Born to Die, page 19
I can tell Jenner’s the source of the obstruction. She’s keeping me isolated from the Gossamer. Only showing me what she wants me to see for now.
It makes me wonder what else she’s keeping from me, but I’m not haunted by jakes anymore. Not hide nor hair. If only she had been there my whole life.
Reassigned after the explosion, she has been handling business from parts unknown.
But I’m trying to learn from her. She won’t tell me what happened to Dwayne or Val. If Harrison is in a test tube. If Olivia got away from Margot. She just chats about the past and shows me a little more of a new world every day.
And I’m trying to pay attention.
With my eyes closed, I can almost see into the darkness below the world. Follow the Gossamer to wherever it leads.
Eventually, I will be able to see past her boundaries. See where we are. Jump in and swim on instinct. Maybe then I can escape.
Chapter Two
I’m taking what she calls an ice bath. She opens a hole in the Gossamer — not like me, where I just pulled and tore and unraveled, but by spreading the weave apart until there is sufficient space to pass.
An elegant method of entry that doesn’t leave an ugly wound that needs to be repaired later. Especially if one doesn’t know how to make that repair. I just can’t see exactly how she’s doing it.
It’s like cutting into the water with pointed toes instead of belly-flopping, but only if you can figure out how to jump.
As I flow into it, the weave closes against me, and I slow. Creeping down until it surrounds my shoulders. Bitter cold. There’s pressure, but it’s not physical. I can get a deep breath, but shrugging is the limit of my mobility.
It’s more of a mental pressure. A psychic weight. A general strain, like being in a loud restaurant and trying to pick out individual conversations.
I take a deep breath and send myself up. A vague sense of rising, and the Gossamer is once again under me. Messenger Tide flows away from me in a reeking flood. Spectral steam rises to cloud my vision.
The heat that replaces the cold feels bitter and biting before it floods me with warmth, like a double shot of rye.
My abs contract against the revolting aroma. Even after smelling it over and over, it’s still repulsive.
The day I get used to it is the day I start liking Spam.
The funk of the gunk in the tin can stunk like the ride on the tide of the messenger’s junk.
I throw my head back and laugh at that one, and Grace looks at me with amusement. I’m not certain she can’t read my mind right now, but you never know.
Grind pushes off the wall in surprise. Uncrosses his bulging arms. Holds his bowling ball fists up like a pugilist from the thirties.
I flap my hand at him as I sit on the edge of my bed. “Calm down, Grinder. It’s just little ol’ me.”
Instead of hearing it, I feel his growl through the soles of my feet. He’s a jake, for sure. But he’s her jake.
I reach for the nightstand. A thin aluminum ashtray and a single cigarette. My reward for the day. What a good boy I am.
My perspective has been nothing but what I can see in this room. About eleven feet on a side. White ceiling and walls. Taupe carpet. Knock-down furniture covered in wood-look vinyl.
Twin bed set. Chair and side table.
A stainless steel bathroom is behind a sliding curtain. Canvas with a southwest pattern woven into it. No mirror. Not even a sheet of polished metal bolted to the wall.
A tiny window over my bed right under the ceiling gives me a slice of the sky. Today it’s a soft blue. Fluffy clouds.
I sigh.
She leans back. “What is it?”
I light the cigarette with the single match. I strike it off my thumbnail, and it makes me feel cool. Like every time I do it. I breathe deep and blow the smoke up toward the ceiling.
The air handlers in this room are amazing. Dead silent fans pull the smoke up faster than I can exhale.
I shrug. “This again?”
“What again?”
I work the pillow into the small of my back and lean against the wall. “You know. I ask a bunch of stuff, and you tell me dick. I can only watch old movies in my mind so much before needing a new release.”
She crosses her arms. Tips her head back and stares down her nose at me. I hate that she looks so much like my mom. I fight the trust every time I look at her.
“I have told you quite a bit, Casey.”
I take a puff. “Nothing important.”
