“How you feeling today?”
I sat up. “Good, good. Finally got some sleep.”
“Oh, man, you already famous. People calling you Rip Van Winkle.”
I laughed. “How long was I out for?”
“The long count. Three days.” He waved a hand for me to follow him. “C’mon, get up now. You can stand, can’t you?”
“Yeah, yeah. I can.” I stood up, wobbled slightly.
The orderly gripped my elbow. “Whoa, steady. Takes a bit to get your sea legs. No need to go and fall over. Might clonk your head and be out for another three days. Can’t let that happen. This bed’s already reserved.”
“Where’re my clothes?”
“Let’s go visit Doc. He’ll tell you what you need to know.”
We walked down a long hallway with closed doors stretching down both walls. As I passed one door, someone began pounding on it from the other side. Then I heard a screaming that shriveled the air. “You jump, goddamn it. Jump jump jump. I’ve been jammed for years watching your gonads rot with poison. So you jump. You hear me? The dead do.”
Then another voice from the opposite door began to croon in a perfect imitation of Bing Crosby.
“Dead do do, baby, ooh, baby, the dead do do
Jump jam, ooh baby, jump for your life”
A gray-haired doctor interviewed me for fifteen minutes, asked if I understood why I had been admitted to Bellevue Hospital.
“Vaguely.”
He explained my options in case I suffered another episode, told me he wasn’t going to prescribe any medicine, shuffled through some papers, then, after murmuring doubtfully about police, he satisfied himself that I was there for sleep therapy only, had committed myself, and there were no charges against me. The doctor told me there were a few formalities that had to be cleared, and I should wait in the dayroom. The orderly handed me a bag with my clothes in it.
I played checkers with a Puerto Rican guy who had small puncture scars all over his arms. He’d push a plastic disc onto a new square, then point at one of the marks and tell me how he got the money to shoot up that particular time.
“Damn, yeah, I was hanging near that bakery across from that library on Amsterdam. Y’know, near 69th? Flitting fag leaving there with a bag of creme tarts. I grab his wallet and the fucking bag. Ate for two days.”
“Uh, uh. I just double-mugged you too. King me.”
“Shit, man.” He studied the board, then moved his red checker.
I sat back to listen to his next anecdote, knowing I had another double jump on him. He picked at a brownish-purple welt on his left forearm. “Fat lady. This was a fat lady. Man, she was huge. I told her I’d fuck her if she gives me fifty bucks.” He started to laugh. “Man, she slows down, mean fucking glare on her ugly face, y’know, and swings her purse at my head. Ha ha, her wallet and all this shit fly out all over the sidewalk. Man, why do women carry all that crap in their purses?”
The orderly took me back to the doctor’s office where I signed some papers and was informed I could leave.
The first few days back home, Teresa treated me with tender care, but I would see her staring off, something distant on her mind. She worked on her watercolors quietly during the day while I repainted the old sign above the store.
This is really...Good Stuff.
Over a meal or in the evenings she would fill me in on what I had missed while I was locked away.
“Your mom called apologizing for missing the opening, but your Aunt and Uncle showed up at their house, all freaked out that day. They had a family crisis going on. I don’t think your mom likes me, so she didn’t share much, but there’s some issue with your cousin Richard’s lawyers.” She paused, mopped a piece of bread through her spaghetti sauce. “It sounded like a money fight about the bail your dad had posted. He’s being asked to put up more for legal fees.”
I grunted, “They should lock him away. Forget a trial.”
“I told her you were exhausted and had taken a few days off, gone upstate. She said you should have come home to rest.”
“Ha, and you shouldn’t lie.”
“Oh? What am I going to say? Your son was out of his mind and attacked some interdimensional psycho at his opening. Oh, and yes, he was screaming about devils with snake tongues, so a cop and I took him to the nuthouse.”
“Hmm, okay.”
“But I will next time.” Her eyes burned through me.
