by Dan Mooney
It was all so familiar to him. The easy banter, the camaraderie, the winking and the blowing of kisses. He’d walked this way for a long time. He began to wonder why he had ever left. At some point, he couldn’t be sure when, Rebecca decided it was time to take him home. It may have been when he climbed onto one of the bar stools or it may have been when he tried to convince Natasha to swap clothes with him, but she had decided and so she took him by the hand and led him out into the night. They left the others in gales of laughter. Clearly he could not quite hold his drink like he used to.
“Do you think crazy people know that they’re crazy?” He slurred his words slightly as they walked home, hand in hand.
“I don’t know. I guess it depends on what kind of crazy they have. Why?”
“I don’t know. I just wonder, if you met a crazy person and you knew they were crazy, would they be aware of it too? Or what if you met someone who was crazy but you had no idea, but they did because they can hide it really good.” His tongue was now independent of the rest of his body.
“You think I’m crazy?” she asked playfully.
“I think you’re loop-the-bloody-loop,” he shot back.
“Look, it’s nothing you need to worry about. No one thinks you’re crazy, just a little eccentric, that’s all. Some people might even find it charming,” she told him with a sidelong glance.
“Some people, eh?” he replied, smiling slightly. “You fancy the pants off me,” he told her boldly.
“Someone’s very sure of himself this evening.” Now she was smirking.
“I’m fighting a war, you know,” he told her in a conspiratorial whisper. He hadn’t meant to say that; it just kind of came out.
“I know you are, Pudding. You’ll win it too. Eventually,” she told him comfortingly.
“Will I though? The clown is wily. You wanna know something? I’m a tiny bit afraid of him.”
“You’ve been watching too many scary movies,” she told him.
He decided to attempt to exercise some control of his mouth and shut up for a while. Her skin was so smooth, and her hand fit his perfectly. She smelled amazing, and as they walked, the light night breeze caught her long hair and made it bounce just slightly. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. The exercise in keeping his mouth shut continued, and so he never told her this.
When they got back to the house, Rebecca made tea, while Denis wandered into the living room. His housemates weren’t there. In this universe they didn’t bother him when he was with company. He picked his Eels album from the CD rack. There was something about owning an actual CD that Denis loved. He had the downloads too, of course, but the act of taking a CD from a case and placing it in the machine held a charm for him that couldn’t be replaced. He put on “Last Stop: This Town” and turned it up. He didn’t care if he woke them. Let them come downstairs if they wanted to. He was in no mood to be told what to do this evening.
“Awesome,” Rebecca said as she made the tea. “I love this one.”
“I think I love it too, but I think I mostly just love the backing vocals.” He sang with the track while Rebecca watched him in amusement. He danced around a little. Laughing, Rebecca joined him. If ever there was a song that was unsuitable for two people to dance to, it was this one. They danced anyway. Her hands ran across his back and over his shoulders, down his chest. He held her by the waist. Over their shoulders, standing in the darkened hallway, Penny O’Neill and Plasterer watched silently. Denis spotted them, but was past the point of caring what they thought or what they did. He danced on. When the track finished and the other songs began to play, they sat on the couch.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked. “I don’t want you to rush yourself. This is a lot of change for a man who times his bowel movements, and I don’t want you rushing if it means that you’ll hurt yourself. I want you to be okay with everything.”
“I’m okay,” he assured her. “I just feel a little bit freer than I’ve felt in a while,” he said, slurring his words. A tiny voice that sounded suspiciously like Penny O’Neill told him that he’d regret this all in the morning.
“My Beloved Monster” came out through the speakers.
“Dance again?” she asked.
“If you would do me the honor?” he asked her pompously.
They danced around the living room, in a slow, small circle. His arms were all the way around her back, her hands locked behind his head. He smiled, stumbled a little and then kissed her. It was as though she’d been waiting for it all night. Her lips met his eagerly, her tongue and his finding each other with easy familiarity. With his eyes closed he could only smell and feel her. She smelled amazing and felt wonderful. They stood kissing for a while, and then Denis found himself feeling a little dizzy. He sat back down on the couch with a smile that he knew must be stretching across his face, another stupid grin. He stretched out and she joined him, easing her back against his chest. He swung one arm over her, and she clasped his hand.
“Elephant shoe,” she whispered, but he was already asleep.
* * *
What woke Denis the following morning was a feeling that can hardly be understood except by those who have already felt it. His stomach roiled and rebelled. His mouth tasted dry and dead. His head pained and pounded. His hands were shaking. There was a jumble of feelings. He was on his couch, wearing the clothes he had worn the night before. The mess of it started a panic attack, which caused a headache, which made him lie back down and forget the panic attack. He had held her hand. They had danced. He had kissed her. The horror of it was mixed with a tinge of excitement and another wave of nausea, and he forgot both the horror and the excitement as he tried to keep the contents of his stomach inside him. There was no sign of his housemates, and for an hour or two he dozed on and off while his TV played the gentle reassuring sounds of NCIS in the background. When he finally made a solid attempt at getting off the couch, he found a note from Rebecca.
