by Truddi Chase
People at times tell me very pleasant things about myself. I find it all incomprehensible. I have no idea, for example, how I passed that four-hour real estate exam in forty minutes. I’m not that smart.
* * *
Stanley laid down the pages and called Jeannie Lawson.
“Help,” he said, “right now before these incongruities all meld back together in my mind. I talked to the woman just minutes before I read these journal notes. She sounded very sure of herself and shoved me off the phone because she was about to leave for a business meeting. There wasn’t a shred of fear in her voice. Yet in the notes, she’s scared to leave the house. She also tells me that she has only a few sexual memories and they concern her stepfather. I have yet to hear her mention a direct sexual encounter with her ex-husband, yet in the notes, she refers to pregnancy as being dirty, a sin, a flaw.”
“Journal notes,” Jeannie hesitated a moment. “Are they handwritten?”
“No. She types everything out before she gives it to me.”
“That’s why everything melds together,” Jeannie said. “If you were reading the journals themselves, you’d probably see the different handwriting styles. I had three.”
“The lists,” Stanley said. “I never thought about the handwriting on the lists she took out of her purse. . . .”
Jeannie started to laugh. “I should have saved mine. I could have wallpapered a battleship.”
“Who is talking when ‘I’ is used? Who is talking when ‘we’ is used?”
“Any other self,” Jeannie said, “can use ‘I,’ and any other self can refer to the group as ‘we.’ There’s a very peculiar period during the ‘coming aware’ stage, when ‘we’ is used and yet the other selves really aren’t aware, or all that aware in some instances, of each other. It’s sort of like a cloud in the sky and you feel moisture on your skin and know it’s about to rain. It’s that kind of forewarning, I guess. Am I making sense?”
“More than I’ve made on my own,” Stanley told her. “I’ve been reading up on multiplicity but I have trouble understanding.”
“What you’re reading has been filtered by an editor, Stanley. I caught things in that videotape that tell me the woman is just like me in some ways, and not at all like me in others. Last week I felt up to reading Sybil, and I saw the differences between us. And the similarities.”
* * *
While Stanley dealt with his confusion in his office at Protective Services, the woman arrived across town at her real estate meeting. She was about to experience something for which no amount of prior therapy could have prepared her, even had Stanley been able to predict such occurrences. The woman, after today, would be more conscious of the Troop members’ actions, and a very few identities would be revealed to her.
She seated herself between the purchaser and the seller; she identified which attorney belonged to whom and nodded to the settlement attorney. Instantly, time seemed to be going somewhere without her. She became aware that she had two cigarettes burning in the same ashtray in front of her, and that in her mind there was an awful lot of hilarity going on. Not only was there hilarity, there was tension, anger, distress, a feeling of inadequacy and an ego that knew no bounds.
One emotion seemed to be erupting over the other. Experiencing the battle and unable to make sense of the reasons for it, the woman knew that something awful was happening. Being suddenly aware that it went on in her own head, because no one else in the room appeared to notice anything, only increased her sense of unreality.
The eighteen-page contracts she had passed around the table became a blur and so did the faces of the men with whom she was dealing. She became dimly aware that someone inside herself observed everything very well, and that the meeting seemed to be going swimmingly. Then the purchaser’s attorney, with whom no real estate broker in town could get along, began to gather the contracts and point out items he wanted deleted.
“If you do that,” the purchaser told him, “I’m responsible for obtaining sewer and water.”
With horror, the woman heard the hilarity inside her mind translated into words, words that were being spoken aloud.
“Lordy,” she heard herself say to the purchaser, “I’m ridin’ an ass to prayer meetin’ tonight.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The attorney glared at her.
“That means,” the woman heard herself saying, “that you’re an ass and I’m going to pray for you.”
The settlement attorney asked if they could continue without the verbal abuse and the purchaser’s attorney said something about brokers who talked like snake-oil saleswomen. Eventually, laughter rippled around the table as everyone found themselves in mutual agreement over the contracts. That the strain should be ending, that the settlement would indeed take place, seemed to further aggravate the conflicting emotions inside the woman’s head. She experienced a floating sensation as the room shifted. She shifted with it, horrified at her lack of control. From a distance, an overly wide and innocent smile slid onto her face. She heard more laughter, different from the men’s. To her right, the seller’s face wore a look of amazement. He steadied himself and glanced down at the blond head resting comfortably on his shoulder.
The Buffer moved aside then, but not completely, as Miss Wonderful smiled, wide-eyed, at every man at the table.
“Isn’t that lovely?” she asked.
In her air-conditioned car a scant six minutes later, the woman’s face was still red. She had to think of that blond head on the seller’s shoulder as her own. Who else’s could it have been?
The woman had just experienced and would continue to experience what only years of therapy would finally make sense of: during the meeting, Miss Wonderful had only made the woman “acutely aware” of her presence. Miss Wonderful and another Troop member were about to receive their signal from the Gatekeeper and “evidence” themselves.
Unlike other Troop members, the Outrider might consult and make mutually agreed concessions with the Gatekeeper, but she needed no signal to do anything. Part of her job was keeping sadness away and to do that, she had to be “around,” or at least available most of the time.
