Cycler

by Lauren McLaughlin

  Leaning back on my heels, I rise to a standing position. The woods blur and sway. I keep my feet wide to steady myself. Faintly, I hear Ramie’s voice, but I don’t know what she’s saying. Turning my back to her, I walk through the clearing.

  I think she follows me, but I can barely sense anything except the hard-packed dirt at my feet. Then something else impresses itself on my narrowed vision.

  Tommy Knutson.

  He stands at the edge of the clearing, openmouthed.

  I pass him without a word, without even meeting his eyes. I cross in front of the bleachers, then walk right past the soccer field, where Mr. Gibbons hands out quivers and bows for archery lessons.

  I think he says “Miss McTeague,” but I don’t stop. I do notice his attention turn to something behind me, presumably Ramie and/or Tommy. I focus my attention on putting one foot in front of the other, getting all the way to the band room door before I realize I’ve left my backpack in the clearing.

  The rushed patter of footsteps in the grass gathers behind me, then stops.

  “Jill?” Tommy says.

  “You don’t have to run,” Ramie says.

  I keep my back to them. “Ramie,” I say. “Did you, by any chance, pick up my backpack?”

  “Yeah, it’s right here,” she says.

  I reach back blindly, grab it and run for the parking lot.

  Both of them call after me, but mercifully, they do not follow.

  As I’m driving home, my cell phone never stops ringing. While I’m waiting at a red light, I listen to the succession of messages they’ve left. The first one is from Ramie, telling me how unbelievably okay she is with my feelings for her. She didn’t mean to make me feel mal or anything. The second one is from Tommy, who apologizes for spying on me in the clearing. He’s worried, just like Ramie. I shouldn’t feel bad about kissing Ramie, though. There’s nothing wrong with it. If that’s why I cut off all my hair, I should know that that’s okay too. He has a cousin who used to cut herself. She got therapy, though, and seems to be all right now. The third message is from Ramie, who tells me I’m not alone, no matter how much it feels that way.

  But Ramie doesn’t know what alone is.

  When I get home, I run up the front steps and close the door on the outside world for good.

  When Mom comes home, I tell her everything and she agrees with my assessment that I can never, under any circumstances, return to Winterhead High. Ever. Somehow she has to figure out a way for me to take my final exams at home.

  The next day, she makes some phone calls from her office and the job is done. My days at Winterhead High are over. I spend the rest of my phase at home, not answering my cell phone and hiding when Tommy or Ramie—or both of them together—come over to try to convince my dad to let them in. Dad is surprisingly good at sympathizing with their concerns without ever wavering in his refusal to let them in. I told him I’d kill myself if he wavered.

  When the workers come to install the new Jack-proof security system in my room, I move my things into the TV room. It’s not easy filling up whole days without school. We don’t have the Internet, so I spend a lot of time watching daytime TV, which is unbelievably depressing. I have to endure way too frequent visits from Dad, who thinks it’s his new mission in life to emerge from the yoga hole to have one-sided heart-to-hearts with me.

  One day, while I’m watching some hostage situation unfold on CNN, he comes up, shirtless and stinking of BO, with two jam jars full of jasmine tea.

  “Hey, kiddo,” he says. He hands me an unasked-for jam jar, sits on the far corner of the leather sectional and nods benignly at me. “Cabin fever yet?”

  “Huh?”

  He presses his sweaty back into the beige leather and has a sip of his tea.

  I hate jasmine tea, but it’s not worth starting a conversation with him over it.

  “Just curious, Jilly-girl. How long do you plan to keep this up?”

  A loud rug-cleaning commercial comes on the TV and I mute it.

  “Keep what up?”

  “Hiding out like this,” he says. “Look, sweetie, take it from me, it’s not an easy life.”

  “Dad, please. I don’t have a choice here. Jack has destroyed my life at Winterhead High. He’s destroyed my life, period.”

  “How has he done that, sweetheart? By cutting off your hair?”

  I have a sip of the unsweetened tea. Dad doesn’t believe in refined sugars. Dad doesn’t believe in anything but tofu, quinoa and jasmine tea.

  “No, Dad. It’s a lot more than that. He’s . . . I don’t even know how to explain it.”

