Caligatha

by Matt Spire

  His phone rings. Reuben. He doesn't answer.

  Where the fuck is “out of body experience”? Hallucinations?

  He gets up, knocks the bag on the floor, stomps on the pills over and over, and throws the remaining powder in the trash.

  Collapsing on the bed and weeping, he throws his ringing phone at the window. It clanks off the bottle of scotch.

  He curls onto his side, defeated.

  Here he is again. What was it–six months ago?–not long before he found Reuben cheating on his wife.

  That's when the ghosts and nightmares and memory loss began.

  If it wasn't Alana and Stacey's birthday, Reuben and Fern wouldn't have stopped by.

  If he hadn't sounded so stupid on the phone beforehand, they would've stayed in the car waiting; if he hadn't left the door ajar in a hazy stupor, they wouldn't have seen him sprawled out half-dead like a blue-lipped rag.

  Unlucky luck.

  A few hours after an injection of nalaxone at the emergency room, he wished Alana and Stacey a happy fourth birthday from a hospital bed.

  Poor little girls and their ruined plans and abruptly limited trust.

  His phone rings again, vibrating angrily on the wooden floor.

  You bastard.

  That's it, isn't it?–It's the adultery. The guilt.

  Reuben stopped giving Jericho drugs when he was fired from Paseka's, when the dope was harder to come by. Jericho's tolerance lowered, he overdosed, and was he a worthless piece of shit or what.

  But then Reuben's infidelity came and their friendship rekindled as if Jericho was never discarded. Reuben tried his damnedest to get drugs.

  Reuben needed Jericho in his life, needed to compare himself to scum, to a drug fiend.

  Jericho grips the blanket until his hands hurt.

  He also needed Jericho to be untrustworthy, or Jericho could ruin him.

  Reuben has been keeping him this way. Why else would Reuben still give him drugs?

  Jericho shoots up in a newfound rage, stumbles over and tears through his desk.

  Yes, this!–the crinkled photograph shakes in his hands. The ghosts are the unholy product of a damaged brain, drugs, and guilt. This is their runic object.

  He stares at their faces. Reuben with his huge smile and eyes glowing red from the flash, the student's arm around his neck, her mouth on his jaw. She's wearing a low-cut dress and a bright yellow lei.

  Reckless. Indifferent.

  But it's not enough proof. He needs more.

  He splashes cold water on his face in the bathroom, takes a deep breath, and checks his reflection. Only half an hour ago, he was questioning his grip on sanity. Now he thinks maybe he doesn't have any at all.

  ***

  The walk back to Blue Coral is a long one. Had anyone seen his panicked escape from Paseka's? His vomiting in the alley?

  He passes one of the accidents. It's on a different street, but there's still flashing lights and commotion leaking from between buildings. The racket helps him feel less visible, but now unease is no longer locked inside of him. It's everywhere.

  Once at the inn, he pores through months of printed reports until he finds the paper with Reuben's name right at the top, the last check-in. Time stamped: 3:07 AM. He even ran a credit card, too drunk to realize he could encode the card key without payment. Or perhaps he didn’t know. Jericho's righteous indignation is fading.

  He pauses and wonders for a moment what happened in the month he and Reuben didn't speak. Could Reuben have confessed to Fern? Maybe he had tried to change–hell, maybe he did. Maybe Jericho was just a fuck up after all, and Reuben had given up on him. Maybe he'd empathized but knew Jericho had nothing to lose so he kept giving him what he wanted.

  He places the report and photograph in an envelope, writes Fern's name and their address on it, and walks it to his office. Unsure, he hides it in his desk drawer.

  It's Saturday afternoon, and the mail is already gone. He can't cross the Rubicon until Monday.

  He rests his head for a moment on the desk, wanting to cry, but can't.

  The rest of the day is spent checking in Blue Coral's few guests and, for a while, staving off his encroaching anxiety until his nerves settle from exhaustion. The night receptionist, Ian, arrives at five. He expects a comment on his appearance or demeanor, but Ian says nothing, just nods and hangs his coat.

