Madhouse Fog

by Sean Carswell

  I left my imaginary kindergarten class and focused on my painting.

  Dr. Benengeli visited our table last. By this time, The Professor had elaborated on his classes this semester. He’d given us the lowdown on Leibniz and his notion of the best of all possible worlds. Eric and I nodded along. Lola kept painting. She created a beautiful, round-faced, brown-skinned woman with huge brown eyes handing a bouquet of sunflowers to a tiny, yapping dog. Because she used her fingers carefully and even used her fingernails to create fine lines, it was hard to believe that her painting had been done without the aid of a brush. It was stunning. She had gotten much better since the days of the McCabe mural. Eric painted a big yellow dump truck. The Professor painted a bunch of smears that I couldn’t assemble into anything unless Dr. Rorschach asked me to and then scored me based on my responses. Dr. Benengeli inspected each painting in order. She responded with appropriate “ooohs” and “aaahhs” and pointed questions and concerned listening and unconditional positive regard. She appropriately downplayed the superiority of Lola’s painting, even though we could all see it.

  She inspected my painting last. On top of the grass, next to the tree, I’d painted a stick figure with yellow skin. She wore a black skirt and black shoes. Since I couldn’t paint a white sweater on white paper, I painted the background all blue and left the paper white where the sweater would be.

  Dr. Benengeli lifted my left hand and inspected it. A smattering of paint covered my fingernails and burrowed into the cracks and wrinkles of my skin. The ring on my left ring finger suddenly felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. It looked huge to me, like a glowing paean to my failure and denial. Everyone at the hospital knew about my divorce by now. Gossip traveled faster than I’d ever thought it would among a bunch of people who barely knew me, among a bunch of people who took confidentiality oaths and dealt daily with pedestrian issues like the divorces and deaths of expendable lives like mine. I felt like everyone at the picnic table was looking at my ring, though I knew it was ridiculous, though I knew no one really pays that much attention to what’s going on inside anyone else’s head. Dr. Benengeli set my hand back down. She said, “You look like you need a hug?”

  “Isn’t that inappropriate? For a doctor to hug her patients?”

  “I’m not your doctor,” she said.

  I nodded. She was right. And, sure. Yeah. Definitely. I could use one.

  12

  A long, black BMW pulled in behind me as soon as I hit the bike lane in front of my apartment, and by pulled in behind me, I mean my bike was in the bike lane and he drove at the same speed with two tires in the bike lane and two tires in the road proper. This suggested either the driver of the car was a very bad driver or that he was following me. I picked up my pace. He did, too, but no faster than I did.

  Every Saturday and Sunday morning since I’d gotten the bike, I took long rides. I often daydreamed about how far I could take this bicycle, about making it all the way to Fresno. I did the math, figured out how many miles I would have to ride each day, how many days it would take me. I figured that I’d need to get into good enough shape to ride fifty miles a day. So far, I was up to twenty. Not a bad ride. Not good enough to make Fresno, but good enough to get out of my apartment and clear my head on weekend mornings. Only it was tough to clear my head when there was a long black car with two tires in the bike lane behind me.

  I blew through the first stop sign I came across and took a sharp left. So sharp that my left pedal scraped the pavement. I pedaled quickly down that hill. The black car followed. I took a sharp right, crossed the four-lane road, left onto a side street, over the railroad tracks, and onto a pedestrian bridge that stretched over the freeway. The black car was only able to follow as far as the parking lot in front of the pedestrian bridge. From there, he’d have to make a U-turn, head back to the four-lane road, and circle around. By the time he got over the freeway and to the other side of the pedestrian bridge, I’d be long gone. He wouldn’t be able to find me again unless he knew where I was going. I figured he didn’t know where I was going. If he did, why would he be following me, right?

