It was drizzling by the time I got off at H Street. My bus was waiting for me. I boarded it and looked at the back seats.
There was Calliel, as promised. He stared expressionlessly at me.
I had looked constantly over my shoulder all the way here. I didn’t see him. But here he was anyway.
I had no explanation for what had happened to me, try though I did all the way here to think of one, to rationalize away this man and his threat as empty, to come up with some idea of how he could do what he did—send me to “Oblivion.” I tried. I really did.
I could ignore him. I could sit here, right here, I thought, and I could defy him. Even if his threat were true—even if I were sent back to “Oblivion” that final, fatal time—I wouldn’t know it, would I? I’d be dead. It’d kill me. There was no afterlife. There wouldn’t be a me to know I was in “Oblivion.” As horrible as that final trip would be, I would be free of him and his threats and his godawful cowboy boots.
And I’d be free of an existence that I truly no longer wanted to be a part of.
I very nearly sat in the seat next to me. I really did. I had gone as far as turn around to do exactly that, but in that very last second stopped. I turned back to look at him after letting several other people by, then walked up the aisle towards him.
He crossed his arms as I drew close. Hovering over his shoulder, I looked upon my face as I came towards him. I remember thinking how defiant I must’ve looked as I approached. But I didn’t look defiant at all. I looked hopelessly lost, like an abandoned child at a carnival. It was a look so sad that I felt great pity overcome me, and I cried.
The me approaching stopped. The driver hollered, “Please sit, sir. I can’t leave until you find a seat and sit.”
I turned one last time to look at the seat I’d very nearly sat in, and then at the seat next to Calliel.
I sat next to him.
The bus pulled away from the curb.
Chapter Nine
“My Life Is …”
~~*~~
THE TRIP from H Street to my stop averages just over twenty-six minutes. I know this because, being a mathematics professor and therefore a data geek, I timed it on numerous occasions. A disturbed passenger refused to get off and the police were eventually called on one trip, and that took over seventy minutes; on another the driver had almost no one on board and seemed intent on breaking the speed limit by at least twenty miles per hour. That one took eighteen minutes. Toss those and a couple other outliers out, and the mean trip time from H to where I got off was about twenty-six minutes.
Twenty-six minutes. That was what I was thinking as I sat next to the lunatic who had assaulted me on the Ocean Beach Pier and had somehow invaded my subconscious and scared the shit out of me, who made the claim that I was going to die soon and had been sent to save me.
I expected him to threaten me again, or preach or pray. Instead he sat silently, staring resolutely ahead. He’d kept his arms crossed, and to keep from touching him I crossed mine. It was past halfway to my stop when I couldn’t stand the standoff any longer.
“How can I get you to leave me alone?” I said without turning my head to look at him.
“What’s my name?” he asked after a protracted pause.
I was incensed, but kept calm. Above his shoulder, I registered the quick darkening of my countenance that gave away my petulance, and was surprised how obvious it was.
“Please answer my question,” said the sitting me.
“I’ll answer your question if you answer mine.”
We both hadn’t turned to look at the other. Our arms remain crossed.
“I don’t know your name,” I said. And then, asshat that I am, instead of asking what it was, I added, “It’s not important to know your name.”
I waited for the tit after my snotty tat. But after a full minute of silence, it was clear he wasn’t going to answer.
Irritated, I said, “I answered your question; now it’s time you answered mine. That’s generally how polite society works.”
He chuckled. “You don’t have a goddamn clue how polite society works.”
“I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t call the police the minute I get home,” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
He chuckled again. “Lost your cell phone?” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled one out. “Go ahead,” he said, offering it. “Call.”
I hadn’t noticed that cell phone all day. Did it just appear? Was it even real? I thought back to this morning when he was standing in front of the mirror. Was it there then?
