Chronicles of Ara: Perdition

by Joel Eisenberg

  “Are we taking—”

  “We’re talking about nothing you can conceive.”

  “Try me,” Rawling defies. “Or should I take my best educated guess?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  “Tell me if I’m in the ballpark . . .” Rawling says. “You haven’t cut yourself since you were a small girl. You’re probably embarrassed and likely won’t do it again. But we’re here, together, now, they represent resentment for your circumstance above and beyond anything else, and you can’t get ahead?”

  “Not close.” The therapist grimaces in disappointment. “Okay, close enough, but not quite. We’re talking about a something far more . . . David Foster Wallace. The author, he knew. He said it was something much worse. He was a writer. He understood—”

  “You’re not a writer.”

  “In some circles I’m considered an artist,” Sid defensively responds.

  “I see . . . What did you mean by worse?”

  “How ’bout this? Wallace said the purpose of fiction is to combat loneliness.” Rawling, not understanding a thing, scribbles notes. “He killed himself years later. Hung himself from a patio rafter.”

  “Are you suicidal, Sid?”

  “Me?”

  “Are you the monster, Sid?”

  “I told you, I’m the bride.”

  “Well, you implied as much.” Sidra cocks her head in concession and Rawling nods in response. “Mary Shelley never wrote about a bride . . . but I do love those old Universal monster movies, don’t you?”

  “Well, that’s encouraging.”

  “Why?”

  “Frankenstein came from a far more tragic place than the confines of a movie studio . . .” Rawling contains her frown. “I’m just a photographer. I take pictures from my cell phone. I’m an observer. Life passes me by; all I do is record. Fiction comes from a place of terror—”

  “Are you acknowledging that others have had it worse than you?”

  The girl can barely hide her frustration. “Do you know that one of my greatest issues is that no shrink could ever understand unless you walked a mile in my combat boots?” The therapist does not respond. “To directly answer your question, I haven’t shot up,” Sid continues. “I haven’t shot up for six months.”

  “Very good, Sid.”

  “I haven’t sold myself for sex either, so I’m clean. Trust me.” She receives no response. “I’d say I’m kidding, but then you’d think I really am—”

  “Dancing isn’t hooking, I get it. I think I know you a little better than that. What about the cuts?” Sid rolled her sleeve back down. “Go ahead, it’s okay . . . I’ll take that as my answer, then?”

  “It’s a free country.”

  And they were stalemated, until Rawling peeked at her watch, and Sid caught her.

  Fucking hypocrite. Both, at once.

  Even as a UCLA intern, Fran Rawling felt shifty in confrontation with self-abusers, cutters in particular. “Suggest the patient’s permission,” a colleague once advised. “Allow them to dictate the pace of their session. Through your attentiveness they will learn to willfully trust and disclose. Also, hope precedes responsibility. They see the possibility of a future, then through their disclosure they will identify, accept, and work through.”

  “No. It’s all about the hope,” Rawling responded. “Without hope the rest is utter horseshit. Not a one of them had ever dealt with the . . . blinding contradictions of a Sid Ghioto—honors student, junkie, manipulative as hell—a vassal if there ever was.”

  It’s been weeks since she’s volunteered his name. Her wounds continue to be self-inflicted, her breath reeks of alcohol . . . who is she protect—

  “Jesus!” Rawling exclaimed, as she accidentally knocks over her coffee cup.

  “Jesus is a cunt,” Sid replies righteously as she dolefully watches Rawling clean the mess. “Yeah, I went there. Now what?”

  Rawling regains her composure. “What are you asking me? Be specific.”

  “Are you offended by my choice of word? It’s just a word, after all.”

  “Are words dangerous to you, Sid?”

  “An obvious follow-up, no?”

  “Not necessarily. Do you find that words maybe can be dangerous in the context of shocking others?”

  “Do you find me threatening?”

  “Should I?” Sid takes to time to respond. “Should I?” the doctor repeats.

