by L C Barlow
"For me," Margaret said, "as an example, I picture a lung. A healthy, working lung. Just a few years back - oh, perhaps ten or so - a doctor friend of mine gave me interesting pictures of cancerous, black lungs as well as pictures of healthy, pink ones, to show me how they compared. He thought I might like them. He was right. For some reason or another, the healthy one stuck with me, and then, when I thought of the soul one day, I just... associated it. I am still not sure why, but there it is, my dear. The soul is a lung for me - a healthy, vital, living lung. As for you, though, what do you look at that screams 'soul'? What do you picture to present what can't be presented?"
It was dinoflagellates. It was "diphenyl oxalate." It was, yes it was, "luciferin." But I did not know these complicated words then. What I imagined in my head was a liquid sapphire plasma, and that is exactly what I told her. "When I was in middle school... a girl in my class had a pen with a clear sphere on the top. In that sphere was a blue liquid that, when shaken or swirled, glowed. I loved watching that pen," I admitted to her. "I've never seen one since. But that would be the soul for me. 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."
I thought to myself that the only reason I could admit this was because we were so anonymous, because she did not know me, nor I her. Had we been closer, I would not have replied a thing.
"That is very beautiful, Jack," Margaret replied. "Very beautiful, indeed. You surprised me. Most people don't say anything. They never think about these things. Why not, I do not know. Have you thought about this sort of thing often? Are you a philosopher already?"
"I have never," I said, "thought of anything like this in my life."
"You should." She smiled. "These questions are life itself. Art is life itself."
"I have been fond of poetry," I confessed.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "What kind?"
I shook my head and looked away. "Not the kind you read."
Margaret lifted her champagne and took another swig. The laughter and tinks of plates surrounded us, which made it all the more noticeable we were in a glass globe of our own making. The snow had gone aswirl.
"I did not see a syringe down there in that tomb with you," Margaret said with a lower, but still kind, tone, "but if I had, why might it be there?" She pursed her lips and winked.
I looked into her blue eyes, and I wasn't sure just how far the safety of anonymity would cloak me.
"Has the glowing plasma run out for you, Jack?" she asked.
I looked round the room at those in 1920s garb, I thought of Cyrus. "I don't understand this world, anymore," I told her. "That's why you didn't see such a syringe."
She nodded her head and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she asked, "In what way?"
I shrugged and moved my hand as though I were pouring the meaning out on the table to dissect. "I don't think there are any souls, except in things, like you said. The idea of them."
Her eyebrows furrowed. "I don't know what that means."
"The world's evil," I said. "There's nothing redeeming about it. Nobody meaningful is human."
"Oh?" she said, and her eyebrows raised. She almost smirked, but she did not. "Have you been to Venice and seen monsters there?" she asked.
I raised my eyebrows questioningly, but she did not elaborate. "No," I replied.
"Then did you go to Paris and see the vampires on the streets draining the blood of the innocent?"
I shook my head, and her example made me smile. "I've never been to Paris."
"Well then, have you gone to Japan and seen the witches harvesting children?"
"Of course not."
"Then what have you seen?"
"Worse things than that."
"Oh? Where are these worse things?"
"Home."
This gave her pause. "When it gets that bad, then that's not home," she said.
I rubbed my face and felt the capillaries in my cheeks and eyes liven. I shook my head, not knowing what to say in response. "I'm so tired."
"You look it."
Another silence stiffened between us, me and this stranger.
"What is so bad about where you live?" she asked.
"That is one item not up for discussion," I said, and I shook my head at her.
"Oh, really? It's enough to risk an overdose to wash away, but not enough to ask for help, hm?"
That made me smile. "You can't help me."
"Why not?"
"The world won't let you."
Margaret smiled broadly. "But I thought we just agreed that you don't know the world. You know your 'home'." She used air quotations. "That's all."
I bit my lip hard and thought on this.
"You are fifteen? Sixteen? I do apologize for being so blunt, but you don't know a damn thing about what's out there." She grinned, and I saw her perfectly straight, white teeth. "What you think you know... it might be true for this one square inch of where you are, but there are millions of miles out there to explore, and trust me. What's true for one isn't true for another. Whatever or whoever's king or queen of the castle at 'home' can't be everywhere. What if all you needed to do was take a step out of the kingdom? Just one. To the left. Hm?"
"I would trip," I said quietly, but there was an edge of uncertainty underlying my words.
"And you would still land further away from where you started. And you'd dust yourself off. And you'd keep walking." She planted her hand on the table and tapped it with every word. "Just. Like. Everybody. Else."
She threw her hands in the air and shook her head. "I do not know your position or problems, but I guarantee you, there exists a portion of the world out there where they will disappear. Poof!" she said. She waved her hands about as though thrusting glitter and dust. "Well, maybe not disappear. Some might stick with you. We all have our scars, after all." And she touched the upper right side of her face, just above her right eye, where a horizontal scar wandered within her eyebrow. "But people and things are often tied to locations, and when you leave those scenes, they more than likely will never follow. They don't know how, because they don't normally tread that far."
