No Sleep till Wonderland

by Paul Tremblay

  I don’t believe his denial. He’s sticking to a plan, a strategy, like a desperate and sleazy politician losing his district. His guilt is physical. I see it on him, as plain as the black veins of tattoos on his arms. The circles or bruises under his eyes are dark plumbs.

  I think I can get a confession if I push. I say, “Why’d you set the fire, Eddie?”

  Eddie springs over the couch, turning himself into a projectile with fists. I don’t have a chance. I duck and twist, but he lands a stunner of a shot onto the left side of my head, near the temple. Then he buries his shoulder into my kidneys and takes me to the floor. Too many direct hits to absorb at once, and my systems are hurrying to fail.

  I try to wrap my head inside my arms. He hits me in the nose and everything goes white. The pain is bright and sharp and won’t quit. I roll over, prop up on my hands and knees, and crawl toward the front door. Breathing and seeing hurt, and I’m not really moving anywhere. Eddie kicks me in the ribs twice; the tip of his boot is a crowbar trying to separate the bone and cartilage. I go down again and become a stain on the floor.

  The kicking and punching stops but the pain doesn’t. My mustache and beard are wet and warm. The curtains of my eyelids are ready to fall. Eddie knocks my hat off, grabs a fist full of my hair, and yanks me up. We go nose to nose. His mouth is open. His breath is a truck full of roadkill, and his teeth are blackened stumps, burned-out buildings. Eddie is a zombie. A real one. Just because he doesn’t know it doesn’t mean he isn’t one.

  He shakes my head, slaps my face a couple times. I don’t see him anymore, but the wet sound on my cheeks is discouraging. He says, “No goin’ out on me, you fuckin’ pussy. Get up. Hey, ho, let’s go. Let’s go. Letsgoletsgoletsgo!” He expects me to dance without a beat.

  Eddie has gone all caveman, dragging me out the front door and onto the porch by my thinning hair. My feet scrabble on the wooden floors and doorways, and they keep slipping out from under me. I swipe at Eddie’s stomach and legs, but there’s no force behind the blows. Outside, the heavy apartment door swings and knocks me in the head. What little reserves of energy I have to keep me conscious are ebbing away, a faucet left running.

  Eddie tosses me down the porch stairs, and I fall forever in a barrel over Niagara Falls. I finally land. The world stops moving, and I lie on the sidewalk, on my back. It’s snowing out. Only the snow is gray, not white. Wait, it’s not snow. Chunks of the haze hanging above the city are falling. The sky is falling. Someone go tell Chicken Little he was right. He was always right.

  Eddie stands over me, as large and terrible as a skyscraper. He steps on my chest, and his footprint will be fossilized. He walks over me like I’m the chivalrous jacket covering the puddle of blood.

  Eddie stalks up and down the street, punching out the driver’s-side windows of the parked cars. Glass explodes, and the shards turn into hundreds of small, screaming birds. They fly away even though the sky is still falling on Eddie and me, filling the sidewalk and streets with its broken parts.

  Twenty

  I dream of riding down a dark highway in a white van as large as a whale, a van I’ve been in before. Although I’m inside the beast, sitting in the passenger seat, I feel more like Ahab than Jonah, but I really want to be Queequeg. It’s all so confusing. Don’t call me Ishmael.

  My group therapy journal is on my lap. I fill the pages with pictures of me. They’re supposed to be pictures of me, but the heads are eggs, and they’re all cracked. The radio is on, someone talking, talking, but I’m not listening.

  George isn’t driving the van. There’s no one driving. This makes sense because I know the driver has been dead for over ten years. What doesn’t make sense, though, is the ten years.

  The van drives itself into uncharted depths of highway, and nothing happens; it doesn’t veer or wobble. Still, I’m download-in-my-pants scared because the only thing in the world I want to do right now is flip the van. Make it roll and dance in the drainage ditches and dry brush. I want to reach over and spin the steering wheel like I’m playing roulette, ten bucks on black.

  I wake up, slowly, my consciousness returning from the yawning highway distance. Upon my less than triumphant return, pain cranks up its volume, frequency, and pitch. My head is a bruised fruit, a reject from the produce department, which was true before Eddie’s assault. My eyes are still closed. My ribs don’t take well to breathing. I’ll try to cut back on that.