  “Well,” he says. “I’ve got plenty of time. Give it a try.”

  Right. Because advice from the mentally ill is bound to be useful.

  “Look, Dad, I know you’re trying to help, but—”

  “But you don’t want my help. You want to curl up and disappear. I get that.”

  “Yeah, sure. You get it.”

  “Honey?”

  “You couldn’t possibly get it, Dad. Jack hasn’t just snuck out of the bedroom. He’s snuck out of his phase. I don’t know how he’s done it but he’s all over my brain. Plan B isn’t working anymore. He’s injected himself into my life, into my . . .”

  I put the jam jar of tea on the glass coffee table and unmute the TV. We both turn our attention to the tediously unfolding hostage situation.

  “Synthesis,” Dad says.

  “What?”

  He stands up and stares through the sliding glass door. The neglected wooden deck is warped and cracked, but he’s not looking at that. He’s looking past that, to the woods at the edge of our backyard. “Just something to consider, sweetheart.”

  He takes his tea and his oniony aroma back down into the yoga hole.

  On the TV, a dark blob appears in one of the lower windows of the office building.

  Synthesis. Sure, Dad. I’ll Google it right away.

  Mom and Dad disagree on the security system. For one thing, it’s costing a fortune. For another, Dad thinks tightening the locks on Jack’s prison will only worsen the situation. I’ve decided not to form an opinion on the subject. I’ve outsourced the decision to Mom. My time is spent trying to banish Jack down into the yoga hole of my own mind. It’s not that I’m remembering the things he does. Those memories are still buried. It’s the creepy desires and deviant longings I can’t seem to suppress.

  The only peace I get anymore is from the black dot. But as soon as I open my eyes, the feelings return. Plus I can’t stop thinking about Ramie and the clearing, about the millisecond between our lips meeting and Ramie pulling away. I think about it, feel sick, try to banish it. But my mind keeps wandering back to it. It’s Jack. I know it is. He’s trying to fix the memory so he can replay it over and over. He’s a memory thief. And now he’s manipulating me to enact the memories he wants in store. He wants more Ramie and less Tommy. That has to be it. He made me kiss Ramie. There’s no other way to explain it.

  June 20

  Jack

  At first, I’m not even sure I’m awake. I think my eyes are open, but it’s so dark I can’t see. When I roll over to reach for the clock on the table, neither the clock nor the table is there.

  “What the . . .”

  My voice echoes. Sitting up, I swing my legs to the edge of the bed. My feet hit the floor before they should, bending my knees into an awkward angle. I wait for my eyes to adjust, but there’s nothing to adjust to.

  Standing, I stick my hands out and walk like Frankenstein to the light switch by the door. My hands scrape the rough wall but find no light switch.

  The place reeks of fresh paint.

  I slide my hands up and down the wall next to the doorjamb, but it’s smooth. The smell of paint is unbearable. I grab the doorknob and pull. It’s locked, of course. Just beneath the doorknob is a rectangular hunk of metal. Running my fingers over it, I hear a quiet bip. Then a green dotted line lights up in a display panel, casting just enough light to reveal a number pa
d below. I drop to my knees and examine it. It’s a security system. Standing, I back up and let my eyes adjust to the faint light from the panel, then take in the room. The only shape I can make out is the vague blob of my bed. To my right, a dark rectangle signals what I think is the bathroom. As I walk to it, my feet step reassuringly from carpet to cold tile. When I reach for the light switch by the door, my hand finds something new. I try to flick it up, but it’s one of those sliding controls. I slide it up and am instantly blinded by a sickening fluorescent glow.

  When my eyes adjust, I realize that the room is the same shape as my bathroom, but everything’s missing. The shower curtain, the mirror, the shelves, the vanity, the refrigerator. It’s all gone.

  I back out into the bedroom.

  It too is the right shape, the right proportions, but in the dim light spilling from the bathroom, all I recognize is my bed. No, on closer inspection, I realize it’s not my bed. It’s a new one. No box spring. No frame. Just a thick mattress on the floor. A stack of white T-shirts and boxer briefs sits where the closet used to be, and lying in front of them is the last outfit Jill wore—a black and white striped T-shirt, a pair of orange sweatpants and a pink thong.