  “No . . .”

  “Good. Back to Jesus then. Would I be stepping out of bounds if I asked about your religious affiliation?”

  “Are you judging me? Let thee who cast the first stone—”

  “It’s just a question.”

  “What business is that of yours?”

  “Fair enough.”

  Sid gave in, or appeared to, when she noticed her doctor’s telling method of regaining composure—tapping those long, perfectly manicured fingernails from pinky to forefinger and back, in rhythmic sequence, on the arm of her chair. Four times each hand. Classic OCD. As she watched the therapist deal with her own frustrations, she flashed to an image of an old fourth-grade classmate who affected the same habit. She had not spoken to Samantha McFee, once her closest friend, in many years. Sam had once attempted to save Sid’s life, or so she said; the way she went about it was traumatic, and their subsequent falling out was such that Sid medicated to forget her, and her family . . .

  Sid snaps back to the present and regains her focus on the doctor. Obviously, she has enough issues of her own, she considers. How could I take her seriously? “We still have, oh, sixteen minutes, give or take. Would you like for me to continue?”

  “I’d encourage you to continue,” Rawling responds. “I’d encourage you to explain to me exactly what happened to you this morning, and why the urgency to see me . . . while dropping the defenses.”

  Sid sits back in her chair. The tears start, and she dabs her eyes. Rawling hands her a box of tissue. This much the doctor does not anticipate. Sid grudgingly accepts it, acknowledging the therapist with disdain.

  “I had my period,” she facetiously responds.

  Rawling uncharacteristically smiles and deadpans: “Congratulations, you’re a woman.”

  “I decided to stop . . . I decided to try to stop drinking.” Not quite what Dr. Rawling expected, but close. The doctor cocks her head to hear more, allowing her patient to continue in as nonthreatening a manner as possible. “I told you,” Sid says, “Maybe I’m not so ugly anymore.” The tears fall freely.

  “Sid? That’s wonderf—”

  Sid stands, and heads to the door. “Session’s over, doctor.”

  “Sid?”

  The door slams behind her.

