Thought Forms

by Jeffrey Thomas

  Monday it was delivered and Ray stayed home sick to receive it. The men were willing to remove his ugly black vinyl sofa and leave it in his open garage for him (he tipped them for it). The men left.

  There was a black Art Deco tree lamp with three shaded bulbs, a nice coffee table with a cabinet underneath, and a matching love seat (in the bay window) and armchair of luxurious blue velour with oak and brass trim. Ray had removed the unseemly, dusty circular rug and wicker rocking chair. It was all so resplendent, now, mature. He stood back and admired it. He owned this dream, it belonged to him.

  When he lowered himself into the plush armchair it wobbled. He could rock in it. He knelt to tighten the legs but they seemed tight. He tried the sofa—it wobbled unevenly also. He began to hiss curses.

  He called. They asked him if the floor were warped. No, he had checked that by shifting the chair around. Well, he was told, some washer-like rings could be added to make up for the difference in the legs; a serviceman could call in two weeks. That was the soonest? Yes.

  Ray hung up and fumed, returned to glare at this lush scene out of Better Homes and Gardens. Flawed. Deformed. How perfect. How complete the universe was in crushing a soul. He could hear the celestial laughter.

  The simplest dream was thwarted, the most minor material gratification was soiled. This must be my karma, Ray sneered inwardly. Two short weeks only, but that was still no comfort. It was that nothing came simple and pure and uncomplicated, nothing came totally right, nothing. Well, that was yin and yang, wasn’t it? It was printed on both his hands.

  He couldn’t bring himself to sit on his dream furniture. It was a tainted dream now, a mockery of his hopes. Even when fixed, what good would it be? What good would this whole apartment be to him now? His career as an artist—what for? What for, life, when the most evil and corrupt assholes had girlfriends and he bought a blue velour love seat to sit in alone?

  ««—»»

  The rest of the week passed. Summer was leaving with each punch of the clock. Ray worked on painting the red trim in his black room—briefly. He did no drawing or work on his Van Gogh-inspired self-portrait.

  Ten years earlier, and for most of the years before that, he had scribbled and sketched and drawn constantly. A particularly interesting photo of Marlon Brando’s fascinating face compelled him to copy it, and the image gnawed at him, didn’t fully exist, until he did. He was a hunter of images then, thirsty for game. Dreams of glory, of becoming enshrined. Now it was like—fuck it. His talent wasn’t going anywhere. The exciting photo-inspiration would still be there tomorrow—he’d get around to it. Anyway, who’d see it? Van Gogh died insane, having sold only one piece of his art.

  He died envying the happiness of his brother, who had a wife. Van Gogh wanted a wife. Did his art win one for him? No. Did cutting off part of an ear win him affection? No. Just left him mutilated. More of a freak. To his brother Theo he had once written, “There is a power within me, and I do what I can to bring it out and free it.” But near his death wrote, “…the prospect grows darker. I see no happy future at all.”

  Yet Ray still clung to a hunk of flotsam. Someday his art would save him, someday, somehow. He remembered a lyric by Bob Dylan:

  “Someday, everything is gonna be diff’rent When I paint my masterpiece.”

  But it was a mere shard, like a priest’s dying faith.

  What was left, then? What was the meaning of life?

  Ray would sit on Friday nights and stare at the proliferation of music videos. The glossy, glamorous, dynamic and sexy people in them seemed to have all the answers he sought, but they weren’t accessible people.

  Watching them made him feel sour inside. Acid condensing.

  Ray finally sat on his blue sofa—not yet repaired, a thin book under one leg to even it—watching these videos late on Friday night, and he heard sounds outside the bay window behind him. It sounded like a low hum of multiple human voices. Kelly, asleep in another room, apparently hadn’t picked it up yet.

  Ray got onto his knees on the love seat and parted the gauzy curtain.

  He flinched back. He sprang to the light, turned it off, to the TV, turned off the volume. Back at the window with pounding heart, he peeled the curtain a fraction. He heard Kelly perk up elsewhere, growl uncertainly.