Gone to have lunch with your mum. You can take a whole day to yourself to recover. Enjoy the hangover, Romeo.
Love, Rebecca
He smiled as he read it, a sickly smile cut short by another wave of nausea. He looked about the room. Two teacups sat on the coffee table. He’d spilled some on the smooth surface of the table. It sat there, a little puddle of tea, mocking him. He tried not to stare at it. He noticed a stain on his shirt. He’d spilled some drink on it. The stain judged him from the front of his shirt, and just like that, the enormity of what he had done hit him like a kick to his already sick stomach. He bolted for the bathroom and emptied his stomach. Flecks of vomit made their way onto his shirt, and he fought to peel it off while he retched. His shaking hands couldn’t control the buttons of the shirt, and he found himself nearly ripping it. He tried to compose himself. Instead, he vomited again. Water leaked from his eyes, and his nose ran. It was Sunday afternoon, and he had done nothing. He had slept all day. He was losing it badly now. His hands were shaking; he needed to regain control.
“You’re pathetic,” Plasterer told him from the doorway as he leaned his bulky shoulders against the frame of the door.
“Please, Plasterer, please,” Denis begged. He didn’t know what he was begging for.
“Did you think it would be so easy? Just walk into a bar and suddenly you’re the old you again? Did you forget why you left that universe? Did you? You’re so pathetic.”
“Please,” Denis begged again. He still didn’t know what he was asking for. How had this happened?
“It happened because you’ve been drunk since she got here. And drunk means no control. We can’t have ‘no control.’ We need control. When we don’t have it, bad things happen. When you’re drunk, bad things happen. Very bad things.”
Denis looked at him for a few moments. He had stopped vomiting. “Help,” he begged.
“Fine,” Plasterer said, wearing his ver
y own victory smile. “Action News Team...get to work.”
The others bounded by the bathroom door, freed from whatever restraints Plasterer held over them. There was no doubt now but that he was their leader. Dictator even. They whooped and bellowed as they burst throughout the corridors in a flurry of destruction that threatened to engulf the entire house.
“My gift to you,” Plasterer told him. “Order.”
Denis picked himself up from the floor of the bathroom, his shirt now all the way off, exposing his torso completely, with the stripes of his horrendous scars that crisscrossed his skin in shiny welts.
“I’m going to shower,” Denis told the clown. “When I get out, you call them off and I’ll fix it all.”
“Good.” Plasterer nodded. “Maybe you and I need to share command of this ship, eh? Maybe that’s what we need. Shared responsibility.”
Denis turned away and set about cleaning up his mess. His head was a tornado of pain and competing panic attacks. He had touched her, kissed her. He scrubbed himself in the shower until he felt like his skin would peel off. He had let her touch him. His mind kept flashing back to them dancing, her hands roving across his chest. He got sick again. Mixed with the fresh memories were old ones. Jules had put her hands on Eddie’s chest too, reaching around him from the back seat. His sister always had such dainty little hands. His eyes began to leak again. This is all her fault, he thought to himself. She wants what she can’t have; she wants a person who doesn’t exist. I don’t exist.
He toweled himself dry and fixed the bathroom to a standard that he found acceptable, then stepped out into the battle zone. The attack had ended quite quickly, a small string of attacks, coming and going like a summer storm. It seemed that they lacked the energy for sustained assault. He dressed and cleaned at a forced march. His hangover made for an interesting war wound, and he fought through the pain to reestablish his badly needed order. By the time he was done, and the melted candle wax had been painstakingly cleaned from the kitchen floor, he felt much better. Plasterer had watched the whole ordeal, quietly offering encouragement. His troops stood behind him, ignoring Denis.
The doorbell rang.
Five heads swung around to look at the door.
Through the glass he could see the cut of an average-sized man.
“It’s a trap,” Plasterer told him. “Don’t answer it. We’ve been ambushed.”
Denis walked by him and headed for the door. He checked the lock three times before opening it. It was Eddie’s dad. He looked like his son. He also looked nervous.
“Denis,” he said by way of greeting. It was clear that he was trying to smile. He was failing.
Oh fuck. This isn’t good.
“Mr. Reilly,” Denis answered. Inside, his head voices screamed a warning at him. Run. Hide in the bathroom. Close the door. Run. “Would you like to come in?” he asked instead.
“I would. Thank you.”
Nervously, he stepped through the door. Denis’s housemates were nowhere to be seen, and so he stood there. A middle-aged man, his hair receding slightly, a small mustache on his lip. When Denis had lived in the other universe, Ned Reilly had been a regular fixture. Softly spoken and generally kind, he had tried to ingratiate himself with the young people his son called friends. He was often seen in a bar or on a road trip with the gang, almost part of it, but just outside. Eddie had never been embarrassed by his dad. They were close.
“Can I make you some tea?” Denis asked, while every muscle in his body twitched with the urge to run.
“That would be lovely. Just a drop of milk, please,” Ned replied.
Denis made his way to the kitchen to boil the kettle. The Professor loomed up beside him from nowhere.
