Irrational Fears

by Spencer, William Browning

  The bar’s sign was clearly homemade, crude cutout caps braced upright on the shack’s flat roof. Floodlights illuminated the letters, displaying a glinting, scaled and multicolored surface, which, Jack suddenly realized, had been accomplished by gluing or nailing hundreds of beer cans to the cutouts—a labor of love and surely performed by Bob himself, in a fit of folk-art inspiration purer, in its way, than Michelangelo’s commissioned work.

  There were five cars in front of the bar, all of them filmed with snow.

  Jack and his comrades entered the bar’s competition, The Happy Roads AA Club, and were greeted by a blast of cigarette smoke and hot air and hearty laughter.

  The actual meeting was held upstairs, the downstairs being reserved for socializing (the drinking of coffee, the smoking of innumerable cigarettes, and the stoic contemplation of bridge hands).

  In single file, they ascended the narrow stairs. The blue carpet beneath Jack’s feet was faded and worn. Old black-and-white photos of Bill and Lois Wilson, Bob Smith, and Dr. Silkworth (an early AA advocate and author of “The Doctor’s Opinion” in the Big Book) adorned the walls. There was a photo of the house in Akron, Ohio where it had all begun.

  If AA was a cult, as some disgruntled ex-members maintained, it was a cult with stodgy and decidedly uncharismatic founders. They all looked like Calvinists just out of church.

  Jack found himself thinking of quirkier cults and their eccentric leaders. L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, came to mind. Hubbard had started out as a writer of pulp science fiction, and he had written a lot of schlocky space operas before Dianetics made his fortune. His devoted followers were legion.

  Strange to have as your leader a man whose shrine honored his world-shaking vision and also hawked his weird pulp-fiction tales.

  Jack found himself wondering how Christianity would look had Jesus felt compelled to dash off gothic romances in his spare time.

  Jack was examining this thought from several angles when he reached the top of the stairs. Martin Pendleton, immediately in front of J ack, pushed open a door and they entered a smoky room that was, as Tilman had predicted, packed.

  A tall man in a gray suit came up to them, patted Martin on the back, and ushered them all past rows of seated men and women to where other members unfolded metal chairs to create a new back row.

  A cloud of blue cigarette smoke hung near the ceiling, eliciting crackles and pops from an overworked smoke eater. A furnace rumbled, exhaling oily heat. Jack sat in the offered chair and smiled at Wesley Parks who was grimly, grudgingly lowering himself into the adjacent chair. Parks didn’t return Jack’s smile. The alcoholism counselor looked frightened. Having a shotgun fired over his head had affected him negatively. He kept darting furtive, unhappy looks at Martin Pendleton, who sat on Jack’s right and who stared straight ahead, stonelike in his impassivity.

  Easy does it, Wesley, Jack wanted to say, but he knew that such input would be unwelcome. At the best of times, Wesley Parks was not happy with AA’s anarchy. Being forced to sit in a meeting where his opinions and direction were not required (or even desired) had to be a harrowing experience for the man. Fear still had the upper hand (if Jack read Wesley’s expression correctly), but indignation was trying to scramble to the top of the emotional heap. Jack turned his attention to the meeting, already in progress.

  An extremely fat man in a gray sweatshirt was speaking. “...And I turned my life over to the Elder Gods, as I understand them, and Yog-Sothoth prevailed and the gate swung wide and a great calm washed over me. N’ggah-kthn-y’hhu! Cthua t’lh gup r’lhob-g’th’gg lgh thok!”

  Having uttered these curious syllables, the fat man was silent. He smiled beatifically, unfolded his hands and plucked his burning cigarette from the ashtray balanced on his knee. He took a long drag and beamed like a lottery winner.

  A wearydooking woman with a lion’s mane of blond hair spoke next. She was wearing a pale green waitress uniform. She talked about how she wanted to drink every time she thought about her ex. She described her ex’s pencil-thin mustache and his Clint Eastwood act, always squinting up his eyes and whispering. She talked about how he had chased women and gambled away their life savings. She had everyone hating the guy by the time she finished talking, ending by saying, “Thank Azathoth I’m not drinking! N’gig them In mk’barsoom!”

