by L C Barlow
PIVOT
By L.C. Barlow
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2013 L.C. Barlow
All rights reserved.
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, places, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
Adult Reading Material
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - PREPARE
Chapter 2 - WHEN A BODY EAT A BODY
Chapter 3 - ATEMPORAL HIGH
Chapter 4 - WAKE UP
Chapter 5 - ROLAND
Chapter 6 - PERFECTION
Chapter 7 - INHALE
Chapter 8 - ONE, FOR THE MONEY
Chapter 9 - ECONOMICS
Chapter 10 - EQUILIBRIUM
Chapter 11 - MEND
Chapter 12 - DESIRE
Chapter 13 - DÉJÀ VU
Chapter 14 - THE MAN WITH STARS IN HIS BODY
Chapter 15 - SEX
Chapter 16 - PANIC
Chapter 17 - LOVE
Chapter 18 - SCREAM
Chapter 19 - RELAX
Chapter 20 - THE DESTRUCTION OF FAITH
Chapter 21 - A DIFFERENT BREED
Chapter 22 - RUPTURE
Chapter 23 - THE SHARKS THAT DON'T BITE
Chapter 24 - EVERYTHING WILL BE ALRIGHT
Chapter 25 - SUBLIME
Chapter 26 - GONE
Chapter 27 - MARGARET
Chapter 28 - THE BRIM
Chapter 29 - THE MASTER
Chapter 30 - WELCOME
Chapter 31 - TRUTH
For all those who hope, laugh, love, dream, and cling to these things, no matter the peril.
Chapter 1
PREPARE
My roommate leaves me notes on rose petals.
Tonight, they read:
"I'll be"
"Back"
"Very"
"Late"
It was a black pen on red petals. Her flowers must be dying again.
It's 12:00 in the evening, and I'm still electrifyingly awake. But I'm not waiting up for her. I'm waiting up for me.
For Patrick.
I think I'm going to tell him tonight. Should I say it to him, or write it to him? How many rose petals would that take? Trillions.
And then some.
Actually, there are probably enough petals. Just never enough words.
But I will confide in him. I will. I will. I will. Will I?
I am waiting for the knock. Then we will go to his loft, as we always do. It makes me happy. It keeps us sane. This is a college town, with college students everywhere. They can hardly drive straight. Boys and girls and money and toys. Thank God we have each other.
The text Patrick sent me today reads... It doesn't matter what it reads. It was hilarious. He always is. In a good, numb way.
Tonight is the night before Halloween. Or, I suppose it is now the thirty-first. Hooray.
Do you know what our plan is? Two Xanax each plus two beers. That'll get us to the summit of that haunted house. We'll get our hundred dollars back. Sure, the zombies, the vampires, the ghosts, the psychopaths, always the psychopaths, will terrify us, maybe even grab us, maybe even choke us (exciting!), but we are professional concocters of eau de numb. Our trek to the top will be beautifully automatic. Is that cheating? I suppose we cheat.
That is, if Patrick will speak to me after tonight.
But I should let him know. I should. Everything.
When I do, I hope this trap that binds my neck will let loose. I hope my throat will be uncorked once again. I hope, I hope, that someone good will accept what I have to tell him.
But is tonight really the night?
Is my story wholly true?
Is Patrick not at least a little bad?
I want the release. Does it exist?
I do not think so. This whole idea is a lunatic's.
But there is the knock! Like the lowest, deadest bell in the world. Now to turn the petals around for my roommate and add a few.
"I'll be"
"Back"
"Even"
"Later"
When Patrick comes in, he writes, "You're lovely," on all the other petals littered about her pink vase, and he thrusts them over her desk and chair, singing, "There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going. There's no knowing where we're rowing or which way the river's flowing."
He grabs my hands, clasps them together so that I clap, pulls them wide so that I'm spread, and then dances me in circles. "Is it raining, is it snowing? Is a hurricane a-blowing?" I laugh as we jump to my bed, our dirty shoes marking the pillows.
His eyes explode to their widest as he sings. "Not a speck of light is showing. So the danger must be growing. Are the fires of Hell a-glowing? Is the grisly reaper mowing?!" he yells.
He pulls me to him, and I grin. I've heard him sing this so many times when he is high or drunk or happy or sad. I say it with him, picturing my eyes like a child's, my cheeks rosy. "Yes, the danger must be growing, for the rowers keep on rowing. And they're certainly not showing, any signs that they are slowing."
Tonight is not the night.
Chapter 2
WHEN A BODY EAT A BODY
"Jack."
I remember the first time Cyrus said my name, purposefully, heavy.
We were in a smoking room with red velvet floors, wooden walls, and gold molding. I was five. The ceiling was covered in angels and blue. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth as I swallowed, but I went to him.
The room with its portraits and crystal swayed out when I stood beside his chair. It disappeared when I looked into his eyes. They were hazel, fickle, and cold.
Damn I was young.
"What does your Mother tell you?" he asked.