  Dr. Francine Rawling stares at the empty entranceway, exasperated.

  ~~~

  Dr. Rawling and the Park Sunset Hospital was an ill-begotten memory by the time Sid reached the Clinton Hill underpass of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway—home away from home. Out of breath, ears and nose pinked by frost, the rhythmic pulse of the vehicles above, and its constant seduction to somehow levitate beyond her stone-cold graffiti bedpost, up and over the pass and onto the highway; to end it all here-and-now so cleanly held such romance . . . but was way too easy. This was her private sanctuary, after all—private for now, that is—shared with no one save for an occasional act of kindness. Here, she had time to think. Time to read.

  Time to photograph.

  The wall’s latest paint-over, completed while she was away, as expected:

  Sidra takes a few shots of the unusual image from her cell phone camera then sits on the cold ground, the phone remaining in her hand.

  “Who the hell is Matthew, anyway?” she asks aloud. She leans her back against the even colder cement wall and takes stock. She sits alone; there is no one nearby as far as she can see.

  And so she talks to herself.

  “My name? Sidra Ghioto. What’s my philosophy, you ask? Well, I live by this creed—I found it on Twitter—Buddha posted it
, or maybe one of his followers: The trouble is, he said, you think you have time.”

  In casual conversation, she’d drop the line, sometimes followed with: “I’ve been inspired by Buddhist and Asian philosophy for as long as I can remember.” That’s the truth, but she’s secure enough in her insecurity to realize the response also makes her feel that much more important.

  All of which is a discussion-starter for someone who stands firmly on the left side of shy and acts her way through life in compensation for her myriad shortcomings. None of which was even brought up in Matthius Alexi’s presence. Never had to be; she was that comfortable with him.

  Sidra laughs, her first all day, at the irony. “So all that Buddhist stuff? That was my old motto, though. My new one is: So young, so talented, so incredibly fucked up.”

  She gently bangs the back of her head against the wall. “Greatest crush? Easy. Bruce Lee.” Her voice deepens, in mock seriousness. “He appeals to my philosophic and physical leanings, yo. In fact, in an alternate world if he were still alive and I was fool enough to be married . . . I’d get a pass. If he knows what for—Eastern philosophy? Okay, I don’t really know anything about eastern philosophy, but I think Bruce Lee is fine. I do love me some anime though, if that counts.”

  Tears well. “Yeah, it’s true. I was a Professor Searle kid. I was one of the twenty-two . . . souls admitted into Searle’s Artist’s Academy program. We were all—are all—whoever’s left,” she adds curiously, “just a tad more complex than the rest a y’all. He’s the one who taught us, all of us, that the lives we live are never what they appear to be, and . . . and . . . you know what? Fuck this. And fuck him. So much of this is his fault, and I’m tired of talking. Said too much already.”

  She cries, and wipes her eyes with her arm.

  She replaces her cell into her purse and pulls out Frankenstein in its place. She cracks the book open . . . and puts it away seconds later.

  Sidra’s troubled mind continues to wander, but this time she doesn’t speak. She thinks, which is sometimes that much more dangerous.

  She will still have a child, she ponders, a boy, but not with him. He’ll recover and find someone else, but c’mon, we weren’t right for each other anyway. And then she thinks of the child. Who with I have no clue, but this is exactly how it’ll go down, watch. She plays out the scenario, flashing to her future. The child will be disabled, unable to speak. He will be mute, maybe worse. His universe, his control, will be all about his obsession: his rubber bands. He will be pliable with his hands, and he will always need to build. He will wail if bothered and cry if disrupted. When alone or if I’m outside his door, he will continue to build. Without pause, always building. The rubber bands will always start out balled; he’ll design them into distinct forms and then place them aside for new and bigger figures to join them. Within months he will develop the base for an army and then, one day, he will finally finish his life’s work.

  “Yes,” Sidra says, suddenly hopeful. “Yes, my baby will be an artist like his mom.” She resumes her daydream.

  His will be an army of creatures, made from his bands, that will overtake his mind, his imagination . . . and his own, private corner of the universe. He will be befriended by his bands. He will come to trust them more than people. His mother’s son.

  When alone and he decides he is finished, his only friends will be his bands . . . his bands of dragons.

  Oh this’ll happen, she thinks. I am certain of it.

  SING SING CORRECTIONAL FACILITY,

  OSSINING, NEW YORK

  Main recreation yard.

  Yesterday. Minutes before Charlie King was dragged by guards to the familiar segregated control unit where he spent much of his past year. He was considered “high risk” upon imprisonment and a full-time revisit to his self-contained supermax, reserved in his name, was expected at the first sign of trouble.

  He fought nothing and said nothing and yet he remained in solitary twenty-three hours daily until a week ago. He took his punishment, because being punished was part of what he’d bought into and he was far from a fool. In some ways, though he was a model prisoner during his brief interactions with others, he would be made an example of. For a designated time only, however. There were other plans for him.

  All of which was the warden’s decision. He had his reasons then, as he did last week when he stunned his staff and informed them that this most notorious of convicts would from here forward receive two hours of recreation daily and be allowed to eat three meals daily in the mess.

  “It’s a test,” the warden would plainly say to anyone who asked. “Don’t fret over it.”

  “Ever play handball with a partner?” asked one approaching inmate of another. The second inmate didn’t answer. “Yo, Grease,” he was asked again. “Yo, Grease, I’m talking to you.”

  Distracted, the second inmate, a Hispanic male, mid-sixties, misses his swing. “I’m not bothering you,” he said. He ran to recover the ball and returned to position.

  Charlie was guilty of only one thing in these surroundings. Here, in prison, he was a loner. He was reading a dog-eared copy of Moby Dick, sitting against the same wall yards away, and taking notes in a scribble pad.

  “You don’t think you’re bothering me,” the first inmate responded. “I’m in the mood for some fucking handball. You got a ball, I got two hands—”

  “You only need one hand, dipshit.” He served and hit his shots with acute ferocity, the ball slamming against the wall and returning with increasing force, hit after hit.

  Until the ball was intercepted. “Set and match,” said the first inmate. “It’s my game now . . . dipshit.”

  “Give me my ball back. I did nothing to you.”

  “You ain’t getting shit, old man.” He served, mocking the first inmate’s stance and hit by cracking his limp wrist and striking the ball with the same. He played slowly, methodically . . . until the “old man” swiped his ball back upon its return. He then walked to the wall and retrieved his T-shirt, throwing it angrily over his shoulder.

  And he spit on the ground, which immediately incited the second inmate.

  Charlie threw down his book and stood. He watched as the older inmate turned his back to walk away only to be jumped by his younger, stronger tormentor.

  It was self-defense. Charlie saved the older inmate from a sure beating, and took the beating himself.

  He was dragged away, barely able to stand.

  The other two were locked down for the rest of the day and back to their routine the following afternoon.

  Charlie was arrested, tried, and placed in super-maximum security in short order. His reputation was such that two factions quickly formed on the news of his impending arrival: those who would stay far away from him once integrated, or those who would get uncomfortably close and test him once integrated.

  None of the inmates knew his real name. They all thought he was someone else, someone public—a writer—who a few read regularly and began to believe in as something of a messiah. The excitement started when some of the inmates saw his image on the news and spread the word that “he” was on his way. The warden then, having little choice, verified the rumor.

  For various reasons, the warden’s recent “test” was questioned by most, regardless of his charge’s unassuming appearance. Charlie was twenty, five-nine if his hair was unaccounted for (five-eleven if it was), and he was slight of frame. He wore thick plastic black-rimmed glasses and, when captured on the New York City subway all those months ago, was covered head to toe in a paint-splattered white smock.

  He wore white for reason that day, he took advantage of his substantial resemblance to the boy for whom he had served as a decoy—the unwitting X—and he believed he had a purpose.

  International terrorists came and went in Sing Sing, but as they were not common, Charlie was fast to become a prison celebrity. He did not kid himself, though. He knew he would not be immune to equal treatment by his fellow prisoners if-when he’d be all
owed in the mix.

  He swore to himself he would do what he could to keep his nose clean, if-when that happened, as his work was only beginning.

  Despite the outcome, he’d never forget the words of his arresting officer. The short one, the one who would change his life forever:

  “We got ’im,” he said. “We got the London bomber . . . we got X.”