  A wizened little man spoke next, beginning, “I’m Steve and I’m an alcoholic”—Hi Steve! the group shouted—“I’m delighted to be here, delighted to be anywhere, sober, la! la! G’noth’ykagga’ha!”

  The crowd laughed. Jack found himself blinking at the opposite wall where the usual slogans were framed. The Old English lettering was familiar from other AA meetings, those tried-and-true slogans... His mind stumbled. One Day at a Zigmuth, he read. Easy N’gamf It, declared another plaque. And over the doorway, Jack read, But for the Grace of Azathoth.

  Somethings wrong here, Jack thought.

  A prim woman with straight hair that was parted in the middle (as precisely as a geometry proof) was speaking: “I’ve been doing a lot of inner-child work. When I was a kid, I was smothered by over-affectionate parents. It wasn’t, technically, abuse, and my parents were doing the best they could, I know, but my sense of self was distorted. My parents, by being too loving, created an abusive situation, you see. When I hear people talk about how mean and thoughtless their parents were, I envy those people, because they were being prepared for an indifferent world. My parents, by unnatural nurturing, made the rest of the world seem monstrous. I’ve written a poem about it. It’s not very long, and if no one objects, I’d like to read it.”

  No one shouted “Don’t read it!” although Jack thought he heard someone moan softly.

  The poem was probably not long in comparison, to say, Evangeline, but it did march to a measured drum. Many people, skilled in avoiding poems and meandering anecdotes, slipped off to refill coffee cups or avail themselves of bathrooms.

  Jack decided he could use a cup of coffee himself, and he stood up as the woman droned on (“empowered as the stars and the planets that spin around them and the nurturing nurturing gravity and the boundaries that are nurturing and...”). Turning, he saw that Wesley Parks’s chair was empty. How long? Five minutes? Ten minutes?

  Jack ran down the stairs. What was the urgency here? he asked himself. If Parks wanted to leave, good riddance. Right? Well, right?

  Right.

  Jack slowed, entered the noise and smoke of the downstairs coffee bar. People were hunched over tables playing cards. In a corner of the room a television was on. Several old men were watching some sort of sports event in which men in wet suits played shuffleboard on ice. Someone scored, and two of the men watching jumped up and hugged each other excitedly.

  Jack turned away and saw Wesley Parks moving toward him through the crowd with speed and purpose, his goatee thrust resolutely forward, his arms swinging briskly.

  It was clear he did not see Jack, and Jack was forced to clutch at an arm.

  “Aaaah!” Wesley said. He wobbled and then regained his balance. Recognition changed the counselor’s expression from terror to distaste.

  “Let go of me, Professor.”

  “I—” Jack realized he had no words for this sense of dread, no way to express the not-rightness that was palpable. It was more than the strangeness of the meeting overhead, more than the sum of recent ominous events. It was a certainty that the horizon held disaster. A premonition. He’d felt this way before, failed to act. (Although he’d had no premonition, that time. He had been deaf while the world screamed. In truth, he’d felt nothing when Sara had said, “I’ll do it.” Why hadn’t an alarm gone off then if he was so damned intuitive?)

  Wesley backed up, wary, as though Jack might grab him again. “This is not a therapeutic situation, and I don’t condone it. I’m leaving.”

  “Look, I agree with you. We should all leave. I don’t know how—”

  “Excuse me,” Wesley said. He was peering past Jack, studyi
ng the crowd, looking for someone. “A young man was kind enough to offer me a ride to Leesburg. I can take a cab from there. He... ah, there he is. Later, Professor.”

  Wesley turned and was off, heading toward the door. A tall youth stood next to the door, hands clasped behind his back: A clean-cut young man, respectful, serious, the boy to date your daughter (if you were of the old school that believed good deportment and grooming were the best indicators of good character). The youth wore an overcoat, open to reveal a white shirt and black tie.

