by Joe Hart
He talked to the man in a quiet voice as he approached, hoping to soothe him into silence. “Hello, sir, how are we tonight?”
“Spiders! Full of spiders! They’re on me! They’re on me! Get them off! Get them off!”
The nurse sidled up to the bed, where the dark-haired man lay straining against the padded leather straps that held his ankles and wrists down tight at his sides.
“It was a dream, sir. Just a bad dream.”
The nurse repeated the words several times, just loud enough for the restrained man to hear him. Soon the nurse’s calm voice began to have an effect on the screaming man. His breathing still came in ragged heaves, and his bulging eyes still strained against their sockets, but they seemed to actually see his surroundings for the first time.
In a smooth movement that he had done hundreds of times, the nurse slid the small needle into the man’s shoulder and depressed the plunger. The clear liquid slid into the man’s body, and within seconds his eyes had begun to glaze. In a minute, his muscles had relaxed and his head, which earlier had been held upright to gaze around the room, slumped back onto the white hospital-issued pillow. As the nurse watched, the man’s breathing slowed and became a steady metronomic rhythm.
The nurse nodded and turned from the restrained man. He snapped off the powerful overhead light, and the room was bathed in pale moonlight that shone through a reinforced window ten feet above the floor. The light illuminated the three achromic scars, raked in furrows on the sleeping man’s cheek. Before shutting and locking the door, the nurse paused for a moment to consider the man who lay on the bed.
“Good night, Mr. Ash. Sleep tight.”
With a soft click, the door locked behind the nurse, and the room was silent once again.
THE EXPLODING MAN
Larry’s brain was hurting again. He knew that his brain wasn’t actually hurting because there weren’t any pain nerve receptors in the brain. He’d heard it in a couple of movies, and a doctor had mentioned it once at a conference he had attended in Seattle. So his brain wasn’t hurting, but it sure felt like it.
It had started that morning when his wife—well, soon-to-be ex-wife—had called using the cell phone he was paying for while driving the car he had bought, probably giving the dentist he had recommended a hand job while on her way to said dentist’s condo that he had paid for with all the dental work that had been done for his family.
She had tried to sound upbeat—for his benefit, he knew. She was worried about him. She had been since she broke the news to him two weeks ago. She was sleeping with the family dentist.
Okay. How did one go about starting an affair with a dentist anyway? Esscuss me, dochh? Woushld choo lichh to go chu tinner lacher? Machbe shtop at a hochel on tha way bachhh?
Really? The word had been bouncing around inside his head for the last two weeks like a mental patient in a padded room. This was really happening? His wife of fourteen years was leaving him? His wife who, up until two weeks ago, had seemed perfectly happy with their suburban, albeit mundane, life?
He thought that was the real kicker. He hadn’t seen it coming. It had been like stepping out into a deserted and silent street only to get smacked by a Mack truck the moment your feet hit the pavement. The next blow was when she had taken Mattie.
It was one thing to sleep with the dentist and tell him that she wasn’t in love with him anymore. Those things he could absorb. He could take them in and slowly digest them like a sour piece of meat. Eventually, he’d get back on his feet and continue the slow, plodding steps that would lead him to the end of his life.
But taking his little girl away from him had been something completely different. The heaviness of it had hit him like a well-placed punch to the stomach. It left a hollow ache in his mind whenever he walked by her empty room and when he didn’t see her small blonde head poking over the top of the sofa as she watched cartoons.
He had made two trips to the courthouse to fill out the necessary paperwork to gain custody, or at least to get visitation rights. But the bitch wasn’t even giving him that. That’s what he had taken to calling her over the last two weeks. Not out loud, of course. He didn’t know if he could actually bring himself to do that. It just wasn’t in his nature to say nasty things about other people. He thought things, all right, but he never said a word.
