Solo

by Mike Kilroy

  To put space between us.

  Solo had hurt her.

  Rejection stings more than a 3-iron to head.

  Uno walked beside her, struggling to keep pace. The dog would look up at her from time to time, before turning her attention back to the road ahead.

  Solo sprinted to walk beside her, but inevitably and quickly fell behind again.

  “Mar, slow down,” Solo called out. It only made Mar walk more briskly.

  “Mar, I’m sorry.” Solo called out again. Mar’s gate only increased.

  Perhaps better to leave her alone.

  Mar came over a ridge and stopped, peering to her left. As Solo caught up, he saw what had given her great pause.

  Sprawled across the landscape were wind turbines, spinning in the gale. They were tall and white, three arms swinging like the tentacles of an angry beast bent on destruction.

  “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished,” Solo said loudly and with vigor as he stood next to Mar and slipped his silver construction hat on his head, patting it as he did. He smiled. Mar looked at him, stunned. She fought back a grin. “Do you see over yonder, friend Mar, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.”

  Mar burst into laughter.

  “What giants?” She said, encouraging him.

  “God. I’m going to fucking vomit,” Tom muttered.

  “Those you see over there with long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length.”

  Mar could barely control her laughter.

  “They’re fucking windmills, Don Quixote.”

  “Hey, stick to the script, Sancho.” Solo elbowed Mar chidingly.

  “Oh, sorry.” Mar cleared her throat. “Master, those are not giants, but windmills. Better?”

  “Yes.” Solo cleared his throat. “It is easy to see. If you are afraid, away with thee, while I engage with them in fierce and unequal combat.”

  Mar doubled over in laughter. “Stop.” She said gasping for air between bursts of giggles. “Oh my God.”

  “Feel better now?” Solo pulled her toward him, embracing her.

  “Why don’t you want me?” She asked, pressing her head into his chest.

  “I do, but—”

  She pulled her head away and looked up at him, pursing her lips. “Look around. We’re all we got.”

  He gave into her.

  ***

  “You can’t give into him, Morris,” Dr. Head Shrinker said, inching forward on his chair.

  “I know,” Solo said, wiping his damp cheeks with the sleeve of his shirt.

  “Why do you think he wants you to do those things?”

  “He’s angry. He’s evil. He will be our undoing.”

  “Who’s undoing?”

  “Me and Eye Lyds. We’ve been so careful, but it’s unraveling. His will is too strong.”

  ***

  “Time for group!” The nurse bellowed. Solo stared down at the three of clubs in his hand and wondered how it had gotten there.

  More, he wondered how he had gotten here.

  There was usually some warning, some transition between the Before and the After, but there was none this time. It was jarring and disquieting.

  The usual suspects sat in a circle—even Vegetable Guy—except for Solo, who remained at his table across the room, staring at his playing card.

  “Morris,” Dr. Hu yelled. Even when he raised his voice, it was comforting. “It’s time for group.”

  Solo didn’t move. He was frozen as if he, too, was Vegetable Guy.

  Ratched, gruff as ever, approached and tugged on his arm. “Mr. Faraday, get up.”

  Solo stood slowly. His hand shook and his legs felt wobbly. By the time he had slowly made his way to his chair, he was feeling better. More alert. More in the now.

  Dr. Hu straightened his chair, the legs screeching on the floor. Gingivitis Guy covered his ears against the unnerving noise.

  “Well, here we are again,” Dr. Hu said. He had that soothing smile on his lips. Solo smiled back, a very unconvincing one. Solo’s eyes shot around the room, not resting on any particular thing and then back at the doctor, who also couldn’t hide his feeling.

  He was concerned.

  “I have to go pee,” Sunglasses Girl abruptly said, wiggling her leg with a rapid frequency.

  “Peggy, you knew it was time for group. Why didn’t you go before?” Dr. Hu was almost condescending.

  “I didn’t have to go a minute ago. God! Sometimes you just have to go. I’ll be back in a lickety-split.” She stood and walked briskly toward the bathroom.