  “Wait—” Jack said, and he ran after Wesley and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

  That was a mistake. Had Jack looked closer into Wesley’s eyes he would have seen the panic there, as mindless as a roach just sprayed with Black Flag and scrambling across the linoleum, tiny brain filled with insect whatthefuck terror. If Jack had been paying attention, he would have been prepared for the wild swing, the fist that found his jaw.

  Jack slammed backwards, knees water, and knocked over a chair. “Watch it!” someone snapped. He fell, the ceiling’s fluorescent panels tumbling like golden dominoes, a shadow enfolding him for one quick, angel-wing beat.

  He scrambled to his feet—instantly, he thought, but he was wrong there. Someone had robbed him of a tiny piece of time. There were people around him, concerned, some suspicious (the thought, Is this guy drunk? held in their eyes).

  “You okay, buddy?” someone asked.

  “Fine,” Jack said, staggering forward and resting a hand on a card table that trembled. Parks was gone.

  Jack hurried to the door and out, skidding, almost falling on the snow-slicked steps. Snow fuzzed the world, wide-screen video static.

  The time-thief hadn’t made off with much, loose change, a couple of minutes. There was Wesley, getting into a black van.

  “Wait!” Jack shouted, but Wesley pulled the door closed and the van pulled away from the curb. Snow devoured the vehicle before it reached the corner.

  Again, Jack thought, shoulders hunched against the storm.

  Again.

  Jack went back up to the second floor and squeezed past folks leaning against the wall and sat down next to Martin Pendleton. The over-nurtured woman was no longer talking, but she had inspired a thin bald man to reflect on his own troubled childhood. “You talk about dysfunctional. You folks don’t know dysfunctional. I’ll tell you something. The only time my dad ever hugged me was when he was robbing a 7-Eleven and using me for a shield. You don’t...”

  Jack leaned over and whispered into Martin Pendleton’s ear. “Wesley Parks just left.”

  “Fine,” Martin muttered. “Let the sucker go.”

  The bald man had finished speaking and now the chairman was wrapping the meeting up.

  “I think,” Jack said, hesitating, realizing then that there was no secrecy required, no confidence to violate, “I think he left with members of The Clear. In fact, I’m sure he did.”

  “Goddam it!” Pendleton roared, and leapt to his feet. The rest of the room was rising too, preparing to hold hands and end the meeting with a prayer.

  “Come on,” Pendleton said, and he rounded his charges up and had them hurrying down the stairs.

  Gates, speaking for all of them, said, “Wheres the damned fire?”

  They hurried down the stairs. Above them, behind the closed door, the prayer began. Jack couldn’t make out words, but the eerie cadence and dark power of the muffled incantation seemed to pursue him, a pressure on his back and shoulders that engendered a queasy echo of guilt, need and yearning.

  Definitely not your standard Our Father Who art in heaven closing.

  Jack thought he heard a rising shout from behind the closed door, something like The Poodle, The Poodle, The Poodle, and then Hurley’s transplanted crew, now players on the New Way team, were plunging into the storm. Eunice, her freshly-laundered robe whipping around her, blinked at Jack with blank-eyed puzzlement. She shouldn’t have been brought along, Jack thought. Her encounter with mad dogs had sent her into brooding silence, as though she had to think carefully about it all, reflect on just what that unpleasantness had meant, and consequently had no time for the world beyond her skull.

  Her dark, close-set eyes fixed on Jack with grim intensity. “Jesus was a social drinker,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “He could take it or leave it. He could have a little, let the rest sit, go off about His Father’s business without looking back.”

  “I’m not following you, Eunice,” Jack said.

  Up ahead, Pendleton was preparing to cross the street. He shouted for them to hurry.

  Eunice nodded grimly, as though she had expected no better from Jack. “They aren’t looking to Jesus for help,” she said, and she turned and lumbered after the others.

  Jack followed reluctantly.

  “Sit up here with me,” Pendleton said. He shook his head disgustedly. “Damn fool thought The Clear would give him a ride to Leesburg, did he?”

