I remembered the flash of the mountain I had visualized as I massaged Teresa.
“Probably.”
Teresa looked at me to check if she had heard right, gauging my comment. She turned back to her open window. “Wind feels good, like flying free.”
We drove on, lost to our thoughts, until we dropped down into the cleft of the Delaware River valley.
Teresa started laughing. “I feel wilder, like something snapped and got lost inside me. God, life is... is... so tumultuous. Fall off a cliff, fly to the sun. Hung up, shook loose, and moving on.”
As the mini-bus rumbled across the river, she leaned out the window and yelled to the fish and sky and water and trees, “Oh, what a fantastic fuck that was.”
All across New Jersey, I sensed she was trying not to drown in an emotional whirlpool, humming busily to herself, then sinking into a gloomy silence, only to lift herself out by singing along with the radio. Conversations that started in sorrow or laughter ended up dying in confusion.
Back in New York, as I parked the van behind the store, she shook her head with a brave, but goofy, lop-sided grin. “What a weekend. I feel like I’ve lived my whole life with you. Maybe I’ll call you Grandpa.”
In the following weeks, I threw myself into drawing the final pieces for the show while Teresa set up her watercolor studio in the room behind the store. The violent mental images of the struggle in the cabin didn’t diminish, but the work gave me the quiet and reflective moments I needed to sort through my inner turmoil. Around five o’clock every afternoon, I would walk east, past Washington Square, to the Monster Alley house and pound on the door, calling for Amelia or Jenny. When no one answered, I would sit and wait for awhile, staring at the windows and puffing smoke signals for help, hoping they would sense my need.
I explored the alley regularly, fearlessly, determined to uncover its mysteries. The blackened patch was still there, even after a winter of snow and ice. The decorative monkeys on the window box taunted me every time I looked beneath the cardboard tent. They knew the alley’s riddle better than I. The answer I sought seemed hardened into the ceramic glaze that froze the same mocking grin on their faces day after day.
The equation etched into the brick remained unfathomable.
Just about every time I walked out of Monster Alley, I’d be scratching the top of my head, thinking something about the place was different, but I couldn’t identify what.
Returning home to Teresa, I’d get stoned with her and listen to music, as the two of us tried to rid ourselves of our lingering demons anyway we could. I told her of the images of war in my mind and my trips to the alley. She said she would accompany me on my explorations someday but needed some space from craziness for right now. She was having a difficult time with the terror that had possessed her as Crew Cut rammed the gun between her legs and the deadly feel of his fingers on her skin as he yanked at her jeans.
One night, we got drunk and, desperate to erase our torment, groped sadly for each other and fucked clumsily. Teresa ending up crying, saying we would never be the same, never as wonderful as on the mountain, never again as turned on as we always could be—because of those Pocono bastards. I tried to reassure her, saying we needed time, and we shouldn’t have forced ourselves. My head spinning with drink, I couldn’t find the right words to soothe her though, and tears appeared to clog, rather than relieve, her needs. Reaching for the beer bottle on the bedside table, I felt a helpless shame for being self-indulgent and taking advantage of her drunkenness.
When I vomited at two in the morning, she crawled off to sleep on the couch while I cleaned up the mess I had made of our bed.
But the next night, stoned out of our gourds, we reenacted the fight in the cabin, laughing hysterically, and yelling raucously.
“We’re being attacked by rednecks.”
We collapsed and rolled on the floor, in double-upped hilarity, gasping for breath, happy to look into each other’s eyes, ecstatic to be alive.
After smoking some hash a few nights later, we drew silly cartoons together, creating strange animals, naming them, and fantasizing about their personal histories. During a discourse surrounding an ancient Caribbean bird who I insisted was really invisible, Teresa jumped up and said, “Let’s dance.” She put on the Rubber Soul album and we moved smoothly together. Gyrating and rocking, touching and holding, we became the tree on the hill once again, swaying to rhythms unlocking deep within us. I lit a joint, Teresa brought up a new toy from the store, and we sat in the dark on the floor watching a red and green lava lamp burp and bulge, slowly splitting and coiling fat balls and goops while they rose and sank.
“Wow, far out, man.”
Chapter 46
“Why don’t we take the camera?” Teresa stood blocking my way to the door.
“C’mon, woman, out of my way. You’re not coming. You’ve gone through enough.”
“I’m ready to go with you, and we’re taking pictures of everything in that alley. You said you think maybe something’s changed, so why not compare it to the old pictures?”
“Bag it, Teresa. Those pictures are cursed. I should’ve trashed them. Why do you think Betsy got her head smashed in?”
“Your cousin did it because he was jealous.”
“Yeah, sure. You don’t believe that’s the real reason, and neither do I. The creep Steel knew about me going to Boston. He set us up in the Poconos somehow. This is real demonic power. Why would you even pretend to believe something so dangerously stupid? What’s the matter with your head?”
Her eyes flared as she yelled in my face. “Maybe I thought the whole lunatic nightmare would all go away if you agreed. I’d rather it was Gus and Drake attacking me than to think some supernatural power is directing sickos to rape me. You idiot, I was with you in the cabin—shot a goddamn gun that’s still echoing through my brain, so maybe I can’t think too clearly, but I’m afraid for you, for us, and I’m going with you now, whether you agree or not.”