  My eyes wander to the space where the wooden chest used to sit, then upward to the metal plates where the windows were.

  Fists flying, I stumble to the door. “Let me out!”

  I slam the meat of my balled fists into the unyielding steel, then drop to my knees and stare at the number pad. Closing my eyes, I summon the black dot, then snake into the rabbit hole of Jillspace in search of the code. It’s not there. They’d never be that sloppy.

  Muffled footsteps approach; then a metal slit opens at the bottom of the door. A brown cardboard tray slides through and drops to the carpet. On it are a peanut butter sandwich and a juice box. I crouch on the floor and peer through, catching a glimpse of my mother’s beige pant leg before the slit slams shut. Jumping to my feet, I step on the sandwich and pound on the door.

  “Let me out!”

  When I stop and listen, I hear nothing, not even the sound of her leaving. I kick the cardboard tray aside and slide down the door. On my heel is a smear of peanut butter.

  Chunky.

  I kick the juice box across the room. What am I, three? Are they going to feed me Cheerios from a Ziploc bag too?

  Then it occurs to me. Only flat things will fit through the slit. They don’t intend to open this door. Ever. Not even to feed me. I lean my head against the door, defeated.

  That’s when I notice the dome.

  In the center of the ceiling, surrounded by a steel grid, a mirrored dome hangs. I get to my feet for a closer look. Circling beneath it, I find no detail other than a smooth surface reflecting a warped image of my naked body. The sweat on the back of my neck suddenly chills.

  It’s a camera.

  They’re watching me.

  I stumble backward into the bathroom and slam the door shut. shut.

  On the stainless steel sink are a stack of paper cups, a miniature toothbrush and a tube of Colgate. No floss. In the shower is a bottle of conditioning shampoo. Hung over the side of the tub is one towel.

  I lift the toilet seat for a long piss, vowing to remain in the bathroom for the duration of my phase. Dick in hand, I look up to the ceiling for reassurance of privacy. Directly above my head is another, smaller dome.

  Everything inside of me freezes. I can’t piss. I can’t even let go of my dick. There is no escape from their spying eyes. They’ve removed the closet. I can’t crawl under the bed. I can’t even hide behind the shower curtain. Everything I do is on display. Even pissing.

  Closing the lid, I drop to the toilet seat and cover my face with my hands. As my shoulders shudder, I will myself not to cry. My legs bounce beneath me as the cold from the floor seeps through the soles of my feet. The only thing they’ve left is the slow and steady drip from the shower, which echoes fiercely now against the bare tile walls.

  No hope. No future. No hand.

  Just the painful need to urinate.

  I stand up and take that long piss.

  “Hi, Mom and Dad,” I tell the mirrored face of their spy camera. “I’ll be masturbating in here later on. Shall we say tenish?”

  As I empty myself out, my mind churns through a host of options—all of them fruitless, all of them strictly for entertainment value. I could piss on the rug. I could scratch myself raw, then bleed obscenities on the fresh white paint. I could scar my face with the soft miniature toothbrush or the edge of the toothpaste tube. I could bang my head against the wall until I give myself a concussion.

  I stalk to the sink to splash cold water on my face. I’m about to brush my teeth when I decide to skip it. Let Jill wake up with yellow teeth, the traitor. Leaning against the steel sink, I stare up at the smooth semidome and wonder which one of them is watching me right now. I hope it’s Mom. I hope she’s blushing while looking at me naked, staring back at her. I won’t get dressed. I’ll walk around naked all day.

  But it won’t be Mom. Mom has a job. Someone has to pay for this high-tech experiment in sadism. It’ll be Dad watching me most of the day. It’ll be Dad on suicide watch.

  The hard edge of the metal sink digs into my butt, but I don’t move. I keep staring at my warped reflection in the semidome.

  I could take him. All I’d have to do is find something to cut my wrists. When he comes in to rescue me, I can use the element of surprise to overtake him.

  But they’ll have thought of that, won’t they? They’ll have a box of tranquilizers by the door. I close my eyes and meditate my way through the black dot into Jillspace. Mom did mention tranquilizers to Jill, but when Jill protested, Mom promised to skip it. Then again, Mom’s smart. She probably lied to Jill to keep the information safe from me. You can’t play hardball with Mom. If I act up and don’t escape, she could have me tranqued up and in a straitjacket for the duration of my phase. Even Jill knew that.