  ~~~

  Today.

  He speaks to himself to keep his sanity.

  “Einstein. ‘I know not with what weapons World War Three will be fought, but World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones.’ Mother Teresa. ‘Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.’ They’re right. Hold the demons at bay. Hold the demons at bay . . .”

  His birth name is Charlie King. He met X on the New York City subway last year and was arrested at the subsequent stop as the fugitive London bombing suspect. He’s nineteen, black, and older than the boy for whom he played decoy.

  He’s been arrested and since held as an international fugitive. And now he’s in the hole of one of the most secure maximum security penitentiaries in the U.S.

  “George Harrison. ‘It’s being here now that’s important. There’s no past and there’s no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can’t relive it, and we can hope for the future, but we don’t know if there is one—’ ”

  He looks down and squeezes his eyes shut in response to the dank room’s only door scraping and opening. His eyes are sensitive to the light, as they are always, increasingly so, whenever he is released.

  “King,” comes the disembodied voice from above. “You have a visitor.”

  ~~~

  Warden’s office. Charlie sits, shackled.

  “Let me get down to it. We know you are not the London bomber.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The letters are continuing in X’s voice. They’re not being sent publicly, just to a few people, and we know you’re not writing them from here. Seems like some sort of game. Are we going to continue to bluff, or are we going to talk?”