Alex

by Adam J Nicolai

As he lay in bed, he figured it broke down like this.

  There were two possibilities. Or four, depending on how he looked at it.

  Maybe he was going crazy. That could be something temporary, brought on by the grief, or it could be something more serious that would've developed anyway, that just happened to coincide with Alex's death. If it was temporary, it would go away. Right? So he could just get through it. If it was permanent...

  That was bad. That was the worst possibility. He set it aside.

  The other possibility was that he was actually seeing a ghost. He was a grown man, and he didn't believe in ghosts, but there was no way he could pretend this wasn't a possibility. If Alex were haunting him, then there could be one of two reasons: either he was trying to make Ian miserable for letting him be killed -

  He choked. He knew that was it.

  Derek had thought otherwise, and at the time his argument had been persuasive, but Ian was no longer sure he agreed. An angry spirit wouldn't have the compunctions his son had had.

  Would I be the same person, if I were abandoned by my family, raped, and killed?

  So Alex was appearing to remind Ian what he had lost and how he had failed. Of the promises he'd broken.

  Pills wouldn't help with that. So, what then? Again, his mind grasped at movies, because it was all he knew. A psychic? An exorcist? A... séance, or something?

  The whole idea was so ridiculous, he laughed. In the dark, alone in his room. The noise echoed off his bare walls like the cry of a loon.

  41

  Alex had been a talkative boy. Ian used to joke that they spent the first two years of his life teaching him how to talk, and the next three teaching him to shut up.

  "Good morning, Daddy! I peed already," he announced, standing in the hallway the next morning. He was in his pajamas. Ian went past him and into the bathroom. As he relieved himself and brushed his teeth Alex kept up a constant barrage from the other side of the bathroom door.

  "Daddy, can I have Pop Tarts today?"

  "Daddy when I was sleeping I had a good dream about elephants. But only not about zebras too. The zebras are just sleeping."

  "Daddy I know what's two plus two. It's four! Did you see the picture I made? I think you should bring it to work and hang it up."

  Ian ignored him. This was his resolution upon waking: ignore it, and see if it would go away. If Alex had truly come back to torment him, perhaps Ian could make him tire of it. If Alex wasn't real, ignoring him was the smartest option anyway.

  "Daddy I need to brush my teeth! Don't forget! Or I will get the cavities!"

  "Where is Donnie? Donnie!"

  "BAAAA-OOOO! BAAAA-OOOO! BAAAA-OOOO!"

  "Okay!" Ian snapped. He tore the bathroom door open. Alex was balanced on one of the dining room chairs, holding his hands above his head and spinning as he yelled. "Alex! Get down! You're gonna -"

  He slapped his mouth shut. He wouldn't finish that sentence. His thoughts did it for him.

  - hurt yourself.

  "Sorry, Dod!" Alex was always quick to apologize. "I will never ever do it again."

  Sure you won't. But he didn't say it. He fixed his eyes on the kitchen, skirted past the dining room table, and resolutely ignored his son.

  "Daddy are you making Pop Tarts?"

  "Daddy can I have Pop Tarts today?"

  "Daddy are you making Pop Tarts?"

  They'd been teaching him how to wait for other people to acknowledge him before speaking, how to only make requests once. The urge to correct him, to say, Alex, stop and wait until I answer. Be quiet now, resurged in his chest as though it had never left.

  He refused it.

  "Daddy? Can I have Pop Tarts today?"

  Ian went back to the bedroom, hunted for clean clothes while his coffee brewed.

  "Daddy why can't I have Pop Tarts?"

  Because you aren't really there.

  "Daddy? Daddy, why?"

  No.

  "Daddy, please? Daddy please!"

  No!

  Alex heaved an exaggerated sigh and hurled himself to the hallway floor.

  Go stand in the corner if you're going to act like that.

  "No!"

  Right now, Alex. Right -

  Ian clenched his eyes closed, ground his teeth. This wasn't easy.

  "I won't!"

  Six months ago Ian would've taken the boy by the shoulders and steered him to the corner; carried him bodily if needed. Now he stalked to the stereo in the living room, flipped it to FM and turned it up. Dessa's voice blared from the speakers, observing that the years passed by now in twos and threes.

