Pivot

by L C Barlow

  Patrick did not look like he wanted to talk. Rather, he looked like he wanted to cry... or die... or kill Marshall and David... or maybe me.

  I took a breath like would a swimmer before a dive.

  "One day... when I was about sixteen, I had the worst day of my life." I touched my tongue to my lips to bring them to life, let the saliva moisten them, for they felt so dry. "If you can imagine a day where, say, your goldfish commits suicide, and five of your best friends drop dead, and your swimming pool bursts into flames, well that was my day." I looked directly at Patrick. "Well, not exactly, but you know what I'm talking about."

  For a long moment, Patrick stared at me. "Aye," he said quietly.

  "Hells yeah," said David, and he gave a nod of his head.

  "Well," I continued, "the night of this day I actually bought heroin to soak up the wounds, so to speak, and went out to this cemetery in town - Rochester Cemetery. It had a few empty and open tombs, and so I crawled in one, shot up, passed out. And actually," the memory made me chuckle, despite myself, "before I did lose consciousness, I thought I saw one of the broken cement angels come and lean down and look at me." I took a drag off of my cigarette. "Yeah... I was pretty fucked over that night."

  David and Marshall seemed to be noticing me as a person for the first time. It was so odd, for me - the honesty. But I continued, because I wanted to watch Patrick forget the last eight hours, even if only for a minute.

  "The next day, though - it was like eleven in the morning - I woke up, and I look up out of the tomb, and there are these four women staring down at me, two on each side. They scared the shit out of me. They were actually dressed from head to toe in 1920s clothes. You know, those baggy, black dresses. The headbands. Everything like slinky and sparkling. And one of them, an older woman - I'd say in her fifties or sixties - with red hair," I pointed to Patrick, "but dyed, obviously, she reached down in the crypt, and pulled me up by the arm till I got out of the tomb.

  "She, like, dusts me off," I paused, remembering her brushing me, "tells me her name is Margaret, and that the reason each of them is dressed in 1920s gear is because she was there for her niece's wedding. It was 20s themed. There was this church just up the hill from Rochester Cemetery. Apparently, they had been following the peacocks around, then decided to look at the massive angel sculptures, and they found me there.

  "She told me I looked like hell."

  All three of them chuckled.

  "Then, of all things, this woman - Margaret - invites me back to get some food at the wedding, and I am like, 'Hell no.' But she won't take 'no' for an answer. She actually grabs my arm and starts walking me there. Frankly, I was too out of it to resist."

  I shook my head like I was relenting. "Though, I did have the wherewithal to make sure my jacket covered my arms at all times. Nobody saw my track marks." I looked to the three of them, making sure this side note didn't lose them.

  "In any case, we get to the church, and I get inside, and it's beautiful. It's one of those older buildings that smells like sweet wood. And it's painted white, hardwood floors, sky blue drapes, peacock feathers everywhere for decoration - on the table, in the windows, with the flowers everywhere. There are people crowded all around, and some glance at me, some stare, some - I swear - almost grimace when they see me. I know I looked like shit. All of them," I cut my hand through the air "in 1920's clothes. Vests and fedoras and pocket watches and shiny black shoes. And there's swing music playing in all the rooms. They have the fireplaces lit, and the champagne is sparkling. It was, actually... fantastic. I really, really should not have been there." I stopped to think about that for a moment, and it surprised me that the truth of it pained me. It had been so many years, I thought the memory had grown cold.

  "But Margaret gets me this plate of food, and she sits me down at one of the wooden tables and watches me as I eat. After she talks about the bride and groom and makes other little boring small talk, she says to me...

  "'Jack, I know you must only be fifteen or sixteen, but have you ever been introduced to 'postmodern art?'"

  This made me chuckle again in front of them, because I still remembered my surprise when she said that to me. Of all the things I would have expected her to ask, that wasn't one of them.

  "And I tell her, 'No.'

