14
The next few hours were restful for me; I finally found myself easing awake, feeling refreshed on many different levels. Luckily, I awoke before the Ava lying in bed next to me had. This was a safe outcome, for I knew she was the pop-up of the truly existing Ava. It was raining outside, and distant thunder answered flickers of light from the clouds outside, which may have been what had woken me up. The bedroom was not totally dark; there was enough reflected light for me to see her sleeping right next to me. At first I thought that there was sleep in my eyes, because she was a bit of a blur. I rubbed my eyes hard to clear them and looked again. She was still blurry. Inspecting her closely, I was able to determine that the blurring effect was a slight shifting of her face, over and over, back and forth. I watched her chest, and to my amazement I saw it rise simultaneously with another image of it collapsing. I was watching inspiration and expiration at the same time. I was watching two different Avas in the same space!
I snapped my head back to a supine position, my eyes fixed on the ceiling, unblinking. I was caught in mid-slide, and I didn’t know what the hell to do. You can burn a lot of calories when you panic without moving. You can feel them melting away. I sweated.
Slowly and smoothly, certainly so as not to jostle the bed, I turned my head back toward her, toward them. The phenomenon persisted, and I continued to lose weight. The weird presentation was most pronounced in her chest, where the most movement was. A flash of lightning made the double exposure crystal clear to me, and I noticed that there was a narrowing in the chase of the thunder’s timing. I slowly rolled my eyes over to look her in her face again, which was tilted on her pillow my way. Still the blur. I studied her closely and could finally make out the two Avas distinctly.
Suddenly one of them opened her eyes wide at me! That look that screamed at me was either rage or fear, I couldn’t tell; so I couldn’t really tell which Ava was awake. These wild eyes burned into my own retinas as a particularly bright flash of lightning lit them up like burning coals. The thunder crashed almost simultaneously as I jumped right out of the bed, making much too much noise myself. I quickly sat upright by the side of the bed and looked again. There she was, sleeping soundly, in the crisp focus of singular identity.
It seemed I had solidly landed, no longer in the nether-world of that eerie phantom zone. I just didn’t know which Ava I was dealt. At least those big eyes was safely tucked away in the history of former layers. I surely couldn’t withstand their mixed message again. And even though I realized that I still probably had the pretty nasty one right here—that the closed, resting eyes were a false assurance—still I was relieved that, friend or foe, she was also safely tucked in, right in her own bed, fast asleep. I prayed for a pause in the weather.
I sat still for a moment, my knees flexed, my ankles digging into my behind. My hands were clasped together on my belly. My nose was running and I sniffed into myself to try to dry it. My nightshirt felt wet. I lifted my hand to my nose to smell, to gain a clue as to the source of the moisture. At first I thought that I was just that sweaty with all of the recent frights. Then I became disgusted at the prospect that I might have urinated on myself during the mêlée that I had experienced before coming back down into my body. The odor was not of urea, though; it was nevertheless unmistakable. There was something terribly wrong here, and I did not feel secure in this dampness.
There was the dim light from the bathroom that gave enough illumination into the bedroom for me to see, to my horror, that I was covered in blood, actively coming from my nose and from my knuckles and limbs. I snuck away from the bed, the soles of my feet also wet and slightly sticky, leaving red footprints as I walked. I went into the bathroom and closed the door, leaving that Ava-type person sleeping in the resulting darkness. After short consideration, I locked the door by clicking in the brass doorknob. Alone in this bathroom, behind the closed door, I slowly pivoted around, using the thrust of my hand against the locked doorknob to do so. Turning around, facing the mirror, I suddenly went limp with helplessness when the next flash of lightning coincided exactly with the thunderclap. This is when I saw the monster.
It was a ghoulish apparition staring right back at me. I felt disarmed and vulnerable. I exhaled a burst of silent horror as the fiend looked back at me, giving the same open-mouthed expression to me that I was giving to it. Almost immediately I realized that it was me looking like hell, black and blue, bloody and swollen, in the reflection. This mirror was part of the mounted medicine cabinet that had drifted partially open to face any intruder, my reflection thereby hitting me broadside.
It was the moment of terror everyone has after having been spooked by a scary movie—seeing something in a mirror other than what is expected. So strange it is that the mirror is such a feared object after we get spooked by a frightening book or film or other medium. It always has been for me, and I don’t know why.
It is as if the thing we fear the most is what would be seen the unrecognizable that comes from ourselves.
I turned on the faucet and washed the fresh blood off of my face, as well as the crusted, flaking blood from my arms and chest. The rain seemed to be pouring even more heavily now. I turned off the light so as not to streak the bedroom with a shaft of brightness when I opened the door. My heart jumped in my throat when the opening door tried to announce me with a loud creak. I stopped its swing and peaked to see this Ava, fortunately, unstirred. After all, I reassured myself, she was sleeping fairly well through all of this thunder.
I squeezed out through the limited space the partly opened door afforded and entered a walk-in closet and closed its door silently behind me. I could still taste blood, but this was dripping from my nose down to my throat, and so my face remained dry for now.
