Starting up the shower I think about Mr. Shithead’s decent comments. I love him, I hate him. The father I never had. The father I always seem to look for in every one of my many employers. The father I am searching for in this great dreamer. The father I sought for in God. Mr. Shithead is okay. I was too hard on him, what with my vandalism scheme. He only wanted what was best for me. They all did. Even my real, indifferent, unfeeling, ashamed dad. Even the ones that fired my incompetent ass. My incompetence. But now, things have changed. Now, I’ll show ’em. I’ll show them all.
I am about to get undressed when without warning or provocation the tendrils stream from my stump and encircle my head. They stroke my face tenderly and comfort me with loving caress. More tendrils worm from my wrist. They work their way into my shirt, sliding in between buttons, hugging my torso. They badger their way through the waistband of my slacks and wrap themselves around my legs. A few strands work at my belt and zipper. They get my pants and underwear down around my ankles.
My entire body feels super relaxed, muscles gone to butter. The tendrils wrap themselves around my penis. I close my eyes and gasp with unknown pleasure.
What the fuck is going on?
Behind my eyelids: explicit fantasy, warm fantasy, sexual fantasy. I grow erect and bite my lower lip. I try for the old trick, the skin trick, the organ trick, but repulsion is nowhere to be found. Instead Annabelle, the dream form, dances in my mind. She slowly strips away her trademark baby-tee and slinkily slides out of her bondage pants and gyrates suggestively, topless, lacy black panties, mouth pouty and dreamy and hungry. My erection, the first in years upon years, reaches the breaking point. The tendrils work around it and explosions of physical bliss dance from my lower abdomen. I feel as though I am climbing, ratcheting skyward. My mouth goes dry, my legs locked, my muscles turn from butter to stone.
“Charles!” Annabelle screams from the other side of the door.
In an instant the tendrils disappear, the blissful feelings disappear, and I am left cold, naked from the waist down, sporting an unsightly, disgusting hard-on. Visions of skin plopping to the floor in wet steaming hunks fill my head. Organs explode. Annabelle’s dream form is obliterated by mountains of blood, bile and shit.
“Charles!” Louder.
I pull up my pants (I’m getting pretty good at doing things with one hand) and then turn off the shower. The offensive erection has softened to a slightly uncomfortable lump in my pants. I adjust it and rush to Annabelle.
“What?”
“That’s him. The voice. The television. That’s him, number three.”
I look at the TV. Allen Michael strides across his stage, slicked-back hair, expensive suit, gesturing with his hyper hands, trying to turn bits of useless information into pipelines to dead loved ones.
“Allen Michael?” I say, still not quite understanding.
“Yes, the voice. It’s him.”
“Allen Michael, the television psychic?”
“Yes. He’s the one.”
I go green and sick. Allen Michael? The man with two first names? The man who plays upon the sorrows of hapless millions? The man who claims he can talk to his dead wife? The man whose dead wife died on my birthday thirty-three years ago? The man who I am to hate for all eternity?
All I can say is, “What?”
“This man is the man we are to meet.”
All I can say is, “Allen Michael?”
“That’s his name? Allen?”
“If he’s the one, why don’t you know his name?”
“It never came up.”
“It’s not him, Annabelle.” It can’t be. Not Mr. Slick. Not Mr. Showbiz.
“I am positive about this. It’s him.”
“Just listen to this shit. He represents everything that is wrong with humanity.”
Annabelle adjusts and pushes herself onto the bed. It’s strange seeing her like this, old and heavy, especially after that weird, sexy crap in the bathroom.
“Turn off the TV,” she commands. I comply and sit at the foot of the bed. “I’m not supposed to talk to you about him, but when I heard his voice, I couldn’t help it. I had to say something. I had to show you that we are right, that the dreamer exists.”
“This doesn’t help. If that guy is number three, we’re in trouble.”