“He must leave. He must leave immediately. Or you must. It is imperative that one of you leave this conversation now. No good can come of this.”
“I can’t just make him leave, Professor,” Denis whispered.
“The enormity of the situation that you are about to enter is lost on you, Denis. You are not capable of this. Extract yourself from it immediately.”
“Are you talking to me?” Ned called from the living room.
“Er...no...” Denis replied. “Just thinking out loud.”
He gave the Professor a helpless look and made his way back into the living room.
“How have you been?” Ned asked, when Denis had served tea and sat down.
“Fine,” Denis replied, lying. “Nothing strange.”
“You haven’t been to see us in a while,” Ned told him.
Denis looked at him for a moment and then realized. It had been three weeks since he had been to see Eddie at the hospital. Three weeks to lose complete control of his life. For seven years or so he had dedicated twenty minutes each Saturday to visiting a friend who was, for all intents and purposes, dead. In three weeks he had thrown that out the window. His friend still clung to what some called life. For nearly seven years he’d held on, and Denis had forgotten him in three weeks.
“I’m so, so sorry,” was all he could say.
“No, please...” Ned protested. “I think it’s a good thing. You’ve been holding on for too long, Denis. Your family, they’re worried about you. I know the boys are too. I still see them.”
“No. It’s not acceptable. It’s not.” Denis’s eyes were leaking all over again. They stung so badly. His cheeks were wet. “I’m so fucking sorry—”
“No, Denis, please,” Ned protested again. “Don’t cry, honestly. I...I’ve been meaning to talk to you for years now, but it just never seemed right. There’s something I have to tell you. I should have told you years ago.”
“How could I do this to you?” Denis asked him. His vision was blurring; he blinked away the water.
“No, Denis, I don’t want you to think it’s like that.” Ned was reaching out to him. Denis jumped back from him on the couch.
“Please, please don’t touch me.”
“It’s okay, Denis. Listen to me. Nobody blames you. Nobody. Not me, not Ann, not your mother. You need to stop torturing yourself.”
Torturing himself? If his eyes weren’t stinging so badly, he’d have laughed at that. He hadn’t started torturing himself until Rebecca arrived.
“Please listen to me,” Ned said once more. “I wanted to tell you for so long. I just couldn’t. It was nice to see someone other than me and Ann coming to see him. I wanted you to move on, but a selfish part of me wanted you there. We only go once a week now too. We had to move on too. We were just going when you were. Saturday, our only day, and only because we couldn’t hide from it if you weren’t.”
Denis had slapped his sister’s hand playfully as it reached around to embrace Eddie’s chest. They had all laughed. Seconds later she was screaming and Eddie was silent.
“I’ll come back,” Denis told him, blinking again. “I’ll come back right now.”
“No, Denis, you’re not listening. No one blames you. You have to stop doing this.”
Denis jumped up and bolted for the bathroom again. He was sure there was nothing left to throw up, but he was going to try anyway.
“Denis... Don’t leave...”
Denis left him standing in the living room.
“I warned you,” the Professor said as he sat on the edge of the bath. Plasterer made his way into the room; his makeup was smudged where tears had traced tracks through it. It was hard to imagine the big clown crying, but clearly he had been.
“I warned you too,” Plasterer told him, his voice thick with emotion. “It was a trap. She tricked us. Took your mother out of the game. Cleared a way for him. She had this planned. The sneaky bitch planned this from the start. Get that fat moron out of our house.”
Denis shook his head numbly. “Look what I did to him. To Eddie. To Ann. To Jules. I did it. To my mom. To Frank. To Ollie. Look what I did to everyone.
I can’t make him go.” The words escaped him in shuddering sobs.
“Why do you offer such protests? We’re trying to help you.” The Professor wrung his hands as he spoke, his rotting flesh knitting together.
“You have to make him go. We need him gone. He’s ruining everything. And it’s all her fault,” Plasterer added. He didn’t cut quite the authority figure with the marks of tears cutting through his clown makeup, but for some reason it made him appear horrendously sinister.
“I can’t. Stay out of sight. All of you.” Denis wiped his eyes and made his way back down the stairs.
“Don’t you fucking dare tell me what to do,” Plasterer replied, blinking away a fresh tear.
“Just...just please, stay here.”
Denis couldn’t wait for an answer; he brushed past the two of them and headed for the living room.
Ned was still sitting there. His eyes red and puffy from crying. He tried a reassuring smile, but his lower lip quivered and another tear leaked out.
“You were his friend, Denis. His best friend. He loved you. He loved Jules too. Please understand that we know you didn’t mean it. It was an accident.”
“I must do better,” Denis told him, ignoring the pardon. “For you and Ann. I promise I’ll be there next Saturday. I’ll bring flowers.”
“Denis,” Ned said, his tone grave as he tried another avenue of attack. “Have you ever spoken to anyone about it? I mean, have you had any counseling? Grief counseling helped me to no end. I needed it. I was full of rage and bitterness, but it helped me to become okay.”
