by Tim Meyer
Seconds later, Jarvis found himself handcuffed to a hospital bed. Two police detectives were staring down at him, asking him some basic questions—like who he was, how old he was, and if he drove a black Oldsmobile. He answered slowly, but truthfully, confused about what was happening, but also glad the Candy Land nightmare had ended.
He wasn't so glad when the two detectives told him the licorice he hit weren't licorice, but a woman and her two daughters.
-6-
“Lilah!” Matty screamed for the third time. The first two times didn't work, and neither did the third attempt. Lilah was unconscious and wheezing laborious breaths. Foam bubbled on her lips.
Jesus, what's wrong with her?
A chill cut through her veins, sending her body into convulsions. Beads of sweat covered her arms, forehead, and upper lip. Matty looked up and saw Bob and his mother standing over them. They struggled for air, but being in excellent shape, the sprint across the bridge didn't seem to bother them much.
“What's wrong with her?” Matty cried out.
The worrisome expression on his face sliced through Brenda. Bob kept a stone-cold appearance, dropping to one knee beside his stepson.
“Let me see,” Bob said.
Reluctantly, Matty handed her over. He hated to let her go, but he knew there was nothing he could do for her. He didn't think there was anything Bob could do either, but he was an adult, and adults usually handled these situations better than petrified fifteen-year olds.
Brenda placed her hand on her son's shoulder. Matty closed his eyes in attempt to block the tears from coming through. He failed and the wetness streaked down his cheeks.
“Put her on the ground,” Jarvis told Bob. “She's having another seizure.”
Bob glanced up, giving Jarvis a who-the-hell-are-you look. When Lilah thrashed in his arms, he listened. Carefully, Bob placed the girl on the ground. She continued with her fit, foam spilling from her mouth and running down her cheeks.
“There's nothing you can do for her,” Jarvis told Matty.
The kid looked on in horror as she sprawled out on the road, experiencing a series of spastic convulsions. He wanted to help her, hold her, kiss her.
For a brief moment, he thought she might die. In this new world, it'd be nearly impossible to find a magic pill for whatever was wrong with her. And what was wrong exactly? Matty didn't know. Despite being the smartest kid in his freshman class, in that moment, he felt dumb.
And helpless.
He craned his head toward his father. Sam stood a good distance away from the group, his hand resting over his mouth. Matty never saw his father like that before. He looked... uncomfortable. Sam watched on, his eyes narrowing to slits. Matty stared, hoping to make eye contact with him. He needed his father, needed him to confirm that everything was okay. He received no such comfort. In fact, Sam continued to stare on, unable to move or express himself in any way.
Things are falling apart.
For the first time since the world had ended, despair touched him. Standing on the overpass near a city full of raucous marauders with his first girlfriend in dire need of medical assistance, and his father staring off like a mindless robot, all seemed lost. Matty wanted to blink and wake up in his bed, the nightmare over and nothing but a distant memory. But no such thing would happen. This was reality. And reality sucked. Big time.
Lilah's pupils rolled, turned white, and reappeared a moment later. He stared, seeing no semblance of her in them. She looked dead. Maybe she was. Stretched beyond his limits, he couldn't take it anymore.
“Somebody help her!” Matty shouted. When no one responded, his skin grew hot. “Somebody help her!”
No one came to her side.
Jarvis put a hand on his shoulder. “Can't do anything about it, little man. Gotta let it ride out.”
Matty balled his hands into fists. He'd never hit anyone before, but then again, he'd never been so angry. So... useless. His mind kept reciting the word, useless. He couldn't look at himself any other way. If he was stronger, maybe he could have helped her. Stronger. Smarter? If I was smarter, I'd know what to do.
“This...” Matty said, clenching his teeth, “this is bullshit!”
