The Orchid Eater

by Marc Laidlaw

  What should he draw? The seats? The chandeliers? No, the exercise hadn’t started yet. He was supposed to clear his mind.

  He tried by force of will to make everything vanish except the screen, so of course that was the first thing to go. Alone in the dark theater, he called it back again. When it finally returned, it was no longer very bright. His head felt full of swirling gray mist.

  “Relax. Concentrate.”

  Easier said than done.

  No, I’m not even supposed to think that. I’m supposed to keep my mind a blank. But every time I think about making my mind a blank, I have to think something, and then it’s not blank. I have to think without thinking, somehow. Without words.

  Maybe if I could think in pictures, that would do it.

  “Now I’m going to try sending you a thought,” Edgar said. He didn’t feel at all ready to receive it. Suddenly the carpeted floor of his room felt hard as granite; the shag strands scratched his ankles. But he couldn’t tell Edgar he wasn’t ready, not without further disrupting his concentration. Scott had said ESP was a waste of time, but Scott wasn’t around to suggest anything better. By default, because they lived a block apart, he and Edgar were becoming best friends.

  “I’m going to project it right on the screen,” Edgar said. “So you draw whatever you see.”

  Mike’s eyes fluttered open involuntarily. He had an instant’s glimpse of his bedroom. Edgar sat against the wall, under the painted moon, a clipboard propped on his knees; he was sketching. Mike looked down at the blank tablet in his lap, closed his eyes again.

  Now behind his eyes he saw a blank sheet of paper. It was greenish, turning red, then purple. No, he thought. Turn white! But the image, when he forced it, turned black.

  “Relax,” Edgar said.

  Mike must have been visibly squirming.

  “Come on, Mike, ESP happens when you’re not trying. As soon as you pay too much attention to it, it runs off like a skittish cat.”

  So what’s the point, he wondered, of exercises like this one? Wouldn’t trying to develop telepathy make you certain to destroy it?

  Try not to try. . . .

  According to Edgar, everyone was linked through their subconscious minds. Humanity shared the same thoughts, but everyone was so busy listening to themselves talking that they never heard the greater murmur. If he could only be quiet, he might hear Edgar’s thoughts instead of his own. He might break through the barrier that separated them.

  Edgar’s reason for his ESP exercises was to create an entire gang with psychic powers—a group of kids who never spoke, but knew each other’s minds instantaneously. They would move as one entity, a single mind with a dozen bodies, working in perfect silence. Think of the crimes they could commit!

  Oh, shut up, he thought. Edgar is nuts. And so am I for listening. Scott told me so already.

  A pang went through him. He missed Scott the way an amputee misses a severed limb. He had a ghostly friend where before he’d had a real one. For years he had been able to pick up the phone and Scott was there; he could hop on a bike or a bus, or hitch a ride to Scott’s house. Scott had been his chief ally in school. Next year, everything would change. Edgar was okay, but he was no genius. Mike sensed that he would never have another friend like Scott, and with that knowledge came a feeling of desolation.

  This was useless.

  “Edgar, I can’t—”

  “Sh! Keep trying!”

  Sigh . . .

  Blank screen, blank page, white screen, window, empty house.

  Blank, blank, my mind is a—

  Wait, now what was that? A house? Do I draw that? Was that a picture from Edgar’s mind?

  Stop thinking and draw. What have you got to lose?

  He peeked at the paper and sketched a sloppy house, a square with a triangle on top of it for a roof. He drew a round window like a porthole with cross-bars in it, then closed his eyes again. He hadn’t drawn a house that badly since he was using crayons. But artistic skill wasn’t the point of the exercise.

  More pictures came unbidden, tumbling after the first. It was as if, inside him, a gate had opened. Dream images, too many and too fast to identify, flickered in the dark behind his eyes and were just as quickly gone. A cat, a car, a flower pot. He had taken hold of one picture, tugged on it, and found a dozen more attached, like a magician’s trick with scarves. He sketched quickly, hardly opening his eyes.

  Mountains, cities, the moon. He wondered if all he really saw was his imagination at work. Was he simply staring coldly at the processes of his mind? Was there nothing mysterious about it after all? It didn’t feel all that different from the way he normally dreamt up things to draw—dragons and demons and damsels. . . .

