by Gary Braver
“I don’t recommend it.”
“I bet. Remember it any?”
“Not much.” Jack thought about asking Theo to let him sleep but decided that the guy meant well. Besides, the sound of the tools and the shades rattling sabotaged any nap taking. Jack closed his eyes again.
“The papers said something about your memory coming back strong. That’s great. Sometimes coma patients come back with lots of blank spots, I hear.”
Jack cracked open an eye. On the monitor some doctors were talking about that Alzheimer’s drug René Ballard had mentioned. “Experimental drug for Alzheimer’s disease,” read the caption.
Theo removed the hammer from his holster and banged the end of the screwdriver to pry loose a fixture. And Jack felt a small sensation jog through him.
“So you remember stuff before the accident pretty good, huh?”
“A little.”
“Well, that’s all that matters, if you ask me. As somebody said, ‘You are what you remember.’ Right? Same thing if your house caught fire.”
“Pardon me?”
“If your house caught fire. They took this poll, asked if your house was burning down and there’s only one thing you could save, besides your family members or pet, of course—what would it be?”
On the screen some doctors in white were being interviewed. Mass General Hospital, read the caption.
A slumping feeling. Maybe because that’s where Jack was taken after the accident.
“The family photo album.” Theo gesticulated with his hammer hand. “What nine out of ten people said. And me, too. It’s the same with memory, know what I mean?”
Jack closed his eyes. “Guess I’m pretty lucky.”
A few moments passed, then Theo started up again. “Just out of curiosity, what were you doing out there on Homer’s Island? Kind of an out-of-the-way place, you ask me.”
Jack was growing tired of the interrogation. “Bird watching.”
“Bird watching,” the man repeated. There was a long silence. Then he said, “The papers said something about you swimming. And a storm.”
Why is this guy pressing me? And why the feeling that this was going beyond idle chitchat. “It came up fast, and I hadn’t checked the weather report.”
“Got your own boat?”
“Took the water taxi.”
“So you remember stuff before the accident pretty well, huh?”
What is it with this guy? Why won’t he shut up? Why’s he playing Twenty Questions with me? “A little.”
“That’s my point: You still got what’s most important.” And he tapped the side of his head. Another long pause. “How far back do you go?”
“Pardon me?”
“How far back can you remember—like when you were a kid?”
“Not really.”
“Uh-huh. Some people say they remember when they were babies. Sign of intelligence, they say.”
Jack did not respond.
“I can’t remember before I was ten,” Theo snorted. “Guess I must be pretty dumb. How about you?”
Jack eyed the man. “No. No. Nothing.”
Suddenly things turned strange. In a protracted moment, the man became a still life, freezing in place on the ladder with the hammer raised, his mouth moving in slow motion, pulsing out queer utterances, the syllables stretched to alien phonics. As the man’s eyes bore down on Jack for a response, Jack felt something like an eel slither through his gut.
Bad feeling.
“Don’t remember stuff from when you were small? Me, neither, but I wish I did.”
Jack couldn’t speak—as if what had slithered through him shot into his brain and bored a hole in the language centers, leaving him gasping for words and quaking with an irrational sense of dread.
“Hey, you all right?”
“Mmmm.” Which was all Jack could squeeze out.
“You looked a little …”
God, what the hell is this? What’s passing through me?
His lungs caught some air and he sucked it up to his voice box. “I’m okay,” he rasped. “Little dizzy.”
“Uh-huh.” And the guy turned back to the shade.
Jack’s head was soupy and he closed his eyes as the man tapped away. Outside, the thunder was growling out to sea, the lightning flickering through Jack’s eyelids. The man hammered away, and with each smack a small seismic crack shot through Jack.
Jack opened his eyes. Something about the image of that guy on the ladder clawed at Jack’s consciousness. Something not right. But he couldn’t grasp it. Whatever, it flitted across his mind like a bird coming in to roost, then just at the last second shot away.