  Eddie is on my left, talking in a low, fast monotone. Talking like a junkie. He remains background noise because I can’t focus on him or his individual words.

  I open my eyes and emerge from my latest and greatest cocoon. I don’t have beautiful wings, but I am transformed. My clothes are stained red.

  “…been easy. I’ve always done good by her, done what I can, always tried to help her and JT, aw man, JT, he’s my boy, I didn’t do nothin’ to him, never would do anythin’ to him, I tried, I tried to help him, I wouldn’t hurt her neither, she’s crazy and I’m crazy, but that’s not what I’m about, no, no none of it is fuckin’ right, no, this whole fire thing has her all fucked up, all fuckin’ fucked up, she’ll listen…”

  Eddie talks to himself and grips the steering wheel with both hands. He has the thing in a chokehold, or he’s hanging off the edge of a cliff by his fingers; there’s no in between. His head hangs lower than his shoulders. I know the feeling.

  He and I sit in an idling car. The ignition hangs by a clump of wire from the steering column, condemned to swing for someone’s sins. The car is compact and at least ten years old. I could write Mark Genevich was here in the dashboard dust if I was able to move an arm, any arm.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I say. Can’t really form the th or s sound in thanks too well with my busted lip. Talking isn’t good for me anyway. The words tear down walls in my head. I try to move around in my seat, but my body is a bag full of sand and broken glass. My nose and lips are balloons, and they throb along with my skittering heart. I’ve got rhythm.

  Eddie stops talking and grips the wheel tighter. The pleather complains to his deaf fingers. He says, “The fuck is wrong with you? I thought you were out, but your eyes were openin’ and closin’, and you were talking all kinds of weird shit.”

  His concern is touching. “It’s not polite to eavesdrop.”

  “You got some crazy disease, right?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m a model of good health and clean living.”

  “What happened to your face?”

  “What do you mean? Ain’t I pretty?” I’m not telling him about George and the van accident. He hasn’t earned that privilege.

  Outside the windshield is a highway, but not the one from my dream. This sea of blacktop is well lit. I have to squint against the onslaught of streetlight wattage. The four-lane-wide road is empty of cars, but giant buildings loom ahead, looking like the cardboard set of a Godzilla flick. Some guy in a lizard suit is going to knock it all down.

  Just ahead is the Boston Garden and its green and yellow sign. To my direct right are thick white cables growing out of the concrete like Jack’s bean stalks. I could use some magic beans.

  I turn my head to say something to Eddie, and a supernova of light, sound, and unseen force blasts our little car. The apocalypse is right outside my thin and flimsy door. We shake and shimmy, worms trapped inside the jumping bean. The piercing wail from the air horn trails behind the eighteen-wheeler that rockets past us. The truck harmlessly disappears into a tunnel at the bottom of the hill.

  We’re idling in the middle of I-93 South on the Zakim Bridge. The car is straddling two lanes of the four. I say, “Nice view, but I think you’ve parked in an illegal spot. Don’t want you to get a ticket.” The dash clock reads 3:13 in green letters. We won’t get caught in rush-hour interstate traffic, but it’ll take only one truck or car to pancake us.

  Eddie shoots an arm across me. I flinch, thinking he’s going to hit me again. My flinch doesn’t amount to anything. He opens my c
ar door, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Sometime during Eddie’s assault, I must’ve had a cataplexy attack. Cataplexy is the booby prize in the grab bag that is narcolepsy. It’s a temporary but full-on paralysis, and for me it’s generally triggered by heaping gobs of stress.

  I can turn my head and talk, but the rest of my body is stuck in quicksand. It’ll take time to recover, too. I won’t be able to skip to my Lou for at least fifteen minutes. That’s an estimate that doesn’t take into account any of my just-driven-off-the-lot physical injuries either. The cherry on top of a shit sundae. Yeah, I have Eddie right where I want him.

  He says, “Jody never listened to the fuckin’ cops, didn’t listen to the shit in the papers, didn’t listen to nobody. But she listened to you. She believed you when you said that I fuckin’ did it.”

  I eyeball the open car door next to me and can’t decide if it’s a threat or a promise. Maybe Eddie isn’t sure either.