She draws back as if offended. “Nothing important? I have told you everything.”
I laugh out a billow of smoke. “Your life story ain’t everything.”
Her laugh sounds just like mine. “I have not been telling you my life story. I have been telling you yours.”
Not an answer I’m looking for. I’d like to avoid introspection if you please. I never like what I find when I go down that path. I blurt the first question that rises to my lips. “Where’s Val?”
She narrows her eyes. “The girl?”
I squint right back. “Yes, the girl.”
She stares into my eyes, and I feel like her gaze pushes against me. Like a hot breeze cooling the sweat from my forehead. “I am curious.”
I roll my eyes. “That makes two of us. Curious about what?”
“Your body follows the rules of the plane in which it manifested. Would it follow them as closely as that?”
I watch her through the smoke snatched away by the filters. Every conversation with her is like digging for treasure that only yields pyrite. “As closely as what?” I shout. The sudden volume makes me wince. I cover it with another drag.
She spreads her hands. “Do you think you could be viable with a real human?”
“Viable? You mean, can we do it? Knock boots? Bump uglies? Do the dance of the dirty frog?”
Just a lift of her eyebrow, but it feels like a lecture. “Do not be so vulgar. I am talking about biology. Compatibility. Fertility. Insemination.” She folds her hands on her lap and leans forward.
I stub the butt out and give her a disapproving look. “Don’t be so genteel.”
She shakes her head. “Casey, I do not think there is a future love for you. I am being plain.”
“A plain bitch,” I say.
Grind bares his teeth. She raises one hand, and he settles back. “How do you think you could live?”
“I don’t know. Happily ever after?”
“Like Harrison and Olivia?”
That’s exactly what I was thinking, but then my thoughts take a turn. It was really Nestor and Olivia. I saw Val stand up after her uncle … healed her? I don’t think that’s right. I think he made her. Created a new version of her that wasn’t dead. Crazy and hopeful, and I push forward, and my mouth almost runs past the point of no return. “But what if she’s—”
I close my mouth so fast, my teeth snap together.
She tips her head. Like a dog listening to a distant siren. “Go on.”
I shrug. “What if she’s not that choosy?”
“That is not what you were going to say.”
I realize she doesn’t know. About what Nestor did to Val. About what happened to Crank. Or does she? I was going to ask if Val was now a jake like me.
She smiles. Crosses her legs and leans over her thigh. “What do you think has been happening here? You just sit here in the dark and feel sorry for yourself, and that is the limit of our concern for you? To watch you masturbate in the dark?”
I didn’t know they could see me. Should have figured that was coming.
“Casey, they are all here. The psychic and her jake husband. The daughter of incest. The creator of the carnival. The child’s toy that anchors you to reality.”
She stands, and it seems like she grows. The light darkens. The walls are a dirty gray.
Blood seeps out of the corners. Wells along the bottom edges of the baseboards.
Grind squares up behind her and throws his head back. Mouth gaping, he howls.
My balls make a hasty retreat up inside me.
Grace takes a step toward me, and it is all I can do to continue to face her. “You have learned, but there is much more you need to do. You hold them here. You are now their anchor, and now that I have you back, I will never let you go again.”
Grind reappears with his back to the clean white walls. Boredom in his smile. The blood is gone. The light has returned.
My balls are still hiding.
I wonder what she means by letting me go again. Then I see Missy Hide’s fuzzy face in my mind. A question in the knitted lines of her expression. How could I have forgotten about her?
Grace straightens, and her face is still. Pale and drawn. “I do not care what you know or think. What you feel. You are not here for you or them. You are here for me. It wasn’t the Gossamer that made you, Casey. It was I.”
She smooths the front of her jacket. Takes a calming breath. “There is more going on here than you know. More at stake than you can possibly imagine. I invite you to think on that.”
I should keep my mouth shut. I really should, but I lift my middle finger instead. “Think on that, bitch.”
