by Brian Hodge
Clay had no answer, not even the beginnings of one. Thinking, But Adrienne would, then dismissing it immediately.
"Why do I feel all the wrong things, the things I don't want to feel and not the things I do?" Erin pushed the hair from her face and slowly sat up, back against the wall, arms wrapped around her knees to turn her into a tight little ball.
He watched her raise her eyes to him, plaintive eyes, eyes of a beggar seeking scraps at a back door: whatever you can spare. I should go to her —
A sound, then, like the breaking of a violin string in the middle of a pitifully beautiful solo: her voice: "Why won't you hold me, Clay?"
Hold her? Hold her? He could not even answer her.
"Sometimes I just want you to … to…" Shaking her head in defeat.
"Why didn't you go to Graham's tonight instead?"
Erin snapped her head up as if she had been slapped, fresh hurt washing down her face. And while her nose could run, still she shed no tears. "Graham? I couldn't tell this to Graham. I'd tell him about this afternoon and it'd be like digging his heart out with a fork. If I did that to him I'd hate myself even more."
He almost smiled at that. Erin, as wretched as she felt, still managing to brush the dust off something close to altruism. Perhaps she deserved better than either him or Graham, only no one knew it, least of all her.
"Please hold me!" she cried. "Please!" And how expectantly she waited, suddenly poised and tense, just waiting for something other than herself around which she could throw her arms. Her empty arms.
The body, the mind — how strange when the former freezes up, and the latter seems at its peak. Had he really been this way since birth, his priorities hopelessly awry? He had never been afraid to hurt. Hurt was so dependable it seemed natural, the only thing anyone could count on. It was pleasure that seemed suspect. Maybe because, once it diminished, as it inevitably had to, the hurt seemed even more powerful, twice as real as before.
When they grew tired of looking at each other in their stalemate, neither making the first move, Erin got up and slowly shrugged on her coat and, without a word, left him slumped in the spot that had claimed him for its own…
Thereby proving him right.
He still might have been wrong, might have touched her and found that to be close was not such a prickly thorn after all. But better to err on the side of caution.
*
He tried to drink but even the taste was venom. Three shots of vodka and he was clinging to the kitchen sink while the lining of his stomach nearly turned inside out. He was recalcitrant when it came to feeling? This he could feel just fine, every contracting fiber of gut muscle.
Clay tried calling her later, but never a human pickup, just Erin's answering machine. He almost left a message on the fifth attempt, but again slammed the receiver back down when he tried to speak and found he had no words to suit him. The failure got less shameful as he went along.
Maybe she was there, curled beneath a blanket in the dark, counting each abortive call. Or maybe she was at Graham's.
He smashed the bottle of vodka but it did not help; followed suit with three plates, then sat among the shards and carved on himself with one, watched the blood ooze down his arm; hung his head and found he had a few tears in reserve even if Erin had none. This much breaking of glass — used to be, he could count on his downstairs neighbors to bang on their ceiling, call out for him to knock off the noise, but no more. He wondered if they were now afraid of him.
He knew what the problem was. Knew exactly what the fucking problem was. They'd had him on lithium since late September, and why he was still taking it he didn't know. More than two weeks since he’d relieved Adrienne of her duties and still he was popping the pills like daily communion. He supposed he had faith in them to some degree: Lithium is my shepherd, I shall not kill.
No more, though. It was dulling him inside, suffocating his one chance at anything like love and grace in the world. They prescribed it because they wanted him alone; he would be easier to study that way.
When he flushed them away, he thought the act should at least make him feel better than it actually did.
Facing himself in the mirror, he saw the smudgy dark circles beneath his eyes, the thin scar over the left. Remembering when he had stood here and taken the twelve stitches out himself. No doctor would get near his eyes with scissors if he could help it.
Maybe he needed a job, something to fill his days. Certainly the need would be upon him eventually. He had squirreled away five thousand in savings from his stint as a garbage man. Fine for now, but it wouldn't last through spring. A job, something mindless, like the rest of them, Nina and Twitch and Graham, working below their abilities but above their interest. A job…?
No, it would never be enough.
I have to get out of here, he thought. Breathe other air and purge the lithium from his system, maybe he could return in a few days and be better for Erin; be real. If those assholes in Tempe hadn't wanted his wallet, maybe he could have achieved an epiphany months ago; burned himself blind in the Arizona desert and vomited out every bitter root he had been fed since birth. Dragged himself home half-alive, but at least that half would have been worth the effort it took just to live.
He would try, try again, and if he could have furthered the cause by praying to anything he believed might answer, he would have done that, too.
He could pray toward the east, toward his guardian messenger.
But no — that was just one more vessel in which to misplace faith that would probably turn out to disappoint. They all did, in the end.
*
North this trip, a direction only a fool would take this time of year, but fools could be mad and could even be holy, and the paths of holy madmen led somewhere.
He would find one such path — he had to.