  “She’s not going to the bathroom. She’s going to finger herself.” Suicide Girl said. It drew a gasp from Gingivitis Guy and a laugh from BRG.

  Dr. Hu was not amused. “That’s very inappropriate. Why would you say such a thing?”

  “Because I saw her last night. I finally saw what was under those sunglasses, too. She’s a goddamned freak.”

  Sunglasses Girl was indeed back in a lickety-split, returning just in time to hear the final words uttered by Suicide Girl. She was not amused and grabbed a fistful of Suicide Girl’s brown hair in her hand and dragged her from her chair. A few bellows of “bitch” and “whore” and “skank” followed as they tussled on the floor before Dr. Hu and the orderlies could separate them.

  Solo didn’t gain the same amusement from the scuffle as Normal Looking Guy did, but more than BRG, who cowered and covered his eyes.

  “Wow, she is a goddamned freak,” Normal Looking Guy said.

  Solo leaned forward to get a better look as she scrambled for her sunglasses. Dr. Hu was able to pull her to her feet before she could grab them.

  Solo looked at Sunglasses Girl, sans the sunglasses. Her chest heaved and her jaw clenched, but he stared into her eyes.

  One blue one and one brown one.

  “You have Mila Kunis eyes,” Solo said.

  Mar cocked her head, her mouth agape.

  Solo was about to speak again when he noticed stirring from the wheelchair next to him.

  Vegetable Guy blinked his eyes, the lids popping open so far and so fast they nearly disappeared under his thick eyebrows like a vinyl blind snapping open and spinning on the wand.

  “The vegetable is awake!” BRG bellowed and pointed. “The vegetable is awake.”

  He was more than awake. His face began to flush and he balled his hands into tight fists, the muscles of his forearm flexing.

  His muscles had not atrophied yet. He was quite strong and fit for a guy who had been staring and drooling for the entire time Solo had known him.

  His eyes, blue like marbles, finally set on Mar and his lips curled into a scowl. He stood and hoisted his wheelchair up to his waist, straining to power it over his head. Those in attendance marveled at the feat of strength and were too in awe to stop him.

  He extended his quivering arms, balancing the chair high above his head and took a wobbled step toward Mar.

  Before Solo had realized what he was doing, he was there, between Vegetable Guy and Mar, holding his hands up and pleading for him to stop. “I know why you are angry with her, but that hasn’t happened yet. No one wants to hurt you.”

  For a moment, Vegetable Guy, who Solo figured needed a new name since he was no longer an asparagus, paused and contemplated what Solo had said. Solo could see the confusion in the poor man’s eyes—he knew the confused look well.

  “Put the chair down,” Dr. Hu said calmly. By now, X—Mar’s name for him—was surrounded by three burly orderlies. They dare not grab him, though, for fear the chair would come crashing down on X’s head, turning him into Vegetable Guy once again.

  X made his decision. He let out the most horrifying, guttural scream and had the strength to cock the chair back before he heaved it forward. Solo put his hands
up and pushed the heavy chair away from his face, but the wheel struck his head on the crown.

  The force was great enough to topple him backward into Mar and Dr. Hu as all three crashed to the floor.

  Solo heard the grunts from X as the orderlies pinned him to the floor. Solo reached up to dab the blood that was pouring from a gash on the top of his head.

  His vision went blurry, then, suddenly, there were two Sunglasses Girls crawling toward him with two blue eyes and two brown eyes staring at him and filling with horror and fear.

  He heard the echo of “Solo,” then saw nothing but black.

  ***

  Solo gasped as his eyes shot open. They were in another house, this one large with high ceilings and artwork and sculptures all around them. Maybe it wasn’t a house as much as a museum.

  Solo had no idea how they had gotten here.

  Mar lay next to him on a soft, wool blanket, her arms and legs tangled with his. She lurched awake at his sudden movement.

  “Solo, what’s wrong?”

  “I was back there.”

  “What happened?”

  “You were there. So was X.”