I’m disappointed when she only gives a sad little shake of her head. Turns with a beleaguered sigh. Grind sniffs at me as he follows her out of my cell.
It takes me several minutes to realize they haven’t shut the door behind them.
Chapter Three
I can see the wall on the other side of the hallway outside my door. I don’t walk over to look at whatever might be out there.
I just sit.
I hear occasional noise. Like slinky movement. The settling of the facility. A soft whisper.
Jakes are often found in the quiet moments. Between calming breaths. Right after a slow blink. In the dark on the cusp of sleep.
It’s been a while since I’ve really seen them. I’ve always wished for them to go the fuck away, and now that they have, I wonder where they’ve gone.
Like an absent father, they went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back. I’m still standing on the front porch with my empty baseball glove.
Puberty was bad. I remember the aggression. The raw emotions that were out of my control. Hate and self-pity. Pining angst. My jakes took the form of women back then.
Rotting hookers and witches and hot cheerleaders with missing faces. Empty skulls hollowed out and glistening with clotted blood. And they always showed up when I was in the bathroom. Showering or taking a piss. Or reaching down for a tug.
I could feel fingers caress my bare chest as I closed my eyes for the night. A lick on my earlobe. I knew if I opened my eyes, I would see an overeater in a gimp suit with glowing lava dripping from her nipples. Or a zombie chick with a vagina that split open all the way up to her breastbone. Squirming worms inside. Falling onto my legs in wet clumps.
So I tried to keep my eyes closed. Clamping down until my jaws ached.
Pressure on my knees. Heat on my crotch. I pressed my legs together. Made fists and held my breath. I had to deny entry.
My mother would always retreat at these moments. She wanted to protect me. Wanted me to be free of the curse, but in the face of such a wave of inexorable torture, it was hide or get swept under.
Acid breath against my cheek. Frustrated growls and shouts of monsters that would have their say.
I was living on an hour of fitful sleep a night by the time my beard came in. A case of Busch Light and a fifth of vodka a day.
I became such a shambling husk of mania and exhaustion. It was like the jakes didn’t want to have anything to do with me anymore. Like they were embarrassed to be seen with me. Just stinking up the place.
I passed through the hormones into relative calm. Like neither one of us had the energy for that shit anymore. Those were some long nights.
This one didn’t last near long enough, though. The little window darkened as I sat frozen with indecision. Caught up in memory. Sat there for hours.
The bottom edges of the glass brighten. Covers the whole thing in a hazy glare as the sun rises.
I wonder why my back hurts so much. I’m not actually made up of blood and bone, am I? I’m just thought. Light and energy. I haven’t brushed my teeth since I’ve been here, but I haven’t eaten either. Haven’t even thought about food.
Just booze. I could use another cigarette too.
I shake my head at myself. If I just say my aches are gone — that I don’t have cavities and my breath doesn’t smell, and the nightly terror sweats don’t make me stink like a rotten grapefruit — will it just be that way?
If I believe it, can I achieve it?
Nope. I have to stretch to get the pain to subside. Stomp my feet to get the feeling back. Grace said I follow the rules. I’m not sure how I picked which ones, cuz some just don’t seem to stick.
I really want a drink.
I become aware of a persistent sound. Like static. Or distant rain. I smell bacon, and my stomach rumbles.
So I am hungry. Another rule I didn’t know I was going to follow.
The aroma decides it for me. So much for not thinking of food. Like Pepé Le Pew following the scent of his next conquest, I rise from the bed with my nose lifted up toward the ceiling. Only — unlike him — my feet are planted on the ground. Another rule, I guess.
Nostrils flare, and I take a deep breath. Like the sweet heat of a bourbon bottle or when you first open the coffee bag. Pure bliss.
I step through the door without caution. The hallway ends immediately to my right. Another door like mine, but instead of a number painted above it — 17 — there’s a graphic depicting a set of stairs. I can’t tell if they go up or down.