  The pedestrian bridge emptied out at the town’s pier. A promenade stretched along the ocean below the pier. I rode my bike down to the promenade. A light onshore breeze threw a glancing blow across my face. The ocean’s surface had the slightest texture, like a cotton t-shirt straight from the dryer. Surfers, mostly black in their full wetsuits, gathered like squadrons of seals around the two point breaks, one on the south end of the promenade and the other beyond the northern tip. I rode slowly down the promenade. A young woman in a gray, high school soccer t-shirt jogged toward me. I drifted close to the wall above the ocean and let her pass. A man in a black hoodie and his probable wife in a pink hoodie walked in front of me. He pushed a sleeping baby in a stroller. She talked on her cell phone, loud enough for me to hear her tips on how to get a baby’s vomit out of a white carpet. I wondered for a second why anyone would want both a baby and a white carpet at the same time, why people would be concerned with such things before seven o’clock in the morning, why I paid any attention to this at all, but I quickly shook off those thoughts and rode past. The promenade opened up for me in streaks of early dawn: palm trees; white sand to the left; green grass to the right; surfers waxing their boards in the parking lot; old men in shirtsleeves sitting on wooden benches, thumbing through paperback spy novels and casting glances over their left shoulders at the sunrise over the Santa Susana Mountains in the east; women on the menopausal edge of middle age, power-walking in yellow sweat suits, tiny dumbbells swinging in each hand, chatting away; dogs at the end of extendable/retractable leashes sniffing at the trunks of skinny white oaks in planters along the walkway; a homeless guy casting off the odor of a campfire, pushing his shopping cart overflowing with plastic bags full of aluminum cans; serious bicyclists in loud colorful spandex suits full of advertisements that the cyclists paid to wear, riding bikes that cost thousands of dollars and would do a lot in the way of getting me to Fresno, but it wasn’t my kind of riding. In a way, it was all typical Southern California. A little too early, too cold, too far north of LA to be full of the stereotypes, but sand and waves and pier and promenade nonetheless.

  I kept riding past the promenade, around the northern point, down the riverbank trickling snow runoff from the Santa Ynez Mountains, across a bridge, past an RV campground, through a state park, along a bike path that ran halfway up a hill and looked down at the ocean, at the waves crashing on the rocks. The first Amtrak of the day rumbled by on the train tracks that ran parallel to the bike path. A morning fog settled on the ocean, making it seem like the world ended two miles to the west. It was all so beautiful that I forgot about the long black BMW until the bike path ended and I pedaled onto the Pacific Coast Highway and crossed a bridge over the railroad tracks and found, once again, a car behind me with two tires in the bike lane and two tires in the road proper. This meant that he did know where I was going.

  So why follow at all? I decided I didn’t care. I pedaled along, letting myself get lost in thought, letting the car putter along behind me, letting the string of traffic gather behind him and the other drivers get impatient and whip past at the first opportunity. This scene repeated itself two or three times. I thought to flee, but there was nowhere to go. A steep incline leading to the railroad tracks flanked me to the right; the Pacific Coast Highway, the beach, and the ocean flanked me to the left. There were no side streets, no trails, no ditches, nothing… just a long, straight ribbon of road for the next several miles. I pedaled along, trying to ignore the car, but really, how could I ignore it? It was scraping my mind’s back tire.

  About halfway between the state park where the bike path emptied out onto the PCH to the south and the multimillion-dollar houses that teetered over the ocean to the north, traffic emptied out. The long black BMW left the bike lane behind me, whipping around my bicycle and skidding to a stop in the bike path in front of me. His front bumper kissed the short,
steep incline to my right. The rest of his car blocked any escape route to the left. I skidded to my own stop.

  I couldn’t see inside the tinted windows. The car itself was pristine, washed and waxed to such a fine sheen it mirrored my reflection. The driver jumped out, a real ape of a man with arms the girth of an adolescent girl’s waist and chest like a beer keg. He had no hair on top of his head and a thick beard that obscured the tribal tattoo on the left side of his face. His beard hair was red. His fists were clenched. He stomped his way around the car. I got off my bike and leaned it against the incline to my right. I clenched my fists, too.

  The Ape Man said, “Get in the car.”

  I didn’t say anything. I raised my fists and stood on the balls of my feet. If there was going to be a showdown, I figured the sooner, the better. I’d fight and probably lose, but I wouldn’t drag this out.

  The Ape Man kept stomping in my direction. “What the fuck is this?” he said. “Get in the fucking car.”