  Beneath the music, Alex screamed.

  42

  At the first red light, Alex said, "Daddy, I don't like that black hat."

  He was talking about Ian's ski mask, the one he took out when it was time to shovel the snow from the driveway. That's fine, Ian had told him. You're not the one who has to go shoveling.

  "The eyes are scary on that black hat. Will you leave it inside, please?"

  No, Alex. I need it for shoveling.

  Alex fell silent. As the cross traffic slowed, Ian flipped the mirror down and saw the backseat was empty.

  It's easier to answer him, he thought. He goes away if I play out the conversations. Maybe I should just do that.

  And then, immediately: Just resign myself to him being there, just talk to him alone in my head like I used to talk to him out loud. Whenever he wants to, forever.

  The light turned green, and Ian pushed on the gas, cursing.

  43

  He hadn't finished his résumé on Monday, so he worked doggedly on it between calls. Billi gave him some pointers.

  At lunch he stayed in the cafeteria. He didn't want to see Alex in the car. He got back to his desk ten minutes before his break ended, and looked up bus schedules. He could get to work that way without being alone. If it took an extra hour each way, he didn't care. It wasn't like he had a family to get home to.

  That afternoon he finished up the application and sent it in along with the makeshift résumé. Both of them were crap. But the deadline was tomorrow, and he didn't want to miss it.

  Sheila flounced past him on the way back from one of her bathroom trips. He got chewed out every time he was as much as a minute late, but she could take fifteen trips to the bathroom over the course of a day. He alt-tabbed as she went by, but he wasn't quick enough. She took a step backward, peering over his shoulder.

  "'Supernatural.com,'" she announced. "Go back to that, I want to see."

  "Look it up yourself," he answered.

  "I don't like to surf on company time," she said, without a hint of sarcasm.

  "Then I guess you're screwed."

  "God, what is wrong with you? Why are you such a prick? I just want to see." She leaned across him, reaching for his keyboard. He caught a heady whiff of perfume, got a close-up view of the tanned swell of her breasts inside a black bra, and felt an embarrassing stirring in his crotch.

  She flipped the window back and stood up. "'Home Exorcisms.'" She clicked her tongue. "Sounds... dangerous. Colmes, you wild man."

  "Jesus Christ," he answered as he closed the browser. "You are not in high school anymore, Sheila. Do you get that? Would you leave me the fuck alone?"

  She made an affronted sound. "You talk about me being in high school? You're the guy who's 45 minutes late every morning."

  "And you're on your fifteenth bathroom break of the day. You know, normally I don't bother the people I work with. I'm pretty 'live and let live.' You ought to try it. It's a great way to get along."

  Jorge stood up, glaring over the cube wall. "I'm on a call, guys."

  "Sorry," Ian answered, but Sheila just went back to her desk. He glanced back at her, fuming, and she gave him a smile that said, I win.

  No. You know what? Fuck that. No. He tore his headset off and threw it on the desk.

  "Going on a bathroom break?" she asked as he stalked past.

  His hand twitched out.
He nearly flipped her off. Instead he balled it into a fist and held it as his side.

  You have no fucking idea what I'm going through. Do you? You just have to push and push and push. Do you know that I'm hallucinating, bitch? Do you? I'm fucking unstable. Keep pushing and find out.

  But it was an empty, stupid threat. He wasn't one of those guys who was going to bring a gun to work and kill everyone. He wasn't going to throw his life - such as it was - away over Sheila Fucking Swanson.

  You don't have the guts, he imagined her saying.

  He rapped sharply on Justin's cube wall. "I need to talk to -"

  Justin waved at him, pointed at the headset he was wearing. "Mm hm. Well, that's possible. I can look into it."

  Ian took a deep breath. He wanted to scream, to break something.

  "Tomorrow's Friday, and we're already down three people. Would next week work? Otherwise Kate may be available too." Pause. "Yeah. Okay, just take a look at the calendar. My schedule's up to date." Pause. "All right, sounds good!" Pause. "Okay. Thanks. Bye.

  "Ian! What's going on?" He took off the headset, gestured at one of the chairs in his cube.

