Cassette Tape Four:
Street of Rain
People on the other side of the street from the alley turn away, and it hits me that it might be more than a beating, this guy could kill me. This could mean my life.
Some random queer will kill me in some back alley behind a dumpster.
“Help! Please help me!” Each help is louder than the last. Tears well up in my eyes. The people keep walking. “Please!” My yells tear at my throat.
You hear one pedestrian whisper to the other. “Perverts.”
I thrash, and my right shoulder dislocates, and pain shoots down my arm, across my shoulder, and up through my ear. I howl and do my best to cooperate. My arm is now crippled and I just want the pain to stop.
In the darkness, I discern someone standing near a side door into the bar, a person my attacker hasn’t noticed. My heart sinks. It’s just you there, ready to bear witness.
He pins me against the brick wall back behind the dumpster, under an awning that shelters us from the rain, and I yell that I’m sorry as snot runs from my nose into my mouth. He relaxes the pressure on my arms. My shoulder still hurts, but the searing pain quiets down as my arm settles back into its socket.
He now has both my arms with one of his. I struggle, and once again the pain in my shoulder shoots through me like an electric shock.
He grunts with exertion as he makes sure I can’t move. I whimper and stop fighting. His body presses me into the wall, and I smell the sour beer on his breath. I feel the tension in his muscles, his chest pressed against my back. I'm holding my pelvis away from the wall so my dick doesn't smash against the brick, and his erection presses against the cleft of my ass.
The immobility of my arms causes my claustrophobia to rise. "Please! Let me go!"
“You fuck! You think you’re so much better than me? Huh? Huh! Well, you’re going to do more than say you’re sorry, you’re going to give me a piece of that tight ass of yours.” He grabs my dick. “And you’re going to like it.”
I push my butt out to get away from his hand. And he rubs against me.
"Stop. Please!" My whimpers come directly from my stomach. I can’t breathe except to get more air to sob. "Stop."
Your eyes water from my distress, from my helpless pleading, and you retreat further into the darkness. You try to swallow. Your throat is so tight that you can’t. You are just a witness, you tell yourself. This has already happened. You can’t help me.
I cry even harder, and my sobs are like stabs to your gut. You think, This is too much. It’s too real. Please, get out of this. This isn’t fair.
He pulls down on the elastic band of my underwear and presses me harder against the wall so I can’t move and I can barely breathe. The tip of my erection hits the wall, and I jerk my pelvis back from the pain.
I tell you in my head that I’m so sorry; I’m trying. I can’t free myself. You listened to my trivial problems and now I’m doing this to you.
Your legs almost give out at my misunderstanding. You yell that it’s not my fault, that you’re here for me. The darkness swallows the sound. My whole experience is my attacker, pressing in on all sides, smothering my sanity.
He undoes his belt with his free hand, and his grin is grotesquely wide. You’ve never felt more helpless.
He undoes his pants, popping off a button.
This isn’t like an interview. This is real life. You see his large, obscene erection, and all you can do is close your eyes. Your eyelids are clenched so tight they hurt.
“I can’t breathe!” My mind roars as if in a wind tunnel. “Please, I can’t breathe!”
You hear him laugh, and you see him laughing in your imagination as if your eyes are open. For me, I can’t hear a thing. I’m roaring oblivion. His bulk suffocates me, and I’m going to die.
Night air replaces his heat as he pulls away, and I violently suck in air as if surfacing from my parents’ pool. He must have realized the severity of my claustrophobia. I tell him how thankful I am, saying thank you over and over again into the brick wall.
I turn.
I can’t make out what I’m seeing.
As I grope for understanding, violent noise brings the scene into focus. “Don’t punch him in the face!” yells a black man who looks more like a butch lesbian. “He might have AIDS!” He gives my attacker a knee to the groin, and my attacker’s face twists with agony.
He drops to the ground in a heap, his beautiful head smacking against the pavement. He was an attractive man. Why would he need to rape someone?
Three other men kick him in the gut. Blood spurts from his mouth. They keep kicking. It’s like a movie, the violence unaffecting.
As I pull up my boxers, I stagger out of the alley onto the sidewalk and stop and look up into the sky. The rain, tinted blue from the neon bar sign, appears out of nowhere and explodes against my face. There are tears, but the rain washes them away.
I run.
The endless rain falls as if the ocean is falling, and it soaks through me as I run, through my skin, through my muscles, through my bones. Nothing can stop it, my baptism, and I gape and squint into the falling redemption.
I pass by shops, restaurants, strip clubs, and bars, and more people congest the sidewalk. I cross 10th just as the blue line metro car passes behind me. Three more blocks. Between 10th and 9th, suddenly it’s as if someone hit me in the gut. I stumble and almost fall to the ground.
I retch. Nothing comes up.
With rage, or confusion, or just plain emotion, I yell at the top of my lungs between breaths. People turn to look at me. Getting arrested for indecency would suck, and I duck my head back down and continue forward.
Heavy traffic at 9th forces me to stop. Five other people wait for the crosswalk signal to change. It’s damn cold. I stand as straight as I can, with my hands at my sides. My chest and abs stretch and contract as I try to catch my breath. Black exhaust assaults me as a decrepit truck pulls away.
