're religious, Pete.”
“I'm not,” I admitted, “but I do find it fascinating how he is depicted throughout the ages.”
“Oh?” Her lips pursed, head tilted with the features of an inquisitive child.
“I mean, take the classic example here: reddish/brown hair parted in the middle, almond-shaped eyes, mature, yet soft features. Proportionate, yet somewhat otherworldly. I just find it interesting how to capture the image of a god. Over two millennia, a wide range of depictions have appeared, influenced by cultural settings, political circumstances, and theological contexts. Sometimes he is shown as a youthful figure and sometimes with different features from the other men in scenes just to stand out. But one thing is always consistent.”
“And what's that?” Sarah asked.
“He's never portrayed as overweight.”
A laugh escaped from the top of Sarah's throat followed by a fit of giggles. A nearby woman shushed us.
“It's true!” I joined in. “Would you have followed a fat man on the cross?”
She let out a hushed no.
“Always an image of ideal human beauty; captured in an unnatural eye.”
“Did you ever hear of the painting of Christ in the House of His Parents?” I continued. “The painter John Everett Millais was attacked because it was deemed 'painful' to see the 'Youthful Saviour' depicted as a 'red-haired Jewish boy.”
Sarah’s eyebrows arched. I could see her making mental notes as I spoke. Another few pages for the Peter Clayton folder no doubt. I imagined this would be brought up at the next group session, but I continued anyway.
“Sometimes, people prefer to make up stories rather than see or face the truth. In reality, he was a Middle Eastern Jew, but everyone wanted him to look Renaissance; like a man of the people the church wished he was. It's rare to see him with darker-coloured skin and brown eyes, or to see him angry or resentful—always above the emotions of humans, yet never quite godly enough to express the anger that God is capable of.”
“Well, some people see anger as one of the seven deadly sins,” she chimed in.
“I find it hard to believe it should be so deeply suppressed,” I scoffed out of reflex. “God never suppresses his anger, so why should we? Seems more destructive just to hold it all in, doesn’t it?”
“You’re absolutely right, Pete. It shouldn’t be so deeply suppressed like it is in modern times. Looks like some of what I’ve said over the years stuck.” Her tiny brow furrowed in mock accusation. “Except for this God complex you suddenly seem to be harbouring.”
I made my own mental note as she spoke: expect a speech or article about god complexes from her in the near future.
We walked side by side down another row of paintings, which stood in perfect, attentive rows for us.
“What about these ones?” she asked, grinning.
I shrugged.
“In some paintings he is usually portrayed performing miracles, merely a mortal extension of God, but here, this is probably just a painting of Jesus. No narrative, no story to tell—just him all by himself.”
Sarah brushed her fingers across the painting’s face. The painting’s eyes regarded her fondly, as a father would to a daughter.
“We see the joys of his birth in the Nativity and the agony of his crucifixion to approach both ends of the spectrum; yet the artists never try to make you angry at the Romans, do they? They are never portrayed as otherworldly, demonic entities that could slay a demi-god. They are simply ordinary people who slayed a messenger and then nailed him to a cross as a note; a reminder to live down through the ages that God is one pissed off guy.”
I paused. Sarah slowly turned to look back at me.
“If they done a painting about you, how would they depict you?” I asked. Best to change topic, I figured.
“Excuse me?”
“Imagine—history wanted to remember Sarah Applegate for who she truly is. The artists have been chosen, all masters in their own right down through the ages, and now they stand idly by with their easel resting in one hand, and a perfectly tipped paintbrush in the other—all unified in silence over the one harrowing and humble question: how would you like to be remembered?”
She paused, lost in thought.
“I'd like to be remembered as someone who made a difference. Someone who cared about people and saw past their imperfections. Someone who helped others live their lives and not be afraid of who they are.”
“Like the people in our group?” I suggested.
“Exactly.”
“Be careful with them, Sarah. They’re not who you think they are.”
“Oh? And let me guess, you think of them as wolves?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Mostly,” I answered. “Be careful around them before you accidently become a martyr.”
“Thanks for the advice. And you?” she asked.
I smiled and said the same.
“You want to become a martyr?”
“Well no, I . . .”
“I'm only kidding, Pete,” she smiled. “They all look up to you a lot more than me anyway. You really should start consider working as a counsellor; you've got a knack for helping people.”
If only she knew.
“You knew from day one I barely had the qualifications, yet alone the experience to be a counsellor, but still you came to me and brought all these people along. You’re the real hero in the painting of our little group—the true ‘shepherd of these wolves’ you claim them to be.”
She stepped in front of me and framed me in her open hands.
“Yeah, I can picture it, all right—Peter Clayton—cult leader. Quick! Someone get me a paintbrush—I feel inspired!”
Cult leader. I smiled wirily to myself. Has a better ring to it than drug dealer at least.
I managed a weak laugh.
“Come on,” she said. “If you really want me to paint a good portrait of you for future generations to look back on, then the least you can do is start by buying me a coffee.”
CHAPTER 17
As I sat down for coffee with Sarah, I couldn't shake the nervousness away. I fumbled with the menu, flicking back and forth from page to page—anything to avoid looking in her soft blue eyes. She asked me something, but I was too lost in my own though
ts to hear. She lowered the menu from my face. I managed a weak smile.
“You okay, Pete?”
I tapped my fingers against the table uneasily before drawing in a deep breath.
“I don't know,” I managed—the first words I had said since I sat down. “My first anger management class, my counsellor told me that I didn't seem very angry. That I was a pleasant person.”
“Well, you seem pretty pleasant to me, Pete.”
“My second session was cancelled. I was told his daughter had a ballet class that she couldn't miss. I got angry and called it off. I never went back for the third class. I . . . don't really want to talk much about my past right now,” I confessed.
“Well, what would you like to talk about?” Sarah asked.
“How do you do it, Sarah?” The words seemed to escape my mouth from their own volition.
“Do what?” Her fingers opened and closed around an imaginary pen.
“This!” I waved my arm across the room. “Everything! Life, people, work. How do you do it?”
“You just do it. It’s life. We all have to,” she responded.
“But this? Is this really it?”
“Pete, I don't follow—”
“How do you not just—how do you stay so calm?”
She watched me closely, allowing the silence to encourage me to continue. Her fingers sketched an invisible note to herself. My thoughts were just flowing like erratic chatter, yet she didn’t interrupt. She was always good at listening. It’s what made her a much better person than I was.
“I'm sorry. It's just—it's hard for me to connect with people these days.”
Sarah cupped her warm hands in mine.
“I know your depression is making you angry, but you need to find outlets rather than being on your own and bottling it all up, something, anything, to distract you and take your anger and sadness away. Tell me. Why do you always feel so wronged?”
“It’s because of society, because of all the chances I never had; chances I never took.”
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