“Well, next time, I’ll try to think of something that won’t freak her out.” I stuck a meatball in my mouth, swirled my fork to gather up a long string of pasta.
“So, what was up with Doctor Steel? I only got a quick glimpse of him in the chaos but noticed his eyes were like some unearthly blue ice. Brr, gives me the chills thinking about them.”
“Yeah, I wonder why he showed himself in public. That’s a new twist.”
“Makes me really uncomfortable. But I still went back to the show after you checked yourself in to see what the fallout was like. Steel had left. Daisy was really upset for you but said you sold two drawings.”
“Which ones?”
“The dog-faced Indian and the giant red frog.”
“Cool.”
“I love that frog. Wish we could’ve kept it. It looked good on that wall behind the couch. It’s kind of bare in here without it.”
Daisy called asking how I was.
“Good, good. I’m really sorry for the mess I made of the opening.”
“Yes, that was terrible, but I’m glad you’re feeling better. You can’t not sleep. I would have been happy with a smaller show. You should have talked to me about it.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Well, let me tell you some good news.”
“What?”
“You sold twelve of your pieces.”
“What? Twelve. Far out.”
“I’ve got a big fat check for you.”
“Ha, ha. I’ll be by.”
“Only two sold at the opening, but the Times art review said you were a technical wizard whose intensely detailed illustrations, I’m quoting now, can haunt, charm, and terrify the viewer with an absurd reality like no other since Bosch.” She laughed. “Bosch, my god, that was five, six hundred years ago. Anyway, the next day people poured into the gallery. I think you’ll sell everything by the month’s end.”
“Not Teresa’s portrait. That didn’t sell, did it?”
“We had it listed, Deets. Yes, it sold.”
“To who?”
“Deets, it wasn’t to that man who you had the altercation with. He didn’t buy anything.”
“Okay, that’s all right then... I guess.”
Teresa and I celebrated and threw a party for our friends. Phuong was quiet and pensive while Chang, who had dropped acid the night before, kept asking everyone if they had noticed the sun had set three times that day. Ham spent the evening talking with me, uncharacteristically raving about my work.
“Illustrations, I don’t believe it. Who ever gave a hoot about colored pencil drawings? Man, you get a review like that, skipping from Bosch to Parker, no mention of Dali, Escher, or any other surrealists. Man, I’m dumbfounded, absolutely ass-licking dumbfounded in the presence of royalty.”
Rebecca drank too much, and her left tit kept popping out of her blouse. Sam came dressed as a man. Coat and tie. She asked me about my brief stint in Bellevue as I passed a joint to her.
“I slept and then played checkers. I don’t even know if I dreamed anything.”
Later, I was in the kitchen when Sam came up behind me and wrapped her arms around me. She didn’t say a word, just lay her head against my back and rubbed my chest softly. At first, I felt a bit confused by her approach, but then I remembered she had been in a mental hospital also. I put one hand over hers to acknowledge her caring and to fall i
nto rhythm with her sadness. We swayed slightly to a music that haunts only the trapped and the caught, listening to the lost song in each other’s heart.
I felt a hand rest on my cheek, and my eyes opened, the entrancement lifted. Teresa stood before me, caressing my face. Tears brimmed in her wonderful eyes.
“You two look so sweet.” And she left us alone.
That night after everyone left, I went up on the rooftop and looked out over the city. Late—so, so late—yet lights glared, haze defiantly blocked the stars, machines roared, motors thrummed, metallic sounds crashed through the maze of streets, never able to escape. The air tasted oily. Cement and glass pressed way too close, invading my skin, crushing up against my heart.
Suddenly my mind leaped, soaring above the ever-present chaos, taking me away from my recent art successes and my nervous breakdown to a place where, in perfect clarity, all the city’s thoughts and prayers and dreams lay before me. Highlighted by a prominent luminescence among them, I recognized Teresa’s snow-tipped mountain.
This must be how angels or gods see.