The me sitting there stared at it. After all, what was I going to tell the police? Witnesses didn’t see him throw me off the Ocean Beach Pier, after all, but saw me climb the rail and jump! They didn’t see him invade my dreams (which certainly didn’t happen, but was probably the result of his proximity to me in the room), and they certainly didn’t see him “send” me to “Oblivion,” which was likely nothing more than a nightmare from my near-drowning.
If I called the cops, the most that I could say was that I was sitting next to the man who had threatened me earlier in the day. But that wouldn’t fly, because I was the one who went and sat next to him, witnessed at the very least by the driver, who impatiently watched me do so before pulling the bus away from the curb.
Calliel thrust his arm across my chest. “Here. Take it. Call.”
Oh yes, I was an asshat. I glared down at it and said: “Go to hell.”
He held it under my chin for another moment, then pocketed it. “No need. I’m in your world now.”
“Look,” I said, trying to sound reasonable and failing miserably, “I don’t know what you’re selling, but I’m not interested. If you’ve come to preach the Bible or ‘save my soul,’ forget it. You say I’m going to die soon?” My voice had risen steadily; it was just a shade under full-on yelling, the effort at reasonableness lost. “Well, fuckhead, everybody dies, and frankly, I couldn’t care less if I kick it ‘soon’! ‘Soon’ can’t come quickly enough! You want to save someone? Save yourself! You’re an ignorant hick zealot!”
I stood to move back to the seat I nearly sat in earlier.
He spoke quietly, but I could hear murder in his voice.
“Sit … down.”
I looked back at him.
Murder in his eyes, too.
I sat. I felt his gaze burn into the side of my head.
“I’m gonna tear those blinkers off, Professor. Fight me all you want. I’m kinda hopin’ you do, because it’ll hurt more that way. You may be the biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever been sent to save.”
“Save!” I hissed. “I don’t need saving!”
I went to stand and leave. He grabbed me by my collar and slammed me down. His face was an inch from mine, and held the look of a man determined to knock down mountain ranges to get his way. The terror of “Oblivion” flooded through me and kept my mouth shut. I had no idea if we were being watched. I was being assaulted, after all.
“My life is …” he growled low.
I stared.
“When I see you again, you’re going to finish that sentence. ‘My life is …’ You’re gonna fill in the blank. That’s the first thing that better come out of your mouth. It’s an easy assignment. Even you can do it. ‘My life is …’ ”
He tightened his grip on my collar until I choked.
“I don’t want ‘hello.’ I don’t want ‘fuck you.’ I don’t want your sniffy little attitude. Believe me, you won’t like the consequences if I give you an F. Now get the hell out of my face.”
He released me.
Shaking, I stood to get away from him as quickly as I could. I hadn’t noticed that the bus had stopped and the doors were open. The driver stared indignantly in the mirror at me.
I was at my stop.
I turned to look back.
“Naples and Fifth,” said my assailant with all the weight of a priest at a funeral.
I gathered my wits and stumbl
ed off. The bus left me in the dark and drizzle.
Naples and Fifth? What the fuck—?
Confused and frightened and empty, I sat on the bench. I didn’t move for an hour. When I got home I was soaked through.
~~*~~
My life is …
What did it matter what my life was? It was mine. It was mine to do with as I pleased! So I wasn’t the most popular professor at the college. So I was, in fact, despised. What of it?
I had a roof over my head and food on the table and full benefits and a pension. And while I might’ve been despised by students (and staff, at least more than a few of them), my research and publications had won awards and recognition. The president of the university was fond of telling me that he was glad I taught there, that it increased the college’s profile. Or, that is, the president who hired me had said that. He died several years ago. I never met the current one.
A roof over my head and food on the table! Professional respect! What else can one expect?
My house was a modest single-storey, ranch style, with a basement I once took an interest in making into a nice rec room or home theatre but had long since abandoned. I didn’t see the point in doing all that work. There was no one to enjoy it with, after all.