The Outrider’s voice in the woman’s mind, as the car swung into heavy noontime traffic, was firm but only a voice.
Move over, I’m driving.
The woman refused to acknowledge the voice. Still embarrassed and more than a little scared, her hands on the steering wheel shook. Midway to the first intersection, she had to admit that somehow she was not driving. That awareness wasn’t strong enough to allow total fright, but she didn’t dare let go of the wheel in order to touch the rearview mirror. She wanted to. The adjustment everything seemed to need each time she got into the car, as if her height or posture had changed . . .
The Outrider reached out and turned on the car radio. The Pointer Sisters’ “Slow Hand” began to play. As that song drifted into the wilder beat of Joe Walsh’s “All Night Long,” she smiled and turned the volume up louder. The music swept into the woman’s mind, where she was making frightening connections: careless hands on the wheel, cigarette dangling from restless, tapping fingers, the car shooting through traffic from one lane to the other although she always drove without changing lanes. The actions weren’t her own.
With awareness still at a low ebb, the woman had no idea that the roads and landmarks were suddenly unfamiliar because the Outrider was in command. When the car pulled up at a traffic light, the woman looked out. She could not get her bearings. Reflected in the rearview mirror, the face of the driver in the car behind hers was familiar and ugly.
Now, said the Gatekeeper, and the Outrider loosened a soft rain of confetti into the dark Tunnel of the woman’s mind. The stepfather’s face came fully to her, but in shreds. And even in shreds it was too much.
The woman began to cry but the tears were already drying, as if wiped away by an unseen hand. Needles, a numbing, thousand pinpri
cks, the kind that accompanied heavy anesthesia, stung her arms.
The Outrider turned the volume up again. Time became strangely elongated. The watch on the woman’s wrist was no help at all; it had stopped a moment ago. The music crashed in her ears while something pushed at the walls of her mind. At first she did not understand; when she did, the panic hit. The song, “All Night Long,” even the longest version any radio station played, should have ended. In that moment, the woman knew, without knowing how or why, that someone’s sense of time was different from her own. There came the sound of laughter. The Outrider went on as she had been, snapping her fingers to the rhythm, snake-level, belly-low, eyes shining, and she savoured her stretched-out sense of time.
The woman dared savour it, too, as she felt the Outrider’s laughter and wanted to believe it was her own.
The Outrider vanished of her own accord. As the Buffer moved back in and immediately moved over, Miss Wonderful took her place. Happiness came in a flood, so excruciating that the woman wondered if her mind had snapped. A smile washed over her face in a giant wave. The smile obliterated all sexuality. With sexuality gone, so was the fear the woman had felt all her life.
Miss Wonderful had just evidenced her full self. It was all that she was, the complete absence of “bad.” But there were two people in the car with the woman. The other began to evidence himself until, as with Miss Wonderful, the woman knew without knowing how, his name and his feelings.
They were both wrapping the full being of themselves around the woman, they were both inside now, more “her” than she had ever been. Yet they were separate from each other, and separate from her. Miss Wonderful’s laughter flowed, right over the loud, intrusive music. The male presence exuded just that: maleness.
“Home,” the woman said faintly.
No, Miss Wonderful said. We’ve been good. Coffee. It’s a treat and we deserve it, don’t you think?
The woman considered that as the car slid without her help through the next intersection. Miss Wonderful had made an ass of her in the meeting. But at the same time, the woman understood that Miss Wonderful didn’t know what she’d done, she had no concept of anything but complete innocence.
Mean Joe did. Gigantic and quietly powerful, his presence was distinctly protective. As he continued to wrap himself lightly around the woman, she felt safe and trusted him immediately, without question.
Coffee. Miss Wonderful was still pleading. The car swung into the parking lot of 7-Eleven. Unable to lift a finger to prevent or alter a single movement, the woman found herself laughing with the two of them, and saw their reflection in the plate-glass storefront as she got out of the car.
[She would tell Stanley in a session later that the “persons” reflected, advanced on the carry-out store with an unfamiliar stride; shambling, then perky; heavy, then lightfooted. The reflection was that of herself, then Miss Wonderful, and then Mean Joe. All separately. But together. She would tell Stanley that somehow they’d both made themselves instantly understandable to her as people, even if their reasons for being were a complete mystery.]
The 7-Eleven was crowded with noontime customers. She felt uneasy, going in with Mean Joe and Miss Wonderful, and hesitated, sharing their laughter inside her mind. Mean Joe did not hesitate, he strode right in among the shoppers. Miss Wonderful headed straight for the coffee machine. Her smile to the cashier as she paid for her purchase was ecstatic. Mean Joe stood by her side, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched, deadly quiet. He did not look up. He looked only from side to side and his eyes were slanted and knowing. The woman felt his simmering anger and sense of purpose.
Let somebody come near us, he was thinking. Let somebody touch us, let ’em try.
It was the first time the woman had gone into any public place without cringing, without being terribly frightened.