  Jericho wonders if it means he's always this nervous and disheveled. He wants to shake him, demand to know whether he looks insane, but he's too tired.

  As he goes to leave, Ian stops him. Ian is normally stiff as a cadaver, but in that moment Jericho notices an odd weariness in his eyes.

  “I almost didn't come in today.”

  “Why?” Jericho asks, his throat dry. He's not sure how much longer he can stand, be awake, just exist today.

  “Something strange happened. I felt really faint around lunch.”

  Jericho bunches his fingers up. “Getting sick?”

  “I don't think so. I feel fine now. But it wasn't just that, I felt faint and I could swear there was–well.” He sees Jericho's horrified, puzzled face and stops.

  “What? What was it?”

  “Oh, just, nothing. It felt like there was a little...tremor. I've been through one of those before. The ones you barely feel, that…just disorient you for a moment. Jostle a couple loose things off shelves. I…was with my fiance, but she didn't feel a thing.”

  “Oh.” Jericho stares at his eyes in silence, then says goodbye. He can't take anymore weirdness for the night.

  Once home, he tries to make sense of the day while sitting on the edge of his bed, but he’s too fatigued and doesn’t know where to begin.

  The frustration and guilt surrounding Reuben and Fern and the little girls and Maggie, his waning memory, the violent ghosts, the car accidents, Ian's words, the nagging want for pills.

  On his back, he thinks too about the strange girl he saw this morning. She roused an ancient instinct, stirring and soothing like the scent of rain before a storm.

  The last thought in his mind before fitful sleep overtakes him is the phrase vestigial memory, but he can't remember what it means.

  7

  Living Fossils

  Warm from her bath, Lydia lays above her sheets, listening to the soft ticking of her father's clock in the next room. It isn't the least bit comforting to know it will continue while she sleeps, still keeping track of time.

  It must be almost three now–two hours after she locked the front door, many hours since her father fell asleep, and nearly a full day since her morning started, but still it ticks relentlessly.

  Until now, Lydia never noticed how the clock repeats itself–tick, tick, tick. There are no tocks, just ticks. She listens until her inability to hear the resting tock drives her mad.

  She tightens her bathrobe's sash and makes a silent molasses slide down the creaky stairs.

  Tapping a pencil tip on her notebook, she waits for ideas. During the afternoon tasting, she considered calling the local paper; maybe they would agree to run a feature on Eden's Vineyard. They could have a little write-up announcing their next tasting, and she could offer tidbits about seasonal wines or pairings.

  She writes call newspaper beside a bullet. On the next line, give up and sell gallons of grain alcohol to amuse herself, then erases it in case her father goes snooping. He doesn't always get her sense of humor.

  Looking at the list of missing wine bottles she's stuck in the notebook, she wonders if Reuben bothered looking for them. She asked before he left, and he told her he had–why, he'd searched the entire morning to no avail.

  She replaces a fluorescent light in the kitchen that's been flickering, and makes sure there's still plenty of her father's tonic waters in the fridge.

  She yawns, rubbing the sore muscles in her neck, and puts the notebook away. Her body is tired but her mind is as steady as the clock.

  Deciding a quick walk around the block might help take her mind off things, she
changes into a green sundress and sandals, and sits on the front steps lighting a cigarette. There's a chill, but the soft, clean breeze is relaxing.

  She locks the door and decides to beeline the few blocks out to the water, maybe take a look at the rolling obsidian from the sand's edge and return by the time her cigarette is done.

  Sometimes at night or in the early morning, if she was sure her father was in a truly deep sleep, she slips out to wander the streets, her time and thoughts decompressed. Restaurants would be closed and the bars spilling out drunks. She wonders what it would be like to step inside an ill-lit tavern, into the world of riotous laughter and disappeared inhibition. Other times, like now, it would be too late for that, and the entire world felt evacuated. It all seemed so compartmentalized. A time for sobriety, a time for debauchery. A time for loudness, a time for sleeping. No matter how much she tries to plan her days on paper, it never works out that way.