Jack was positive he had never seen this Theo before because the man’s face didn’t fit any memory template. Then again, Jack had not laid eyes on a lot of faces of late. Maybe all the toxins had turned sections of his brain into Swiss cheese. A reasonable explanation, except the guy would surely have said something.
So why the dark sensation? Maybe someone from a dream. And he’d had a boatload of those of late.
“You want some water or something?”
“I’m okay.” Jack could hear fear in the breathy scrape of his voice.
The man eyed him suspiciously, then nodded and went back to banging something in place, his mouth still moving.
Jesus, what’s happening to me? Jack asked himself. What the hell is going on in my head?
Without expression, the man locked hard eyes on his. “I asked you a question.”
Jack didn’t remember the question. Maybe he’d nodded off for a moment and just dreamed he had. He looked up at Theo to reply, but the sensation was back, and worse—leaving him thinking that he had lived these moments before. Some wicked déjà vu.
In an instant an inexplicable anxiety set Jack’s diaphragm in spasms. His throat constricted as if a snake were coiling around it. His forehead was a cold aspic of sweat, and his chest and neck were a flash of prickers.
Heart attack. I’m having a heart attack.
“Hey, you want me to call the nurse?”
Jack could not answer.
Shit. Worked yourself into cardiac arrest. A killer surge of self-inflicted anxiety, and you won yourself a permanent flat line.
But another thought cut across that one: No. Not a heart attack. His heart was strong, they had said, and at the moment was pounding so hard that his shirt was pulsing. No, something else. What had passed through him was a bolt of black horror.
Something about this repairman.
He wants to hurt you.
The guy glared down at him. And in Jack’s mind, he jumped off the ladder and smashed his head with that shiny ball-peen hammer.
“You having a seizure?”
A skim of panic formed over Jack like ice. Seizure. How did this repairman know about seizures?
But the other voice was back: You’re being an asshole. The guy’s perfectly friendly in his Mr. Fixit overalls and body shirt, up there on his ladder being chatty and doing his business with the blinds. And just because he’s a repairman doesn’t mean a limited vocabulary. You’ve got the problem, pal, not him.
The repairman continued to stare at Jack, the individual slats making razor-edged slashes of light and shade across his features. He look demonic, his mouth a black gash in his brown face, his features jagged. And hot black auger eyes boring through him.
Suddenly the guy climbed down, the hammer in his fist.
Oh, Jesus! God, no. No! his brain screamed. A faint squeal pressed out of a clenched larynx.
The man took no notice and came up to the bed, the hammer still in his hand. Jack let out a gasp and in a flash he saw the hammer come down on the crown of his head with a sickening crack, blood and brain matter splattering all over the bed.
Under his pillow Jack’s hand scrabbled for the nurse-call button.
“This will take care of you,” the guy said.
Jack pressed the button and closed his eyes against the blow.
Nothing.
“Everything okay?” Marcy said.
Jack opened his eyes. Theo was standing over him with a glass of water, Marcy by his side. “You okay, Jack?”
Jack grunted. “Can’t sleep.” Theo went back to the blinds.
“No problem.” And she produced a pack of pills. “Theo looks about done, right?”
“Just about.” And he slipped the hammer into his holster and popped the blinds in place and pulled the strings. They were fixed. He dropped them closed to darken the room.
“Great.” Marcy gave the lorazepam to Jack.
Theo gathered his things. “You hang in there, buddy.” And he walked out of the room.
In a matter of moments, the horror had flushed from Jack’s mind.
There, asshole. There’s your crazed psychopath in farmer johns.
Jack sipped more water and closed his eyes, concentrating on the liquid flowing down his parched throat. Damn lucky the proverbial cat had your tongue, or you’d have some fancy explaining to do.
So just what was that? Jack asked himself as he lay there. Just your hot imagination—like those dreams of misshapen creatures killing people.
But that didn’t satisfy. There was something he couldn’t put his finger on. Maybe the guy looked like somebody else. Maybe someone in a movie. Maybe someone in a dream.