  I say, “That makes one of us.”

  “The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “She asked me what I thought, and I was just telling her what she wanted me to say.”

  “Why would you fuckin’ say that?” Eddie shakes his head. Tapping fingers and shaking legs join his head in a symphony of jitters. Another car beeps as it swerves past us. Eddie doesn’t react. He’s the boy without fear. He says, “Tell me where Gus is.”

  “I broke into his empty apartment tonight, Eddie. I wasn’t looking for his library card. I was looking for him. I have no goddamn idea where he is.”

  Eddie laughs, and it sounds like a test from the emergency broadcast system. “If that’s true, we’re both fucked.”

  Sometimes the truth is more desperate than lies. Eddie’s desperation feels, tastes, smells genuine. I say, “Tell me something, then, Eddie. What do you know—”

  Eddie interrupts and yells, “I don’t know anything! I didn’t do anything! Wouldn’t do anything to Jody! We fight and we fuck, and that’s it!” He punches his steering wheel and yelps. Maybe he damaged his hand on my head and body. Good. Then I see the blood and some shattered glass on his side of the dash. His driver’s-side window is broken.

  He says, “Jody and me, we grew up in the Ninth Street projects. Shitty fuckin’ place that I ain’t never going back to. Fuckin’ never. Neither is she.” Eddie pauses for the moment of his life, and I try to make a fist and wiggle my toes. “When I was a little kid, I wasn’t always good to her. If it was just me and her, we were fine. When I was with my friends, we’d make fun of her, throw shit at her and her friends, chase ’em, tackle ’em, twist their arms, flip their skirts over their heads. I was just a stupid kid. A stupid little shit.”

  “That’s great, Eddie, but I ain’t Father Flanagan waiting to hear your Boys Town confessional.” I regret it as soon as I say it. While stationary in the middle of a metropolitan highway probably isn’t the best place for a conversation, the longer Eddie talks, the more I have a chance of recovering. I should be goosing the gander. Maybe I should invite him to come with me to group therapy, have him draw a picture. Have him write down the lines It’s my fault. It was always my fault.

  Luckily, Eddie ignores me. His eyes are almost shut, and I wish I could hit him or at least close my door. He says, “I was nine years old, and I ran away. I just got up one mornin’, no one was home, and maybe there wasn’t any fuckin’ Froot Loops left; I don’t know. It wasn’t any one thing. I remember thinkin’ I was done, man. I was sick of everythin’. I was definitely fuckin’ sick of getting the bag beat out of me by the older kids. I was sick of it all, and I upped and walked out of my apartment and over to Jody’s. I knocked on her door, she opened it, and we didn’t say nothin’ to each other. I walked past her, into her room, and crawled into her closet and closed the door. When she asked what I was doing, I told her nothin’. And I was doin’ nothin’. And that was enough. She didn’t talk to me or bother me, didn’t ask why I was there.

  “She brought me food when it was time to eat. Kept watch when I had to go to the bathroom. That first night she cried herself to sleep. I stayed in the closet and pretended not to hear. Her mother came in and asked her what she was fuckin’ whinin’ about. Jody didn’t say nothin’ but stopped cryin’. I stayed in her closet for three days. It was great. I was okay, no one buggin’ me, yellin’ at me, and I slept a lot. It was fuckin’ great. I wasn’t bored. I wasn’t. I could’ve stayed there forever.

  “Jody never told on me. I only got found out when her mother followed Jody and the plate of food to her room.”

  Eddie stops and stuffs his palms into his eyes, and says, “Fuck me.”

  I say, “So that pocket-sized scene from this-is-my-life is supposed to convince me that you couldn’t have possibly lit Jody’s apartment on fire? I know better. Just because you love someone doesn’t mean you won’t hurt them. You know better, too.”

  Eddie stares at me and vibrates in his seat. He’s a live wire covered in skin.

  I take a quick physical inventory of myself. I can move a hand and maybe perform a “Where Is Thumbkin?” routine, but that’s about it. Wind whistles through the open passenger door and through my hair. I miss my goddamn hat. I feel exposed and powerless.

  Can’t let our date end early. I say, “What kind of work does Gus do for you? Besides selling drugs, if I may be so bold.”