No one argued with him. His mother shed a tear, unable to handle her own emotions. Bob looked at his stepson, commiserating with his helplessness. Staring off into the distance, taking time to reflect, Sam remained still and silent. Tina watched Matty fall apart. She knew Jarvis was right; nothing could be done. Ride it out had been the best advice anyone had come up with since they left Costbusters. Jarvis reached for the kid's shoulder again, but thought better of it. Chuck stood behind them, trying to keep out of the way and doing a good job of it.
Jarvis ripped the leather belt off his waist with one strong tug. He knelt next to the sick girl and went to place the belt in her mouth.
Bob grabbed his arm.
“I don't want her to bite off her tongue,” he stated.
Bob shot him a dubious look.
“Please, man. I've seen it happen before. It ain't pretty.”
Bob let go and Jarvis slipped the belt between her chattering teeth.
“Now what?”
“Now we ride it out.”
They rode it out. Although it seemed longer, it took less than a minute for her body to stop quivering spastically.
Matty fell beside her, dropping to his knees. He placed his hand over her forehead. Freezing. He looked to Bob, the next closest person, the only fatherly figure not stuck in a dreamlike trance. Bob grabbed her by the back of the neck and lifted her, aligning her on an incline. More foam bubbled from her mouth and seeped from her lips, dribbling down her chin. He didn't want her choking.
“Is it over?” Matty asked.
Lightly, Bob tapped her on the cheek. “Lilah,” he said. “Lilah, honey?”
No answer.
“She'll wake up,” Jarvis told them. “Give her a few minutes.”
Bob held her and waited. He read the impatience in his stepson's eyes like Chiropractor for Dummies. Jarvis seemed to know a lot about what was happening. He didn't give off the doctor vibe, although they did come in all shapes and sizes. However, Jarvis was a little too...
What's the word I'm looking for?
Street? He couldn't find a better word. Street. Like maybe he had come from a rough neighborhood, grew up on the wrong side of town. Bob didn't think any less of him; it was merely an observation. Jarvis didn't seem like a bad guy. He figured he came from a poor family, maybe lived in some urban city—like Newark or Jersey City—and listened to too much hip-hop growing up. But the guy appeared decent, concerned, and willing to help.
“Lilah?” Bob repeated. “Come on, Lilah. Wake up.”
As if she heard him, her eyes fluttered and cracked open.
Matty's mood sparkled. “Lilah!”
She frowned.
“Wha...” Matty said, noticing something about her had changed. “What's the matter?”
She cocked her head to the side. Blinking rapidly, she asked, “Who are you people? Where the hell am I?”
-7-
TEN YEARS AGO
Jarvis sat in the semi-circle, surveying the two dozen faces, all of whom looked as uninterested to be there as he was. He didn't listen when they spoke; didn't have to. This wasn't his first rodeo, and it damn sure wouldn't be the last. He had heard the stories before, all of them more or less the same. Blah, blah, blah was all he heard from their mouths, and after a while, he stopped paying attention altogether. The floral-pattern walls of the small recreation center held more interest and where he focused his attention.
“Jarvis?” called Mike Braxton, the ring leader of this snooze-fest of a circus. Mike was all right in Jarvis's book. At times the man was too preachy, but he understood things. He had been through some shit, which he had shared on a weekly basis. It wasn't his fault the weekly meetings were boring as all hell. If Mike had the floor for the entire hour, Jarvis might have paid more attention. “Anyth
ing you want to share?”
He peeled his eyes away from the wallpaper and focused on the sixty-year old hippy who had once dropped so much acid he'd been stuck on a bad trip for two weeks, which ended after he jumped from the third story of an office building and broke both legs landing in the parking lot. Every now and then he experienced a flashback and revisited those awful times. Mr. Mike never shared what the trip entailed, but Jarvis could tell by the way he spoke about it, the event had been traumatizing.
“You've been here—what's it been—eighteen months?” Mike asked. “I understand you might be in line to head to the county correctional facility at the end of the month. Do you think it's time to open up to the group?”
He chewed his gum, which had replaced his pack-a-day smoking habit. Now he smoked about two cigarettes a day. Some days, only one. He stared at Mr. Mike, pretending the thought of sharing pissed him off.