I wasn’t a neat freak, but I wasn’t a slob, either. My home was ordered, but just so, teetering on the brink of pandemonium, which led me long ago to give it a name: Chateau Chaos. I entered Chateau Chaos shivering uncontrollably with what was probably mild hypothermia and dripped my way into the bathroom and then under a hot shower. I stepped out thirty minutes later safely warm and wrapped in a towel, and then seemed to lose all sense of time and place, because I found myself sitting in the dark at the kitchen table, the towel still around my waist, head in my hands and eyes streaming. I had been there at least three hours.
I pulled myself together enough to get up and root around for something to eat, ending up with no more than a half-glass of orange juice, which I downed in a single swig. I left the cup in the sink and slouched off to my room, dropping the towel at the foot of the bed and crawling under the covers, where for the next five and a half hours I did nothing but stare at the ceiling. At ten past six I called the college and left a message on Betty’s voicemail telling her I wouldn’t be in the rest of the week, to let my TAs know. I went to hang up, but noticed I had a message. It was Al Snow. He had my briefcase, he told me apologetically. He’d take it in to work with him; I could collect it at his office. I knew his extension and left a voicemail telling him I’d be off the rest of the week and that I’d collect it Monday. It was stuffed with ungraded homework and quizzes, but I didn’t care. I hated those fucking kids as much as they hated me. I didn’t tell him that. I did say that they could wait for their work to be returned. I thought about it for a while after hanging up, then called back and told him the combination to the case and asked if he would give the work to the TAs to grade. I hung up and then went on a search for sleep medication, of which I knew I had none.
I owned a car—a refurbished VW Bug. I took it out only for joy rides and for what I deemed absolutely necessary reasons. I pulled off its cover half an hour later and fired it up. I had an absolutely necessary reason: I needed sleep, and I knew I wasn’t going to get any without medication. I picked up some generic over-the-counter stuff at Rite Aid and drove home. I took three, one more than the prescribed dosage on the back, disrobed and crawled back under the covers.
But sleep would not come. There was an impassable wall of terror between me and it. Sleep … “Oblivion.” I could still feel it—whatever “it” was—on the backs of my eyelids when I closed them. I could taste its bitterness on the back of my tongue. Pain stabbed my heart with thoughts of it, and my bowels loosened too. I ended up on the pot more than in bed. Diarrhea. Sometime after eleven, shaking and sweating and unable to get it out of my head, I sat up. My heart was racing out of control. I struggled to breathe. The world had stuffed itself into a funnel that drained in a nauseating swirl into my forehead. I was panicking.
When I could catch my breath, when my heart slowed, when sweat stopped pouring off me and I could lift the receiver without shaking, I called to make an appointment with my doctor. My typical self, I berated the receptionist until she agreed to schedule me tomorrow morning. That was the earliest he could see me, she insisted; she’d have to make sure it was firm and that she’d call to confirm later. I slammed the phone down and tried not to close my eyes.
I had nearly drowned, I told myself over and over again. That lunatic had done nothing beyond that (which was more than enough!). He hadn’t sent me anywhere. How ridiculous!
But I couldn’t come up with an explanation for how he’d managed to invade my dreams, or how he knew I twice experienced that terrifying blackness, or how he had produced it, or how he knew he had been successful.
The human subconscious, I reasoned, was still a big unknown, even with modern brain-imaging technology. I had somehow been aware of his presence in the room and, paired with the near-drowning, had conflated the two, then conjured up some menacing actions on his part. It had been a nightmare, nothing more.
Then how did he know exactly what kind of nightmare I had? And how did he know that I’d had it twice?
The power of suggestion, I reasoned. Perhaps he had suggested both standing over me, and my subconscious mind had run with it each time! When I woke up, he saw that his little attempt at mind control had succeeded; now he could con me into doing whatever he wanted! Of course! Of course!
