“Jack,” he began softly, “I know that these dream images are very disturbing to you. But the cure is not in obsession. It’s in understanding the root cause of the images and what they represent to you. Central in everything you have shared with me is your love for Pam and a desire for your family to remain intact. Now,” Lewellyn leaned back again and recrossed his legs. “How is Pam?”
Jack’s mind still reeled. Was he supposed to believe this was all about Pam? He was having horrific nightmares and hallucinations about dead Marines that he believed he knew because he was in love with his wife? He sat back, resigned. He was just along for the ride again.
“Pam is fine,” he answered flatly.
There was a long and uncomfortable pause during which he felt like Lewellyn was again sizing him up, deciding where to head next.
“Jack, what do you think you should do next?” the psychologist asked after a long while.
“I think I should see a psychologist,” Jack snapped, more sharply than he intended.
Lewellyn watched him impassively, not reacting to the harsh dig. He waited patiently for Jack to continue.
“I’m sorry,” Jack said, looking at his hands. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just frustrated.” Jack looked up at the doctor. “I do trust you, Dr. Lewellyn.”
“It’s okay, Jack,” Lewellyn said sincerely. “I know you’re frustrated.” Then he shifted in his chair. Jack noticed his little notebook was again open, his pen at the ready. “I know we have a lot to cover, Jack. There’s a lot more background we need to delve into, but I want to start a little differently than I had planned.”
“Okay,” Jack answered, trying to relax and allow himself to shift into a more open frame of mind.
“Jack, what do you think these images represent?”
“Images?” Jack asked, confused.
“Yes,” Lewellyn answered. “The images of the Marines from Fallujah. The Navy chaplain you saw when you fell asleep in the waiting room. What do you think they represent?”
Jack thought hard for a moment, but he still didn’t really fully understand the question. To him his Marines and now this Navy chaplain were like demons, pulling him into a nightmare world of death—his death, as Casey Stillman. They were calling to him, trying to lure him away from his safe world of Pam and Claire, trying to pull him into insanity.
“They’re like ghosts,” he answered.
“Ghosts?”
“Yeah, or demons maybe. It’s like they‘re begging me to go with them into these nightmares. Like they’re trying to convince me that I belong there with them and that my whole life is just a fantasy.” Jack looked down at his shaking hands again. “Maybe I am crazy. Or schizophrenic or something.” There. He had said it. His cards were on the table. No more bluffing.
“Jack,” Lewellyn said. Jack could hear him setting his notebook on the little table. “You are not crazy. We need you to stop worrying about being crazy.” The psychologist leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, as he had the other day. “These images are, to me and my way of thinking, voices from your own subconscious trying to tell you something important about whatever the underlying stressor is in your life. Maybe you should try and find a way to listen to them and hear what they have to say.”
Jack shivered as a chill washed over him. Had he heard right? He looked up at his psychologist, unable to conceal his shock and amazement. He realized he was looking at his therapist as if he had a horn growing out of the middle of his forehead. He felt his confidence in Lewellyn slip along with his hope that he would be okay.
“What do you think, Jack?”
Lewellyn waited patiently, either unaware or unconcerned by the way Jack stared at him.
“Are you suggesting I sit and chat with a hallucination? That maybe me and an invisible dead Marine, with half a face, stroll through the park and work out our differences?”
Lewellyn ignored the sarcasm and anger and leaned back again.
“Jack, your unconscious is trying to tell you something. And unless we find a way to listen to it, I don’t know how you will ever be able to identify the problem so that you can find a healthier way to cope with it.” For a moment the doctor seemed lost in thought. Then he continued, “Jack, we’re going to work hard today, and every day you can get here, to find a conventional way to root out your problem and deal with it. In the meantime, I’m not suggesting you sit in a restaurant and talk to yourself. I am just suggesting that if you accept that these images are your own subconscious trying to find a way up to the front of your mind—to tell you something you need to deal with—that maybe you can fight off the fear and dread they cause enough to listen to what they’re trying to tell you. Accept that they are not real, but that they represent your own voice trying to help you find the solution on your own.” The doctor stared at him for a moment, as if he expected a response. “Is that a more comfortable way to think about it?”