  Mar sat up and rubbed her hands through the nest that was her hair. “That’s impossible. I was never in a psych ward.”

  “How do you know? You said you couldn’t remember.”

  “Yes, but—” Mar looked down at Solo. “No. It can’t be.”

  “Maybe you went there on that day,” Solo sat up. “You know, FORGET THE REGRET day. Dr. Hu did something to you. Maybe he did something to X and to me. Maybe he’s the key to all of this.”

  “There you go. Not so fucking stupid after all.” Tom muttered.

  Solo ignored him. It was getting more and more difficult to do so.

  “Listen to me,” Tom said again. “You have to listen to me. Don’t go home. Go to the hospital. The answers are there, not in Avella.”

  Solo ignored him again.

  Mar shoved her face into her palms, her voice muffled. “Why can’t I remember?”

  Solo knew the feeling. He knew the pain and the confusion.

  He hoped she would find her answers.

  His were waiting for him.

  ***

  The snow was heavy as they trudged, the sun a dim orb under the thick, gray clouds.

  “Hey, I think it’s November 22,” Mar said as she turned the pages in her notebook, trying to keep them from getting wet.

  The date had significance in Solo’s mind, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

  “It’s your birthday, dummy,” Tom said.

  Solo cracked a smile and it quickly turned to a frown as he saw his childhood home set against the cold, winter sky in the distance.

  “Is that it?” Mar asked.

  Solo nodded. “Yes. That’s it.”

  As they got closer, Solo’s heart pounded. Uno took off and Mar was powerless to stop her. She raced toward a small cemetery about a hundred yards away from the house, weaving through tombstones before she stopped. She sniffed at the snow and began to dig.

  By the time they had reached the dog, she had cleared snow off a stone set into the ground. Solo peered down at it in shock.

  WILMA FARADAY, LOVING MOTHER, DEVOTED WIFE

  June 15, 1957-August 22, 2012

  The stone next to her read:

  JOHN FARADAY, FATHER AND HUSBAND

  April 1, 1954-August 22, 2012

  “My parents. They’re dead.” Solo said as he slumped to his knees and stared at the stone.

  He traced the names with his cold fingers and felt Mar’s hands squeeze his shoulders.

  “I’m sorry, Solo,” she said softly.

  Solo wondered if he had the chance to say goodbye. He wondered if their last conversation was a good one. He wondered if he had left them in good spirits or if they worried for him once he was gone.

  He wondered why Eye Lyds had not told him.

  Uno began scratching at a patch of snow a few feet away from the stones. Mar told the dog to stop, but she whined and kept digging.

  Mar finally picked Uno up and peered down at the bare patch. She froze there, staring down at the ground as Uno squirmed in her arms.

  “Solo,” Mar said. Her voice quaked. “Solo. Come look at this.”

  Solo didn’t budge. He was frozen, too.

  “Solo!” Mar bellowed. It was enough to break him, finally, out of his reflection. “Come here.”

  Solo stood, patted the snow off his jeans and walked slowly to Mar. He looked into her eyes and saw shock in them. She pointed to the ground and Solo’s eyes slowly set on what Uno had dug out.

  It was another tombstone, smaller, set into the ground. It was the same stone he and Eye Lyds visited, wondering who lay beneath it. It was once blank, but now there was something freshly etched into it. Part of the name was obscured, but Solo could read enough of it to understand Mar’s shock.

  Solo kicked the rest of the snow off the old stone, faded and chipped, and fell back down to his knees.

  “This …” Solo muttered. “This can’t be.”

  “I told you,” Tom said, his voice close. Solo could feel his breath, as putrid as always, on his ear. “Be careful what you wish for.”

  Solo’s eyes ran over the words. He blinked to make sure he was truly seeing them. He closed his eyes tightly and opened them again.

  The words were still there.

  IN LOVING MEMORY OF LITTLE TOMMY BOY, TAKEN AT BIRTH, NOVEMBER 22, 1974.