Unburdened by his car, on foot as seemed proper, Clay wore layers of clothes and carried only what fit in the pockets of his heavy field jacket. He trekked across the city for an hour and blocked out its roar with his Walkman tape player and earphones. The night was cold against his face but at least it was dry, and finally he caught a bus, boarding it in a swirling cloud of diesel stink and riding with fellow passengers who lived in their tiny islands of air and met no one's eyes. He rode as far north as he could, then got off and trudged several blocks to the highway.
Three in the morning and he caught a lift with an eighteen-wheeler. Anyone hitching in December must need the ride. Might be crazy, but not dangerous crazy, or so the driver told Clay.
Rolling through the night, the ribbon of highway far below, with a billion cold pinprick stars overhead. He had burned before, so maybe this trip he should freeze. He would turn west eventually, climb as far into the mountains as he could, feel them rise majestic and savage beneath his feet, and the sooner, the better. It had become an urgent need to stand dwarfed by trees that grew as plentiful as grass, and between earth and stars, bare himself to a roaring winter wind that would try to strip him naked and turn him blue. Perhaps he could survive only minutes, seconds even — but the seconds would be his. His tonic. His truth.
If it left him nothing but his name, turned the rest of him into a blank scoured clean by wind and ice and snow, perhaps that might be best. He could try building again.
Around four, the driver veered into the rest stop before the Fort Collins turnoff to catch a nap before continuing, so Clay went striding across the lot with half a moon in the west, half a beacon, as all around him the big rigs grumbled like restless sleepers, snorting and farting into the sky. Diesel fumes burned his nose and he trudged into the silent rest stop, locked himself in a stall, and, sitting on the toilet, managed to sleep until an hour past dawn.
Clay hoofed west into Fort Collins. The sun was up and baked the night's chill out of the earth. Beneath his clothes he finally broke sweat. Fort Collins was a college town, he had been here before but couldn't recall why; thought it was a lot like Boulder, only less self-conscious about what
it was and was not.
An oasis on the edge of the mountains — here he spent the rest of the morning, on into the afternoon. Found a sandwich shop where he passed two hours pouring down coffee and silencing the dull hollow in his belly, reading the local free weeklies just so he looked as if he had something to do. Liking the feel of it all — the vagabond life really did suit him at times. He could watch the students who were wrapping up their semester and see the sleepless tension in their eyes, and felt like the freest man in town. Plenty of knowledge to go around, but did they really know how to think? A lot did not, he suspected, else they wouldn't be here, so ready to sacrifice themselves just to be content with such meager crumbs of lives once they were finished. No one to hire them and nothing to do.
Late afternoon, he ducked off a side street into a music store, We Sell New And Used, little hole-in-the-wall shop that smelled of dusty album jackets and earlier incense, with walls half-papered over with do-it-yourself announcements. Clay prowled the shelves of cassettes, missing Erin in a way he had not thought possible. Whatever it was they had, last night he might have wrecked it without saying a word, because he'd not said a word, not any words that really mattered.
Don't hurt, Erin. And don't hate me because I don't know how to keep you from it.
He found what he was looking for, a few tapes by Gene Loves Jezebel. All the same to him, he didn't really know their music, but Erin loved them; knew titles, lyrics, everything; they were a perennial favorite and that was good enough. He could play this through his Walkman and let it work whatever magic it might; make it easier for him to feel the space at his side was a little less empty.
He selected one of the tapes by merit of artwork alone, took it to the counter and slid it to the guy on duty. Gave the short plastic carousel of promotional tapes a spin while waiting for the kid to ring him up.
The kid paused with his finger over the cash register, tape in hand. Loose hair to his shoulders, flannel over a concert T-shirt that one more washing would destroy. His narrowing eyes smacked of disapproval.
"Are you still listening to them?" he asked.
"Yeah," said Clay. "Are you still selling them for minimum wage?"
The kid smirked and did not answer, took his money, and Clay realized it was the hardest thing he'd done in weeks, giving his cash to this guy. The in-store music seemed to boost in volume, shrieking needles of sound. Clay wondered if the kid noticed the trembling of his hand when he took his change.
The kid did not bothering sacking the tape, just stood tall and superior and flipped it across the counter.
"Enjoy," he said. "Dick."
Clay slipped it into a roomy pocket, stood looking down at his shoes for a moment. They had carried him far in one night, but it was never far enough. Never. He looked up.
He put on his gloves.
"Problem?" the kid asked, with grossly exaggerated concern.
"Uh huh," he said, and punched the brat as hard as he could, felt the nose squash like a plum. Watched him buckle facedown onto the counter, then could not stop himself from grabbing the carousel of promo tapes and lifting it high. He clubbed him once, on the back of the head. Clubbed him again.
It might have been only one more time.
It might have been forty.
Twenty-Two
She wasn't sleeping as well in Denver as she normally did in Tempe, at least not lately. When the phone rang, somewhere in the depths of the condo, it had no trouble ripping her from sleep, while Sarah dozed like a log, unfazed.
"Probably for you," Adrienne murmured.
She rolled out of bed, got her footing. Sought her robe that hung over the back of a chair, heavy flannel in deference to her first real winter in years; it looked like a horse blanket. Sarah pretended to find it a turn-on, dubbed it lingerie from Frederick's of Iowa.