That was actually one of the things that had attracted Jill to him: he was a nice guy. She had said that it was so hard to find a truly nice guy in a world full of takers. That compliment had stayed with him for years, strengthening his ideals of always doing the right thing and turning the other cheek. Then two weeks ago she had said that he needed to stand up for himself more. He was a pushover, and no one respected someone who didn’t respect themselves.
After he had gotten off the phone with the bitch this morning, Larry realized he had completely burnt his toast because he hadn’t checked the setting on the toaster. His daughter had pushed the dial all the way to the dark-colored toast on the display. It was her little joke. She had laughed so hard the first time she had done it that she had fallen on the floor in a fit. He and Jill had laughed too, the smell of burnt bread hanging thick in the air.
Now, seeing the knob twisted to the dark setting, Larry’s eyes began to fill with tears. Before a single drop could escape from his red eyelids, the pain began to build in his head again. It started with a low buzzing sound and slowly built into a solid feeling of pain that resided right behind both of his ears. The pain beat in a slow rhythm with his pulse, until he began to hear a dull whining that sounded like a large jet idling just above his house.
He stood and started pacing in the spacious kitchen. Back and forth. Back and forth across the spotless white tile. He had taken to doing this in the last two weeks. He had always thought pacing was something the minor character in a horror movie did when the hero went out into the storm where they knew a killer was waiting. But as he walked across the hard floor, seven paces this way, seven paces back, he felt the pressure and pain in his head abating.
After several minutes of movement without stopping, Larry slowed, then ceased his pacing and released a large breath of air he didn’t remember holding. He looked up at the clock, not really to check the time but just to look somewhere to let his thoughts refocus, and realized he should have left the house ten minutes ago.
“Fuck!” The curse rang out against the cabinets of the kitchen, and Larry half ran toward the front door of his house. The pain that had released its hold on him began to beat threateningly behind his ears and, not for the first time, he wondered if he had a tumor growing up there. He pushed the thought away quickly, but not before he registered that a feeling of relief had surfaced along with the idea.
After slipping on his shoes, he stumbled out the side entrance and into the two-stall garage. The garage was half empty now, of course, because Jill’s minivan was gone, never to return again it seemed. The only occupant now was his BMW X6, which gleamed dully in the darkened garage.
After throwing open the door to his car, he realized he had left his briefcase sitting on the table near the entry door. He exhaled, trying to keep the pain that was slowly working its way back into his head at a minimum. Larry raced back up the two stairs and into the house and tripped by stepping on one of the dangling shoelaces of his wingtips. His hands flew out instinctively, and his left shin connected with the entry flashing, tearing the skin through the thin material of his slacks.
He landed face-down in the entryway, his top half in the house and his legs sticking out into the garage. The air in his lungs had whooshed out of him, stopping him from releasing the string of curses that immediately came to mind as fire bloomed across the front of his left shin. He lay there for a few seconds, wondering if he had broken his leg. Even through the pain, he shook his head and couldn’t believe his luck. This might be the absolute worst morning he had ever had.
Larry sat up and pulled the leg of his slacks up to inspect the wound. A little blood seeped from the ab
rasion, and there was a small red splotch already soaked through on his pants. The pain in his head pounded, and the jet engine in his ears started to rev up. Ignoring the pain in both his head and leg, he grabbed the handle of his briefcase and went back into the garage, this time being careful while going down the stairs.
The engine of the BMW purred to life, and he hit the garage-door button mounted on his sun visor. The door didn’t move. He hit it again, and still there was no movement from the door behind him.
“Are you kidding me?” he said to the quiet interior of the car. He had a sudden urge to take this as an omen. Not to go raise the door by hand. To just sit there with the car running and roll down the windows, enjoy the blue breeze that would build in the garage after a few minutes. Mattie’s face suddenly sprang into his mind through the thumping pain behind his ears.
Immediately he opened the car door and reached up to release the garage door from the automatic motor that normally ran it up and down. The door sprung up several inches. After a few moments, he had opened it, backed his car out, and pulled it closed once again.