"Fuck," I whispered, and she did not bat an eye at my curse. Inside myself, I felt something propelling fast. Tumbling, bouncing, and running again.
"Who are you?" I asked.
She shook her head and looked round the wedding guests. "Just your average person, Jack." She smiled at me again with all of her teeth. "I like to think I'm special," she laughed. "But really, I'm like most."
"Really?" I said smartly. "Noone's ever pulled me out of a grave before."
She nodded her head and shrugged her shoulders. "And most teenagers don't literally fall into graves.
"But good isn't that sparse, Jack. You should know this. In my one square inch of the world, at least, it has free reign. I would dare say you might find a whole square foot out there filled with it. Maybe it flickers occasionally, like a light bulb not screwed in too tight, but it's there."
"Why wasn't I born in it?" I asked, and I saw her cock her head to the side in wonder. "Like everyone else. Why wasn't it meant for me?"
She reached across the table then, and grabbed my hands in hers, and the look of utter compassion was both refreshing and unfamiliar. The skin of her fingers felt thin and washed, soft like lotion had been massaged in. With one hand she held my wrist gently, and with the other she pushed my sleeve up to my elbow, and she inspected the bruises. I did not pull away.
"I can't tell you why you are where you are," she said, like a gypsy analyzing the lines of my palm. "All I can tell you is that where you begin does not make you what you are. That, if things are so bad, you should leave. To know that there's something better for you, in the unknown. Not more of the same." She tapped the bend of my elbow. "Not more of this."
"Do you swear that's true?" I asked.
I saw just a little resistance there, behind he
r eyes. An internal conflict. A questioning. If she had said 'no,' I'm not sure what I would have done. But she did not say 'no.'
She said, with the weight of an anvil, "I do." And then, "But don't worry, Jack. Don't worry about where you start off or why. Life is all about breaking habits, getting away from your origins, no matter what they are - breaking ties to things that you love, but hold you down and back, sometimes simply because they are what once was, rather than what will be. Trust me, the more habits you can break, the better off you are."
"There's no loyalty," I said, "in that."
"No, I suppose there's not. But maybe that is for the best." She shook her shoulders questioningly. "Loyalty is tricky. It's often the last thread. That which we fall back on when all else goes. It is only needed when no reasons are left. Sometimes it's necessary to just cut that away."
I'm good at cutting, I thought to myself.
Margaret frowned, thinking hard, still looking at my arm, and said, "At some point, you realize that there are things in the world that make you more you than your origins. And it's a powerful thing. You're just so young," and she smiled, "you have yet to experience it. But I hope you do.
"I hope you drop the needle and ask for some help."
I didn't bat an eye. "Did you have anything to run from... when you were my age?"
She paused and shook her head, the pin in her hat reflecting the light bulbs above us. "No, I did not. I mean, nothing terrible. I had a good home. A bad husband, later on, but a good home."
I looked down and pulled my sleeve back over my track marks. "What did your husband do?" I asked.
She smiled at me. "He was abusive."
"How?" And the quickness in which I asked this made me wonder if she would dare answer, but she did.
"Oh, in all the ways. Verbally. Physically." She sighed, her eyes darkening ever-so-slightly. "The problem is, you don't see it at first, and by the time you do, the connection is so strong, it's hard to let go. Of the loyalty." She smiled at me. "You're not dropped into boiling water. You're dropped into a lukewarm pot, and the temperature slowly rises. Sometimes it takes a while to notice you're cooking, and then, well, it's still hard."
"I understand," I said, and I avoided her eyes, for such a connection made me uncomfortable. "I just wonder why it is."
"Learned helplessness," she replied. "You forget how strong you are. You're blind to the proof. And then you become attached, loyal beyond reason, because it's easier, a habit, a beautifully automatic thing you dare not touch. But, of course, you're dying inside all the while. The last thread is strong, so strong, until finally... finally..."
"Snip," I replied.
"Snip."
* * *
Margaret took me to my car - not too far from the church - and she dropped me off from her limo - the likes of which I had only seen in Cyrus's grasp. It was almost like arriving back to reality from a cruise ship. A very nice, leather interior, clinking, sparkling, soothing cruise ship, with music and whiskey.
When I opened the door to step out, I thanked her for everything.
Margaret laughed, and it sounded so innocent, so womanly. "Jack, dear. Hear me now. What you are makes up for what you're not. Do you understand me?"
"Yes," I said. "I think so."
"No matter what you've done, what has been done to you, you can step out of it."
I peered at her.
She smiled. "Look... here's my card," and she handed me what appeared to be a business card the color of bone. I read her name, number, and address. "You call me," she said, "No matter the time. No matter the day. No matter if you feel like you're in too much trouble for me to handle. You call me, or you stop by. Okay?"
At first I didn't know what to say, but then, finally, I settled on the truth. "I probably won't call you, but... I'll keep the card. In case."
"Really," she said, "there's no reason not to."
I nodded, put her card in my inside jacket pocket next to the heroin, and said goodbye. I stepped out of the car and into the bright world, walked the few steps to my car, got in, closed the door, sighed, and watched the limo drive away. I remembered how I did not trust the wealthy, but how they nevertheless flocked to me. And then I thought of how Margaret, in every way, had destroyed my assumptions about them. Not only this, but how she had destroyed every way in which I knew the world worked.