  He peered at Tom, who sat with his legs crossed in the snow next to the stone. “We were triplets, but you sucked the life right out of me. But I survived. Inside you, I survived.” He smiled through his beard and began to sing, “Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us, happy birthday dear Solo and Tom-my. Happy birthday to us. And no more.”

  Chapter Eight

  The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth

  Solo heard his father’s muffled voice from behind the bedroom door. He placed his ear against it to better hear the conversation. “They were there again.”

  “Why do they keep going there?” His mother asked. There was a palpable frustration in her voice. There was also worry. His mother worried—a lot—about him, about his influence on Eye Lyds, and about how his actions reflected upon her. “Do you think they know?”

  After a pause, his father said, “No. There’s no way.”

  “I think we should tell them, John. Maybe they’ll understand. Maybe it will help them.”

  “Nothing can help them.”

  “We can’t turn our backs on them.”

  His father’s voice dripped with disdain. “They’re … monsters.”

  Solo heard a slap. “Don’t you ever call them that!”

  Then he heard scuffling and a groan before his mother cried, “Let go of me!”

  “You have to face the truth. They’re not right, Wilma. They’re freaks.”

  ***

  Solo lay with his face in the snow and cried.

  It was a good cry. He always felt better after a good cry.

  He didn’t know how all of this had gone sideways. He wished he could have remembered his past and his brother, who died at birth, and his parents and his sister and everything that had happened to him.

  It appeared that Little Tommy Boy, who was at least still alive in his head, had other ideas. “You see what happens when you kick the hornet’s nest? You get stung. Will you listen to me now, brother?”

  Solo sobbed. He felt a set of hands tug at him from under his armpits, but he didn’t budge.

  “Solo,” Mar said softly. “Let’s go.”

  But Solo had neither the desire nor the will to leave. If he could have sunk into that cold earth and joined his family, he would have. He would have melted through the snow and burrowed through the ground if he could.

  He couldn’t, however.

  “Living is like licking honey off a thorn, isn’t it?” Tom said. “Get up. It’s not the end of the world.” Tom threw his head back
and laughed. “Well, I guess it is the end of the world, isn’t it? But it’s not the end of us. We’re stronger than all this.” Tom lifted his arms and flexed. “I make you stronger.”

  Solo peered at Tom, at his one tied boot and his one untied boot, and pushed himself off the ground.

  He patted the wet snow off his coat and took a long, deep breath.

  Mar rubbed his arms and peered into his eyes with profound worry. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” Solo said. “I’ll never be okay—I never was okay—and I have to be okay with that.”

  Solo grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder. He peered down at the three stones one last time and gritted his teeth against the sadness and pain.

  “Goodbye,” he said.

  ***

  “You’re a faggot and a freak.” His father was drunk again. He stumbled to his reclining chair, one work boot untied, one tied.

  Solo stared at him. He wouldn’t cry today. He stood in front of the chair, chest puffed out, defiant of his father.

  His dad’s golf clubs sat near the door, but he was too drunk to use them. He had two choices after work: golf or drinking. He usually chose both, but on this day, drinking won in a landslide.

  His father finally noticed his provocative posture and snickered. “What are you gonna do, you faggot? Hit me with one of your dolls?”

  “Brain him!” Tom bellowed. He stood behind the chair and made a swinging motion with arm. “Take a golf club and sink it into the back of his skull when he passes out. You’ll be better off. Eye Lyds will be better off. Just do it. Do it!”

  Solo backed away, appalled by what Tom had proposed.

  His father laughed, thinking his retreat was the result of something he said, no doubt.

  “Just what I thought. Faggot! Freak!”

  His father closed his eyes, a smirk still on his face and passed out. Solo crept forward, staring at the face of the man who was supposed to love and nurture him, but just shunned him and ridiculed him and called him names.

  His father never hit him, never so much as laid a paw on him, but his words were just as damaging.

  Perhaps Tom was right, Solo thought in that moment of weakness. Perhaps braining him is the thing to do.

  ***

  There were no answers there—only hurt—and Solo didn’t want to hurt anymore.