  I open the bathroom door and walk to the number pad again. Dropping to the floor, I sit naked on the scratchy carpet and wait for an idea to emerge. But to forge a plan, to even entertain the dream of escape, I need something to work with. What do I have?

  Nothing. This is it for me. No matter what happens to Jill in the future, no matter what kind of freedom she eventually forges for herself, I’m finished.

  I put my back to the door and slowly bang the back of my skull against it.

  They’ve won. The four walls of this room are my universe now. I will never see sunshine. I will never see Ramie.

  Acceptance does not sand the edges off this brutal reality. Nor does it shrink the scope of its awfulness. If anything, it feeds it, enlarges it until it’s so huge and terrifying I can’t find room for it in my puny brain.

  I drag myself back to bed and hide under the covers, the only place their cameras don’t reach.

  Sleep doesn’t come.

  Three times a day, a brown cardboard tray appears through the slit. Three times a day, a sandwich and a juice box. They don’t trust me with silverware and they don’t want to create dirty dishes. They don’t want any reason to have to open that door. I am hermetically sealed. The only way out is down the drain.

  Sometimes I’m asleep. Sometimes I’m awake. I don’t know if these cycles correspond with the sun and moon. I keep vague time based on the appearance of cardboard trays. Sometimes I daydream about a time in the future when Mom and Dad are dead, when there’s no one left to guard this prison. Will I be free then? Can I live that long? Do I want to?

  I can’t even masturbate now. It’s not the camera. As time passes, rage dissipates to low-grade resentment. Occasionally, I console myself with the fact that they have to spend all day watching me slouch, sleep, scratch my balls and relieve myself. It’s a limp victory, but it’s something.

  When I think about Ramie, the fire of lust flickers, then fades as despair takes over. I can’t do anything with that despair. I can’t fashion it into a weapon or use it to
manipulate my way out of this prison. What am I going to do? Cry my eyes out? Make pleading gestures to the camera? It’s too late for that. My watchers have abandoned any sense of responsibility toward me. I’m not their son anymore. Truthfully, I never was.

  Outside this prison, the world is rolling on. Winterhead High is preparing for the senior prom. Tommy Knutson is wondering what happened to his formerly normal girlfriend. Ramie is getting over me, writing me off as a Peeping Tom. That’s how it will be until I am utterly forgotten.

  I don’t want you to think I’ve made peace with this. I haven’t. But after a while, the self-pity starts to fatigue me and I decide to fake a Zenlike state of acceptance, just to change things up a bit.

  Not knowing what a person in a Zenlike state of acceptance would actually do, I start small. I take a shower and brush my teeth. Don’t laugh. It’s more than I’ve done all this phase. At the very least, it leaves me feeling physically different from the moping, stank-breath loser I’ve been since I woke up.

  Then I lie down and start mining Jill’s last day. No treasure trove of joy there, I can tell you. For some reason, Dad emerged from his om hole to read Yoga Journal in the TV room while Jill and Mom watched reruns of Sex and the City. Jill kept sneaking looks at him and wishing he’d leave because it’s “mal” enough watching four New York City sluts discuss orgasms in front of your mom. In front of your dad, it’s just gross. But Dad sat there on the maroon leather recliner, legs in the lotus position, eyes on his magazine. Every once in a while, he’d turn a page, look over at Jill and smile.

  Wondering why he’d leave his yoga hole to watch a TV show he couldn’t possibly appreciate, I replay the memory.

  Dad didn’t say anything. He just sat there silently reading his magazine through two episodes, then retreated to the basement. Mom shrugged when he did this, clinked the ice cubes in her glass of Diet Coke and had a sip.

  Stop. Rewind.

  I go back to a particular moment. On the TV, Charlotte was crinkling her nose at something Samantha said while the girls had brunch at that diner. Dad turned the page with a loud snap, which drew Jill’s attention. Catching her eye over the top of his magazine, Dad darted his eyes downward for a second, then darted them back up to Jill.