Boy versus Self: (A Psychological Thriller)

by Harmon Cooper

  ‘Why are you moving away from me?’

  ‘Here.’

  Boy hears the monster wheezing at the threshold of his bedroom door.

  Glass Wings.

  The creature is sitting at the corner of his bed. His body is smaller than last time, but his wings are larger, at rest, folded over one another. Torso thin upper body quivering. Heavy breathing. Eyelashes long like fan blenders, patches of his skin bread crust orange.

  Boy’s knees wobble. He feels lightheaded, on the verge of passing out. His hand drops against the door for support as anger rises in him. Anger dark fear. Boy wants to kill the hallucination, the fallen angel, the macabre monstrosity. At the same time he wants to run and hide, to never look back. Dried blood is caked on the creature’s neck and chin. Black cherry coagulate. Red Ocher. His cat eyes slowly twist up and settle onto Boy.

  ‘No!’

  Glass Wings’s tongue slithers out of his mouth. It falls onto his collar bone, lifts into the air. The wrinkles on his face harden into a sharp scowl as the muscles in his throat shift.

  ‘Go away!’ Boy throws his hands into the air behind him.

  He lifts forward, prepares to pounce. Terror is his fuel, the great equalizer, the great stupid equalizer. He is going to attack Glass Wings, his advance sudden and impulsive.

  The monster’s pupils dilate white. His tongue snaps back into his mouth. His lips curl and he screeches as Boy approaches. Blood-stained shards spill out of his mouth as he tries to right himself on his pick legs.

  Boy freezes mid-air, his heart no longer in his chest. He veers left, crash lands into the wire-rim trashcan next to the computer tower. Now he’s sucking in deep for air. Diaphragm spasm. Barreled over on the floor, he looks up at Glass Wings. The fucked creature makes a raspy sound. Black, dirty blood gurgles out of his mouth onto his chin.

  Something’s wrong.

  The door. He crawls sideways and backwards through the door. He doesn’t take his eyes off Glass Wings, can’t take his eyes off the thing he’s too afraid to kill. Escape is a necessity for survival. Boy rolls down the stairs, winces at his bruised side.

  Is Glass Wings injured? And then a strange thought, is Penelope Glass Wings? Impossible. He knows her form, he’s painted her.

  ‘It’s just a hallucination. It’s just a hallucination. It’s just a hallucination,’ he tells himself, grabbing his keys. Sylvia Plath effect. Am I going crazy?

  ‘I’m not going crazy, I’m not going crazy...’ He pulls on a hooded sweater and shuffles outside.

  ‘Hey, you cool?’ Red Beard asks from his usual spot on his stoop.

  ‘Sure. Yeah, fine. Everything’s fine. Sure.’

  ₪₪₪

  Damn the things that haunt me.

  In the plastic sack: orange juice, tamales and an apple. People walk past and he doesn’t look at them. He’s experienced New York about as much as someone who’s never visited. Outside his studio, Red Beard is curious. Cigarette smoke mushroom clouds around his head.

  ‘How’s work?’ Red Beard looks at a spot just over Boy’s shoulder. Making eye contact can be dangerous.

  ‘Maddening.’

  ‘In what way?’

  Boy turns to him and smiles big and fake. ‘Just a lot on my mind.’

  ‘I feel you there. Sometimes I wish I could carve my brain out with a spoon and just flick it at the wall like a booger.’ Red Beard tosses his cigarette to the curb. The cigarette spits burnt embers. ‘Silence the voices,’ he says with a nervous laugh. ‘Sorry, don’t mean to weird you out or anything.’

  ‘Trust me, you didn’t.’

  ‘Hey, you want some coffee?’ Red Beard asks. ‘I just brewed some. It’s some fair trade shit Andrea gets.’

  Boy obliges. Human contact is preferred over Glass Wings contact. He doesn’t know if the mangled monstrosity is still upstairs or not. The longer Boy waits outside, the better. Truth be damned.

  Red Beard hands him a chipped mug filled to the brim with coffee. Dark lava yellow brown. He forces it down slowly as Red Beard tells him about some family problem. The problem with families is there’s bound to be problems. Boy doesn’t mention his own. Besides, some of them seem to be subsiding. His relationship with Girl is improving.