It made me ready.
I went home, I packed my sister's bags, and that night, I sent her on her way, entrusting her with the stick shift to drive like I had taught her, to get herself there. Or at least to get far out of the city, and then to call her father. I kissed her and hugged her, and she cried, and the night she drove away, I cried, too, but, it was done.
I was so glad I had prepared piecemeal, like I knew before I knew. The list had gone on and on: teach her to drive, find the address, keep the tank full. Just in case.
I had wanted it before I wanted it. And then, all that was needed...
Margaret had made blood ooze out of the paper of life. She had awakened me, and I saw all.
Chapter 28
THE BRIM
We were in the tenth story of an apartment complex, out on the back porch, gazing at Richard's infinity pool. There was cocaine in the salt shakers and wild hibiscus flowers in the champagne. They tasted like dried mango. We had just arrived, and people darted around us like ants among sugar.
"You want a little..." and Richard tapped the side of his nose gently, asking both Patrick and me. Richard was tall and thin with brown hair and brown eyes. His hair was elegantly messy, and I could read in silver "Armani" on his black shirt and jeans. There was a short blonde with long hair that hung on his arm, and she wore the thinnest blue silk dress and no bra. The tips of her nipples tentatively jutted against the cloth. She kept rubbing her nose and shaking her head voraciously.
Patrick was there to enjoy himself. "You mean a little Snow White? Aye." He headed to the glass table to the left of the pool, and sat on the empty yellow couch beside it.
"Alright!" Richard said. "Maybe get a little Dopey, Sneezy, Happy, Grouchy."
"Maybe go for a magic carpet ride later," Patrick replied and winked.
"Oh-oh!" exclaimed Richard. "Yeah... after this shit, you'll have so much wood they'll start calling you Pinocchio."
"Aye," Patrick said solemnly, "and then you get a reputation for splinters. Start having to polish yourself off."
The blonde was laughing, and I was forming my own perfect lines of Snow White.
Eventually, I whispered in Patrick's ear the unnecessary words, "Let's get fucking high."
We already were.
And then the whole night was glasses clinking together, and woman laughter, the sound of red high heels against concrete, and wet silk swishing in the water.
Patrick and I had fallen into the pool fully-clothed and headed straight to the infinity end, overlooking the city. The water was warm. I touched his arm through the wet linen, and every muscle in my body tightened. His wet lips found mine until I pulled away and leaned myself against the glass, propping my arms on the ledge.
"What is it about you," he said in his lyrical voice. "What is it about you that makes everyone feel safe?"
I almost laughed. "I don't know what you're talking about," and I went to kiss him again, but he stopped me.
"If I had to subsist on the things you let me know about yourself, I would have starved to death by now."
"You wouldn't be the first Irishman to do so."
He put his hands about my throat, jokingly. "I ought to strangle you." When he let me go, he grabbed my hand. "But really. You are a striking individual. Just as striking as when I first met you.
"There is something different in you than in any other person. I want to know what made you. I want to know your life."
I did not like these questions, and I darted from them.
"What about you, Patrick?" I asked. "What made you. And why are you here?"
"Why am I here?" he repeated
and smiled, grabbing at me in the water.
"Yes." I looked around, surveying the scene. "You are it - the real fucking deal. Millions in the bank. Connections. Everything. And you're getting a degree you don't need, with these thirty-thousand-dollar-a-year-millionaires."
I saw the dimple in Patrick's cheek come alive as he smiled, and again he took my hands in his. "Maybe I have performance anxiety."
"You don't have performance anxiety," I said.
"How would you know," he asked, "when you've never seen me perform?"
"Cute," I replied. "But not what I want."
He sighed and sobered his speech. "There is no doing better. There is no such thing as it. As for the rest," he looked back towards the men and women, "we'll talk about it at my loft."
It was hours later when our conversation continued, and when it did, Patrick had started a fire and had given me a pair of his Grinch pants and a long sleeved undershirt to wear. We pushed the couch close to the fireplace and sat together on it, defrosting our numb limbs.
"You want some heroin?" he asked, and I shook my head 'no.'
But as he was beginning to prepare the syringe for himself, and I saw the needle glint in the flickering fire, I stopped him. "Not till you tell me," I said, "why you lower yourself."
Patrick leaned close to me, sighed, and said, "I don't need anything. I don't want anything. At any point in time, my Father can send me off to rehab, lock me away. So, I keep my grades up. But... I'm just like you and everybody else."
"How so?"
"Escaping." He said this word like he was smoking it. "Twenty-four seven." He took his long and slender fingers and ran them through his hair. "Jerk off, shoot up, snort, smoke, drink, sleep, dream, fuck, read, watch anything to get away from it."
"What is 'it'?"
Patrick's eyes flicked to me, and I watched his face in the pale light, the shadows of his high cheekbones flickering darker and lighter, his maroon hair casting grassy looking shadows on his forehead. "That is the question, isn't it?" he asked, and I knew he would not tell me.