  And here came a rush of them.

  Women, starkly posed, pictures of photographic clarity—in fact, most were straight out of the magazines Scott had given him as a going-away present. So much for the chivalric images of knights and ladies he’d once pictured in his dreams. These noble folk were going at it in the most ferocious ways imaginable. They were, frankly, unimaginable—except for the fact that he had photographic evidence. The pictures wheeled past, not quite as clear as those in the magazines, shadowy at the edges. He knew these were not Edgar’s thoughts, so there was no point in drawing them. He was afraid to sit here with his eyes closed in front of Edgar. Afraid because he could feel a lump growing in his pants, and once it got going he would be helpless to dispel it.

  He slapped down the tablet deliberately and opened his eyes. “I can’t,” he said.

  Edgar was staring intently at his own clipboard. He had rolled a sheet of paper into a cone and was looking at his picture through it, to hone his concentration. It took him a second to come out of his trance; he looked up and let the cone unfurl.

  “What? You haven’t—did you draw anything?”

  Mike shrugged and handed over his tablet, tangled with figures bearing little relation to the things he had seen behind his eyes. As sketches they were embarrassing; he would have to explain each one.

  Edgar looked confused and somewhat disappointed, but then he brightened.

  “Hey, you got one!”

  “What? I did?”

  Edgar laid his clipboard on the carpet, revealing a painstakingly but poorly drawn hot-rod with huge rear tires, a long tapering body, and tiny spoked front wheels. The driver’s compartment was a distorted bubble with a stick-figure cramped inside.

  Mike hadn’t imagined—or drawn—anything remotely resembling a car. None of his sketches even had wheels.

  “See?” Edgar said. “It’s amazing.”

  Edgar was pointing at the porthole Mike had drawn in his crude house. There was a fanatic’s gleam in his eyes.

  “That’s a window,” Mike said.

  “But see? It looks exactly like this tire.” He touched the spoked front tire of his drag car.

  “Edgar, you drew a car and I drew a house. They’re totally different!”

  “Don’t be so literal. These little spontaneous things, that’s where it really happens. You’ll see.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Anyway, if it’s confused, it’s ’cause we haven’t practiced much. My mind kept wandering, I mean.” He grinned slyly. “I, uh, kept thinking about sex!”

  At that moment, someone knocked on the door. Ryan stuck his head inside. “Come here, you guys!”

  Edgar jumped up. “What’s going on?”

  “I think somebody’s watching the house.”

  “What?”

  Ryan led them down the hall into their mother’s room. The bedroom was dim, the light from outside filtered through dozens of orchids that grew inside and out on the deck, some in hanging pots, spilling falls of flowers, delicate petals that looked like spiders or dancing dolls or gaping lips; others were bare leaves and stalks now at some colorless phase of their slow life-cycles. Some stood in pots, others grew from lumps of wood. They were Ms. James’s passion—her Epidendrum and Brassia, Odontoglossum
and Dracula orchids. Clustered pseudobulbs bulged from the pots like grapes; rootlets and creepers probed the air, brushing the boys as they went through sliding glass doors onto the deck. There, behind the shade of a bamboo curtain, Ryan stopped and pointed down into the hilly canyon.

  “I was on the deck in my room but it’s too easy for them to see us there.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. First I thought it was a deer, but I swear it ducked down when it saw me looking. Deers don’t do that.” Edgar and Mike peered through the blinds, scanning the shrubs in the canyon below. The sun was touching the houses on the far side of the gulch, so it was dark and getting darker down there. Plenty of trails ran through the bushes, including the one Edgar had taken the night Sal’s gang cornered them. He had seen kids from houses across the canyon playing war games in the bushes, battling for possession of the slope below Shoreview Road. But this evening he saw nothing.

  Ryan said, “I don’t see him. I don’t even know for sure where he was. He could have gotten away by now.”

  “If it was anyone at all,” Mike said.

  “It was! There was someone there!”

  “Better lay off the hard stuff,” Edgar said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Edgar laughed. “If you have to ask, you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Yes I would. Drugs, right?”

  Edgar laughed again.

