“When you start cooperating more, Daniel, you’ll be able to go outside again, to walk around the house, to see the woods. Won’t that be nice? It’s been several weeks and—”
“I don’t have the headaches any more, and I don’t know why I’m still here. I’d like to—Dr. Peterson, where the hell are you?” Daniel interrupted himself, still trying to maneuver his head around to see where Dr. Peterson was. But, Daniel couldn’t move his head. It was as though it was bolted down somehow. Daniel rolled his eyes around to see if they had put his head in a brace. He remembered falling on the boat, but the horrible ride to the hospital was a blur of images, sound, and not much else. The diagnosis was a concussion and the symptoms were horrible, crippling migraines that had lasted for several weeks. The first week after the fall, Daniel had been refused any medication for the pain because the doctors wanted to make sure there was no brain damage. There was a very slight swelling to the brain, but that did alleviate rather quickly. Daniel was told repeatedly how lucky he had been, but he didn’t feel lucky. He spent the first day or two vomiting from the pain and lying back with a cloth over his eyes to block out the light. Even when he was released into the care of his Uncle, about two weeks later, he was ridiculously light sensitive. His stay had been extended by two days only because they refused to release him on a weekend and when the medical doctor assigned to him wouldn’t sign the release papers by Friday afternoon, Daniel was forced to stay until Monday. The days that followed his release were also hazy since he spent much of them in a medicated fog, which did little to reduce the pain in his head.
Now, Daniel was lying abed in the basement, wondering why Dr. Peterson was using that tone. It was like Daniel was a child or somehow mentally deficient. Daniel knew it was an intentional insult and he felt the scream poke him in the chest again.
There was no talk about Daniel returning to work on the boats because, as another symptom of his concussion, his balance was more than a little compromised. The neurologist wanted one of those new-fangled Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans of the brain and inner ear to make sure there wasn’t any previously unseen injury, or any build-up of fluid. Dr. Peterson, who had usually kept rather silent in terms of purely medical issues, complained that the relatively new “MRI” machine was pure science fiction and, even though the CT scan hadn’t been conclusive in determining any problems with the soft tissue, Daniel wasn’t having the new scan.
There was also no discussion of his going back to work at Willowbrook. Dr. Peterson had visited Daniel in his basement apartment twice since Daniel had been released from the hospital. The Developmental Center at the old Willowbrook seemed anathema to any topic of conversation, even when Daniel tried asking when he could go back as an orderly. When Daniel had mentioned it, Dr. Peterson had simply ignored it as though Daniel hadn’t said a word —or as though the good doctor hadn’t heard it.
This was the third time Dr. Peterson had visited Daniel at home, but it was different. The last two times, even though Daniel was in bed, he had been sitting up, face-to-face with the good doctor. Dr. Peterson had pulled the dreams of the boat —and the waking visions— out of Daniel, despite the fact that the journal entries were right there for Dr. Peterson to read.
He wanted to hear it firsthand from Daniel. And he wanted to tell Daniel, firsthand as well, that the reality of the wooden boat, with its engraved occult symbols, that the artifact Daniel had found in the debris from the bottom of Raritan Bay, that the Yellow Sign, Carcosa, and the Lake of Hali all were questionable and highly suspect.
But Daniel habitually pointed to the polished black stone where he himself had placed it on his desk the moment he came home from the hospital. Dr. Peterson had laughed and told Daniel it was just a piece of sea-glass and no ancient sign from some primordial King who had chosen Daniel to be some antediluvian ferryboat captain.
“Unfortunately, Daniel, until you reconcile these facts, you won’t be returning to work and you won’t be able to go outside. So, let’s work together on this, huh?”
So Dr. Peterson had heard him when Daniel asked about Willowbrook.
“Dr. Peterson, why can’t I move my head?” Daniel asked, trying not to allow panic to creep up his throat along with a squirming scream. “And why do you sound so far away?”
“It’s the bandages, Daniel. They’re muffling the sound of my voice.”
“Bandages? I didn’t have any bandages at the hospital….” Daniel tried reaching up a hand to feel around his head, but he couldn’t move his arms. He felt like he had in the ambulance—mired in mud, frozen in place. He felt his limbs, but he was unable to move—except to blink his eyes and open his mouth. Panic did start worming its way up from his chest into the top of his head.