  Half a block from the shore now, she sees a dark figure in the distance, a lone man with his eyes on the cobblestone, and wonders if she should stop. She's usually more mindful that groups of jackasses or strange loners would straggle behind after the bars close. But she had been too tired to think of the time as more than a number, too desirous of a moment on only her terms to wear more than the sundress and sandals.

  Then she recognizes him as he draws from his own cigarette, the glow lighting up the shape of his face. It's the man from The Sandy Sparrow. The little shadow.

  She steals a glance back at the dark storefront and faded mural, now the size of her thumbnail in the distance. It offers no advice.

  The man looks up, but doesn't stare.

  “Hello again,” she says, deciding on a nervous whim that silence, no acknowledgment, would be more awkward.

  “Hi.” He stops, and she wonders if she's made the wrong decision. Then he says, “I'm sorry.”

  “What?”

  He takes a drag from his cigarette, looks her in the eyes. “You do look familiar.”

  “Oh.”

  He exchanges glances with the ground and her a few times. “I don't know.”

  “I didn't mean to bother you this morning,” she says, considering walking again. They were headed in opposite directions, and he doesn’t appear threatening, but he is odd.

  “No,” he says. “You didn't.”

  “Good. Well, you looked busy.”

  He looks up again, and after a second lets out a faint but genuine little laugh. “No.”

  She hadn't meant to be sarcastic.

  “I just...” He breathes deeply. “Sleep,” he says, ending his fragmented thought with a shrug.

  “Oh. Me too. Where are you going?”

  “Around.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She prepares to walk again, to tell him to have a good night.

  As though sensing her thoughts, he proclaims, “There's a lot of wrecks around here,” his voice and face seeking approval.

  “I heard.”

  Crestfallen by her response, he says, “Well...” and somehow–why is it that she cares?–she doesn't like his despondency.

  “Did you hear they couldn't find one of the drivers?” she offers, though she doesn't really know if that's true, it's just hearsay from customers.

  “Weird.”

  “How do they look?”

  “The accidents?”

  “If they couldn't find a body,” she says, “I demand an explosive fireball.”

  He grins slightly, fidgets a bit. “Well.” He points in the direction he came. “The only one I saw is that way. I was at work, but... They had to board up the windows of the French cafe.”

  “Oh. Where do you work?”

  “Just a hotel. Blue Coral. It's...” He shrugs and trails off as though he doesn't want to admit it.

  Why does that name sound familiar? Someone must've mentioned it recently. But that couldn’t be where they met before.

  “Oh,” she says, self-conscious of how she’s punctuating everything he tells her with a simple 'oh.' “I work at a liquor store.” It's a lie to make her sound tougher, and she wants to reclaim the silly exaggeration as soon as she says it.

  She crushes her cigarette underfoot, looks to the sea. Ten steps from the sand, she starts toward its edge.

  “What do you do at Blue Coral?”

  He hesitates but follows, looking at his feet. “Not enough.”

  “I know the feeling. I manage the store. It's hard this time of year.”

  “Everyone leaves,” he says without pause.

  “Thank you,” she tells him.

  “What?”

  “For not being surprised. Most people are…kind of taken aback.” She sits on the uneven line between sidewalk and sand, kicks off her sandals.

  He turns to her, thinking, and she realizes how self-conscious she sounds. “You're older than you look.”

  “Not really.”

  “No,” he says. “I can tell.”

  She studies him for a moment. He isn't talking about her age, but she says, “I'm twenty-one. Not very old.”

  “Anyone awake and not drunk, this time of night...”

  “Why can't you sleep?”

  He shrugs. “Haunted.”

  “Did you murder someone?”

  He smiles. “Not exactly.”

  “Look!” She points to the shore. A pearlescent oval of moonglow creeps along the sand. “Horseshoe crab in autumn.”

  “Weird.”

  “You know, they call them living fossils,” she says.

  “Why is that?”