“Come on, Jarvis,” Mike said, winking. “I know you got a story in you waiting to pour out.”
Jarvis shook his head.
“Are you sure? You might find it somewhat liberating.”
He surveyed the faces around him, those sad, hopeless faces. Pretenders, he thought. They share their feelings and shit because no one else will listen to them. No one else cares. But Jarvis had people who did care about him. His parents. They visited every other day, sometimes every day, depending on his father's work schedule and his mother's church schedule. He talked. They listened. They gave him good advice. Do well here, they told him, and maybe we can get you out early on good behavior. The chances were slim. He had killed one person, seriously injured two. One of the little girls hadn't survived; the best doctors in the tri-state area had given their all. After almost twelve hours of surgery, the girl had died on the operating table. Her mother and sister spent a week in the ICU, another three in a hospital bed before being discharged.
“Unburden your soul, man,” Mike said. He encouraged the group to inspire Jarvis, and they did as their ringleader asked.
“Come on, Jarvis!” a woman with one eye said. She had lost it in a knife fight in North Philly during a drug deal gone bad.
“Yeah, Jarvis, you can do it!” A long-haired man of fifty said. He had crashed his eighteen-wheeler into a gas station convenience store while high as a fucking kite. Cops found two pounds of weed and six kilos of cocaine in his cargo.
“Hey, man, it's not so bad,” said a nineteen year-old kid. His name was Marlo and he was the closest thing Jarvis had to a friend in this joint. They talked about the Sixers and attempted to settle the great debate of who was better, east or west coast hip-hop. Jarvis argued Biggie and Tupac crushed Dre and Snoop lyrically and musically, and Marlo told him he was a “Trippin' Fool” who knew nothing of good rap music. “You can do it, white-boy. I got faith.”
“All right. Fine.”
The group clapped, loudly, but silenced themselves as he started speaking.
“So what's on my mind...” he said. “What's on my mind? I'll tell you what: I'm scared. Pretty fucking scared that's for sure. And anxious. Confused. Angry. Ashamed. I want to control what's going to happen, but I can't. I realize that.” He paused. A few members nodded in agreement.
Jarvis sighed. “Not a day goes by I don't think about what happened. The crash. I mean, I was so fucked up I barely remember any of it. It's like I dreamed it. A nightmare. It's like I woke up and had to pay for stuff I did within a dream. It wasn't me who crashed that car and killed that little girl. I feel like it wasn't me at all. It was this other me. It was like someone else took over my body and did all this fucked up shit.”
Mr. Mike squinted. “I think it was you, Jarvis.”
“No. It wasn't. I'm not a bad person.”
“I'm sure you're not,” Mr. Mike said. “However, we are only as good as the decisions we make.”
Jarvis glared at him. “It was the drugs. Not me.”
“And who opted to take those drugs? Was that someone else? Did someone else put a crack pipe in your mouth?”
“No, that's what I'm saying, Mr. Mike. It was this other me. I couldn't help myself.”
Mike winced. “You're not understanding. You chose to take those drugs. You chose to get behind a wheel that day. You chose to use while operating a vehicle. Those were decisions you made; the drugs had nothing to do with that. The disease had nothing to do with that.”
Jarvis slunk in his seat. He now had a different opinion of Mike Braxton.
“I leave for Rahway in seventeen days. State prison,” Jarvis said, his voice wavering. “Lookin' at possibly seven years for vehicular homicide. I'm scared. Scared I'll want to use. But more scared of what's going to happen to me. I mean... in case you haven't noticed, I ain't exactly big. I'm afraid...” Tears blurred his vision. “Well, fuck. You all know what I'm afraid of.”
No one said anything. They didn't need to.
“I killed... killed that little girl,” he sobbed. “Fuck.”
He wiped his face with his forearm, but a second later it was wet again.
“There's a chance I can get out of it, but I dunno. Not looking too great right now.” He breathed deeply and collected himself. Every eye in the room turned on him, their collective gaze burning his face, but he didn't care anymore. Mike was right; better to get it all out, to purge his emotions. “That's all I got.”