  Cosmetic Before, Cosmetic After. The caffeine gives him artificial energy to work. He watches Red Beard’s mouth move up and down. A vein of stress bulges near the man’s temple. He feels for him, he really does. End the madness or spread it – the hardest choice to make in life.

  Boy sticks around for a while longer, thanks Red Beard for the cup of Joe, and turns to the front door. He rubs his temples, exhales slowly, twists the handle and lets himself in.

  Here. Goes. Nothing.

  Studio quiet Boy tiptoeing on nerves. He thinks about asking Penelope if Glass Wings is upstairs. He shelves the idea. Whose side is she on anyway? Mysterious invisible haunt. Never says her true intentions and frankly, maybe it’s better he doesn’t know.

  ‘Leave him up there,’ he says to himself. ‘Just paint.’

  Boy chugs half the bottle of orange juice, eats two lukewarm tamales, saves the apple for later. Just paint.

  ₪₪₪

  He sleeps downstairs that night, using his bunched up hoodie as a pillow. A crusty towel makes a lackluster blanket. No dreams light sleep. He still has problems resting and the coffee doesn’t help. Breakfast is the apple and the flaccid tamale. Boy still won’t go upstairs. When he needs to use the restroom, he goes in the kitchen sink.

  The rest of the day is spent working on his newest outline. Business Man will be the only piece in Human Comedy that is holding onto something. A leather briefcase will be handcuffed to his right wrist. His knuckles will be red from gripping the briefcase handle too tightly. His skin will be pasty, his visage stern. His jowl will drip down like a gizzard. Bad comb-over. Red splotches on his cheeks, age spots, white/gray pubes, leathery skin, an expensive silver watch on his briefcase-less hand.

  Business Man gets Boy thinking about what he is and what he isn’t. Choices in his control and out of his control separate him from them. The symbiotic relationship of art regarding its patron and clients reels him back in. He is who he fears.

  Boy chooses to separate the words ‘business’ and ‘man’ to bring the piece back to its original form. His subject has been crafted into business; he’s been chained to his work, overhauled in the name of a constantly expanding company. He’s been molded, but like all forms, he will eventually merge into something else. He’s still a man.

  Hunger boils in his stomach. Outside food available. Inside shelter enough – hard choice to make between asceticism and nourishment. He sniffs under his arm: horrible stench. His deodorant is upstairs, his limited wardrobe is upstairs. Glass Wings is upstairs.

  ‘Penelope?’ he calls out. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Up here.’

  ‘Why are you up there?’ he nears the foot of the staircase.

  ‘I’m watching.’

  ‘Are you Glass Wings?’

  ‘…’

  ‘Is he there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s a problem.’

  ‘Can he hurt me?’ he asks, gripping the handrail.

  ‘No.’

  Even though he knows better, Boy takes each step slowly. He wants real food, not lukewarm tamales. He wants to change clothes, to slab some deodorant on. He wants to be normal for once. One night. Boy can hear Glass Wings wheezing and it’s horrifying. He closes his eyes, takes another deep breath, pushes the bedroom door open.

  ₪₪₪

  The fucked monstrosity is in the same position as yesterday. More blood has dried on his chin; more tiny shards of glass lay in sparkling puddles around his pick legs. He looks up at Boy, notices the sound of the squeaking door. Boy instinctively puts his hands—palms out—in front of his chest. A gurgling hiss emits from the monster’s throat.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ Boy asks, trying to calm his bre
ath.

  ‘He’s sick,’ Penelope says.

  Glass Wings shifts on the bed and Boy takes a step back. ‘Dammit! I just want some clean clothes. Is that too much to ask for?’

  ‘Get them. I don’t think he can attack you.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Boy shakes his head. ‘If I go over to the dresser, I’ll be within arm’s reach of him. Can’t you distract him or something?’

  ‘He can’t see me.’

  ‘Well, that’s just great, Penelope. All this is just great. I have an invisible little girl that can’t help me for shit and a glass-winged-monster-hallucination bleeding all over my bedroom. What’s next? Is Lucy pregnant?’

  Glass Wings makes a coughing sound and shards of glass caked in black blood spill onto Boy’s bed.

  ‘Damn you.’

  The creature’s eyes steady on Boy. They quiver slightly and enlarge.