  A single file of perhaps a dozen people were marching down his driveway. The first one, already in the yard, Ray only saw for a moment before he/she passed out of his range of sight, but carried a torch. A real, flaming torch. It cast a little light on those who followed. They wore black frocks and cowls and walked with their hands joined before them inside their sleeves like monks. Of their faces, Ray saw briefly only the nose and mouth of the second in line. The sound of voices had been a soft, indistinct chanting—nice and quiet, so as not to disturb anyone. None of that loud Gregorian stuff.

  Trembling, reeling from a concussion of unreality, Ray moved swiftly to the window on the opposite side of the three-sided bay. The torch-bearer had crossed his yard and was entering the dense woods beyond, held back somehow by the tumbled-down dam of the old stone wall. The torch flickered through the trees and the others filed after it, these figures hard to distinguish in the murk. The chanting faded, faded.

  Apparently the last figure had stepped over the wall.

  Kelly came growling into the livingroom, joined Ray at the window and snorted at the glass. “My fuckin’ God,” Ray breathed, shaking.

  His first instinct (beyond grabbing his rifle) was to call the police, but he questioned this. For one, what if he antagonized these robed chanters in so doing, made enemies of people who so far had only cut through his yard? Also—what if they weren’t real?

  Ray thought they could be ghosts.

  The police might not believe him anyway. A procession of Druids? The last of the Mansons? Well—he knew they’d come check, he didn’t really think their skepticism would make them hang up on him. But he simply didn’t want to call, now. Something restrained him, all his fear aside.

  Ghosts?

  Fear wasn’t all. Fear bred resentful anger, defensive rage. How dare they cut through his yard?

  He more than strongly suspected that he had the answer to the two (one?) figures he had seen standing at the head of his drive. He felt he knew. A scout, then? Searching for a path to whatever it was they sought in the woods?

  Ray wished he was brave enough to go sneaking after them, this time to spy on them. But even with a gun, he knew he couldn’t.

  They were gone. The chanting not even a murmur. No fire, either. Had they gone in that deeply, or simply doused the flames and stopped chanting?

  Kelly moved off into the kitchen. Ray stayed at the window, perhaps waiting for them to reappear. Should get my gun out, he thought. He turned and got up from the sofa.

  A cloaked figure stepped into the room from the kitchen and confronted Ray. His heart rocketed. Kelly, Kelly—why hadn’t she barked to warn him? The man stood between Ray and the rifle in the kitchen broom closet, though there were other guns, but the man threw back his hood and smiled. A characteristic chuckle.

  “Jesus, Paul!” Ray hissed at his cousin. “Don’t do that to me!”

  “Pretty neat, huh?” Paul said.

  “Are you one of them?” Ray motioned his head toward the window.

  Ray opened his eyes and numbly watched beauty-marked Madonna cavorting on TV. He squinted, his eyes feeling burned. God that was real.

  Right down to the intense fear, the thoughts through his head, Kelly’s growling…pretty weird.

  ««—»»

  Saturday evening Ray drove into town for groceries. He had been in a bit of an artistic mood today and planned on trying a drawing after a little dinner, his recent thoughts of Van Gogh having chilled him. He’d have to start kicking himself in the pants. Yeah, he had a pretty good attitude and he’d felt artistic all day. But then, all day he hadn’t yet done anything about it. After dinner, yeah, after dinner and maybe a record or two for artistic inspirat
ion.

  Pushing a car in the market, he eyed a pretty young woman in tight blue jeans. Out of an aisle came a tall and roughly good-looking young man to join her. Ray pushed his rickety cart on past them.

  He bought some cold cuts for work sandwiches, eyed the ugly jars of greenish pickled eggs, pork hocks and lamb tongues and was reminded of the pickled mutant babies in his beloved carnival sideshows.

  He carted his bags out to his car and it was about eight-fifteen and dark now and he drove out to the woods and his house.

  It had been light when he left and the outside light wasn’t on. He should have left a light on inside for Kelly and to dissuade burglars. His car crunched down the drive and he left the headlights on, stretching off across his yard and illuminating the first trees in the woods, so that he wouldn’t break his neck when he went into the back hall to switch the outside light on.