A man asks what the hell I’m doing. From across the street on the other side of the crosswalk, you watch me like a concerned parent. A fat lady covers the eyes of a daughter dressed in a bright yellow slicker. I roll my shoulder and trigger a sharp pain in the joint. Why does my shoulder hurt so bad?
There is a break in the traffic, and I run.
As I cross 9th, a woman in the crowd yells, “Nice ass!” I glance behind me and almost collide with a lamp post. Damn. I should watch where I’m going.
My feet are numb as they pound the pavement. I hope they’re okay. I cross 8th.
Almost there.
People block my way to the newspaper box. I can’t touch them and don’t want them to touch me. They’re diseased, as if I’ve gained some new phobia. You stand on the newspaper box for a better view.
“Excuse me.”
The people move.
I don’t have money. There can’t be much time left, if any time at all. The key to the rest of my life is out of reach because of a damn dime and a fucking quarter.
Rape. I was almost raped. His hardness still presses against me. His hand was around my dick. I have to deal. And I will, but not right now.
“Please,” I say to anyone who will listen, “I need a paper.”
My desperation makes breathing difficult. Tears once again blur my vision as a woman who has been looking me up and down gives me the money. I hope the rain hides my tears. They do, you reassure me.
I thank her with a grumble, trying not to seem too grateful, and put the coins into the slots and open the door.
I rummage through the newspapers. There has to be something. The main headline reads, “Former Japanese Prime Minister Dies.” Keizo Obuchi, age 62, died from a stroke after being in a coma for more than a month. The other headlines read: “Innocence Lost,” the article has something to do with the Internet, and “Boy Wins Factory,” about a legal case involving the ownership of a candy empire. Where is the key to my happiness?
Finally, under the papers, I find a box about
the size of a videotape, wrapped in shipping paper and tied with twine. The rain spatters a Californian return address. Orange grove stamps form a neat line across the corner, as if someone mailed it here. I shake the box and something heavy thunks back and forth inside.
I did it, and the public indecency wasn’t half as embarrassing as I thought it’d be.
Rape. My emotions swell again. I choke them down and tell myself that I’m not a victim. I wasn’t raped; it was only an attempt. There was no penetration. It’s exactly what I’d asked for, drama where I make it out alive. It’s what I wanted.
I don’t want to think about it. I have to get home so I can open this package. Besides, it wasn’t his fault he found me attractive; those kinds of guys are just messed up. If I'd been dressed, this wouldn’t have happened. He probably thought I wanted it. I should have been able to stop him. Why couldn't I stop him?
With a few newspapers from the box, I cover myself and cover the package so it doesn’t get any wetter.
The way home passes by The Blue Stud. When I’ve passed it in the past, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to walk inside. Now it terrifies me. What if the men who defended me want to talk about what happened? They probably want to ask me if I’m okay. Am I okay? Will my assailant still be there? Is he back on his feet, angrier than ever, wanting me dead? Will I see him at my gym? I can never go back to my gym ever again.
Shit, I’m freezing!
I was saved by a bunch of fags. I want to fight them and everyone.
A hand grabs my shoulder from behind. I jump, fear taking over, and I spin around.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.” It’s the blond woman that gave me the change for the newspaper box.
She’s maybe five years my senior and intensely attractive, yet I still don’t want her to touch me. She wears a long black coat that comes in at the waist and red high heels. She pulls me under her umbrella.
The umbrella creates a private space, and as she gazes into my eyes, the world beyond us falls away. My stomach spins. I touch her shoulder to steady myself. Heat radiates against my freezing hand, and now I want her whole body against mine. Her eyes are lush with autumn colors amid blue. Her familiar features express a fierce kindness. I’m safe, a protected child.
She leans in and breathes into my ear, “Need a ride?” Her citrus perfume is me inside her, curled up in her womb or penetrating her to plant my seed.
What is wrong with me?
People on the street try not to stare.
“Yes,” I tell her. “A ride would be good.”
Is this woman the slut Carrie was so worried about? I want to breathe her in. I want to be a man again, instead of some fragile thing about to fall apart. Was she waiting for me here?
She points to a sleek sports sedan down the block. “The red one.”
Rain spatters the car roof. She strides around to the driver’s side, hurrying because I’m getting wet. She must be an angel. Please take me away from this God-forsaken city.
I hear the passenger door unlock.
“You getting in?” she says over the car roof.
Around us, the rain washes the color out of the city. The lights drain into the sewer system.
The woman and I don’t seem to notice the shifting city around us.
“What’s your name?” I say.
“Dana Parr.”
The black sky fades to gray. The buildings bend and swirl upwards into the hovering nothingness. No one sees what is happening except you, and you hug yourself to hide your amazement and fear.
I see it too, Chuck. You don’t have to worry. You and I, our first session is ending. We’re waking up.
You sit in the back seat, and with a comforting yet sad smile, you convey that you’ll see me through this. As you wait for the future to become the present again, I tell you thanks. I need you.
Now stop the tape recorder.