“The wordless voices in my head—you know the ones I told you about, the dreamer’s voice, I suppose—it tells me not to talk about number three. It warns me about your feelings and this love thing and the potential for something heated like jealousy to mess things up. I think we are far enough along for me to override that. We have a relationship and an understanding. Trust and faith. I think you can handle the truth; besides, there is nothing inflammatory to tell, just facts that will make it easier for you and me to communicate and to reach our common goal.
“Besides, I hate being so goddamn cryptic. It feels good to get everything on the table.”
Well, there’s no denying that the dreamer knows what it is doing. The mere mention of number three, and now this sudden unveiling, have set me on edge. I already hate this motherfucking Allen Michael, and now I hate him even more because of his association with my girl.
“Do you visit him like you visit me? You know, sexy and confident and well, sexy.” I embarrass myself with my candor.
“Here’s how it is. You ready?”
I shrug my shoulders.
“I can sense your discomfort, Charles. Let me start by saying that we, you and I, have something way more special. I don’t know him like I know you. We have faith. We’re here for each other. With him, it’s a much more distant relationship. When I visit him, it’s not like when I visit you. It’s not like reality. It’s more like when you really dream, how you don’t really have choices and everything that happens, or is about to happen, feels like it has been planned a long time in advance. Things are blurry and dreamy and disjointed. Information is muddled and based almost solely on feeling and instinct. That’s why I don’t know his name. That’s why I was surprised to hear his voice on television. I didn’t even know he was a TV…what did you say…physic?”
“He swindles people. He tells them his dead wife helps him contact their dead loved ones.”
Annabelle takes a second to think about this. It’s obvious she did not know this about number three. It seems to bother her. She physically shrugs, as if she is convincing herself it doesn’t matter (I suppose what Allen Michael does for a living doesn’t really matter) and then continues:
“I still don’t know how we all fit together, I just know the voices are drawing us together. You are setting us free, touch by touch, I am making sure we get where we need to go, and he holds the final piece of the puzzle. It is harder to garner information from him because as I said when I visit him it’s like I am dreaming. Last visit, just before you picked me up, I was close to understanding.”
“I still can’t believe this. The way that guy walks around, thinking he is the shit. God, he makes my skin crawl.” I am debating whether I should tell Annabelle about Alice Michael. Does it matter? Are her visits somehow part of all of this? Before I make a decision, Annabelle says:
“We are linked for a reason. The dreamer has been planting the seeds and preparing the rebellion for a long time.” She digs into her pocket and pulls out a small medicine vial. She opens it and dry-swallows two pills. “Maybe now we’ll get some real answers. I’ve been visiting you for years and Allen for a little less than a year. It seems that every time I make contact with him I am pulled away by morning, or my fucked-up parents or—no offense—a shift in my dreams to you. With you here watching over me, I should be able to establish a connection and keep it. These pills should keep me out for a while.” She holds up the bottle, recaps it and shoves it into her pocket.
Lying down and getting comfortable Annabelle closes her eyes. “Go take your shower and then relax. I should be back in the morning with some news and a solid plan. Maybe, if I get enough information early on, I’l
l be able to shift and come visit you.”
“Annabelle?” I ask, an idea striking me.
“Yeah?”
“When did you go blind?”
“When I was twelve.”
“You’re forty-five now?”
“Yeah.”
“Right.” I take far too long to do the math and then blurt, “Thirty-three years ago! What day?”
“What?”
“What day did you go blind? Do you remember what day you went blind?”
“Of course I do. I’ll never forget it.” Her face lights up as she realizes what I am getting at. “Why didn’t I make the association before? March thirteenth. Your birthday.”
“My birthday. I’m born, you go blind and Mrs. Allen Michael dies.”
“Who?”
“Alice Michael, Allen Michael’s wife.”
Annabelle frowns and her mouth becomes an angry line. “He has a wife,” she says this low and under her breath.
“Yeah,” I fire back nonchalantly. It is all too obvious there is something more going on between her and Allen. I decide to keep Alice’s birthday visits to myself.
Annabelle shakes her head, takes a small breath and brightens. “I’ll get us some answers.” She smiles. “I’ll be seeing you soon.”