  "She said, 'Ah, well, some say it's shit. They say that it lacks the beauty of classic art and has no meaning. But I absolutely disagree with those assholes. I admit that the postmodern is repetitious - that's what makes it postmodern - and it doesn't focus on beauty alone, but that doesn't mean it's below all other art.

  "'Actually, what postmodern art does is what all art is supposed to do: present what can't be presented. What I mean by that is, it tries to present the things that you can't quite wrap your mind around. For instance, the idea that space - the universe - has no end, and is constantly growing, expanding, neverending. When you try to picture it, you get dizzy because you just can't quite bottle it up. But art is supposed to present it. Art is supposed to bottle it up, make you dizzy. That is what the postmodern shoots for.'

  "Then she kept going on about it. She said, 'One time when I was in Austin, I saw a poetry reading by Anis Mojgani, and he has captured this idea of art extraordinarily well. One of the things he said in his reading was, "I want you to draw me a picture of what smoking a cigarette feels like."' She was like, 'I thought to myself, Wow. How fantastic! He was asking his audience to present that which cannot be caught or bound! Purifying into a drop of sight such a complicated and unpresentable amalgam of human experience. And I, Jack,' she said, 'while driving home that night after listening to him, thought about all the other unpresentable things in the world - God, the universe, those little moments and experiences in life that one can never put into words, the soul. And I asked myself, What item in my life would I say presents to me the soul? What says "soul" to me? That was just so interesting. And after I decided on what it was - it only took me five minutes to do so - I have since asked that question of, well, practically everyone. I have heard so many variety of answers, it is amazing. And so, I'm quite curious about you Jack,' she said to me. 'What, pray tell, would you choose to represent the soul? Of all the things in the world, what says "soul" to you?'"

  I took a breath and then a sip of water. My throat was drying with all the smoking and speaking, and the splash of the icy liquid filled in all the cracks and refreshed me just in time to answer Marshall's question and Patrick's look.

  "What did you say?" Marshall asked.

  I put my glass down with a wet bang and stole a glance at Patrick. He seemed interested, and I was glad. For him. "Well," I said, "I told her how, when I was in middle school, a girl in my class had a pen with a clear plastic sphere on the top. Inside the sphere was this dark blue liquid that, when shaken or swirled, burst into a glowing bright blue - like the chemicals in a glow stick. I loved watching that pen when she was writing. I have never seen one like it since. But that is what I picture when I think of the soul. The liquid. I mean... You ask yourself, 'What does the blood of a soul look like?' It would have to be something brilliant, you know? It would have to be a glowing cobalt blue plasma."

  All three of them sat there for moments, thinking, and then each in his turn nodded his head slightly, and Marshall said, "Huh."

  "Did she say what she pictured?" Patrick asked, and that made me smile.

  "Yeah, actually. After I told her what I thought of, I asked her what she had chosen. She said, 'For me, I picture a lung - a healthy, working lung.' She said that just a few years back a doctor friend of hers had shown her pictures of cancerous, black lungs, and healthy, pink ones, to see how they compared. For one reason or another, the healthy one stuck with her. And then, when she thought of the soul that one day, she just associated it. She said she still wasn't sure why, but there it was. The soul was a lung for her - a healthy, vital, living lung."

  "A lung?" David rolled his eyes and laughed. "A fucking lung? What?! Why would somebody choose one org
an of the body to represent the entire soul?"

  Patrick and I looked at each other like a calm amidst a storm. And then I said softly, "I don't know. She just did."

  "That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of," David continued.

  "Well what the fuck would you choose?" Marshall asked.

  "I don't know. Um..." David rubbed his face and shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe the brain?"

  "What the hell?" Marshall erupted. "You just complained about her choosing one organ for the soul, and you just did the same thing."

  "I know. I know. But, I mean, the brain is where all of our higher level functioning is housed."

  "No," I said softly, but he heard. "I don't think that's how it's supposed to work, unless you mean that, by looking at the brain itself you think of the soul. Is that what you mean? Or that it's logical that the brain should represent the soul?"