  Ray hit the switch, returned outside. From the backseat he selected a bundle and he started for his house, peeking into the bag to see why it was so light. A big six-pack of toilet paper. He looked up and then quickly further up and came to an abrupt stop. “Ohh!” he said. “Ohhh!” Ray blindly tossed the groceries off into the grass (only toilet tissue anyway).

  “Oh my God, no! Jesus, no!” Ray thought: a knife, a knife, I need a knife! But it was obvious that it was too late. He bolted into his house, unlocked the kitchen door, yanked the light cord, snatched out the .22

  rifle from the boom closet he kept it in. “Fuckin’ bastards, fuckin’ goddamn motherfuckers, I’ll kill you! ” he raged through gritted teeth.

  Unafraid, he charged from room to room, lighting them. No one.

  Apparently nothing stolen. Videotape machine, pistols. No windows seemed smashed.

  Ray lunged back outside, his ranting more of a self-pitying whine now. “Motherfuckers, motherfuckers, fucking losers…” He practically convulsed in sick rage staring at his house, at the surface of his gray house above the outside light.

  Kelly hung by her throat, a rope knotted around it, her red fur matted with blood from somewhere—some of it, or paint, speckled on the cement door stoop. The other end of the rope was tied to a ring-like rain gutter bracket, its spiked blade driven into the house just above the window to the second floor hallway, black and ominous. Above the door, Kelly; above Kelly, the window; above the window, a five-pointed star had been painted on the house. Red brush strokes, not spray paint. An upside-down star enclosed in a circle. A pentagram. It was smeared blood, Ray realized. It was dark, but he knew. Blood.

  Ray charged back inside, found a flashlight and the keys to the dilapidated second floor apartment. He traded his rifle for the .357 and stormed upstairs…too furious for stealth, too agonized to fear.

  Room to room. Nothing.

  The attic was spookier. No other light but where he pointed it, in the attic. He cocked the gun’s hammer back. He wanted someone to pop up, he wanted it desperately, he prayed for it. Ray ached to kill.

  There was no one in the attic.

  Ray went downstairs and outside and the moment he was out in the air he fired the Magnum. “You fuckers!” he bellowed. He aimed into the woods beyond his yard. “Come out, you cowardly fucks!” Boom. Boom.

  Boom. He herd branches shatter. He relished the jolting recoils as he fired with one hand. Boom. Boom.

  The shots carried in the night, but crickets kept right on chirping.

  Ray lowered the gun, looked up at Kelly and stretched out the first long sob of the sobbing to follow.

  ««—»»

  The police came out and brought her down for him. With their many flashlights they went over the attic again and the cluttered sheds on both floors. Ray had stopped crying but his eyes were vividly red in a doughy face. The cops seemed sympathetic and told him this kind of sick prank had happened before in the area towns—kids killing a dog or cat for fun.

  Was he sure he hadn’t locked Kelly outside? Ray told them he never put her outside unless he was out with her. Was he sure nothing was stolen?

  Ray took another brief tour. No, nothing he could tell.

  In the kitchen he looked down at Kelly’s water dish. His eyes filled.

  Quickly he dumped its contents and stuffed it far back in the cupboards under the sink.

  The police left him alone, left the pentagram for him to hose off himself. They left Kelly in a plastic garbage bag in the open garage.

  Ray dreaded it, dreaded the inevitable hysterics, but he called his aunt to tell her the sad news. At least he wouldn’t have to cry alone again.

  He dozed in spurts and numbly watched TV until the sun came up.

  The Magnum on his new coffee table, the rifle leaning close. He had no loyal watch dog to alert him anymore to the things that stirred in the night.

  Ray made coffee, drank it quickly, stuffed his .38 snub-nose in his pants pocket and locked up. He went out to the garage to fetch a shovel.

  First he paused to glance up at the pentagram. Pale brownish stains, already fading.

  Why? Why? What did he have, besides a dog?

  Blinking back more tears, Ray continued to the garage. Froze in its mouth. Began to tremble inside again.

  He stood in the cavern-mouth of his garage and Kelly was gone—just the empty trash bag lying discarded like Lazarus’ shroud.