“I hope so.” And I want to leave it at that, but I can’t control myself. I snap, “The idea of you with that snake makes me feel fucking crazy. Maybe you shouldn’t have told me.”
“Maybe, but remember, we trust each other. We love each other. I love you. Good night. Now relax.”
Her declaration has me floating. I curtsey and whisper, “Good night,” as I make for the TV off button. Stupid Allen Michael goads his audience of drooling sheep. He preens and smiles too widely and acts as if the littlest meaningless facts—my husband carried a gold pocket watch, Uncle Steve served in the army, Ruby hates root canals—are the keys to the fucking kingdom. I press the off button with a vengeance and then stomp off to the bathroom
Why did it have to be him? Anyone but him. God, AAARRRGGGHH, fuckshit. Man, I hate that motherfucker. The mere sight of him and his snake-oil three-ring circus has knocked me right off my cloud. So much for Annabelle’s heartwarming declaration. So much for rational thought.
I get out of my clothes, set the shower on stun (warm, warm, warm) and let wonderful pressurized water work at my dead body. Gunshot wounds have all but disappeared, except the monster hole in my stomach. It looks a lot better than earlier though; it’s dry and rough and has stopped leaking suspicious-looking fluids. The jet stream obliterates tension, washes away the muck and fortunately I am able to let the building jealousy go (for now).
Finally, a little peace.
My life has become such a roller coaster. Moments crowding moments, consuming moments, the next moment turning to the last moment before I have a chance to catch my breath. And it doesn’t even seem like it’s real. Everything is moving too fast, like living in a perpetual state of kinetic hypermotion. Like getting lost in the hectic thrush of a hummingbird’s wings.
I have no hand.
Things come out of my stump.
I’m in love.
It is in my power to destroy the world.
I’ve made friends.
Mr. Shithead thinks I’m a good person.
I’ve stolen many cars.
I am needed.
People lie for their beliefs.
I am a murderer.
I am caught between Annabelle and Allen and Alice.
But I am none of those things. I am back in my shitty apartment. I am praying to an empty God. I am failing. I am overweight and unfriendly and built to lose. I am putting a gun to my head, or my head in an oven, or my oven in a lake of fire, and I am going nowhere, forever, fast.
Or so I feel in my foundation, in my base, in my nucleus, which is still somehow stuck in the past. Which is still jackrabbiting around my abdomen, pretending that yesterday or the day before never happened.
My brain on the other hand, my eyes, my stuffing, my layers, my insulation, know better. They have touched change. They have witnessed all-out revolution.
I am a murderer.
Eddie touched, dead in time, on his way down, but snatched before the fall and maybe tortured or raped or broken. Tortured or raped or broken and it’s my fault and I die even deader inside when I think about it, but that’s just it: I haven’t thought about it. I haven’t, not since Vegas, and what is wrong with me? He was my friend, my only friend, my best friend and I almost don’t care that he is gone. True, I only knew him for a short period of time, but then again I was only born a short time ago. Born of the fire, dead inside, risen dead, dead in the head, dead in the sloppy internals where emotions play. Incapable of lasting feelings.
All my life I wanted a friend like Eddie, another person who respected me and valued my opinion and enjoyed my company and all my life I’ve searched, I’ve made efforts, and all my life I’ve been shunned and spit on and turned away. Why did I kill him? Why didn’t I try harder to protect him? Because inside I am incapable. I am empty. I can’t mourn, because I can’t emote. Not genuinely anyway.
Oh sure, I love Annabelle, but she has said it herself, I only love her because I am made to love her.
But what about these feelings?
The warmth like magic in my guts?
The loopy, drunk head rush?
And what about the fact that I can feel guilty for not properly mourning Eddie? Doesn’t that in itself signify emoting?
I am dead, but my heart is alive?