  “They're not crustaceans, I don't think. Survived one of those huge extinctions long ago that wiped everything out. They don't have any close relatives.”

  The pair watch it inch away from the tide, pausing whenever the water washes over the bottom of its shell. So slow, steady, like the ticking clock at home.

  “Sorry,” she tells him. “I kind of read a lot to pass the time.”

  She realizes, watching the lonely crab, that she hasn't had a real conversation in a long time. Not someone that isn't her father or Reuben or someone she's buying something from, like Florence who is nice but they talk because they're both there. She hasn't talked just to talk in years. It's liberating.

  “It's okay,” she says of his reluctance to speak about whatever haunts him, digging her toes into the sand. “I know what you mean. I'm losing someone dear to me…and can't sleep, because...it's less time, I guess.”

  He goes to say something, stops himself, then, “I'd think...” He sighs. “I'd think after all these years, knowing what I didn't like hearing, I'd have something to say. Something insightful. But it's just hard.”

  “So you've lost a loved one. Who did you lose?”

  He's quiet for a moment. “We were engaged.”

  “Oh. How awful.”

  “It was a long, long time ago.” He shakes his head. “But after the pain goes away, you're...used to this, what it's done to you. The sleeplessness.”

  They watch the crab return to the water under a giant moon.

  “This is crazy,” she says. “I'm Lydia. Lydia Sortanova.”

  “Jericho Amara.”

  “Ok, now we can share our dark secrets.” She extends her hand, and he shakes it softly. It feels cold, but nice in her own.

  A moment passes. There's a chill, and she remembers she's only wearing a thin sundress.

  “Well, I guess I'll run into you again at The Sandy Sparrow sometime.”

  “Going there later?”

  “Maybe in the afternoon,” she says, though she didn't have a plan. She stands and something cuts into her heel.

  “It is late.” He watches the water. “Well, see you around.”

  She lifts her leg. A fragment of a whelk's shell falls off her foot and into the sand.

  “Bye,” she says, slipping her sandal back on. “It was nice.”

  She walks across the cobblestone, slow, heel pulsing from the little laceration. She stops to readjust and glances back.


  He seems so lonely, unmoving.

  “Jericho.”

  He turns.

  “I don't want to go to The Sandy Sparrow tomorrow.”

  He doesn't say anything, doesn't look away from the water.

  This really is crazy, she thinks, but wonders if he has that modest smile on his face.

  “Let's try to find the missing body at that French place,” she calls out. “Around eight?”

  He only turns a little bit, says “Okay.”

  “Good night.”

  She walks home, a strange excitement brewing, wondering what she's getting herself into.

  So distracted, she'd forgotten about the shell and the pain until she pulled the sandal off at home and saw her blood smeared over the brown heel.

  ***

  In the morning, Lydia checks on her father, makes both of them toast and brings it to his room.

  “I asked Reuben to cover us next Saturday,” she tells him. “We can see your play.”

  He chews for a long time, then nods. Before he's finished, he sets his plate aside.

  “I'll finish this later.”

  “Come on, you can't have pills on an empty stomach.”

  He reclines and stares through the ceiling. “Your mother always believed names had special meaning.”

  Lydia gets up, looks out the window. “You have to eat, whether I'm a good cook or not.”

  It's bustling outside. She wishes he wouldn't insist on being closed on Sundays.

  “Do you know what your name means?”

  “Oh, lord.” She walks back, nudges his plate. “One who is a pain in the ass?”

  She can't stand this end-of-life sudden-meaning crap. It's always about her. Why can't he just enjoy the time he has left without worrying about her?

  He reaches up and touches her face with the back of his hand. “Light.”

  “Whose idea was that?”

  “I wanted to name you Lucretia, but your mother wouldn't have it.”

  “Yuck.” She sticks her tongue out. “Sounds like a disease.”

  He cough-laughs. “She always had a way of being right.”

  “Let's go for a walk. You're turning into a sappy lunatic.”

  He sits upright, sips his tonic water. “Sit down.”