Chapter 52
The prosecutor from Luzerne county in Pennsylvania called the store one morning when I was taking my turn behind the counter. He told me Gus and Drake were pleading not guilty to attempted rape and other assorted charges against them. He scoffed at the defense’s position of emphasizing that Miss Little had invited the two defendants into the cabin, and I had attacked them. The lawyers for the Pocono bastards would try to portray us as characters with no moral decency and would probably be sending investigators to poke around into our lifestyle. He wanted to meet with Teresa and myself and would be in New York the following week.
What a hassle this trial’s going to be.
Before I hung up, I remembered the sheriff’s words to me about my good fortune to get lost in the woods. Whenever I reflected on fate and destiny, I thought of the sheriff’s comment illustrating how a seemingly random action could simultaneously have great purpose.
“Say hi to the sheriff for me.”
“Oh, let’s see, you must be referring to Sheriff Bidwell.”
“Yeah, yeah. Older gentleman, large chested. Y’know, the chief officer that handled the investigation.”
“Well, Mister Parker. That’s a thorn in our side. Shouldn’t be, but it is.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bidwell was forced to resign. It didn’t go over too well with the public when the story got out that he let you and Miss Little stay in the same motel room. The uproar started to interfere with the facts of the case. It played right into the defense’s attack on your morality. We’ve patched it up best we can. And hopefully the focus of the media will get back on track.”
“He got fired?” Thought became thick and foggy. I held out the receiver and stared at it, incredulous.
I heard a “Hello, hello”, then a click and didn’t know if I had hung up on him or him on me.
Not forty-five minutes later I was telling Teresa about the phone conversation when an assistant district attorney from Cambridge, Massachusetts called.
I wondered if some bizarre practical joke was taking place.
After introducing himself, he cleared his throat and coughed. “Sorry, darn summer cold. Mister Parker, your name has come up in a case we’re taking to trial. I’m sure you’re aware that your cousin Richard Parker is charged with the attempted murder of Elizabeth Polczewski.”
He asked me about my relationship with Betsy and Richard and to explain why I had mentioned my suspicions about Richard to Detective Renkins. We went back and forth, me answering his questions until he seemed satisfied.
“The trial is set for November. It’s likely you’ll receive a subpoena to testify.”
“Uh, okay. Man, what a day.”
“What’s that?” He exploded with a hacking cough. “I have to do something about this cold.”
“I always take honey and lemon. Listen, do you know how Betsy is doing?”
“Remarkable, absolutely unbelievable progress. She’s at home now, still in a wheel chair, and her memory’s hazy, but she’s charming and friendly. I met her a few weeks ago. Very witty. There was a news story about her about two months ago on television.”
“Oh really, I don’t have a TV, so—.”
“I think just local stations carried it.”
“Was it about the attack on her?”
“Oh no, nothing like that. More about how she recovered from being a practically brain-dead patient to being a happy and intelligent young woman again. The experience she’s gone through is so uplifting. Apparently most of the people involved believe it’s a miracle.”
“Really?”
“They interviewed priests, doctors, and her parents. She was in a rehabilitation hospital in New Hampshire when a visitor gave her a stuffed toy bear—a little panda—well actually, two of them. There was a nun in the room who said Betsy’s response was immediate. She hadn’t moved or spoken for more than a month, and suddenly she was hugging that toy. And talking. It was all very inspiring. The director of the hospital called it The Miracle of Saint Rose’s Pandas.”
“Saint Rose’s pandas?”
“Yes, it makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it really does.”
It makes me wonder what other news I’ll hear the next time the phone rings.
The summer went on, strangeness went on.
All of my drawings had sold at the show, and I received an invitation to a formal cocktail party attended by wealthy people who enthusiastically talked of collecting and buying art. The woman who had wanted me to draw her in the nude was there and cornered me, bumping her tits against my arm while asking what inspired me to draw such satanic imagery. Another invite was to a well-known painter’s house where everybody smoked marijuana and spoke of the cultural events happening locally. Andy Warhol sent me a note congratulating me on my exhibit. Daisy told me he had breezed through the HooDoo with a woman in an orange jumpsuit totally covered in metallic fishhooks. I declined an interview with a psychiatrist who wanted to reproduce some of my work for a slide presentation for a course he taught at Columbia University.