  Mike meanwhile was thinking unwillingly back to the night of terror, wondering if any of Sal’s gang might drop by every now and then to check the house. They might still be waiting for their chance to use the key. . . .

  The key was never very far from Mike’s thoughts. It cropped up a few times daily, without fail. Every time anything made him nervous or insecure, he remembered it and felt a little worse, a bit more fearful. He supposed that eventually, when nothing came of it, he would forget. Sal’s brother, if he was the one who’d taken the key, had probably forgotten all about it. He was an adult, after all. He had better things to do than pick on kids. Yes, the key would fade away like everything that had bothered or frightened him, things that seemed so desperately important one moment but were later harder to recall than the details of a fever dream.

  But for now, the night he’d lost the key was still fresh in his mind. As it might be in the mind of whoever had taken it. Sal’s brother or not. . . .

  Of course, he couldn’t say any of this to Ryan. Or even Edgar for that matter.

  “It’s no one,” he said. “Don’t be scared.”

  “I’m not scared.”

  “No?” Edgar said. “Even though your folks aren’t getting home till late tonight?”

  “No,” Ryan said. “I’m going to Dirk’s house anyway.”

  “Oh . . .” Edgar smiled. “So your boyfriend can protect you, huh?”

  Ryan lashed a kick at Edgar’s shins, which meant more than it might have since he was wearing soccer cleats.

  “Oh ho!” Edgar cried, leaping back.

  “I’m not a faggot, you faggot! You ortho diplo!” Ryan lurched at him, knocking down a pot as he did. The orchid hit the deck and the pot cracked, spilling bark chips and gravel.

  “Shit!” Mike cried. “Stop it! Mom’s orchids!”

  Ryan and Edgar stopped abruptly. The three of them knelt, sweeping up the potting soil and dumping it into the pot. Despite the sound of its fall, the pot was only chipped. They tried to rebalance the plant—a flowerless clump of broad leaves—and set it back on its post.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Mike said, brushing the last of the soil across the deck so it fell through the boards onto Ryan’s deck below. “You’re lucky you didn’t hurt the orchid, Ryan.”

  “You’re lucky I didn’t hurt you!” Ryan shouted at Edgar, who was at least a foot taller, but not quite as muscular. “You quay diplo-docus!”

  “Come on, Mike, I don’t have time for this pipsqueak.”

  Ryan stomped out of the room and down the stairs.

  “So what do you want to do tonight?” Mike asked.

  Edgar looked at him for a guarded moment, as if considering something interesting. Then the look went away, and he shook his head slightly.

  “What?” Mike said.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? My mom left me money for dinner. You want to go down to Taco Bell?”

  “Taco Bell? Awlriiiiight!”

  17

  “Don’t look now,” Edgar whispered, “but I think we’re being followed.”

  Mike went cold. “Followed?”

  “Look in this window, you can check out the reflection.”

  They were passing a real estate office whose display showed nothing of any possible interest to two teenage boys. Mike feigned enthusiasm for floor plans. Meanwhile, in the dark glass, he could see a large van cruising slowly down the street behind them. It was inky black, streetlights sliding slick upon it.

  “Sal,” Edgar whispered.

  Mike choked, wishing he could crouch down and vanish, drip away into the gutters and through the storm drains, into invisibility. Sal, whose wall he had smeared with avocado, whose brother had the key, stalking him . . .

  The van pulled to a stop, rumbling right behind them. Mike grabbed Edgar’s arm.

  “If we run downhill, it’ll have to make a U-turn,” he said. “Then we can cut between houses, hide in bushes.”

  “I’ll count to three,” Edgar said, in instant agreement.

  At that moment, he heard the side door opening. In the window he saw figures stepping down, coming toward them. White faces swam in the black glass.

  “Forget about counting,” Mike whispered. “Just run!”

  As they turned to make their escape, feet rushed toward them, slapping on the pavement. Mike darted sideways as a hand snagged on his sleeve.

  He screamed and hurled himself down the street, desperately trying to remember every shortcut, every driveway, any little niche where he could crawl and hide. Behind him, insane laughter. He glanced back because he couldn’t hear Edgar at his heels. Had they caught him?