He jumped in the car and risked a glance at the luminous blue numbers on his dash. He was now fifteen minutes late, and he was going to miss the board meeting that he needed to be at. The Larson/Weis project was being given out this morning, and he was the prime candidate to head it up. He couldn’t let that fucking Bob Apple get it, that was for sure. That guy couldn’t find his ass with both hands and a flashlight, much less supervise and oversee the architectural design and production of a fifteen-story executive building in downtown LA.
Larry quickly backed out of his driveway and accelerated down the small street that his family had lived on for the last fifteen years. All of the houses and trees seemed to look different in some way, as if a special-effects crew had come and built a set in his neighborhood that was almost exactly like the original but slightly different in the details.
He tried to shake the strange thoughts, along with the pain that was beginning to spread from behind his ears and over the back of his skull like hot acid, as he merged onto the freeway that would bring him directly to the architectural firm he had worked at for the last seven years.
Traffic was fairly light, which was unusual for a Tuesday morning only a little after the beginning of rush hour. Larry rubbed his right temple unconsciously as he stared ahead at the four-lane. His thoughts began to wander back to Jill and their dentist. Well, he was her dentist now in nearly every way, he supposed. That was something else—now he would have to look for a new dentist.
Larry felt his gorge rise as he imagined them together, sneaking around behind his back for who knows how long. They probably had laughed at him, and were still laughing at him. Larry, the nice guy, never said a bad word or hurt anyone. He just turned the other cheek. How many times had he made polite conversation with that fucking prick of a mouth cleaner, only to have the guy screw his wife and probably take his daughter out for ice cream on the weekend?
Well, he would be damned if that asshole was going to take over his life. He wasn’t even that good of a dentist, Larry thought angrily. He still had to be careful of hot liquids on his right side where the incompetent shit had supposedly filled a cavity.
A semi that had been creeping up slowly next to his driver’s-side window swiftly changed lanes while the last ten feet of the enormous trailer was still even with Larry’s BMW.
“Shit!” he yelled as he simultaneously hit the brakes and swerved his car sharply to the right. The tread of the tires screamed like a cat being skinned, and the car swung lazily on its expensive suspension system. The two right tires rose into the air and then slammed back down when Larry compensated by turning the wheel back to the left. Smoke curled from the molten tires as the car came sliding to a stop in the center of the right lane.
Larry checked his rearview mirror, making sure there wouldn’t be a sudden and fatal impact from behind. The lane was clear for a quarter mile behind him. His breathing came in sharp gasps that stabbed his lungs and made his head feel as if it were filled with helium. The semi continued on several hundred yards down the road in his lane, seemingly oblivious as it trundled stupidly on its way somewhere to displace its cargo and completely unaware that Larry had nearly been killed in its wake.
The pain blossomed like a fiery hand across the back of his skull. The lengthening tendrils of agony crept just under his scalp, and he felt as if his skull was beginning to crack under the pressure. A breathless whimper escaped Larry’s lips, and he pressed his palms flat to the sides of his head, nearly expecting to feel the sludgy drippings of brain matter running out of his twitching ears. Forcing himself to breath and trying to focus his watering eyes, Larry slowly gripped the steering wheel and pulled over to the side of the lane just across the white line and rumble strip lining the edge of the highway.
After throwing the car into park, Larry sat motionless, staring out of the windshield and releasing himself to the pain. There was nothing else to do. If he was going to die here on the side of the road in his car, then so be it. But just make it stop. Please, God, make the pain go away.
“I love you, Mattie,” he whispered with a forced breath between clenched teeth. If he was dying here, then he wanted the last words from his mouth to be uttered to his little girl. She wouldn’t know, but God would.
His breathing began to slow, and suddenly he realized the pain was receding like a beaten army retreating toward their reinforced lines. He knew the pain hadn’t given up, hadn’t left him, but was drawing back for some reason.