To the left, the hallway ends about ten or fifteen feet away. Opens into a room full of light. The sizzle of bacon and tuneless humming barely audible from this distance.
The scrape of a spatula against the edge of the pan, and the sizzling dies down. The humming becomes a song. Right at the edge of understanding. I almost know it.
I decide to go find out what it is.
The light comes from a break room. Maybe twenty by fifteen. Three cafeteria-style tables. Plastic chairs. Brown paneling and vinyl floor.
Dark doorways on the other side of the room. A hallway in the mirror position to mine. Water fountain. A beige refrigerator next to two vending machines. One full of soda. The other packed with snacks.
A wide window set in one wall looks like the kind of thing a suspicious supervisor would sit behind to watch the workers. Or a CIA agent.
The humming is coming from around the corner of my hallway to the right. I see the edge of a set of wall cabinets. A cheap countertop. The movement of someone making breakfast.
The song hits me. “Sign in Stranger” by Steely Dan. The image of Grind standing in an apron. Cooking bacon and humming along to Donald Fagen’s sci-fi snark makes me snort laughter, and the humming stops.
The breakfast chef steps toward the opening of my hallway, and I tense to throw myself back. Harrison pops into view.
Wide grin and high eyebrows. Tongue just visible between his teeth. “Casey!”
I duck at the echo that pounds my ears, and I grin back. Wave and nod like a socially awkward nerd at a school mixer. “Hey.”
Not just a handshake this time, he lunges forward and grabs me in a fierce embrace. Squeezes and thumps my back. Pushes me to arm’s length to look at me with a critical eye. “You look good, son.”
That son sends me into a stumble. My knees loosen, and I have to catch my breath. I recover by grabbing one of his hands from my shoulders and pumping it like a stumping politician. “I feel good. I feel …”
I’m crying. Sobbing into his shoulder. He’s shushing me. Stroking my hair. Rubbing my back.
If he hadn’t called me son, I would have been okay. I could have made it. Instead, I’m snotting all over his white shirt.
He’s a figment of somebody else’s imagination, and he’s the only thing I have right now. Two unrealized thoughts holding each other in a strange break room full of the scent of bacon.
The whole world is a jake.
Chapter Four
After an agonizing and embarrassing several minutes of me unloading into his chest, he pulls me back. His grin is dialed all the way back to a sad smile. “Would you like some breakfast?”
I nod. Sniff and wipe my eyes. Hitch in shaking breaths like a child about to really get something to cry about if they don’t shut up.
He leads me to a table. Lowers me into a seat. Twirls away. He’s wearing an apron tied at the waist. Pink and ruffled. It seems fitting.
He spins back with his grin replaced to its usual radiance. Sets a full plate in front of me. Two over-easy eggs next to four strips of bacon.
Next comes the silverware. Napkin. Salt and pepper shakers. He finishes by setting a steaming cup of coffee next to the plate. Stands back with staring expectation.
I don’t remember being so ready to eat.
I tear one egg open, and the yolk runs in a thick flow. I shovel it into a glob at the end of a piece of bacon. It pools in a little cup of crispy fat.
I take a bite, and it is exquisite.
Harrison claps his hands once and turns back to the small stove set into the counter under a dented exhaust fan. I’m almost halfway through before realizing he didn’t make this for me. “I’m so sorry, Harrison. I didn’t realize—”
He spins and waves me down with a dripping spatula. I shiver with the memory of Margot burning my legs with scalding grease. “It’s no trouble. I’ve been in that room for weeks. This is the first time I’ve been out of it, and …” He trails off, and the spatula falls to his side. “I used to make breakfast for Val when she was little. Eggs and toast.”
His shoulders slump, and his head dips. He stares at a spot in front of his feet. “I would sit her on the counter next to me. Put the bread in. And every time she would push the lever down, she would snatch her hand back.” He smiles, and one eyebrow climbs up. “She blew on her fingers. Her little voice was more squeak than words. Hot hot!”