  Blood raced through my muscles. I felt loose, ready. The bike ride had probably helped out. I harbored no real delusions about being able to take this guy. But maybe. Maybe no one ever stood up to him. Maybe, when you looked like him, so big and threatening, you never had to fight. Maybe I could get in a cheap shot or two and buy enough time to skedaddle. I watched his legs. I reckoned my best bet was to try to kick him in the side of his knee. He didn’t get close enough, though. He stopped about a yard in front of me. I kept my fists up.

  “Look at you, tough guy. What? You gonna hit me with your purse?”

  I didn’t move. We’d fight or he’d back down, but I had nothing to say. He balked. I stepped forward, drew back my right arm, and started a punch. He backed off.

  “All right, then, tough guy.” Ape Man unzipped his bomber jacket. He wore a white t-shirt and red suspenders underneath. Just past the red suspenders, he had a gun in a holster. A pistol. I had no idea what kind of pistol it was, other than it was the kind that could shoot bullets.

  I started to think quickly and clearly. Okay, this guy has to be with Frank Walters. It’s the only possibility. Who else but a blind man would give this guy a job? So he’s a thug for an ad man. It didn’t add up to likely gunshots. No way. Like everything in advertising, Ape Man was a façade, more image than substance. I held my ground, arms still bowed, legs still balanced on the balls of my feet. Still with nothing to say.

  A few tense seconds passed. A growing rumble emerged from the direction of the multimillion-dollar beachfront homes to the north, the unmistakable sound of an approaching eighteen-wheeler. Ape Man glanced in that direction. He zipped his jacket back up and tapped the trunk of the BMW with his two left knuckles. The tinted window closest to me rolled down. Frank Walters’ castor oil voice drifted out. “Park the car across the street,” he said. “We’ll all be gentlemen and have a civilized chat there.”

  The Ape Man left me standing with my dukes up. He got back into the driver’s seat and swung the car into a wide U-turn, parking it across the street. I entertained the notion of making a run for it, but the nearest side street was a mile away. My bicycle was fast, but not fast enough to outrun a car in a mile-long drag race. Fleeing would just postpone the inevitable conversation with Frank Walters. And, let’s face it, if I’d known it was Frank Walters in the car, I would’ve just pulled over and talked to him. All these theatrics were completely unnecessary.

  I walked my bicycle across the street and locked it to a sign that read NO PARKING 10 PM TO 6 AM.” The Ape Man opened the door for Walters. He climbed out of the back seat. He was immaculately dressed: crisp gray business suit, all natural fibers, pressed, tailored to fit; silk tie and matching silk handkerchief in the pocket; black leather loafers polished until they sparkled like a crystal ball. To be dressed like this on a Saturday morning took some effort. When I factored in that it was seven o’clock on that Saturday morning, that Walters had to ride a half-hour north of Agoura Hills to get outside my apartment at 6:30 so that he could follow me, and that he was blind to boot, I was nothing short of impressed. Which I guess was the whole point of the suit. The whole point of following me, even.

  The Ape Man carried a black and silver beach towel, with an Oakland Raiders logo barely visible as the towel hung over his forearm. He took brief, cautious steps alongside Walters. Walters strolled over to the boulders that separated the PCH from the beach below. His cane floated just above the gravel, touching nothing until he reached the boulders and the plastic cane tapped once against the nearest one. Click. At this point, the Ape Man helped out. He stood on a wide, flat boulder, touched Walters’ left elbow, and gently guided Walters onto the boulder. Ape Man arranged the Raiders beach towel on the edge of the flat boulder. Walters collapsed his cane and sat on the towel. His shiny loafers dangled off the edge. Ape Man waved me over. I sat on a boulder next to Walters. Ape Man cleared out.

  Walters said, “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I love the waves here.”

  I looked out at the ocean. Waves rolled in slowly across the light wrinkles of the Pacific. As they approached the shoreline, the waves stood and, in a moment of violence, collapsed into whitewater. They broke almost simultaneously along the beachfront. Because of this, they were all but useless to surfers. I took a second to experience the waves from Walters’ perspective. I closed my eyes, listened to the sudden crash of a wave, followed by a fading grumble as the whitewater scraped the shoreline.

  “So, you’re having a little ethical crisis? You’re wondering if you can be bought. You’re seeing me as The Man, maybe, and you somehow equate selling me information with selling out. Is that it?”