Jack leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and thought about Lewellyn’s words. It sure as hell made more sense said that way. His problem, so far, had been his uncertainty about whether the images really were just hallucinations, or ghosts, or something real and even more terrifying. Their calling was so powerful and so convincing. Of course it made more sense that the power of that call came from his unconscious mind somehow.
“Yeah,” he answered finally. He looked up from his hands and held Lewellyn’s patient look. “Yeah, that makes sense, Doc.”
Jack sat back again and forced a smile onto his face. “Just promise me that if I get locked up for talking to myself in the park, like some kind of bag lady, you’ll come and bail me out.”
Lewellyn laughed an ice–breaking, and natural, laugh.
“I promise, Jack,” he said. Then he picked up his little notebook, making Jack stiffen unconsciously, and opened it again in his lap. “Well, Jack, I am afraid we have at least an hour of monotony. I need to get a good psychological background on you, and I am afraid there is really no way around some trite questions.” The psychologist clicked open his pen. “Let’s talk a few minutes about your parents and your childhood.”
Jack sighed heavily and leaned back his head on the large leather couch.
“Okay.”
Here we go.
Chapter
14
Jack strolled slowly down the street, a few blocks from Dr. Lewellyn’s downtown office. His right hand unconsciously thumbed the pocketed card that Dr. Lewellyn had given him as he’d left. On the front was an appointment for two p.m. the next day, and another for four p.m. on Monday.
“I have to get back to work by Monday,” Jack had told the doctor.
“I don’t see a problem with that, Jack. Hopefully tomorrow we will get you some psychological tools that will lessen your anxiety about going back to school,” his therapist had reassured him.
On the back of the card were two telephone numbers—one for David Lewellyn at home and the other, his cell phone. At first Jack had felt flattered that the psychologist cared enough to provide him with personal contact information. But now, as he walked slowly down the block peering absently into shop windows and fingering the card in his pocket, he worried that it meant something more ominous. What was it the doctor thought might happen? Why would Jack need to be able to contact him day or night? Was Lewellyn worried about Jack losing his shit—being found mumbling to himself in an alley, curled up in the fetal position, the card in his pocket the only link between the cops or paramedics who found him and the utter madness inside him?
Jack forced the thought from his head.
Ridiculous!
If Lewellyn had those kinds of worries he would arrange to have Jack hospitalized or something, right? He sure as shit wouldn’t have smiled, shook his hand, and sent him home to his wife and little girl. And he wouldn’t have reassured him that he could return to school in a few days either, right? Still, the very idea that he was somehow in a position where he might need to call a psychologist at home, or on hi
s cell phone, was terrifying. How in the hell had he ever gotten here? What was it his psychological demons were trying to tell him?
Jack considered for a moment that, as Dr. Lewellyn had suggested, his hallucinations and nightmares really were some inner voice, trying to give him clues to his mind’s struggle. If he could listen to those images, then maybe he might identify what was screwing with his mind. He wouldn’t really be listening to ghosts or demons, after all. He would just be listening to himself, right? And could that lead to a cure? He felt skeptical, even though it all made sense psychologically. Maybe, but Lewellyn didn’t live in these dreams with him. He couldn’t know the horrible intensity of them, or the incredible reality of them. He couldn’t know the way his life felt like a lie after he awoke.
Real or imagined, in those moments I really am Casey Stillman.
How could he explain that to anyone, even Lewellyn? He wasn’t sure he had made Pam understand, who often knew him better than he knew himself.
It’s about Pam. Your love for Claire and Pam. That is what keeps pulling you to this place.