A dream. His mind kept on coming back to that.
Like the dream about someone sneaking in here one night and trying to squirt some bad juice into your tubes.
But the other voice was back: The guy’s just some friendly innocent you’re hanging your loonies on. Period. The meds. It’s all the crap they’re giving you, playing crazy dreams when you sleep, giving you the ooga-boogas when awake. That, or you’re losing your mind. Spent six months in the Twilight Zone and came out with half your luggage. Could be worse. Could be sleeping with the jellies.
Nothing made sense, but the incident had left him weary and yearning for oblivion. Marcy dimmed the lights, and Jack closed his eyes. He wanted to sleep for a week and wake up whole and ready to get out of here.
“You sleep tight,” she said.
Besides, Bunky, who the hell would want to kill someone who’s been in a coma for half a year?
4
61
ON APRIL 24, VINCE DROVE JACK to a rented house about two miles from the colonial he had shared with Beth.
In spite of the memories, Jack wanted to return to Carleton because he liked the town and because it was close to the Lahey Clinic where he had his physical therapy. He also wanted to be near Yesterdays, where Vince talked him into being host now that he was back on his feet. Two weeks ago he had renewed his driver’s license and would get around in rentals until he could afford a car of his own. “Maybe I’ll check the Yellow Pages for Rent-a-Wife,” he told Vince.
The place was a neat six-room Cape painted dark green, making it look like a giant Monopoly piece. Low trimmed bushes formed a border around the front, which sat on Old Mystic Road, near the Mystic Lakes and the town line of Medford, where he could buy beer since Carleton was steadfast in the virtues of its Puritan ancestors—holding dry and proud of it. The house came furnished, which was fine, since Jack harbored no sentimental attachment to what he and Beth had shared. Nor did he want to be reminded.
He and Vince spent a few hours putting things away from boxes stacked in the different rooms. And when most of it was done, Jack walked Vince to his car. “‘Thanks’ doesn’t come close.”
“It’ll do.” Vince gave him a hug. “You need anything, you call.” He got into his car, a 1992 green Mitsubishi 3000 VR4 twin turbo. Jack tapped the rear spoiler. “Does this do anything?”
“Keeps me out of the trees.” Vince started the car. “You take it easy and work on your Charlie Charm.”
Jack started hosting at the restaurant in three nights. “No reservations, fuck off! Next.”
“Perfect,” Vince said and pulled away.
As he turned on his cane, Jack noticed a black SUV with tinted windows roll down the street. He wouldn’t have noticed it except that it rolled by slowly, then sped away as Jack looked up.
A moment later, Jack forgot about the car, thinking how one of his own would be a good way to jump-start the rest of his life.
BEFORE SHE MOVED TO TEXAS, Beth had placed all of Jack’s belongings in a warehouse to be stored for five years, after which they would be donated to Goodwill were Jack still in a coma. For the next two days Jack put stuff away in bureaus, closets, and bookshelves. But several cartons of old stuff still sat in the cellar—stuff he’d long forgotten about.
A stairway through a kitchen door led to the cellar. For more than an hour he went through the boxes, which Vince had arranged in neat stacks along wall shelves. In black marker they were labeled: “Jack’s Stuff. College Notes. Books. Photos.” Beth’s printing. He ran his finger over the neat block letters, thinking that when the ink was wet Beth was his wife, he was still Jack.
Yeah, and your marriage was on the rocks.
He slit open a box. Inside was a pile of photo albums. Beth had spent days arranging the snaps chronologically in the plastic sheets. He thumbed through them—shots of him and Beth, of Vince and other college friends. One album contained pictures of trips they had taken to Jamaica on their honeymoon, to Yosemite a couple years later, visits to friends in Chattanooga and California. Also in the box was their wedding album—a padded white faux leather folder with calligraphic gold script on the cover: “Our Wedding.” He did not open it.