  I shrugged, even though I knew he couldn’t see it. His zipcode parlor tricks weren’t working with me. I’m not a demographic. I’m an individual. And my hesitancy wasn’t an ethical crisis. I knew my ethics. It was a crisis of bad information. I didn’t know what Dr. Bishop was really studying or how it could be used. I didn’t know what Walters was up to. I only knew that I was trying to be careful, and I was unsure how to do that.

  Ape Man opened the driver’s side door of the long, black BMW.

  Walters called out to him, “Remember to crack a window.”

  “Got it, Boss.”

  Ape Man climbed into the driver’s seat. All four windows of the car opened, leaving about an inch between the top of their smoky glass and the doorframe. Music drifted out of those cracks: loud, aggressive, exactly the type of stuff I listened to in my early twenties, though I couldn’t place the song or band and it was mostly drowned out in the wind, the rumble of passing traffic, the crashing of waves.

  Walters said, “What do you think of my muscle?”

  “The Ape Man in the car?” I jerked my thumb in that direction. Again, Walters couldn’t see it. “He’s all right,” I said, “if looks, charm, and personality don’t count for anything.”

  Walters smiled. “Are you talking about his face tattoo? I’ve heard about that. Of course, I can’t see it, but in my mind’s eye, it’s hilarious. A Maori tattoo on a suburban white kid from Irvine. And you hear his music, right? All of that British working-class noise. Sometimes I let him listen to it when we drive. The way he sings along… I can just hear it. He believes every word. He thinks he lives it. His dad is a lawyer. His mom’s a mortgage broker. He grew up in a two-story house at the end of a cul-de-sac. Not exactly what I have in mind when thinking about the proletariat.” Walters raised his palms and shrugged. “What are you going to do, right? He’s my sister’s youngest. She didn’t know what to do with him, so I took him in.”

  “Very big of you.”

  “Yeah, well, one thing you’ll learn about skinheads: they’re loyal as can be. That kid would take a bullet for me. Not that anyone is shooting, but still. It’s nice to know he’d do it. And he can rupture your kidney with one punch. He’s good at making people bleed internally.”

  I tried to ignore the last thing Walters said. I said, “Plus
, he’s your target audience, isn’t he? Isn’t all of advertising about molding the anger of the enfranchised? Taking the middle class suburbs and selling them on any dream that’ll rescue them from the cul-de-sac? Finding some kind of lifestyle they can associate themselves with—SUVs or cheap beer or thirty-dollar t-shirts—so that they don’t have to associate their lives with the banality of dead end streets?”

  “You sound like you’ve thought about this. You are having an ethical crisis.” Walters ran his right index finger along the crease between his collar and his tie. He pinched the knot of his tie between his index finger and thumb. Satisfied that everything was in order, he let his hand rest on his thigh. “I know we’ve talked about him before, but let me tell you a bit more about John Watson,” he said. “Watson was a prominent psychologist back in the first half of the 20th century, a behaviorist. His whole idea was that human actions are essentially programmed the same way as other animals’ actions. If we could study human responses the way we study animal responses, we could predict and control human behavior. So Watson took the baton from researchers like Pavlov and Skinner and really ran with it. You know all about Pavlov and Skinner right? Classical conditioning? Operant conditioning?”

  “I do. Yes.”

  “Good. Good for you. You’re an intelligent man.” Walters reached across and patted my knee. His own bit of operant conditioning. He went on. “Watson was Chair of the Psychology Department at Johns Hopkins. He was the editor of the premier psychology journal of his day. He was a very impressive, though, at times, judging from our current perspective, controversial researcher. A hell of a guy, really. An important historical figure. Left to his own devices, he would’ve been a top-flight academic. But you know how vicious academics can be. They build little castles around their ideas and defend them with all the dogma of a medieval knight. This kind of thing makes it tough when you’re tearing down castle walls the way John Watson did. So, when Watson had an affair with one of his students—a grad student, mind you; whom he later married—well, shit hit the fan, so to speak. Watson’s wife published Watson’s love letters to the grad student in the local newspaper. Johns Hopkins fired him. The psychology community turned their back on him. What could Watson do? What do you do with that particular skill set if you’re blacklisted from the psychology community?”