Commander Hoag’s voice, clear as a bell in his mind. But what did that mean? Pulling him to what place? Did he mean to Dr. Lewellyn’s office or something deeper, or worse, more sinister? Jack got the sense that the answers were so close, like a familiar word on the tip of your tongue.
Jack realized he had walked the whole two blocks and that he now stood in front of his car, parked at a metered spot by the curb. He also realized that he needed more time to think about the things he had talked about with the psychologist. Not that Pam wasn’t a great support. God knows she was. But he felt he needed to sort things out a bit more before he could go home and talk with her. Besides, he had a powerful feeling that he was slowly picking the lock on an important door here. That he was close to something, though he had no idea what. He looked at the shops along the block on his side of the street. There were several small clothing stores, a shoe store, and one that advertised “Electronic Miracle,” whatever the hell that implied. He turned his gaze across the street, where his eye immediately caught a green neon sign that announced the Tenth Street Bar and Grill. Underneath was a smaller sign which bragged “Best Sandwiches Downtown” in bright red script. Perfect. He realized he was starving, and a cold beer wouldn’t hurt either.
Jack dropped four quarters into the meter by his Volvo, checked the traffic, and crossed the street, smirking at the irony of the Armed Forces Recruiting Station sign on an overhanging marquis on the corner. Beneath the sign hung four small flags; one for each of the four branches of the military. He felt a lump in his throat at the sight of the red flag in the middle, the yellow eagle, globe, and anchor of the United States Marine Corps emblazoned in its center. Jack tore his eyes away, confused by the tightness in his chest and tears in his eyes, and pushed through the glass door with a fancy brass bar handle into the restaurant. He breathed in the aroma of hot sandwiches and French fries. There was a small podium in front of him, with a college-aged girl dressed smartly in a pants suit.
“Can I help you, sir?”
“Yeah,” Jack answered. “Table for one.”
The girl smiled. “Certainly, sir. I can seat you in the dining room, or would you prefer to sit at the bar?”
Jack looked to his left and saw a large, old‐fashioned wood bar with a brass railing, glasses hanging upside down above it. Scattered around it were several tall wooden tables with barstools around them. The bar was fairly crowded, mostly with men in suits conducting business or just having a quick drink on their lunch break from their downtown offices. Too many people, he thought.
“The dining room, I think,” he answered. “A booth if you have one.” To his right he peered into the dining room, with high-backed dark wood booths surrounded by scattered four‐top tables with green table cloths. The restaurant was a bit more upscale than he had expected from a bar and grill, no doubt catering as it did to the downtown business crowd.
The girl grabbed a menu and led him through the maze of tables with a crisp “Right this way, sir.”
She sat Jack in a corner booth towards the back, sensing he wanted some quiet, he supposed, and announced that Ethan would be his waiter. He slid into the booth and rubbed his face with both hands, scanning the large lunch menu the hostess had placed in front of him. He guiltily skipped over the salad section that Pam would love for him to order from, and decided that a hot turkey Rueben and French fries would hit the spot.
When a large glass of water with a wedge of lemon was slid in front of him, a familiar voice caused him to look up.
“Here’s your water, Sar’n,” a young voice with a southern Tennessee drawl said.
Jack felt the blood drain from his face as he looked into the face of Jason Kindrich. The boy smiled and his hair was longer. More importantly, his head had no hole in it. But it was definitely Kindrich. Jack pushed back reflexively from the table, scurrying deep into the corner of the booth, and his hand knocked over the glass of water as he did.
“Oh, shit!” he exclaimed, more from the shock of seeing Kindrich than from the cold water that now soaked his lap. He grabbed the green cloth napkin and used it to dam up the remaining pool of water on the table, keeping more of it from pouring into his seat. The waiter grabbed another napkin from the table and began soaking up the water.
“Here let me get that, sir,” he said, his voice now deeper and without any trace of southern accent.
Jack looked up in shock at a man closer to forty than twenty, with close‐cropped dark hair and an earring. He looked nothing like Kindrich.