  David started to speak, but then halted. "I don't know," he finally burst out, slurring his words. "It is way too early to figure this out." He slouched in his chair, his eyes glazed over.

  "Like it's that fucking hard," said Marshall. "For me, it would definitely be a song."

  "A song?" Patrick asked, leaning his head against his elbow and his elbow against the table. He raised his eyebrows. "Really?"

  "Yeah," said Marshall, and he gave a defensive look at David. "A piano sonata, actually. Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven. I know I'm not the most cultured motherfucker in the world, but I have heard it, and I do like it. I think it's the best fucking piano sonata ever. And, I was raised with it. My Mother played it all the time around Christmas in the evenings. And, yeah, everything about it says 'soul,' to me."

  "I can see it," I said, and I lit another cigarette.

  "Yeah," said Marshall, "of course. It's an absolute masterpiece."

  I peered at Patrick's tired emerald eyes. "What would you choose?" I asked. I did not know if he would answer.

  Besotted and depressed though he was, he did answer. "I've been thinking about that." He cleared his throat, but he did not sit up straighter to make his point, nor did he look at us when he said the words. "What says 'soul' to me... is what says 'home' to me. And that, I think, would be... this white rosary I had when I was younger."

  When he said it, I felt my stomach fall. And I knew... I fucking knew right then everything. It felt as though millions of years of information had suddenly been pumped into me with a tiny syringe.

  "A rosary?" David asked.

  "Aye," said Patrick. "One that was my Mother's. It was made of opal. Looked like there was blue lightning in the stone, but it was still white. Still white. And it glowed in a way. And she gave it to me when my Father had his heart attack." Patrick drew a ring around the rim of his glass. "When she gave it to me, she told me, 'Everything is going to be alright. Even when it's not alright, it's alright,' and I don't know. I guess I've clung to that motto ever since. Even when she died a few years later." He shook his head quickly as though to shake the memory away. Our eyes met. "The rosary says to me, 'soul,' and it always will, even though I lost it."

  I could have swallowed my tongue. I could have bitten down on it until it bled.

  We had not gone to his old house for the money. We never went for fifty grand. There was something far more important in that chimney waiting for him, and he didn't get it.

  Patrick stared at me as he stole my cigarette from my hand and took a long draw.

  "I'm going fucking home," he said. "You coming?"

  I nodded my head.

  I stood up and brought out a wad of cash from my wallet. I laid it down on the table.

  Patrick motioned with his hand for me to stop. "Don't worry about it," he said.

  "I think I've lost you enough today," I replied. "I can at least get this."

  "Don't make a big fucking deal out of it," he told me in a simultaneously stern and amiable voice. "You are my friend, and I take care of my friends. No big fucking deal," he said. He scooped up my cash and handed it back to me.

  It took Patrick and I a while to walk to his loft, for both of us were too drunk to drive. By the time we got there, I was too tired to walk back to my apartment, and I crashed there for a good seven hours. When I woke, it was nearing sundown, and Patrick's sleeping form was on the bed beside me.

  This was the first time I had slept on his bed with its black silk sheets and gray silk comforter. The sensation was like swimming, and I waded to the bed's edge. Patrick was still out, his mouth open, drool running from a corner, his lips a creamy pink, his head twisted strangely as he lay on his stomach. When I had woken, Patrick's hand had been lightly laying atop mine, and that in itself told me what I had to do.

  I stole Patrick's car keys, and I drove to my apartment to retrieve my gun.

  I traveled an hour and a half back to the house - the house, Patrick's old house. There, I waited for the night to quicken. I waited for the house's windows to go black. I waited for The Man to go to sleep. I willed him to. I knew the man in Patrick's old house would not be expecting the same person to break in the very next night, nor would he have had time to install a security system.

  And, of course, fifty grand neatly stacked helps a man sleep like a baby. I had, in a way, drugged him with the most powerful sleeping potion.