Another album contained some foggy and cracked pictures of his aunt Nancy and uncle Kirk before they were married. And at the very end were black-and-whites of his biological mother and father, including a wedding portrait of them from 1966. His mother, Rose, was a slender, attractive woman with a simpatico face. His father, Leo, looked like a foreign dignitary with black eyes, a long sharp nose, and a baronial mustache. He stood just a few inches taller than Rose. According to Jack’s aunt, Leo was born in the Armenian sector of Beirut, Lebanon, where he studied languages and was fluent in several. In the old-world custom of marriage arrangements, he married Rose, thereby securing American citizenship. Jack knew nothing about their marriage—whether it was a good one or not—and little else about Leo, except that his plane went down just short of the runway on his way to visiting relatives in Chicago.
Because Jack was only six months old when his father died and about two years old when his mother disappeared, he did not remember his parents, just these few photos of them. But imagination had a way of conspiring with memory, creating a reality of its own—a kind of kinescopic synthesis of stories his aunt told with these old photos.
Another shot of Rose showed her beaming at the camera with an infant swaddled in her arms. Himself. She was in the kitchen of their five-room flat in Worcester’s Armenian neighborhood just off Chandler Street. She was wearing a pullover with some lettering that he could not make out. Leo probably took the photo. As strange as it was, Jack had convinced himself that he remembered that apartment and his mother as she appeared. Which wasn’t possible. Human memory couldn’t reach back that far, he was sure, no matter what that repairman said.
Jack studied the photographs. Who were these people whose twisty genetic stuff was filed away in his cells? What had they looked like? sounded like? smelled like? Had they spoken with accents? What stories had they told? What dreams did they dream?
For some reason, he felt a stronger affinity to his mother, whose dark almond eyes seemed to talk to him. Relatives had said that he had inherited her strong will and her bunions. She was clever and spunky, a little scooter of a woman on whom nothing in the natural world was lost. According to his aunt, she had an almost religious appreciation for the sea and would spend hours walking beaches looking for crabs, worms, and mollusks. She had a collection of shells from all over the world, some she had picked up herself, others from friends. So it was not surprising that sh
e had studied marine biology, having won a scholarship to Tufts University, then moving into the doctoral program at Harvard. And here she was, this remarkable woman whose blood gurgled through his veins, who gave him life and dandled him on her knees—and he never knew her.
The only other photo showed her posing with other people in front of an auto parts store. They looked like colleagues since she and two others were wearing what resembled lab coats.
The album still in hand, Jack moved toward the basement window for better light. But a spike of pain shot up his left leg, throwing him off balance so that he stumbled into a shelf of laundry detergents and sent a bottle of Clorox onto the floor, the bleach draining into a puddle. Fortunately, the bottle was only partly full, so he was able to soak it up with a sponge mop, squeezing the stuff down the drain of a small sink. Yet the fumes filled his head, and he had to steady himself against the table to get the noxious odors out of his lungs.
An odd sensation rippled across his brain. It was not unpleasant, nor did it seem to affect him in any way but for a moment’s dizziness. Maybe the fast turn on his feet, he told himself. But as he started to move, he felt himself shut down for a second—a miniblackout. He braced himself against a support pole and looked around, gauging his awareness.
He knew where he was—in the basement of the Mystic Street rental, between a utility table and the washer and dryer. He was also aware of the cool cellar air, the heft of the album in his hand, the slight throbbing of his left leg, the discomfort in his shoulder and other joints—all the orthopedic white noise. He laid the photo album on a table and took a few steps.
Again that odd fugue—as if he had passed through a blank in the time-space continuum. He rested against the table and closed his eyes. He could hear himself breathing. He could hear the distant sounds of traffic. He could also hear something else: A woman’s voice. Faint, feathery faint, high, but clear enough to make out singing.
“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine …”
A shard of ice passed through Jack’s heart. He snapped around, half-expecting to lay eyes on some strange female gawking at him from the shadows.