I did not understand. "What?" I said.
"What does she tell you about, say, me?"
He took a sip from a velvety brown liquid in a beautiful glass. The glass sparkled in the dim light.
"Nothing," I said. This seemed to please him.
He shook his head, his thin cream lips pursed in a meaningful smirk, and I felt as though there was something more there beneath the surface than in others. I both liked and disliked it.
"What does she say about our church?"
"It's everything."
"It is everything." He shook his head, smiled, set his glass down on the table, and he took my hands. One of his palms felt moist and hot, the other cool.
"And what does she say about you?"
At this, I did not reply until he encouraged me and kissed my hands.
"That I don't belong here," I replied.
"That's quite dark."
I remember giggling, because I didn't know what he meant.
"Let us see what God has to say about it, hm? Or, at least what something has to say about it."
He called another man over, whom I believed to be a waiter, and in a few minutes he returned with a square silver plate. He set the plate beside Cyrus's glass and left. Arranged on that silver platter in a circle were ten red berries.
Cyrus began, "I don't think that you should live with your Mother anymore. Do you understand?" I nodded my head, even though I did not completely. I was so wrapped up in the moment, I could not consider any of his questions.
"However," he conti
nued, "I do not know if you should live with me. So, this will be our way of deciding." He picked up the plate and held it out to me. "I want you to choose one, and just one, of these to eat. And, if you choose appropriately, you will come to live with me. You will still see your Mother, but you will be less hers, more mine. You will be like my own. Alex, my son, will be your brother. Marian, my wife, will care for you. With luck, you'll grow with us, be better, stronger. If, on the other hand, you choose incorrectly, then you will not come to live with me. Understand?"
I drank him in and nodded my head slowly. I didn't question, or pout, or cry, or laugh, or smile, because this was Cyrus. This was Cyrus.
I examined the berries on the plate. They all looked the same - sparkling red - and brown dots decorated the tops of their heads. All of them were relatively the same pea size, and they circled the angels reflected in the mirrored plate.
One, though, appeared slightly darker, and I looked at him. I liked him. He was prettier than the others, different. I picked him up and looked at Cyrus questioningly, but I was given no response. Cyrus simply stared at me, interested and locked on, but contained. I peered down into the fruit and, after a time, smelled it. This one made me want to eat him. I did.
I crunched through it, swallowed its sweetness, and was proud of myself. I felt confident, and I looked back to Cyrus. Without smile or frown, he set the plate back on the chair-side table and motioned for the waiter to come and take it.
"Did I get the right one?" I asked.
"Oh, let's give it an hour," he said. I watched him as he smoked. He gazed at me.
Chapter 3
ATEMPORAL HIGH
When I first came to college, it made me quite mad. After being outside of society for four years, I simply could not stand what they call, "University life." The problem with it is it never sleeps.
That's not good for me.
When I became restive enough, I knew what I had to do - tread my way to a drug.
Of course, I had not used since the end of high school. That was four years ago, and this vast hiatus posed a question: Should I risk destroying my mind yet again? Drugs have their benefits and their oh so down-hell costs. After considering for a while, I decided I would not start injecting and snorting yet again; but eventually, when the stress of college made me one pulsating and open wound, and I knew I could not make it there another hour, I asked around. Sure enough, there was a house that a friend of a classmate knew of by a row of apartments close to the University property edge. It was West campus, though, and not active, mostly land.
Though my educational status was on probation, and I did have to meet with the President of the University every other week (he takes a very intensive role with the school), and though I had to speak with my psychologist every month or more, there was no drug testing. It was safe. I was okay to do it. So, I went.
God, what a shit-hole of a place it was. The front had two very sad looking windows with a brown door recessed into the house's face. The backyard of it was only a sagging porch, and there was no grass. The blinds looked cemented shut, though I did not see aluminum hugging the glass.
I loathed it, and the very eerie silence surrounding it, and the one porch light out front whose dim glow made the whole thing look diseased and dying and made me feel diseased and dying. It reminded me too much of home. I got in that place. I bought what I wanted - heroin, meth. I got out, breathed, and looked out at the empty night.
And there she was.
A brilliant and crisp crimson Maserati GranTurismo Convertible Sport. Hood down, beige leather seating, perfectly polished. It was like a silent bang in the night. I looked around myself, wondering if the world had shifted in the few minutes I was gone.
It had.
"You know, I've been told, if you stare too long at her, she'll take your virginity." I looked to the left, by the trunk, where he stood. The first thing I noticed was the hair. Orange? Red? I can never decide. It was messy, a few inches long, and popped out everywhere in spurts like perpetual fireworks.
His eyes were dark green, his jaw protruded. Slight dimples ornamented the ends of his long lips like a knife had poked him twice. The young man who smiled at me held a cigarette in his hand with an elbow propped against his side. The other arm was hugged across his stomach and touching the elbow of the arm that held the cigarette.