  Eddie gives me a wry, aren’t-you-silly smile. I wish I could give it back.

  I say, “I know I have a dry sense of humor, but I didn’t think I said something funny.”

  He says, “You don’t know nothin’ about Gus, do you?”

  Who am I to argue? “Enlighten me.”

  “You talk to Gus’s girl?”

  I don’t answer, not sure of what to say, and I know the hesitation is a fatal mistake while I’m making it. The true curse of a cerebral cortex: knowing you’re fucking up as you’re doing it. I say, “I’ve checked everywhere for Gus.” And I say it lamely.

  “Fuck, you don’t even know who she is.” He laughs, and his lungs are made of paper. “Fuckin’ guy doesn’t wipe his ass without checkin’ with her first.”

  Wallowing in my stubbornness when I can’t afford it, I say, “I know who she is.”

  Eddie keeps on laughing. Send in the clown.

  I say, “I know she’s the one you were stalking and threatening the night before the fire.”

  He says, “You don’t know shit about what happened, or who anyone is. I thought you were fuckin’ it all up on purpose, out to get me, frame me. Now I don’t know. Maybe you’re just a fuckin’ stumble-bum runnin’ head first into a mess. Or you were led into it all, by the scruff, like me. Doesn’t really matter. You showed up, and you ruined everything. Jody’ll never believe me because of you. Never.” He fills his hands with my left arm.

  “Let go of me, put the car in drive, take me back to Southie, and I won’t make you eat the steering wheel.” My tough-talk threat is emptier than a church on a Friday night.

  Eddie weighs my arm in his hands like a fishmonger sizing up the big catch. He says, “You haven’t moved the whole time we’ve been here. You can’t move, can you?”

  “I can move.” My lies don’t work often enough to warrant their continued use.

  Eddie lifts my left arm up, down, whichever way he wants. He puts it between my legs, my hand over my crotch, and he laughs hard once, a percussive grunt that’s more shock and surprise than mirth. He watches my hand, still vibrating in his seat but he’s trying to stay still, like my paw is a squirrel he doesn’t want to scare away.

  Eddie takes my hand away when he believes I can’t move it. He’s embarrassed for both of us.

  He says, “You ruined me and Jody. I can’t let that go. You stay away from her and me. Just fuckin’ stay away.” He puts both hands on my left shoulder. “We’re gonna find out if you can move, and how fast.” He smiles like a bully, gives me that mix of sadism, schadenfreude, and need. The smile is a lit match in a dark closet. After it burns out, he makes hard l
ines with his eyebrows and his mouth. He’s pensive—as pensive as a dyed-in-the-wool junkie can get.

  “You better move quick.”

  Eddie lifts my arm and pushes under my shoulder. I’m a tilting lever, my head and torso leaning outside of the car. The highway cement is too close and too far away.

  I yell, “Eddie, stop!” but his hands walk down my shoulder onto my side, still pushing, and I can’t do anything to resist. I become the tipping point, and momentum takes over. I tuck my head into my chest and fall out of the car and onto the highway. I don’t land hard, making first contact with my shoulder. On the road again. I spill out like a poured glass of water, rolling onto my back; the rest of my body pours out and pools on the cool, uncaring pavement.

  I yell, “Eddie,” again, but he drives away. I crane and tilt my head back to see him. Everything is upside down. The gray slab of highway is the sky. His passenger-side door is still open. His upside-down car disappears into the tunnel.

  I try to roll over but can’t. I’m lying on my back in lane three of four. I bellow for help. This is too much. This is too much like the Foxwoods night with George, my best friend, my dead best friend, and the van accident. George was driving, and the van flipped. He was thrown out, but I stayed in until the ride was over. Please remain in your seats until we come to a complete stop. I opened the door, had to go look for George because he wasn’t anywhere. I jumped down from my seat, out of the van, but I couldn’t walk on my broken leg and I fell. Bloodied and lying on the side of the road, I was as helpless as an infant. I was born again and born broken.

  Fresh waves of panic and fear surge over my levees. I won’t be able to recover. There’re too many thoughts of get up! run! crawl! stampeding into each other, creating logjams in my neurons and synapses, shutting everything down again. I’ll be the possum playing dead in the road. I’m not playing.