An hour after his speech, Jarvis caught up with Mr. Mike outside of his office.
“You wanted to see me?”
Mike waved him inside and told him to have a seat. The second he entered the office a wave of negativity washed over him. Whatever he brought him in for couldn't be good.
“What's up?” Jarvis asked. He was tapping his foot on the carpet, a nervous tic he had recently developed since getting clean.
Mike sat down and at first, said nothing. He rested his elbows on his desk and placed his chin on his hands. He stared at Jarvis and each passing second amplified the awkwardness.
“Jarvis, I'm afraid I've got some bad news.”
Jarvis's stomach plummeted. The room spun, the air heavy with negative vibes. He found breathing difficult.
“I just got off the phone with Judge Ruggerio, from the Appellate Division. Your Excessive Sentence Appeal was denied. The court felt with your history of theft and the damage you caused your family, I mean—we couldn’t even get your parents to write a letter supporting you, and then there's the accident. She said, well... she said some other unflattering things I don’t wish to repeat.”
“What do you mean they wouldn't write a supporting letter?” he asked, confused. “They visit me almost every day.”
“Yes, well. Not writing the letter doesn't mean they don't love you, I'm sure... my best guess is they're trying to teach you a lesson here.”
“What fucking lesson? That it's okay to let your children go to prison and get ass raped?” His anger rose more quickly than he anticipated. Mr. Mike put his hand up to stop him before he reached the dangerous level he was capable of. “What fucking lesson?”
“Jarvis, please.” His somber tone didn't do much to curb Jarvis's temper. “I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear. I know you got your hopes up and thought we'd be able to get you a longer stay here, but... you can handle what's coming. You're stronger than you know, you just don’t know it yet. This is your chance to learn. You gotta suit up, show up, and man up, and it'll be over before you know it.”
“Fuck you!” Jarvis said, jumping out of his seat. His chair fell back and skidded across the carpet. He pounded the desk with clenched fists, causing pens, a notepad, and a stapler to jump. Mike pushed away and Jarvis could see the fear in his eyes; he thought Jarvis was going to hit him. “Your old hippy ass doesn't know shit!”
Jarvis stormed out of the office and Mike Braxton let him go, and the two of them never spoke again.
-8-
Lilah sat on the curb. Matty held her hair back while she unloaded her stomach on the street. He looked away, the sounds of her retching twi
rling his own stomach, thinking he might join her if he listened any longer.
The others watched from a good distance. They whispered to each other, everyone throwing in their own take on what to do next, how to proceed with this seemingly delicate situation. Matty knew what they were discussing and ignored them. Instead, he tried to make small talk.
“How's the memory?”
“Better,” she said between dry heaves. There wasn't anything solid left to disgorge. “I remember some names.”
“That's good,” Matty said, wrinkling his nose at the smell. The air was heavy and solid with an acidy stench. It reminded him of the time he left a carton of milk in his mother's car and what it smelled like when they discovered his mistake three days later.
Lilah had awoken confused and unable to remember much. The look on her face had scared Matty; there wasn't a single hint of recognition, like someone had pressed a reset button in her mind.
As time advanced, she was able to remember. Relieved, Matty couldn't imagine how he'd explain everything that happened. And not only the crazy sequence of events, but their relationship. What is our relationship? He didn't even understand it, and if he didn't, how was he supposed to explain it to someone who had forgotten who he was? Fortunately, she remembered him.
He stayed with her until she was done and helped her to her feet. Gave her a hair tie his mother had given him. She couldn't stand on her own power, so he threw her right arm over his shoulder and walked her over to the rest of the group. He knew there would be questions to answer and decisions to make, some wrinkles in need of a good iron—Lilah being the biggest wrinkle of them all.
“Are you feeling better, honey?” Brenda asked.
“Yes. I think so.”
“You look like absolute shit,” Chuck said. He wasn't joking.