“You had thirteen stitches, Daniel. Those take time to heal and you need bandages to cover the wound— you know that.” Dr. Peterson laughed and this time there was a flat crackle, as though he were speaking through something electronic.
“I don’t remember getting stitches…”
“You wouldn’t, would you, Daniel? That’s what anesthesia is for.” Again the chuckle and again the flat crackle.
“Ok, Doc, whatever you say.” Daniel tried his breathing exercises, hoping they would uncoil the knot of panic inside his chest. They didn’t. He blinked several times at the ceiling. It was whiter than he remembered it being in the basement apartment. And it was far more brightly lit than his small desk lamp and the little, obscured window could allow. And yet, he did see the window a bit above him and that was the same, with the same wire across it. He knew beyond the window were his trees. He sighed, resigned himself to yessing the good Doctor to death. “So, Dr. Peterson… when can I go outside? It seems so stuffy and close in here. I can’t breathe and I can’t move. If I can’t go back to work on the boat, then… you mentioned going out to the woods. When can I do that?” Daniel heard his mother’s voice in his head, Beggars can’t be choosers.
“Oh, maybe tomorrow, Daniel, or the day after. Let’s see how you sleep tonight. You took your medication a little while ago, so you should be sleeping soon. Let’s talk again tomorrow, and we’ll see?”
Daniel hadn’t remembered taking any medication, just as he hadn’t remembered the need for any stitches or being anesthetized. But would he remember that?
It was just a knock on the head, right?
~X~
I woke up from the same dream I had had for the first time two weeks ago. The one I just told Dr. Peterson about: standing on a sheet of plastic in my old kitchen, my hands splattered red to the elbows. I was naked, holding something that looked vaguely hammer-shaped but wasn’t a hammer. I dropped the thing onto the plastic, alongside a weird lump of green cloth. In this dream there was much more detail than before. This time, I wound everything together into a large bundle, about the size and shape of our old German Shepherd Pippin… like when Dad and I buried him down on Burial Ridge at the Conference House when I was about seven. Before winding up the plastic, in the dream I stepped into a pair of Dad’s old galoshes that were on top of the kitchen counter. The counter was also covered in plastic but bits and pieces, not one plastic sheet like what I was standing on. It seemed to be covered in different sections of plastic table coverings like the ones mom used to use on the table out back during the rare summer barbeques. They were pieced together like a deranged jig saw and taped in place. I walked down the hallway, in Dad’s galoshes, following a hodge-podge path on the floor of old shower curtains, plastic garbage bags, some more of mom’s table cloths, and a single vinyl drop cloth. The path led right to the side of the shower in the downstairs bathroom. I woke up when the water splashed on my face and I realized I was standing in the shower with the galoshes still on my feet.
It’s been almost two months since I fell on the boat. Dr. Peterson was right, I had needed stitches. It wasn’t just a bump on the head, like I thought. I mean, my perception was off more than a little bit, and the meds didn’t help.
Every so often
though, I wake up and feel like I can’t move. I keep having those, what did Dr. Peterson call them —waking visions? When I have them, I feel a pressure on my wrists and ankles, my head feels like it’s glued down and I can’t move anything except for my eyes and mouth. Sometimes I scream. Most of the time when it happens, Dr. Peterson is there.
Today, I was able to go outside. It was nice to physically go out and smell the air. Sure it’s just Uncle Tim’s backyard. But it was great. I grabbed my shoulder bag with my journal wrapped up for safe keeping and I set out. I wanted to go outside somewhere to sit and write in my journal. To sketch. To practice going over the lines and shapes from the black stone—even though I’m not supposed to be writing about it or drawing it, because Dr. Peterson says it’s just sea glass. I don’t believe him in the least. That’s bullshit.
It smelled like rain and I didn’t let that throw me. We’ve had a lot of thunderstorms this summer. Sort of like that summer back in Boy Scouts. It’s been a long time since we’ve had storms like every afternoon. But, I enjoy being outside even if there is one. Even if I’m in the woods…
Today though, I went a little out of bounds. I snuck through the thick line of trees out behind the house, went down the hill, past the stretch of woods behind the house that went from Tim’s yard down a ways and down the other sloping hill. I didn’t really have any set destination in mind, but it just felt good to walk. Soon I found myself beyond the woods, walking down Bentley Ave toward the Tottenville train station. The street was relatively quiet except for a few mechanics milling about outside a small garage. The thick woods on the left side of the road, the tall pines, oaks and maples whispered, chattering like ghosts in the rising breeze. Grey clouds scudded across the Bay.