  "I'd like to move desks. Across the wall." Ian didn't sit down.

  "Okay. What's going on?" Justin repeated.

  "I'm just... Sheila is driving me nuts. It's like she lives to bug me." Jesus, he sounded whiny. "You know, she's twenty years old and doesn't really get what I'm going through, and she...

  "She actually told me that I should be getting here on time in the mornings since I don't have to worry about Alex anymore." He scoffed. "Can you fucking believe that? It's so... fucking... callous."

  Justin recoiled from the vulgarity, like he'd just watched Ian whip his dick out. "Okay. Okay. Are you sure you're not just taking a little too much offense to that?"

  A hand of ice grasped Ian's stomach. "Excuse me?" His hand was trembling.

  "No, I just mean... Maybe she's just trying to give you some advice?"

  Or maybe you love looking down her shirt so much that you'll take her fucking side on anything. "I didn't ask for her advice." He pronounced each syllable carefully, neutrally. "She needs to mind her own goddamn business."

  "Ian, please. Mind your language, we have people on the phone."

  Ian blinked.

  "Tell you what. Let's go into a quiet room to discuss -"

  "No. You know what? Forget it."

  44

  "Daddy, I don't like that black hat."

  Yeah, you said that this morning. He hit his signal, eased into the next lane.

  "Daddy, I don't like that black hat."

  Alex, please.

  "Daddy, I don't like -"

  Alex, god dammit!

  45

  He made a frozen pizza for dinner, and burned his thumb pulling it out of the oven. He recoiled, roaring, and dropped the thing on the floor.

  "Fuck!"

  He almost kicked the oven rack with his bare foot, but stopped himself when he realized how stupid it would be; instead, he tried to slam the oven door closed with the rack still halfway out.

  Bam! Bam! BAM!

  The door closed.

  "Daddy are you okay?" His son was in the doorway to the dining room, eyes wide with worry, and Ian suddenly felt acutely ashamed.

  "Yeah. I'm okay." He slopped up the pizza with a towel, wincing at the pain in his thumb, before turning to the sink to run his burn under cold water. "Sorry. I didn't mean to yell."

  Alex didn't hear; he'd already gone.

  Fuck it. Ian grabbed a box of cereal from the cupboard and the half gallon carton of milk from the fridge. He remembered when they'd had to buy two full gallons at a time to keep up with Alex's voracious appetite for milk. Cinnamon Toast Crunch it is.

  He carried the meal into the living room, where Alex was sitting on the couch.

  "Daddy, can we watch Word Girl?"

  Ian resolutely flipped on the TV to Law & Order and poured himself a bowl of cereal.

  "Daddy, can we watch Word Girl please?"

  No. Not tonight.

  "Why not?"

  Ian chewed through a mouthful of crunchy cinnamon cereal. Disgusted, Alex ran into his room to play.

  46

  He came back into the living room at eight o'clock, in footie pajamas and holding a beaten copy of More More More, Said the Baby. "I picked my book, Daddy," he announced.

  Ian and Alina hadn't been perfect. They'd fucked up plenty. Hell, every day had felt like an exercise in discovering new ways to screw up as parents. But this one thing, they had managed: every night, rain or shine, they'd taken turns reading a book to their son.

  Williams' simple story of children loved deeply by their guardians had left Ian shaken the first time he'd read it. He'd felt his love for his son like a river in his soul, infinite and fathomless. At the sight of the book, he felt a whisper of that sensation again. As Alex stood watching him, bright eyes shining eagerly, the whisper grew to a shout.

  "Alex..." Ian said. He turned off the TV.

  Ignoring his son was something he'd never been good at. It wasn't something he could do now. If he'd gone mad, so be it. If Alex was real, if he had come back to torment his father for failing him...

  Then Ian was still his father, and he would still be there for his son, no matter how difficult the task.

  He slid off the couch to the floor.

  "Alex, you know we can't read that book. Don't you?"

  "It's 'More More More, Said the Baby'," Alex explained.

  "I know it is. I love that book. You know why?"

  "Why?" Alex said.

  "Because it reminds me of you, and of how much I love you. And how I would do anything for you."