  ««—»»

  Ray called the police about it. This time he mentioned that a few times he’d seen a figure in his drive, had received weird phone calls. This time he told them something he had been reluctant, for some reason, to admit last night. Twenty-two years ago his mother and father had been butchered inside this very house, and their bodies had been found hanging by ropes upside-down above the back door. Nothing had been stolen. And no one was ever caught.

  For a long moment the officer on the phone was quiet.

  ««—»»

  Ray sat on his propped blue velour love seat on Saturday night with his Magnum sitting beside him atop a few books. Ray had bought some beer this afternoon and, uncharacteristically, a bottle of sixty proof peppermint Schnapps. In between sips of coffee and glances up at the TV

  with volume turned low, Ray took a small hit of Schnapps from the bottle.

  The candy cane fire would send sinus cleansing vapors up his nose and warm his throat. It only took a few of these hits before he felt a light dreamy buzz. Sandalwood incense burned on the coffee table—the ectoplasmic mist quickly negated the purifying peppermint vapor. It was suffocating but he refused to put the cone out until it burned down to nothing but ash.

  The Love Boat was on, to be followed by Fantasy Island. Ray stared glumly at the near soundless inanities. He looked back into the book in his lap through the haze of incense and haze in his mind.

  He had been looking up pentagrams, witches, cults. But his restless curiosity had wandered. He read again about Tibetan “tulpas.”

  The book claimed these mind-generated, outwardly projected

  “ghosts” could take on a life of their own, and that a tulpa could create its own tulpa, called a yang-tul, which could even create its own tulpa, called a nying-tul. Ray wondered, if this could be taken as true, how far this tulpa progeny could extend. Might some Tibetan yogi find himself the great-grandfather of some undesirable tulpa? Yang-tul, nying-tul. Ray couldn’t help but notice the similarity to yin/yang, as in the yin and yang tattoos he wore on both hands.

  Ray got up and banished the unpleasant tulpas of Hollywood executives from his TV. The incense had burned out.

  He paced. Paced. He churned the remaining mist in the room with his pacing. He missed his dog. He hated himself for the times he had been irritated, impatient with her. He ached for her not to be dead. To come back.Ray missed Heidi, too. He ached for her to come back.

  Ray swigged another shot of Schnapps and turned into the kitchen.

  He wanted to call Heidi—he had to. Tell her how he felt about Kelly.

  About her. There was just too much horrible pain for him to contain within him.


  Shakily he looked up the number and quickly dialed it before he lost his inspiration. It rang. Rang. He hoped no one would pick it up. Part of him wanted to avoid a confrontation with her, opposing the part that screamed across empty space for Heidi to pick up her phone.

  The receiver lifted on the other end. The person didn’t say “hello.”

  “Hello? Can I speak to Heidi please?”

  Silent listening. The connection had gone through—Ray heard TheLove Boat in the background. It had to be her mother, who had compelled Heidi to get off the phone during their sob-filled final conversation, listening to determine if this were that awful “factory boy” who had caused her daughter such emotional distress.

  “Hel-lo?” Ray said, beginning to feel angry heat. Then a sudden, shocking realization…

  “Heidi, is that you?” he near-whispered.

  Nothing but Love Boat.

  “Heidi? Hello?”

  Another sound in there, too. Faint, indistinct. Ray strained to hear it, though he had all he could do to keep from hanging up. Beyond the TV

  babble he heard a familiar kind of…subdued murmur, an uneven hum as of multiple human voices mumbling in an auditorium before a show.

  It sounded like…chanting.

  Ray looked sharply to his blank kitchen TV. “Hello?” He moved to his TV and put on Love Boat, turned up the volume. No chanting going on on Love Boat. He switched it off. “Hello? Hello? I know someone’s there.”

  The phone on the other end hung up with a stealthy, hesitant clatter.

  “Fuck,” Ray breathed. He glanced around his kitchen blindly.

  Chanting?

  It had to have been a radio in another room. The family conversing at the dinner table. His imagination…

  But Ray had this unpleasant, strange intuition.

  He rushed to snatch up his car keys and his .38 snub revolver.