Teresa and I went page by page through our sex book, thoroughly enjoying educating ourselves. Diagram 54, Chapter Eleven was dog-eared, and one of us would approach the other, eyes aflame and say, “I think I need to do 54 again. I’m not sure I got it right.” And we’d both start panting and roll into bed.
We scored a block of hashish and shut the store down, forgot who everyone was, and lived naked for three days—smoking, sleeping, talking, drawing, playing in bed, and dissolving into the psychedelic music of the Beatle’s Revolver album.
I learned how to play a few songs on the guitar, and Sam would accompany me, singing an incredible rendition of “Do You Believe in Magic” whenever we smoked dope together. Rebecca dropped acid for about a week straight and was fired from her job. Chang quit one band and joined another that toured the East Coast. Ham tried a colored pencil drawing and was hyped at the results. Phuong began to work in the store part-time even though she traveled out of town every two weeks. We all listened to Dylan’s new Blonde on Blonde double album over and over as we discovered ourselves in his lyrics.
Doctor Steel lay low, Mister Pigeon still remained invisible, and Amelia and Jenny must have locked themselves inside the building at Monster Alley. I passed the alley from time to time, going directly to the window box, counting monkeys and fish, looking for changes. Then I would slowly look around, taking in the details, scratching my head as I studied the equation one more time. Always during the day though. Always.
Chapter 53
One afternoon, I was leaving Phuong’s apartment after feeding her cat while she was away. I had hung around smoking a joint, wondering if Phuong wore skimpy silk underwear, but didn’t investigate. When I yelled out
goodbye to Wimpy the cat, I heard a slight rattle of the doorknob, then a quick thump of footsteps going down the stairs. On the landing below, I passed a man and slowed my pace, staring at his profile as he knocked on a door.
“Anybody home?” He turned his back to me and pulled the peak of his baseball cap down. “It’s me, are you there?”
Goddamn, that’s Agent Orville. Still wearing the same fake beard.
My mouth was about to spit out some caustic remark when I caught myself.
This ain’t right. I bet he’s not visiting the two homosexuals that live in that pad. The sound at the door and the footsteps—that was him. What’s he tailing me for? No, he’s caught off guard. He didn’t know I was here. Phuong, it’s about Phuong.
I remembered my strong impression on the train back from DC that Phuong was hiding a secret.
When I hit the street, I nonchalantly lit up a Kool and sat on the stoop. My eyes roved up and down the block. There were a few cars parked on the tree-lined street. A dark green Impala looked suspiciously familiar. Tree shade cast a tiger-striped pattern onto the silvery reflections on the front window of the car, making it impossible for me to see if anyone was in it.
About three minutes later, a pair of flawlessly polished black shoes stepped past me. I kept my head ducked, cigarette dangling in my fingers, feigning indifference. I snuck a glance, as I stubbed out my Kool, in time to see Orville climb into the passenger side of the parked Chevrolet.
I pushed back my chair and propped my drawing board up. My latest drawing was of my guitar, but with fantastic creatures portrayed as an inlaid pearl decorative pattern. Staring and analyzing, I knew I was done with it for the night. I rubbed my eyes, checked the time. Eleven. Teresa was out partying with Rebecca and Sam and a former high school boyfriend. She wouldn’t be back for hours.
I couldn’t get Orville’s newest escapade out of my mind. I had no doubt his jiggling Phuong’s door knob had been an attempt to break into her place, and my unexpected presence spoiled his scheme. Had he gone back? Phuong wasn’t due home for another two days. I had to let her know the FBI was snooping around her building. What was she up to that aroused their suspicions? Did it matter? She was my friend.
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