He was tall, probably six foot two, and thin in the way that exaggerates the deliciousness of motions. He wore a nice suit that throughout the day had obviously loosened on him. The thin black tie was undone and hanging down the sides. The first two buttons of his shirt were undone. It looked like there was lipstick on the white.
"Is that right?" I asked him.
"Yes, ittis. It's quite magical." He took a draw on his cigarette, but kept his eyes glued to me. I did not like him.
"I don't doubt you," I said, and I smiled. "I'm sure it practically abducts women."
"No. That's usually my accent."
I laughed one short polite cough and looked at my phone. It was 11:34. I took one step to leave.
"This is your first time 'ere?" he asked me.
I looked at him. "Why?"
He flicked his cigarette to the curb and walked towards me. "What they sell here... you should know it's shit - watered down, or fierce. And I tell you that for your own good. You don't belong here."
"Oh really?"
"Of course not. You know it. I know it." He shook his head and his whole body moved with the beat.
"Are you a drug dealer?"
He laughed out loud. "No!" he said turning round with his arms outstretched, "But I certainly fit the part, eh? But no no. I am on my way to a party, a party where plenty of the good stuff awaits. The... what do you say? Stuff dreams are made of? You should come. You belong there."
"Why are you here, then?"
"Hm?"
"Why are you here if you're going to some big party where drugs are dripping from the heavens above?" I twisted my hand in the air.
"Oh, I'm waiting for a friend. He sells 'is shit here, and then he sells the good stuff where I'm headin'. Same guy. You probably saw him inside."
I looked at the house and closed my eyes at the grim image. I turned back to him, shrugged the despair off.
He looked at me soberly. "You should come with me."
"Thanks, but no." I stepped away. He started walking with me, behind me, then beside me.
"Why?"
"It's my policy not to do drugs with strangers."
"Well then, we'll have a few drinks, and we won't be strangers anymore."
"It's also my policy not to do drugs with friends."
"No worries. I'm rich, and the rich never make true friends. A perfect balance between intimacy and total abandonment. Besides..." and he hit me in the arm, "what could go wrong?"
I shook my head. "I think the real question is, with the nouveau riche, what could go right?"
"Lucky you, I'm not nouveau."
"You're not American, either."
"So you're holding that against me?"
"No. I don't carry those kinds of grudges."
"Well, I hope you'll hold something against me. Or maybe me against something?" I looked at him, and he winked - a twinkle in his eye that could have been crystal meth.
"Keep talking like that, and you'll get me all geared up for the worst experience of my life."
He laughed, and his voice echoed against the set of apartments ahead of us like a cannon. "Thank you! Now that your expectations are low enough, I can't possibly fail."
"Nowhere to go but up."
"Exactly."
I smiled, and I looked at him as we continued walking. "I'll give in that you're amusing... and I admit that meeting an Irishman driving a Maserati on a dark and deserted road is bewildering enough to be a drug in itself... a high that I almost feel like I owe you for. It's not the weirdest thing that's happened in my life," I considered this long and hard, "but it's remarkable. But really, I'm on my own tonight.
I don't want your drugs. I don't want to go to your party. I don't want..."
"Wait. Wait. Look," he said, and he put a warm hand on my arm, stopping me. "I'll be straight. When you were inside 705, I went in for a short while an' saw you. You, I will be pure frank, are a striking person. There's just something about you... I want to talk to you. Give me a chance an' just, just answer me this...
"When was the last time you were absolutely, extraordinarily happy? Hm? And you have to answer me truthfully." He shook his finger at me. "And if that moment turns out to be more than a year ago, you have to come with me tonight. Well, not 'av to 'av to, but you should. Fate says you should. Because that's what I'm fucking shooting for tonight. I am going to this party, and I am going to absolutely fucking forget this world, and live so much tonight that I don't give a shit what happens tomorrow. There is no tomorrow. And you should, too. Because you're not like them in there," he pointed to the house, "and you're not like those out there," he pointed to the University, "And you're not like me," he put a hand on his chest. "Obviously. But I think we'll get along together. Just... take a ride with me. Take a high with me. You. Will. Not. Regret it. I swear on that."
The streets were absolutely dead on this side of town. No people, no animals, no strangers, no friends. Just this cinnamon haired, annoyingly energetic young man. But he did make me curious, and feeling that was like feeling electric pulses in a distant land that had been trying to zap me into consciousness for years from afar. It was nice to feel that strange sensation after so long of feeling numb. "You're honest?" I asked.
"Of course."
"Alright. I will be honest, as well. I'm carrying a loaded .38 revolver. I take it with me when I walk alone... on dark nights... to drug dealers' houses. I do not have a concealed handgun license. The serial numbers are scrubbed away. But, if you accept that I have this, I will proceed with you on this insane and hopeful adventure of yours. Because you're at least a little right. And you, too, are 'striking'... What is your name?"
"Patrick."
"Patrick. You accept me and the fact I wouldn't think twice about shooting you... and I'll follow you to Oz."