A warm spring afternoon had crowded Washington Square with people. There was a mime juggling pretend objects, who every so often would go to toss an imaginary thing in someone’s direction. But instead, a sprinkle of colored flowers or a large origami dove would fly from his hand. The onlookers would cry out in delight, laughing and clapping. Two guitar players strummed to an appreciative crowd while a wide-eyed, young woman danced barefoot in a nearby grassy area. Her face was decorated with little pink and green stars painted on her cheeks. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and I was staring, appreciating the bounce beneath her blouse.
Teresa laughed. “Yes, Deets, she has nice tits. She’s really tripping, totally spaced out.”
“Yeah, I met her once. Her name’s Lola. I wonder if she’s alone. Maybe we should keep an eye on her.”
“I’m sure you’d love that.”
Lola lay down onto the grass and raised a knee. Her loose dress draped high across her leg, revealing her upper thigh, rounded ass, and more. My eyes zoomed to the black thatch of hair covering her vulva.
Two men walked by, slowing to a stop and nudging each other, chattering in a foreign singsong I couldn’t understand, except for the words “beaver shot.”
Teresa gasped. “Oh, no. This is too risky.” She handed me the camera. “Here, take this. I’m going to hang out here for awhile.” She gave me a look that spoke of her own vulnerability and feared for Lola’s.
Despite being sensitive to Teresa’s concerns, like a number of men gathering near me I relished in forbidden fascination at Lola until Teresa casually flipped the dress to better cover her temptation. Teresa sat next to her, smiled, and said, “Hi Lola, it’s a beautiful day.” She then focused an uncompromising look at me and dismissed me with a command. “Be careful in that alley.”
Walking on alone, I saw Ham Sherwin sitting cross-legged under a tree, sketching methodically. When he looked up to take in de
tail, I caught his eye. He acknowledged me like I was ruining his drawing. I told him Teresa was over by the musicians, and he nodded his head, then went back to scratching at the pad on his lap.
Searching the alley, I found a change that gave me hope. There were bird tracks in the dry dirt of the window box.
Pigeon prints. A sign from Gerald Santa Pigeon.
I began to snap pictures. While checking the quality of my first few shots, I became aware of a sniffing sound. As far as I could tell, there was no one else in the alley. Slowly treading the area and pausing to listen, I cautiously traced a series of rapid, determined, and strong inhalations followed by quick blasts of exhalation to a specific area of the equation on the wall. Scratched into the brick, darkened to deep black abrasions, were a group of triangles, circles, numbers, and odd squiggles surrounding a two-inch long outline of a four-legged creature. The central symbol had feather-like ridges along its back and a star perched on the tip of its snout.
I tipped my ear to the wall and listened to the snorting. The sounds receded, then grew louder as if they were moving away and returning, reminding me of an animal searching for, and backtracking on, an earlier scent.
Listening until the gusty breaths faded, I finished photographing the surroundings and went around front to try and open the door to the alley house. I probed and pounded and tried to duplicate my body and hand positions of the day it had opened for me. Putting my head to the window glass, I bargained and begged for the mansion’s mysterious inhabitants to let me in on their secret. Finally tiring, in a show of resigned frustration, I whispered Mister Little’s magic word, “Abracadabra.”
Instantly, I sensed, but couldn’t distinguish, details of a rapid-flashing series of images in my mind. The mental slideshow was an incomprehensible dream-language as if spoken by wild jungles and sandy beaches and the people and animals that inhabited them. My wrist tingled where Amelia had touched me, and I felt she and the alley had just filled me with clues and instructions and stories to decipher—puzzles to guide my steps.
A small group of people had joined Teresa and Lola. Ham was there, plucking bits of grass while he talked to a woman who had her back turned to me. I knew her hair and shape and energy immediately. Maureen. Three other guys, eyes red and drooping, lounged with them.
When I approached, Teresa greeted me happily.
Lola said, “Oh, a magic man.” Teresa’s expression momentarily faltered but returned as she patted Lola on the knee.
Maureen tucked her head to one side and smiled, drew out a long exclamation of my name in a welcome that was not unfriendly nor expectant, but curious.
After saying hi and sitting myself down next to Maureen, we talked about what we’d been doing lately. I invited her to my art show and she filled me in about her school studies. We didn’t mention FBI agents, Lola’s perfect ring-toss, or sex on LSD. After pumping me for every word I could remember about the letter Greg had sent me, she fervently relayed the schedule of upcoming anti-war demonstrations to the group.
I liked the way Teresa and Lola looked together, both radiant with light casting halos through loose strands of their hair. I pulled out the camera and took a picture of them.
I handed the Polaroid to Lola.
“It’s like liquid patterns of light turned solid. Look...” She started laughing, held the picture for Teresa to share, excited about what she had just discovered. “It’s us, look.” She giggled and signaled Maureen to join them. Maureen shifted over to Lola’s side.
“Do it again, magic man.”
I aimed and clicked and handed her the photo.