  ‘Penelope, at least do something to help me. You never do anything. You just observe. You’re like a referee to my madness, except for the fact you never intervene. I know you can pick things up. The paints, remember? Pick something up, distract him.’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t this time.’

  ‘Dammit…’ Boy says, reaching for a shoe. He picks up his Converse and throws it to the other side of the room.

  Glass Wings shifts his view away from Boy. Seeing an opportunity, Boy dives for the drawer. Sheer nerve propels him, and he already has the drawer open when he hears the creature’s wings rattling like a giant bucket of change. Glass Wings begins barking.

  The monster’s tongue spills out of his mouth. Boy ducks, and the tongue crashes into his drawer. Shards of glass splutter onto his ducking shoulders. He catches a glimpse of Glass Wings’s eyes. They dart left and right, not really settling on any one thing.

  The creature is blind…?

  Boy tosses the alarm clock to the other side of the room. Glass Wings turns his attention and his tongue slithers away.

  Boy grabs what he needs. ‘We have got to get you out of here you shitty bastard!’

  The sound draws Glass Wings’s gaze. The whites of his eyes have a tinge of redness. The fucked monstrosity screeches; a foul smell boils into Boy’s nostrils. ‘Penelope, how do we get him out of here?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘No, you do know. You are either the mastermind or at least an important piece of all this. You do know.’

  ‘Important in all of what?’

  ‘All these things I’m seeing. I’m not stupid. You have more power than you let on. Now help me for once.’

  ‘Maybe you should feed him.’

  ₪₪₪

  Glass Wings eats glass – it was either Penelope’s observation or Boy’s recollection. One of the two. Maybe they’re the same. Regardless, Boy comes to this conclusion: I will buy Glass Wings glass. I will feed the monster.

  It’s the conclusion he comes to while enjoying a falafel at a nearby Israeli place. While he eats, darkness washes over New York and street lamps and shop windows flicker on. He wants to explore. Maybe he should go to a bar and carve out some sketches. No. He needs to finish Business Man and start on the next piece, Pregnant Being. He needs his problems to go away.

  At the bodega, Boy buys a few beers. He arrives back at his studio and knocks on Red Beard’s door.

  ‘Beer?’ he asks, waving the bag at him.

  ‘Don’t mind if I do. Hard day?’

  ‘My days are never hard, but they are intense in their own ways.’ Boy holds the sack open.

  ‘If you don’t mind me asking, what the hell are you up in there all the time?’ Red Beard asks. He uses his lighter to pop open a beer, which he then hands to Boy before popping open another.

  ‘I’m working on seven large paintings,’ he says.

  ‘Really? I was worried you had a meth lab up in there or something. Sorry, Andrea and I’ve been watching too much Breaking Bad. What kind of artist? Is that what you do all day?’

  ‘It is what I do all day. My current work is acrylics on pencil: basically, I will make a big piece out of a pencil base and overlay this with acrylic spray paints. After that I will add oils as a final touch for things like hair or subtle variations in skin color – if this means anything to you.’

  ‘Damn man. Well, I’m glad to hear you’re not going crazy in there.’

  Boy has to laugh at this. If Red Beard only knew the extend of Boy’s madness just one door down. ‘Nope, just working. I have a few more weeks to finish seven huge pieces.’

  ‘Can I see them?’

  Boy thinks it over for a moment. It would be nice to welcome someone into his madness. Maybe it’s better to wait.

  ‘Later, after I’ve applied the acrylic.’

  ‘Cool, do your thing, don’t let me get in the way.’ Red Beard chugs half his beer.

  ‘You aren’t at all. It’s nice having human contact from time to time.’

  ‘Hey, before I forget, they say a hurricane may be coming. I don’t know how bad it will be or if it’ll hit New York or whatever, but just a heads-up.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Red Beard finishes his beer. ‘Look, I’ve got to run. I’m supposed to meet my friend for somewhat of a pub crawl tonight. His idea, not mine. Plus, he’s funding the journey.’

  Red Beard turns towards his door with his empty beer in hand.

  ‘Wait,’ Boy says, ‘I’ll take that bottle. I might, um, use it for some art.’

  ₪₪₪

  In the studio, Boy drinks another bottle of beer. He stashes the final two in his refrigerator.

  ‘Penelope?’ he calls up at the foot of the stairs. In his left hand are the three empty bottles. They are tucked between his fingers, sticking outward like some kind of alcoholic Wolverine.