It’s been so long since I walked down here and took the train from out of here. The Tottenville Train Station. End of the line. Memories were coming back from high school —even though I had only used the station to go to work a few months ago… it was like I was thinking back to when I was a kid and the neighborhood bully would chase me down the block, trying to steal my hat. The kid never took the train, so my only hope was to jump into the conductor’s car and hope the guy hadn’t locked himself into his cubby hole at the back of the car again. I laughed at the memory. It was good to laugh. Even at that.
The station was as ramshackle as ever —peeling paint, uneven stairs just beside the road that simply ends in broken lumps of asphalt and concrete, a mere six or seven feet from the ocean. Every time high tide comes in, when you stand on the platform, you get the sense that any moment the next wave could come in and drown the tracks. Off a ways, jutting out of the water was the old Perth Amboy ferry terminal that used to take passengers to the New Jersey side of Raritan Bay before WWII.
From where I stood, at the end of the road, just breathing the salt air, watching the waves surge and foam as the storm rolled in slowly, I noticed off to the left that private wooden pier that stretched for fifty or so feet over the water. It looked like an extension of someone’s deck and there was an old Hibachi on a table and a chair about midway along it. I could smell cooking meat and a little curl of smoke came out of the covered grill. There was a bright red cooler under the table. But there was no one around. I wondered if the owner had been out, having an afternoon BBQ but had started bringing in their gear when the wind started up. There were what looked, at this distance, like beer cans on the table. At the base of the pier, on the end out in the water, alongside the columns that held it all up, was an old row boat.
Looking the length of the pier, down to the water past the row boat moored to the little private dock, I felt like I had pissed myself.
The Boat.
It just sat there in the bay. Empty. On it’s own. Alone. Like it had in my dreams. Like it did in the ambulance. Like it does on my wall and on the pages of this same fucking book. I slapped my hands over my mouth to keep in the sound that jumped onto my tongue. A cry or laugh or shriek, I don’t know. I stopped it dead in its tracks and bit my tongue to keep that quiet too. I thought my heart was going to burst and my lungs struggled, burning. I tasted ashes at the back of my throat.
It wasn’t there when I had just come down the block. It wasn’t there when I had just looked out over the station.
But it was here now.
I didn’t know what to do. Go get Uncle Tim to show him? Run to the little brick building next to the station where the train workers were sitting smoking and eating their lunch to make sure they could see it too? Try the fucking payphone outside the station building, call Dr. Peterson, and shout at him that the black stone in my pocket now isn’t fucking sea glass? If it was, why would the Boat be here now? It’s not a fucking projection of my mind. It’s here. It’s real. I’ve got to touch it.
Swim or walk? I didn’t want to get wet and I wasn’t sure if I would capsize the Boat if I swam up to it and tried climbing in from the water. I didn’t want the coins to spill out into the dark, churning waves. If the coins were in there…
They had to be.
But if I ran down to the house, how would I get to the pier at the back of the house? What was I going to do, run through the house and steal their row boat to get out to the Boat? I didn’t want the owner of the Hibachi and the pier to see me and run me off and call the cops. Scanning the pier again, I saw something hanging off the side, down onto the beach. It looked like a discarded rope, but it hung from the side close to the little beach that ran down from the train station.
Yes that was it.
I climbed down, over the concrete barrier beside the end of the road, over the reeds and mounds of trash and dead seaweed, past husks of hermit crabs and sneakers that looked chewed up and spit out: toward the pier. The wind was blowing now, kicking up debris from the beach. The water was much rougher and both boats rocked back and forth with each wave. But the Lonely Boat remained steady in its position. I couldn’t tell from here, but it had to be moored maybe to a buoy on the other side, hidden from view… unless it was anchored.