Jesus, he was regarding the pain as though it had a mind of its own. As if it could reason and bide its time until it was ready to finally kill him.
Larry blinked his eyes and rubbed his dripping nose on the shoulder of his suit jacket. He considered going home and calling in sick. He could lie on the couch and watch reruns of Seinfeld or catch Gladiator on TV. Maybe he’d get stinking drunk and pass out, forget everything. Forget Jill, forget the dentist, forget his job, and forget his responsibilities for a day. He deserved it, damn it! He’d been a good guy his whole life. He could take a day for himself if he needed it. Maybe the pain would leave for good if he took a sick day.
Larry was just beginning to look for the nearest exit that would take him back in the direction of his home when Bob Apple’s thin smiling face floated up into the auditorium of his mind. He just couldn’t let that wretched sniveling suck-up get the Larson/Weis project. He’d butcher it for sure.
Without thinking any further about the comfort of his quiet home and the softness of his couch that was calling from the opposite direction, Larry put the car into gear and accelerated back into traffic of the southbound four-lane.
His parking spot was taken when he arrived at his office building. Of course it was. This was literally the day from hell, why wouldn’t his parking spot be taken? Larry pulled past his reserved spot and the gray Hummer that was nestled there. He searched for an open spot without luck. Rows upon rows of gaudy SUVs and fairly unimpressive sports cars lined the lot from one end to the other.
Finally, giving up on finding a spot within the building’s lot and fighting the pain that was beginning to rise again in the back of his head, Larry guided his BMW onto the nearby side street and parked haphazardly between a beat-up rusty Ford pickup and a dumpster that had, for reasons unknown, been moved out onto the street.
Larry risked a glance at his wristwatch as he hurried across the packed parking lot. He was nearly thirty-five minutes late now. He half ran, half walked until he reached the entrance doors and slipped quietly inside the empty lobby. His steps echoed hollowly off the marbled walls, and he nodded and smiled as best he could with his sweat-drenched face at the security guard. The guard just stared impassively as though he was made of stone and chewed the gum he always chewed. Larry was reminded of the blank look of a cow chewing its cud and actually had to stifle a burst of laughter that welled up from within. How could I laugh after the type of morning that
I had just endured? he wondered as he punched the backlit number fourteen in the deserted elevator.
He was still contemplating the problems and irritations he had dealt with so far when the doors dinged open and he stepped out onto his floor. The wide oak door at the end of the hall opened after he had taken two steps. When he saw the grin on Bob Apple’s weaselly face, he knew he was too late.
Larry’s stomach dropped when he saw the owner of the firm smile and shake Bob’s hand. The Larson/Weis project was gone. It would be doomed to poor decisions and incompetent design work. Larry had been hoping for this job for months, and now it was in the hands of the idiot striding down the hallway like a guided missile.
“Larry! How ya doing, pal? You look like hell.” Bob punctuated the sentence by throwing his head back in loud, braying laughter and slapping Larry roughly on the lower back.
The pain began to beat out a tempo in time with Larry’s heart on the back of his skull, but he managed to pull his fallen face up for a moment with a tight smile and nod of his aching head.
“Just wanted to tell you, I got the Larson/Weis project this morning. They said it was down to you and me, and well, with the issues you’ve been dealing with at home … Well, anyway, no big deal, really, in the grand scheme of things. Still on the same team, right? So what do you say I bring you on board as my senior advisor? A seven-month project is gonna get pretty long, and I could use the help.”
Larry’s mouth worked soundlessly, and he realized that if he let the words spew out that were itching to come forth, he would soon be wrestling this other man on the floor of the hallway, their four-hundred-dollar suits and polished shoes flying wildly in all directions.
Larry could hear the jet returning over the muted clack of shoes on the polished floors and the secretary answering a softly beeping call on the phone at the end of the hall. The whistling whine built until he could see Bob’s lips moving with no sound reaching his ears.