  ‘Yes?’ she calls from the top of the stairs.

  ‘I brought glass. Is he still up there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her voice sound like its coming from behind him. It equally sounds as if it were being broadcast from the room above. Strange.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this.’ Boy takes one stair at a time. He nears the door frame, sees himself enter the room. Glass Wings is breathing hard and rustling his prickly wings. The monster bares his razor teeth at the sound of Boy’s shoes.

  ‘Where are you Penelope?’

  ‘Over here,’ she says from the far corner. Glass Wings’s eyes open and his hideous tongue dribbles out of his mouth.

  ‘You’re sure this will work?’ Boy asks.

  ‘I don’t know. He looks hungry though.’

  ‘I can’t believe I’m feeding you.’ Boy takes one step closer to Glass Wings. The monster’s eyes narrow and his ears perk up. His chest heaves up and down as he emits a low-pitched snarl.

  ‘Okay you piece of shit, eat!’

  Boy tosses the bottle and it smacks into Glass Wings’s shoulder. Before it can rebound, the creature’s tongue snatches the tumbling bottle and stuffs it into his mouth. As he chews, fresh blood trickles down his chin. Seconds later a cracking sound fills the room. The skin on Glass Wings’s back rips open, making room for more glass.

  Boy feels his throat constrict. He’s shaking now, trying not to watch the blood gout from the monster’s chapped lips.

  ‘N-n-now what, Penelope? Feed him again?’ Boy is cringing at the sound of crunching glass. He’s trying not to relive his childhood memories, trying to suppress nonage anxiety. Fear is numbing, fear is vibrant, almost vacant. Fear is red on the inside of his eyelids, a paint that won’t dry, an unreplicable color.

  ‘Give him more.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Boy asks.

  Glass Wings tries to right himself on his pick legs. He falls backwards onto the bed after a failed attempt. Boy takes a step closer. ‘I don’t know what you are, but I just want you to know I’m feeding you.’

  Against his better judgment, Boy prepares to toss the second bottle. He holds it in his hand like an unlit Molotov cocktail.

  Glass Wings’s eyes shrink int
o thin cat-like slits. The creature’s tongue bursts out of his mouth and seizes the bottle from Boy’s hand, yanks it into his mouth. Boy’s stomach churns.

  Glass Wings can see!

  Boy takes a step back, too afraid to move. ‘Penelope,’ he whispers. Glass Wings stands. His eyes now follow Boy like crosshairs.

  Escape the sharks. Escape the monster.

  He releases the other bottle into the air and twist towards the door. Glass Wings bellows as he spills out into the hallway after Boy, his wings scraping against the walls. Boy slips on the stairs and starts to skid down. Above him an almost human roar, blood-curdling and high-pitched.

  Boy tumbles down, one hard step at a time. He tries to use the wall to slow his descent. He’s too afraid to think, too afraid to scream. Glass Wings roars again and advances towards him. Malevolent juggernaut.

  Boy lands in the studio and turns just in time to see Glass Wings sail over him. His wings sparkle and his parchment skin writhes with horrible, horrible life force. Black blood splashes into Boy’s eyes. It stings like acid, smells like maggot-ridden meat. Glass Wings clears Boy, skids into the downstairs living room.

  The sound of shattering glass echoes in his cranium as he passes out.

  ₪₪₪

  Waking up isn’t as easy as it used to be. Boy’s lying on the floor in the studio, arms spread wide. His knees are scraped and scabbed over from landing at the bottom of the stairs. Outside slow dawn blue tint. Boy can’t tell what time of day it is.

  ‘Penelope?’

  No answer.

  ‘Penelope!’

  He steadies his gaze on his studio: nothing seems out of place. Cosmetic Before and Cosmetic After are still plastered side by side. There isn’t any glass on the floor or the stair steps. There isn’t any black blood. His bedroom. Only one way to find out for sure.

  Boy takes one step at a time. Glass Wings is either up there or he isn’t. His heart is nails stabbing into the sides of his chest as he approaches his door. His knees are planks on an old ship about to give way.

  ‘Jesus,’ he says, peering into his bedroom. Aside from a broken beer bottle, nothing is out of place. He sits down on his bed to gather his wits.