  "Yeah. But let's read it, Daddy." He took a step toward the couch.

  "We can't do that. I think you know that."

  Alex drew up short. Ian was deviating from the script.

  "We can't do that. No matter how much I want to. Do you know why?"

  "It's 'More More More, Said the Baby'."

  "Because you're gone, Alex. You died. Do you remember what that means?"

  He changed. The book disappeared and he was in a grey dress shirt and black slacks, impressively sharp and somber for a four-year-old. Ready for Alina's mom's funeral.

  "It means we'll never see her again?"

  "It means we can never see each other again. Right. You were killed -" The word cracked on his tongue. He waited while the familiar grief squeezed his chest, watching his beautiful son watch him.

  "A man - an evil man, a terrible man - killed you. And Daddy wanted to help, he would've done anything...." He wrestled with himself. "Oh, god, Alex, anything to save you, but he couldn't. He couldn't. And now..."

  "We can never see Grandma again?"

  Alex didn't understand. It was just like when he'd been alive, when he'd seemed to get what Ian was saying and then asked if Grandma was going to be at the church for the funeral too. His innocent effort to comprehend left Ian reeling.

  "Right, Alex. Right. Except it's you. Not Grandma. You are the one who died this time."

  Alex's brows furrowed.

  "You can see her, I bet. You can find her there. But you just can't stay here. It's not a place for you..." Oh, god, Alex. "Not a place for you anymore."

  The clothes disappeared. He was wet, cold. "I'll just call for you and mommy!"

  "No, Alex. It's too late for that now."

  "I'll just call for you and mommy!"

  "Alex, no. I'm sorry. It's too late."

  A red turtleneck and jeans, his face bruised, his hands lashed together with duct tape. "Daddy!"

  It was nothing like the cries he gave when his toys were lost, nothing. It was feral, anguished; the cry of a lost child, desperate for his father to hear him.

  Ian doubled over as if he'd been punched in the stomach.

  "Daddy!" Alex was sobbing.

  "Alex," Ian managed. "I can hear you. I'm here. This is over." Oh, Jesus. Oh, god. "Do you understand?
This is over. He can't hurt you any more. You are safe now."

  "Daddy..." Whimpering, snorting like an animal.

  "Alex, oh god, honey. Please. It's over. Okay? He killed you, but that means you're free. Please just think of that. Please think -"

  "Daddy, where are you?"

  "Alex." There was nothing he could do. He was as powerless now as he had been then. What had he been doing while his son screamed for him? Had he been sleeping, in bed? Making love to his wife? Watching Law & Order? "Alex... is there a light?"

  Alex's head snapped up, as if he'd heard a sudden noise.

  "There's a light. Right? Somewhere, by you, you see a light? And you have to go into it. Okay, Alex? Do you hear me? Go into that light. Grandma is there -"

  Alex rolled to the wall, put his back against it, staggered to a stand despite his taped hands and feet.

  "- and the bad man isn't, the bad man's not there. The light is safe from him. Okay?"

  He was staring at the far wall, eyes wide.

  "Alex, god, please listen. Find the light. Okay? Find the light."

  "No!" he shrieked. He started hopping toward the hallway. It was pathetic, gangly. "No! No! Leave me alone!

  "Daddy!"

  He limped out of sight around the corner. His door slammed.

  47

  Ian fell like an untied balloon, sent whizzing around the room until it collapses to the floor, empty. He had nothing left. He couldn't move. A boulder had pinned him to the earth.

  He wondered if Alex had found a light. He wondered if there was such a thing. He wondered if he would go to hell for telling his tormented son to look for something he himself did not believe in.

  And he wished there was a heaven. He wished that harder than he had ever wished anything in his life.

  48

  He woke a little after 2 am, his face raw from chafing against the carpet, his head throbbing like he had torn it in half. Groaning, he climbed to all fours and then to a stand.

  He stumbled to the bathroom, thinking to pee, and ended up collapsing to his knees and spewing his modest dinner into the toilet.

  When he finished, he held his breath and listened.

  The furnace kicking on. The house settling. An autumn wind tugging at the windows.

  Nothing else.