Or maybe, and I think I’ve hit the nail on the head with this one, it has nothing to do with my rebirth. Maybe it has to do with me, as a person, before I died. Maybe this is how I am, how I was, and it is the reason I have never had friends. When I think back, which I do not like to do, there have been a smattering of friendships in my life and they have all at one point or another failed. I have always blamed the world or my parents or my hand or even the dissolute friend. Maybe I’m the one to blame, maybe I’m the one who can’t make it work, because I only care about myself.
This is no secret or big surprise. I am majorly fucked up and I know it, but now that the end looms it’s a shame because I think I am finally growing confident enough and brazen enough to face myself, to open up and come clean and let the world in so that I might let something out. There is a dreadful flutter in my stomach, a dead excitement that wishes we had the chance to give living another shot.
Oh how thinking hurts. I am starting to miss that hyperkinetic blur. I am starting to miss not being able to think. I am getting anxious and ready to run, ready to get away from my idiot internalizing.
I towel off and put on Jim’s spiffy suit. The mirror is as useless as the bathroom is steamy—zero visibility—so I open the door and wait for my reflection to come clear. Slowly, I fade in to focus. I slick my hair back and put my hands in my pockets and try to look cool. And fuck me, you know what? I do look cool. Well, cooler than I have ever looked before and that’s saying something, because I have never looked cool before. Never.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I stare at Annabelle as she sleeps.
Thump, thump, my still heart mimics swooning as best it can.
Thump, thump, my brain swells and kicks me in my cognition: she is with Allen Michael, with Allen Michael, embracing Allen Michael, pledging her love to Allen Michael, and a tidal wave, red and blistered and molten, swells and reduces me to ash.
My stump quivers and the tendril tips peek out from within.
A thought: I can touch her. I can touch her now and talk her through those five death steps until she hits acceptance. When she has come to terms with her fate, maybe she will let me touch her more. Maybe she will let me hold her and kiss her.
I can touch her and deliver her.
She deserves it. With her parents murdered, she deserves it. Not just murdered—tortured—and how can I love someone like that? I am just doing my job, I am not killing for fun, I am not
torturing anybody. As horrible as the notion that Annabelle is a corrupt, cold-blooded, cruel, torturing murderess is, it just doesn’t settle in. It won’t register inside. The idea flitters and I picture her flying through the black, topless, eyes glowing like bloody jewels, covered in canine viscera, ripping Paunch’s skin from his body, but then it’s gone and I want her close. I shudder and a lump rises in my throat and a brief chill freezes my blood, but then it’s gone and I am left wondering about love and warm escapes and the romantic notion of dying for the cause.
I can touch her and deliver her.
She deserves it. Laughing with Allen Michael, she deserves it. Holding his hand, probably touching him like crazy. Pins and needles when I imagine them together, alive and healthy and magnetic, Annabelle in dream form, sexy as hell, and Allen Michael slicker than shit, charming the world to its knees with his baritone earnestness. Worms of distaste slink throughout my entirety and my heart drains of color. Inside there is a riot of movement, an army of tendrils. I am no longer Charles made up of Charles’ parts and flesh and bone and goop—I am death, the destroyer, the worm god, a host. And the more I think of them together—the more I think of Allen Michael’s coifed hands around my Annabelle’s dreamy waist—the more I feel as if I am going to explode forth in a twisting mess of frenzied, hungry coils and shoots.
I can touch her and deliver her.
Jealousy ripping my brain in two, I can touch her into a gooey mess of melted flesh and charred bones. I can serve her up in clumps to Mr. Allen Michael and then sick my tendrils upon his beautiful head. I can open him up and look for antennae or receptors or any kind of strange chemistry, maybe an odd grouping of nerves like the ones that used to reside in my palm, anything that might be capable of putting him in contact with the dead (though I think I would find nothing because he is full of shit!).
The tendrils creep out a little more and I take a deep breath. But no, I won’t touch her and I won’t let the demon of jealousy get the best of me. A few more deep breaths and the tendrils recede. My stump grumbles. I stare at Annabelle, watching the rise and fall of her chest, listening to the even flow of her breathing, grinding my teeth, welcoming back adoration and waiting with electrified impatience for her return.
I Will Rise Page 24