Chapter 6
I
A year before the regression, in early 2014, Chuck Pointer thought everything in his life was running smoothly. His relationship with his wife had reached a comfortable equilibrium now that they were grandparents. His career felt secure. Then his son Bobby tried to commit suicide.
Instead of reaching out to his son or supporting his wife through the difficult time, Chuck buried himself deeper in his research.
While he had a knack for analyzing other people's problems, Chuck had a blind spot for his own issues. Why was his relationship with his son so difficult? He suspected it had something to do with his own father issues. That was about as deep as he was willing to dig.
He was more comfortable digging through the public record.
In mid 2000, the National Earthquake Information Center reported a seismic event on the coastline near Monterey. This was the moment the House of Cabal estate fell into the ocean. It was a huge event, talked about for months, and yet no one had explored the subject in a book. Chuck wanted to know more, and he was sure the reading public was just as curious.
The research, while distracting, was more frustrating than he expected. The news reports contradicted one another. The quake was naturally occurring or a planned explosion. The first reports stated there were no casualties, only property damage, but the collapse was massive, and weeks after the quake, dead bodies were still washing up on shore, many unidentified. Soon news outlets were reporting at least fifty, possibly a hundred, souls fell with the rubble into the ocean. The dead that were identified had few connections to the outside world. Even the owners of the estate were still an unknown. Chuck and his research assistant Warren couldn’t locate tax records, building permits, or any record of recruitment. The House of Cabal was an informational black hole.
After the quake, the red brick road that led along the cliffs to the estate was barricaded and access was denied to the media. Even boating was forbidden, mainly because three divers died from a cave-in while exploring the still unstable underwater ruins.
The lack of concrete information, despite the difficulties it caused, indicated a story worth pursuing. Even Chuck’s contacts in the FBI refused to discuss the House of Cabal, as if the place still held state secrets. For all Chuck knew, it did. It was beyond intriguing and more than a little maddening.
Everett Grimes was one of the few survivors, and his exact role was still a mystery. His interview was supposed to solve everything.
II
On September 1st, 2015, Chuck sat up at the table in the decrepit dining room and saw himself in the mirror, squinting, and disoriented. There in the middle of the table was his tape recorder. The ocean rumbled faintly to his left. He heard staccato bird chirps—a nest was built under a nearby eve. Outside the window, the fluttering leaves of a poplar came into focus.
Next to the tape recorder on the table were three cassette tapes. Each tape had a printed title written in his own handwriting: “A Dark Stormy Night,” “Something Different,” “Lovely Portland,” and in the recorder, “Street of Rain.”
I’m in Everett Grimes’s house, he thought to himself, piecing together his memory. An interview…with Everett Grimes, and we were talking about the past, and then…
Grimes came back into the dining room and set two glasses of water beside the empty glasses that were already on the table. His worn face didn’t look like the Everett Chuck knew from his memory. The real Everett was impossibly handsome. He lived in Portland, Oregon, and was an ex-puzzle designer, an accountant, a vegetarian who ate soy ice cream when depressed. This other, older man across the table was so dismal it pained Chuck to even look at him.
“It’s as if you’re a different person.”
Grimes’s vibrant red hair had faded, his pronounced brow was wrinkled and worn, his cheeks swollen, his eyes dull instead of sparkling.
“So you remember.” The dying man’s throaty voice was a harsh whisper. He slid one of the full glasses across the table as if it were a bribe. “Take it.”
As Chuck reached for the drink, his hand trem
bled. He made a fist and squeezed. “What happened to me?”
“You were hypnotized.” Grimes cleared his throat and took down more water. “Me as well.”
“Hypnotism? What do you mean?” A distinct feeling of insanity accompanied his memories; he wanted a more rational explanation than a party trick.
“As detailed as possible, I told you everything as I saw it in my regression, and since you were hypnotized too, you assimilated whatever I said into your own memory. In your suggestive state, you made it real.”
Chuck remembered the woman in red’s light citrus perfume, Everett’s bare feet ripping against pavement, Everett’s fear; otherwise, he wouldn’t have believed Grimes’s explanation.
“It’s like nothing I’ve ever... In my head, it’s as if I was there.”
“You were placed inside the memory. We can never go back. It would be like a copy of a copy. The next retelling would be unreliable. If you need to, you can go back through your tapes. It should keep your memory undistorted.”
Chuck filed the tapes back into the carrying case. He changed them and wrote the titles as he lived in Everett’s memory. It was something incredibly strange to remember. He read out loud one of the tape labels. “Street of Rain.”
“You need to go home to your wife.”
Chuck gestured with the tape. “You were assaulted. It was horrible. Are you okay?”
“It was a long time ago.”
The bond Chuck felt with Everett in the regression didn’t seem to translate into the real word. “We just lived through it. I was there.” But he hadn’t been there; it was an illusion. “What have you done to me?”
“I am not brainwashing you, if that’s what you’re thinking. The process just keeps me honest. If I told you beforehand, would you have agreed to regress with me? Go. In time, you will know what I know, but many hours have passed. Your wife will be worried.”
Chuck shut the case and, realizing the implications of the daylight, pulled out his phone. “God. It’s almost nine. We went through the whole night.”
House of Cabal Volume One: Eden Page 8