She didn’t notice the strangest thing of all about Mean Joe. She did note how easily he and Miss Wonderful became friends during the short drive back home. Their conversation made her laugh but while going up the muddy driveway to the house, Mean Joe and Miss Wonderful exchanged their own thoughts and excluded her.
The 7-Eleven coffee cup sat on her desk in the gallery, along with the manuscript pages. Sunlight slanted through the floor-to-ceiling windows. It shot the gallery walls with long, thin shadows from the hanging ferns, and when the ferns moved in the breeze, the shadows moved, too. The woman shivered and flung the drapes shut. She took her turn at sipping the black coffee and placed herself at the typewriter, feeling words pour out from many sources to the fingers floating on the keys.
Miss Wonderful seemed such a fragile wisp and Mean Joe a removed, hulking, and ominous man with slanty eyes and the faint curve of a smile at the corners of his mouth. Their hold on the woman was not so much strong, as definite.
The room had grown darker, suddenly. The sound of spring rain beat against the gallery windows. Where had they come from, Miss Wonderful and Mean Joe, and where had they gone, just now? Shaken at being released from their grip, she wondered what to do. The next session with Stanley was so close, it would be silly to call him, and Sharon wouldn’t believe a word of it. Someone reached out then and gathered the woman up as if in a warm blanket, for she had begun to travel a very lonely road.
SEVEN
IN the woman’s mind that night but separate and apart from it, a conversation took place.
Any Troop member who wanted to be a part-time Front Runner first had to travel with the Outrider, absorbing a working familiarity with the safety mechanism. So now as the Outrider monitored through the Buffer and the Front Runner, whatever reached the woman, a smaller Troop member sat, listening attentively and hoping one day to be chosen. She was only twelve years old, so there was a lot going against her. She did, however, have a sharp mind.
Why, Twelve asked the Outrider, do we have to be so careful, why can’t we all just evidence right now and bring the memories with us?
We can’t all do that, said the Outrider. Some of us are too damaged. Besides, there’s always that dumb but justified word: caution. If we make a mistake, there’s a lot to lose.
Ah, said Twelve, beginning to see with an agile mind, far beyond the Outrider’s words, there are plans?
To be sure, said the Outrider, smiling as her words bent suddenly under the cadence of the one who lived in the deepest part of the Tunnel. The Outrider knew he loved children. Twelve was still a child and possessed of what he treasured most—a flying mind.
In every battle, the Outrider continued in the borrowed cadence, there is something new to be learned; skills to be gained. This battle is no different. The soldiers tremble but they take up the sword and go. The woman, as well.
The woman is a Troop member then, said Twelve, grasping the heart of the matter.
This is true, said the Outrider, and her construction, irreversible as it is, was very necessary at the time of her birth among us. For this battle that construction will stand her in good stead. Do you see, now?
Twelve shivered. I see, but not alone. Someone is telling me. I feel cold.
Yes, said the Outrider. There are two cold places for us that we know of. One is the Well, a thing of this earth, this time. Olivia lives there—if it can be called that—and when she speaks, one grows cold with listening. The other place is not of this earth or of this time; its coldness comes from the one who lives in the furthermost reaches of the Tunnel.
I know and I’m scared, said Twelve.
No need. Still the borrowed cadence beat, but with wings now giant and dark, on the Outrider’s words. He, too, is protection, although no man may say how.
On hearing Twelve’s fright, the one who spoke through the Outrider prepared to come forward and calm her fears. As he readied himself, Twelve received his messages, a flurry of them, from the furthermost reaches of the Tunnel. Her head whirled, trying to keep pace.
You’re saying a thousand things at once, Twelve proteste
d.
Easy, said the Outrider, feeling herself fading away and the reins being taken from her grasp. The one in the Tunnel held the reins now and his hold was firm. Twelve received his name and knew that if she said it aloud before it was safe, she would never be a Front Runner. His voice as he spoke held a slight brogue that Twelve did not feel was “borrowed” at all.
Lay aside the fear and listen, he said to her. Take one lesson at a time or you will be lost. At this moment you must know, if you are ever to be a Front Runner, that because we are many, things happen to us in great numbers, all at one time. Sanity lies in separating those things, in dealing with them individually. Know now that there are those among us, calling out to be heard. They are small, helpless, dead ones—someone must listen to their voices.
The woman? Twelve’s eyes were wide with shock.
Child, there are no lesser ones here. There are only different beings. Suddenly, the brogue flourished heavily in every word as if he who spoke had thrown off all attempts at disguise. The woman does n’ feel pain now. The lack o’ it is part o’ somethin’ planned a long time ago. But she will feel the memories we’ll be bringin’ t’ her. When the time comes for our battle, the memories’ll be the armour, and they’ll be pain enough.
Twelve absorbed it, but she had done even more. Acceptance of what she knew now was not the Outrider, but the one who lived far back in the Tunnel, rode in her young eyes.
This person who is speaking, said Twelve with great politeness, is he the head of our Troop Formation?
Some say that it is so. There was a smile beneath the brogue. But there be no competition here. T’a man, we are equal as individuals. No one o’ us could stand without the others; and even i’ we could, we would n’ want to.