  Jack climbed into the front passenger seat. Martin Pendleton gave him a hard look and said, “You look like you might have some sense. Ain’t much of a lot to choose from. Here.” Pendleton leaned over and popped the glove compartment. He reached in, found what he was looking for, and handed the gun to Jack.

  “No thanks, Mr. Pendleton,” Jack said, surprised into accepting the black revolver even as he shook his head, no. “Really. I’ve never fired a gun.” The revolver smelled of oil and gleamed as though sweating death. Jack held it with both hands, pointing the barrel at the van’s floor.

  “Call me Martin,” Pendleton said, turning the key in the ignition. The van shuddered to life. “If you have to pull that trigger, it will probably be too late to matter. You might not know how to shoot a gun, but these fellows we are going to see, they won’t know that. Don’t tell them. Since you are with me, they will assume you are some sort of ex-felon, someone who knows his way around a Smith & Wesson.”

  “Still—”Jack said.

  Martin roared, banging a fist on the dash. “Fuck that, my man! I don’t want to hear your reservations or how you’re goddam following Gandhis path. I lost my right-hand man last week—not to mention seven residents. I could use some support. Maybe Jake had some rough edges, never could quite shed the dope-smokin hippie and get all the way upright, but he could tuck it in when it was required.”

  “I’m just not sure—”

  “Course you’re not,” Martin said. “Why would you be sure about anything, one day out of detox, looking for your ass every time you stand up?”

  “I’m just—”

  “You got to be willing to go to any lengths,” Martin said. He wasn’t shouting now. “If you want to be sober, you got to be willing to go the distance.”

  “I’m—”

  “Give me that pistol,” Martin said. He sounded defeated, weary. “Hand it over before you hurt yourself.”

  Jack handed it to Martin who shoved it into his overcoat pocket. “You are letting me down, and I don’t even know you. I just feel there’s better stuff in you, down deep.”

  Jack said nothing; he didn’t feel like defending himself.

  The snow was wet, heavy, and it made the windshield wipers squeak and shudder ominously Once past the abandoned movie theater—the marquee still displayed the last, deatlvknell feature: Speed 2—there was nothing but farmland, the whiteness of low hills, telephone poles and the rare lighted patch that marked a four-way stop or a railroad crossing. They passed a bar called Skeeter’s, a little to the right of nowhere, its name a looping scrawl of red neon, and Jack noted that the parking lot next to the bar was jammed with cars. Bad weather wasn’t deterring these alcoholics either. It was that stubborn streak, that contrariness.

  Gates shouted from the back of the van, “How come we drivin through this froze-up Hellwater? We supposed to be doing something in particular, or are we all just flat-out jump-up crazy?”

  Martin chose to respond this time. “I have reason to believe that Wesley Parks, your alcoholi
sm counselor, has been kidnapped. I believe I know where he has been taken, and I mean to retrieve him.”

  “We could take a vote on that,” Ed Tilman said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if a majority were in favor of some more prudent action. We could report his abduction to the proper authorities in the morning.”

  “Tomorrow will be too late,” Martin said. “I’ve seen the way it goes down out there. We got to fetch him before they mess up his mind.”

  “You mean they’ll brainwash him?” Tilman asked, sounding interested.

  “He’ll be a changed man,” Martin said.

  “Could be he’ll be improved,” Gates said. “There was room, plenty of elbow room for improving. Could be he wanted to go with them fellows. He was sick of his tired-ass self and wanting a change and said, ‘Sign me up’ and they said ‘Okay.’”

  “No,” Jack heard himself saying. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “That’s right,” Martin said. “Jack says that fool, Wesley Parks, thinks he’s getting a lift back to Leesburg, and we’ll see about that. I’m guessing he’s out there being indoctrinated, slick as a frog being gigged—and there’s no free will in it at all, and I’m stopping it before it starts. Those sonsofbitches fucked with my dogs, and now they plan to take liberties with my alcoholism counselor. Not this time.”