When I got to the rope that hung down off the pier above, I saw it was a crudely fashioned rope ladder. I didn’t see anyone coming to check the grill and didn’t see anything toward the house. I mean, it was either this or swim. I tightened my bag over my shoulder and made sure it was closed and I started to climb. The rope was rotted and looked like any second it would give way. I was happy I had lost so much weight after my accident. Now I really was, like Uncle Tim told me, paper thin. I could imagine how ridiculous I looked, a human skeleton scrabbling up a rotting rope ladder.
When I got to the top, I ran down, past the smoldering grill, tripping on a discarded can that had blown off the table. Beer can. I was right. I ran toward my goal. Down the pier. Down the weathered stairs and into the private row boat. It was such a short way that I didn’t even have to row out to it.
I had to be wrong. It couldn’t have been anchored because the Boat had moved. Closer. As I had moved out toward it, it had moved in toward me. Now it was just a matter of feet between the two boats. So I climbed into the row boat, keeping it moored to the dock, and shoved off slightly. I’m lucky my balance came back a few weeks ago, otherwise I so would have fallen as the waves chopped up and down. The little row boat lurched, remaining fixed to the pier, but it had moved just enough for me to reach a foot out beyond the side. For about ten seconds I straddled both boats, one foot in each; then I latched onto the side of the Lonely Boat and managed to pull myself in. Hallelujah.
I sat down, inside the Boat.
The spray of the water and the first sprinkle of rain mingled with my tears. From the shores of Carcosa, past the Lake of Hali it has come. Awkwardly, jutting from the stern of the Boat was a long, weathered, wooden pole.
The mound of coins was absent, but beside the pole was a compartment not unlike where Uncle Tim sits at the tiller of his clam-boat. This one was smaller and was built into the very end of the Boat. It was too small to sit on, but it had a definite lid and reminded me of a weird mailb
ox. On the top was a familiar symbol. It was a round device that had a recess for something triangular. Kneeling in the stern, I took off my bag and set it down while I took the triangular black stone artifact from my pocket with the emblazoned Yellow Sign and it fit into the recess on top of the compartment. A key in a lock. The lid to the compartment clicked open and inside was a bundle of green cloth, held in place by a thin strip of leather that looked vaguely like an old belt.
The vessel jostled and I heard a jingle of coins from underneath the green bundle. The Boat rocked slightly as several more waves pushed it further away from the pier, but I didn’t notice as I leaned into the compartment, on my knees, to extract the green bundle first. The breeze blew some of the dust off of the green bundle as I drew it out. It was the same color like the lump from my dream and larger and so much heavier than I first thought. But the material was different. In my dream, the lump was a dark, green velvet like mom’s old house coat. The bundle here was an oiled canvas but worn with time and covered with dust that was really fine grains of ancient sand.
I set the green bundle down on the bottom of the Boat beside my bag. The compartment was deeper and wider than I expected. If a large wave hit, I could easily have fallen in up to the shoulders. Not relishing the idea of falling in and hitting my head again, I sat down instead of kneeling and I leaned in. From a seated position I couldn’t easily see what was inside, but I was able to feel several lumps of what felt like leather. I drew them out and arranged them around me where I sat awkwardly crammed into the back of the Boat. I felt like I did when I was a kid and used to sit in cardboard boxes, making believe I was a fighter pilot.
There were seven draw-string style pouches in all and when I set them down they each clinked and clanked, so that I knew that’s where the coins from my dreams would be. The largest was the last one, at the very bottom of the compartment and it was the size of my head. I had to go back to a kneeling position to heft it out because it was heavy. Heavier than all the others combined. The pouches were all covered in dust and all tied with a variety of cord. Two of the pouches were plain, boring canvas, two were a salt stained suede, one looked wooly sort of like sheepskin, and the last one was a beautiful cloth threaded with gold and silver threads with a design that looked like water rippling from a fountain. I didn’t know how old the pouches were, but they were old. The largest pouch was a smooth brown leather that seemed the youngest of all of them, but the cord was brittle and fell away as I tried to open it. Inside were a mass of thick, half dollar- sized coins, and I knew why it was so heavy. They were gold. Seeing it in an old pirate movie, I bit into the edge and it was soft—well soft for a coin so I guess it means that it was real, solid gold. Well, between that and the weight of them. The coins had a weird double circle, conjoined but in the center where the circles met was the Yellow Sign.
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