“What did you say to me?” Jack stammered.
“Sir?” the waiter responded, confused.
“When you put the water down. What did you say?” Jack demanded.
“I …uh,” the waiter looked completely baffled now. “I think I said, here is your water, sir.” He used a green napkin to slide the ice and much of the water onto his tray. “Are you okay?”
Jack nodded. He also tried to shake off the now all too familiar I-am-fucking-nuts feeling that he suspected the waiter would agree with at the moment. He was just tense and obsessed with thoughts of his demons. He had let his imagination go wild, maybe. The hostess arrived with a large cloth, which she used to begin cleaning up the remaining spilled water.
“Is everything ok here?” she asked, seeing Jack’s wild look. The waiter looked at her and shrugged, his eyebrows arcing as if to say “I don’t know what the hell is going on.”
“My fault,” Jack said quickly. “I’m afraid I was lost in thought and got startled. I knocked over the water glass.” He looked at the completely unfamiliar waiter with a sheepish grin. “I’m sorry, Ethan,” he said, remembering the name the hostess had told him.
“No problem, sir. My fault,” the waiter said, though they both knew it was not. “Let me clean this up and get you some more napkins for your trousers. And then I’ll get you a fresh water.”
He and the hostess scurried away, no doubt to talk about the strange guy in the corner booth. Jack looked down at his wet lap and sighed heavily.
Jesus, Jack! You’ve got to get your shit together. If you don’t calm down you will indeed be calling Lewellyn from the ER, or maybe jail.
He dabbed at his wet lap with the damp napkin and tried to calm down. The demons were bad enough. He couldn’t afford to let his imagination become his enemy, too. Slowly, he felt himself begin to relax. The tremor in his hands diminished and the pounding pulse in his temples disappeared. What had triggered that bullshit? Jack decided to blame his therapy session. Probably that shitty conversation about his ghosts and the thought of “trying to listen to them and hear what they have to say” had made him even more paranoid.
When Ethan returned, Jack did his best to hide his embarrassment and ordered a hot turkey Reuben with French fries and a tall Foster’s lager. The thought of food made him realize he was starving, and the anticipation of a nice meal distracted him momentarily from the obsessive t
houghts about his problems. He was aware of the strange way the waiter looked at him, and imagined murmuring from the other diners about the crazy guy in the corner booth. Jack shuddered and tried to force his mind away from the paranoid thoughts. He focused his thoughts instead on the things he had come here to try and sort through. He knew he was delaying going home to his girls, but he really needed to organize his thoughts. He shoved the guilt out of his mind and thought again about his session with Dr. Lewellyn.
The remainder of the session had been fairly uneventful. They had talked a lot about his childhood, his relationship with his family, his education and job. Jack was surprised to find that his memories of his college years were somewhat vague and disjointed. Most of the memories that were vivid involved Pam—their early friendship and later courtship, falling in love. The time around his sophomore year things seemed again somewhat staged and artificial. He had mentioned his thoughts of joining the Navy or the Marines, mostly to help earn money for the rest of his education. Lewellyn had stopped him there.
“I thought you said you never considered a career in the military?”
That had caused an uncomfortable pause in Jack’s train of thought. He had said that, hadn’t he? In their first session. He hadn’t lied. He simply hadn’t recalled any desire to join the service until he had begun his free association rambling about his years in college.
“You were with Pam then, right? How did she feel about you joining the military?”
Jack had considered that a moment. He remembered very clearly their conversation about the Marines. They had been at Paul’s, a Greek deli they hung out at a lot, eating sandwiches, just the two of them on a Saturday afternoon. They had skipped the football game with their friends to have lunch alone together (private moments were a rarity back then, much like since Claire had arrived). He had told her of his plan to join, probably the Marine Corps, to get the GI Bill. He had already gotten a brochure online and talked to a recruiter on the phone.
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