  Up the block, a cluster of people stood on the sidewalk by the realtor’s office. Edgar was among them, waving. “Mike, wait up! I was joking!”

  “Chicken-shit!” came another voice, also familiar, followed by the high-pitched, hysterical laughter of Mad-Dog.

  “Jeez.” He thudded to a stop and swung around, panting. Mildly humiliated, he headed slowly up the hill. He was glad they couldn’t see him blushing in the dark. The van looked just like Sal’s.

  “Come on,” Edgar said, urging him in, “let’s go for a ride.”

  “I don’t know,” Mike said, trying to see into the van. It was tomb-dark inside. “I haven’t been to church since I was seven.”

  “No, Hawk’s not here. It’s Dusty’s van.”

  “Oh . . .”

  Mike climbed in after Edgar, and pulled the door shut. Inside, it was crowded and dark. Bodies cut off most of the light coming through the windshield. The air was full of pungent smoke that made him cough; it smelled like burning lawn-trimmings. There weren’t any seats. He tripped over something soft but bony, stumbling against a carpeted wall. “Get off my leg,” said a girl’s voice.

  Mike recoiled, wishing he could see. A girl! There were no windows, though, on the sides or at the rear. When his eyes adjusted a little bit, he saw the back of Dusty’s head. He was driving. Edgar climbed up between the two front seats and started rummaging through a box of eight-track tapes. There was a thin pale woman with bleached white hair sitting in the passenger seat. In profile, her eyes looked like crystal balls with streetlight beams bending through them. A small, twisted cigarette fumed in her fingers. He suddenly realized what he must be smelling.

  “All right, Dusty!” Edgar said, and shoved a tape into the player. Music boomed through the van, heavy bass and drums, a shrieking flute. Edgar grinned at Mike. “He loves to drive when he’s dusted.”

  “This ain’t strictly a joy-ride,�
� Dusty said. “Tonight we’re gonna find Stoner. Just like the dude to go out for a shit and never come back.”

  The van hit a bump, hurling Mike backward. He landed among bodies; Mad-Dog shoved him away, snarling. He lay where he had fallen, anonymous in the darkness, melting into it. He felt almost ecstatic to be so hidden.

  “Come on, baby,” said a voice in the corner nearest him. It had to be Kurtis Tyre. “Come on.” He heard a girl’s muffled laugh, choked noises. Kurtis said, “Mm-hm. Yeah.” They were kissing, he thought, though it seemed too loud for that. Slurping sounds. “Yeah, man,” Kurtis said. “Yeah.” There was nothing in his mouth.

  “Here, have a drink.” Edgar was suddenly next to Mike, silhouetted against the windshield, his extended arm a faint blur. The bottle was shiny and half full.

  He took the bottle without thinking, as if the earlier ESP exercises had finally taken hold. As he uncapped the bottle, the vapors stung his nose; his tongue seemed to swell and plug his throat. He’d stolen swigs of liquor from Jack’s bottles and it had never hurt him before.

  “Don’t let him drink that,” Mad-Dog said in his raspy little voice, putting his hand on the bottle. “He’s a wimp. He’ll puke on everything.”

  “You only want it all for yourself,” Edgar said defensively. “Mike’s tough. He won’t barf.”

  Mike managed to wrestle the bottle away from Mad-Dog, and after winning the half-hearted struggle there was no question of refusing the drink. While the first swallow was eating its way through his guts like Liquid-Plumr, he chased it with another. The liquor left lumps on his tongue, like balls of lint or wet paper. He washed away the residue with a third swallow.

  “Give it,” Mad-Dog said, jerking on the neck of the bottle.

  “Wait!”

  “Yeah, Mike, not too much,” said Edgar. “That’s powerful stuff.”

  “It’s not the whiskey that’ll get you,” said a voice Mike recognized as Howard’s. “It’s the acid.”

  “Acid?” Mike let go of the bottle. “What do you mean, acid?”

  “As in lysergic,” said Edgar.

  “Isn’t that . . . LSD?”

  “It’s spiked all right!” Howard whooped. At that instant, someone started making strangling noises in the corner; Kurtis was going, “Oh, yeaaaaah.”