I put a mental period on my brilliant deduction, then sat there for another hour trying to think of a way I could make his life miserable, to pay him back for all the shit he’d given me. I came within a single digit on the phone to reporting him to the police, to tell them I’d been harassed and stalked and, on the bus ride home, assaulted, but each time ended up hanging up before punching that last number.
I didn’t know his full goddamn name! And there he was, ready to give it to me! With his name I could really nail his hillbilly ass to the wall! But he’d taken offense at my attitude, and now I regretted giving him any.
He wasn’t through with me. He wasn’t done stalking me, harassing me, trying to “save” me. What did he want me to do?—some dumbass “assignment”? “My life is …”—something like that?
“My life is better now that you’re in custody, asshole!” I yelled, imagining cops leading him off in handcuffs once more.
I thought of him dead with the rest of his blank-eyed cult, and cried, “My life is better now you’ve drunk the Kool-Aid!”
That one made me smile.
I imagined him crestfallen as he meandered off, my superior intellect once again unchallenged and unbeaten. I pictured him on his knees, bloodied and bruised, me standing over him, fists raised in victory. I fantasized him in defeat a dozen ways, and it lifted my mood enough for me to take another shower and make myself a tuna fish sandwich. I ate it over the kitchen sink before opening the drapes to look out at my back yard.
The drizzle had come back, and with it a forlorn gray that seemed to cling to everything. I washed the dishes, then went to the bedroom to lie down. I wanted to take a nap, and I tried, even with another three sleep tablets. But the only result was a hazy mental drizzle soaking my mind, not unlike the real kind outside.
Sleepless hours passed.
I didn’t turn on the television; I didn’t put on any music; I didn’t flip open the laptop and poke around online or do any work. The phone rang at five; it was Al. His voice was thick with concern.
“Do you need anything, buddy?” he asked.
“Did you get my messages?”
“Of course. I gave your briefcase to Umed; he took your classes and told me to tell you the homework would be graded and distributed tomorrow. Got any instructions for me to give him?”
He sounded very worried. It occurred to me that must have heard about my “suicide attempt” and was simply being delicate and, as always, impeccably decent.
<
br /> “I need him to write a test for Calc One,” I said after deciding not to tell him that I didn’t try to kill myself, but had been thrown over the rail by a crazy cult dickhead. “Would you mind looking at it before he hands it out?”
“Sure, sure, Ray, anything. What day do you want him to give it?”
I sighed. Until I got some serious sleep, I wasn’t interested in working, so I picked a day entirely at random. “Next Wednesday. I’ve got a ton of sick time coming; I think I’m going to take the rest of the month off.”
“Good plan,” said Al, “good plan. A little R and R will do you some good. I’ll keep an eye on Umed and Tye, too.”
“Thanks, Al.”
“Ray …” I heard him struggle for something to say. “Listen, Ray, if you need to talk … seriously, you call me. Day or night. Will you do that? Please?”
I didn’t want to hear that. I didn’t want to hear the compassion in his voice or to be reminded of his friendship. It hurt as much as anything had this past day and a half, and it shook my solar plexus and forced hot tears to my eyes.
It WASN’T a suicide attempt! I was thrown off the pier, do you hear me? I WAS THROWN OFF, THROWN OFF, THROWN OFF!
“I will,” I said lifelessly. “Thanks, Al.”
I didn’t wait for him to respond, but hung up.
~~*~~
Nighttime.
I took the Bug out again. It was well after midnight. I didn’t know where I was going. I crossed the tracks at H and got on the freeway. I passed through San Diego metro and kept going. An hour later in Carlsbad, I gassed up and got a bite to eat at a Denny’s, then turned back for home.
I had spent all that time with an empty mind save one thought that refused to go away:
Why hadn’t I been more like Al Snow?
I noted the verb tense: hadn’t. I tried changing it midstream to Why can’t I be more like Al Snow? but it felt foreign, fake.
Was my life truly coming to an end? Was that cowboy jerkoff really an angel of death? That made me smirk with materialistic conceit.
Angel Page 8