She studied it as the rest of us talked for awhile. Ham told me he was going to do some graduate work at the Rhode Island School of Design in the fall, and I told him I still had to frame about sixteen pictures for my show. Maureen and Teresa were talking, politely exploring one another.
I took a picture of the three stoned guys. They passed it between themselves excitedly.
“Man, that dude looks really zonked.” The speaker pointed at the image of himself.
“I mean, like wow, check out that crazy guy.” The trio burst out laughing.
“We should smoke some shit with these cats someday.”
“They look like they’ve been doing some heavy stuff, man.”
Maureen, who didn’t do drugs, gave me a flicker of a thin smile, said she would stay with Lola, see her home.
When Teresa and I stood up to leave, Lola handed me the picture of the three women, saying, “Sometimes the future gets in the way of the past.”
I had no idea what she was talking about.
As we walked home, I told Teresa about the sounds I heard in the alley.
“Was it a dog? Could it have come from inside the house?” She asked.
“Hmm, I thought it was the equation itself.”
Chapter 47
Teresa laid out the new photographs of the alley next to the old ones on the living room floor. When I started shuffling them around, she clipped the corners of the most recent ones with scissors so as to distinguish them. I searched for the section where the sniffing sound had come from and found the two sets matched. After scrutinizing the equations over and over for about an hour, we concluded there were no visible changes.
“Do you think the differences you’ve sensed lately are physical, or could they be subtle sounds or smells?”
“The smell has always varied, and I’ve heard rumbling like thunder before but never heard the sniffer until today. No, I think it’s something on the edge of my perception, some small detail.”
I went outside to begin work on my frames while she sat on the floor with a magnifying glass up to her eye, examining the photos once again.
After cutting planks behind the store, I carried them up to the apartment where I re-measured drawings for the fine tuning of my framing.
Teresa was lying on the floor with three photographs in front of her.
“Don’t get hung up on that. It’ll drive you nuts. One of us has got to stay sane.”
She replied without looking up. “I’ve found something.”
“What? Where?” I dropped to my knees next to her.
“Look at this old picture of the window box.” She shoved a close-up of a decorative painted side in front of me. Winged fish, some with monkeys riding on them, flew above hills at the foot of a mountain. Details were difficult to make out beneath the chips, crackled glaze, and stains of the old, worn ceramic.
“Yeah, okay. This is from the time I found Jenny’s jump-rope laying inside it. See, you can see part of the rope.”
“Look above the hilly part. Count the monkeys on the fish.”
“Okay. One, two, three, hmm, let’s see, I count ten monkeys. Should I count the fish?”
“Not now. There are forty-six.” She handed me another shot. “This is from what you took this afternoon. Count monkeys.”
Using the magnifying glass, I studied the scene. Not seeing any obvious change, I counted. “What the... This is incredible. There’s only eight chimps.” I held up the other photo and recounted, my eyes flashing back and forth between pictures, comparing. “This is the same side, isn’t it?”
“Yes, the chipped area and that real foggy patch on the left are the same. Also, that filthy gob near the bottom looks like it blocks out a figure of some kind on both photos.”
I inspected every detail methodically. “Teresa, wow, you’re right. This is too much. What can it mean? Man, it’s actually physically changed. Two monkeys are gone, not smudged out or covered with grime. I gotta go back and see it again.”
“Okay, but not at night. It’s getting dark soon. We’ll do it tomorrow. Now look closely at the hills near the brownish spot on the lower left.”
I brought the photo closer, the magnifier focusing sharply on a thin line climbing up out of the green hills. A se
ries of smaller branches fanned upwards from its apex, reaching into the faded blue background color of the sky.
Teresa traced her finger up the figure. “It’s a tree. It’s not on the first pictures.”
I grabbed up the older photo and searched the same area. “Nothing. Do you think the new marks are a crack or a trick of the flash?”
“I don’t think so. We can check tomorrow, but I think it’s part of the design. It looks, well, too perfect, like a master craftsman capturing a swaying tree.”
“Wow. This is major. I don’t know if my head is going to blow open or what.”
“That’s not all.” She looked serious, a little scared.
“What? What’s the matter?”
“Look at the two fish that don’t have monkeys anymore.”
They were facing in the opposite direction from the photos I had taken months ago.
Teresa tucked her knees up, hugging them. She leaned her head forward, resting her chin on her knees. “Who are you? And why am I with you?”
To me, she looked like she knew the answers.
I shook my head, bewildered by her question and the impossible Polaroids. “We’re just us.”
We sat quietly. She never took her eyes off me, waiting for my opinion on what she had discovered.
“Here’s another thing about it all. When I was leaving, I tried the front door of the mansion like I always do. Couldn’t get in though, so I said, ‘Abracadabra,’ like a last-ditch prayer to open doors. Got it mixed up with ‘Open Sesame,’ I guess. Man, a flood of images poured into my head, and I felt a tingling sensation on my wrist where Amelia touched me once, like she did with Dylan before I went up to Boston. I felt like I was being given a path of information, events, whatever. Something to unravel.”
Mayhem (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 1) Page 23