  In the dead of night, when my gut told me it was the right time, when the cells of my body psychically knew it was the hour where even my most outrageous plans would not collapse, I picked the lock to the house again, and I entered quietly, gun in my pocket. If need be, I'd shoot to kill.

  I reached within the mouth of the fireplace, feeling all the grooves of the brick and mortar. Then, I felt the hole from which the money had flown. But that was not the gap that interested me. Rather, it was a brick three places to the left of that hole. I had remembered so very well the other brick that Patrick had been scraping out - the one I had said was the wrong one when I smelled his warm skin. Little had I known, it was the right one, and I was mistaken.

  I took out my knife, and with time, I cut into the mortar and pulled out the brick. I reached within the wall, felt to the back, and found it. The rosary felt cool against my hand, like the skin of a snake, and I wrapped my fingers around it, pulled it from its cage.

  When it fell into my hand, I could smell the brick dust on it. I thrust it into my pocket, knowing all too well what the price of tarrying would be, reached into the cubby once again to make sure nothing else was within, and then placed the brick back in its spot. In a few short seconds, I was out of the house, walking in the night on the stiff grass, thinking of sugar cubes.

  When I was back in Patrick's car, I retrieved the rosary from my pocket and peered at it in the car's light. It put all jewelry to shame. Reds and blues and greens streaked within the white stone shimmered at me. The colors tasted like candy. I wondered then why Patrick had ever put it in a fireplace to begin with.

  When I look into the rosary, I don't hear the word 'soul,' but the whiteness of it does remind me of the mountain goats that are so white they are rumored to practically glow, and something about a soft pallid color glowing in the night does indeed bring to mind something beyond and unpresentable, but what specifically I don't know.

  It was late when I returned to Patrick's loft, and it was locked when I tried the knob. But with Patrick's keys, I was able to open the door, and I stepped inside. There was a note, a very large note on the coffee table, written in large black marker that said, "Wake me if you come in."

  But when I found Patrick upstairs asleep on his bed, I did not rouse him.

  Rather, I left the rosary on the black sheets of his bed beside him, with my own note attached.

  "I know you said you lost your soul, but maybe this will do." I signed my name. There was a sort of P.S. at the bottom, as well. In small print it said, "I also take care of my friends. No big fucking deal."

  Then, I left, taking his loft key so as to lock his door.

  He has never asked me to return it.

  Until
the day I die, I will never forget the look on his face - the expression when I visited him after I had brought him the rosary. I'll always remember the exquisite way he pressed me to himself and placed his lips, his nose, his skin, against my neck and breathed, and I felt upon my own face the fabric of his crisp blue shirt, and he said to me, "You realize you've done a terrible thing. Now, I'll never let you leave." If it was possible, we pressed into one another even more, like two pieces of warm wax.

  The rosary now has its own throne in Patrick's bedroom. It sits in a glass case secured on the wall beside his bed. I stare at it often. When I am high, it stares at me.

  When I fall asleep at Patrick's, he holds my hand just a bit tighter.

  Just a bit longer, just a bit lovelier, just a bit thicker our friendship every day seems to be.

  Strangely, though, I cannot shake that day of our failure from my mind. Not because of the fifty grand. No. Not because of fat, shorty two-forty. Rather, I think about the forest that night close to the Blue Brick Cafe, and the smell that calls to me. Sometimes it wakens me on the outer edges of a dream.

  These nights, when I do dream, it is usually of God. And He tells me that something is headed my way again. And I tell Him, "It's too soon."

  Chapter 18

  SCREAM

  In the weeks following our being commanded to "kill the good," everything changed. For one, Cyrus was always suspicious of me. I was given no peace.

  "What else did It say?" he asked countless times. I would assure him that I had given him all - the whole, complete, full circle commandment - of what the box had ordained.

  Still, all he would say with his icicle eyes was, "I don't believe you. If that were all there was to know, there would be no reason to go through you. It would have told me, as it always has. But now, it is silent to me, and it speaks to you. There is more there than you say."