The phone continued to shrill as she fumbled toward it in the dark. Maybe motherhood was like this, anything to quiet the noise in the dead of night, return to stasis. In the back of her mind she'd always thought she would like to give it a try, but now had to reconsider. A trial run like this and she felt more resentment than anything. Maybe she had no business taking care of a child; no business taking care of anyone.
Eleven or twelve rings, and she found the phone. How much more malevolent they sounded by night, by early morning, at — she squinted at the clock glowing in the kitchen — four-thirty in the morning? She said hello and waited, heard nothing but distant traffic, down the street or halfway around the world.
Then: "Adrienne?"
She straightened against the wall, everything coalescing into a phosphorescent pinpoint that burned like a welder's torch. Clay. Unaware, she wrapped the spiral cord around her free hand as if she could hang onto him that way, reel him back in.
"I'm glad you called," she said.
"Uh huh." His voice sounded thin and strained. "Can you come get me?"
"Sure." Automatic. "Where are you?"
"I think I might have killed someone."
*
Sarah had offered to drive but Adrienne more than wanted to, she needed to. It would leave that much less of her mind free for dread, for every second-guess that floated in from the dark in that predawn hour when nothing seems the same. When love feels sweeter and illness incurable.
Leaving a city behind, a weaving route of on-ramps and merge lanes; Sunday's dawn yet to come and Denver felt dead. Clouds had stolen in overnight to muddy the sky. Adrienne had to consciously stop herself from gnawing at her lower lip. She would show up in Fort Collins looking as if she'd been punched.
I think I might have killed someone.
What if he was right? He would be lost then, to himself and to her, even to his kind; another statistical casualty. If he really had become a danger, she should turn him in. While the doctor-patient relationship was nearly as sacrosanct as that of priest and confessing sinner, she had an ethical duty to the public's safety.
Ah, but she had bent ethics already. If the relationship was that confidential, what was Sarah doing coming along now; what was Sarah doing with full knowledge in the first place?
I am losing all my touchstones, she was forced to admit. I'm out here with only my conscience for a guide, and it's rebelling at nearly everything I used to think was sacred. Because none of that works this time.
She’d come to the conclusion that she was doing Arizona Associated Labs’ dirty work. Their invasion of privacy under a pretense of providing care. And while those to whom she reported seemed satisfied with what she was sending in, the joke was really on them. She was not even giving full disclosure anymore.
Clay's outburst in which he demolished the bar stool? She had never told them, for fear she might be removed from the scene, that it was getting too dangerous; not in AAL's mercenary view, but possibly Ferris Mendenhall might rescind his cooperation in loaning her out. Likewise she had downplayed how extensive his break with her had been; feeding the hope, keeping it alive, Clay may come around any day. Much of the conversation in the abandoned factory, which Sarah had recounted for her, Adrienne had relayed as if it had been held with her instead, informally. See, I'm still getting some results. Clay's tale of the peppered moth, oh, how they had loved that analogy. She was hip-deep in an ethical quagmire, but unable to convince herself that it was not justified on the most vital level: saving Clay.
If his chromosomes broke the rules, couldn't she?
"Things can't go on like this," Adrienne said, "not if he's going to derive any benefit and get control over himself."
Sarah sat bouncing her knee, holding a mug of coffee whipped together before they had left. "What else can you do that's that much different?"
"I don't know. It's the circumstances, mostly. They don't feel right to me. We dumped him right back into the same life that was creating most of his problems."
"Maybe he'd have problems no matter where he was."
"Maybe." Adrienne nodded. "Probably. If he's really hurt someone up there, it might be
possible to commit him now, but…"
"But you really don't want to."
"I don't think it would help at all, I think it'd be giving him the final excuse he needs to destroy himself. I keep thinking I can make some difference." She scooted down in the seat, easing off her guard now that they were out of Denver; skinned a hand through her hair and looked at a couple of gold silken strands that came free. Great, on top of everything else I'm losing my hair. "I'm wondering now how far I'll go just to try to keep myself in place. I've already held things back at my own discretion, I've twisted things around. Do I draw the line at outright lies?"
After she no longer had access to Clay at all, how many more weeks — days, even — before she began fabricating entire reports, to keep from being recalled home? Turn his case history into fiction, just to avoid giving up on the idea of being part of it?
Sarah's hand, warmed from the mug, found its way to hers; lingered and gave a squeeze before withdrawing.
"Have you thought of hypnotherapy for him?" Sarah said.
"Not seriously, no." It was nothing for which she had ever trained. And while it had its merits, she had reservations that it would even be appropriate. Uncovering a forgotten past was not the issue, and posthypnotic suggestions generally worked better on concrete behavior patterns, not overall ways of relating to the world; thou shalt not smoke, thou shalt not eat to excess.
"He's big on finding out what that chromosome triplet means, you know," Sarah said.
"Trisome."
"Hmm?"
"It's called a trisome."
"Whatever." Sarah gulped at her coffee. "I don't think Clay cares half as much what it's called as he does finding out why it's happening."
"Well, don't we all."
"And not just to him, but to each of them. You know, ever since I talked to him in that factory —"