I dressed with fresh clothing. My selections clashed, but so what? Within moments I had successfully negotiated my way to the table in the kitchen without violating any more night stillness. The rain continued, but now the lightning and thunder were once again distantly separated events, gently accenting the background of the downpour. I read the chart.
Still unchanged; at least in the crucial parts regarding my Abby. I sat and concentrated.
And then I slid.
I don’t know if the out-of-body experience is what gave me the impetus or what, but this time I noticed a difference in the chart! There were some subtle changes in diction, the syntax was jumbled at times—I had slid successfully! I was once again moving by my own power, and no longer only at the whim of magnets and out-of-body fist fights. I slid over and over until the chart finally read what I had wanted:
“Patient pregnant, being seen as out-patient; living at Roe vs. Wade Home for Unwed Mothers.”
I considered the paradox of her residence with befuddled amusement as I confiscated the car keys that hung so approachably in the cupboard.
I darted for the door. As often as I had dreamt of tearing off in Ava’s Piranha, I had realized that I’d know just when that time would be—and this was definitely the time. I popped out of the side door of the house that opened into the carport where the red and brown sports car sat, hopefully the battery still at the ready. Four doors in a “sports car,” I thought; some racy. It was pretty ugly, actually, but did look fast. And heavy. It was perfect for the predatory streets of this layer, but would sink like an anvil in the Amazon where its namesake inspired its verve. Its front grille was an expected design for a car so named. Its vertical chrome shafting did look like long, slender, sharp teeth. The hood release was through this dentition, which was bound to make any serviceman a little nervous when sticking his hand into the mouth of this beast.
The rain was heavy enough to spray in through the sides of the carport. I got my back wet as I entered the car at the driver’s door. The engine began turning over so loudly I almost expected the Ava here to come running out to stop the rip-off. It strained as stale batteries often cause an engine to do, and I began to sweat when my doubts started, but luckily my frequent trips to the carport paid off as there was enough juice to finally get it started. I prudently buckled up and then pulled backward down the wet driveway. The rolling water raced me down the gentle incline toward the curb. I reversed the car into the street, and when I was in the drive straightaway I took off, occasionally spraying a curtain of water to the left or to the right as I plowed large street puddles that had been collecting for the last few hours.
My Abby awaited me; she would get her surprise tonight at the Roe vs. Wade Home for Unwed Mothers. I couldn’t wait and my driving showed it.
During my time at Ava’s, I was grateful I had at least looked around outside once in a while. And with the occasional excursion to fountain or domed stadium, I had noted vehicular protocol. I knew which side of the street to drive on from my attention to this detail, as it had been months since I had last been at the helm in traffic. In addition, there was no traffic here in which to flow this late at night, so this knowledge proved crucial.
I knew the way to the Roe vs Wade Home, because I had seen the TV commercials for it so often. It was on Esplanade Avenue, a once lovely street in bygone layers when stately mansions, the same as were characteristic of the Garden District, stood proudly, defining the street’s milieu. Now the thoroughfare was dotted with gas stations where the ghosts of the homes were, a few bars languishing among them at points. The surviving houses needed work, no longer kept up so meticulously as in nicer worlds ago. The oaks, with their draping moss, seemed their only protection now.
In the few runs out to my apartment to get things, I’d return home by asking the cab driver to take the scenic route past this street, which I had once liked even more than St. Charles Avenue. I would direct the driver to go the full distance of my former favorite until it dumped us into City Park at the Delgado Museum. From there, we’d drive down the mid-city atmosphere of City Park Avenue until we could jump on the Expressway at the foot of Canal. The Expressway of New Orleans was terrifying enough even where I had graduated summa cum laude, and for this part of the ride I just always closed my eyes. This time, I was driving, I would have to take the Expressway in full view, in pouring rain, taking that exact route backwards until Esplanade presented itself as my destination instead of my starting point.
It’s funny that as many times as I had been down the street, I had never noticed the home for unwed mothers. From the pictures on the commercials on television, which was how I was familiar with it, it had an unusual front that involved a lot of burglar bars.
It was an easy drive to the Expressway for the car but not for my mind. The mist that inundated the torrents cloaked me away from what I knew was outside. As the Piranha sliced dreamily through the inclement night air, lulled by the distant sirens of this world, it only seemed to protect me. The reality was that it announced me—made me stand out as an invader into the alien realities and machinations here. The false sense of serenity of the closed-in climate-controlled cabin was claustrophobic.
Only an occasional car was encountered, typically gaining on me rapidly from behind and then firing past me. When I was able, I tried to identify the model. One car had lettering shaped like flames along its side that said Aghasteroid. Beneath these letters it boasted “electronic cruel-injected.” Another one that flew past me quickly had a customized license plate with too many letters crammed together that read, DYING ANYWAY. I was glad to see that one go, for I knew he had nothing to lose. I never did see a posted speed limit, but felt safer breaking the minimum rather than the maximum. I went fifty-five.
An evil-looking vehicle came up on my left and then used its brakes to match my speed. It was black and had fins and spikes all over it and wore at least five differently sized antennas. I nervously looked over repeatedly but couldn’t see because all of the windows were darkened. This guy must have taken his car out of gear or played with his clutch in such a way as to rev up next to me while moving alongside. I declined the challenge by slowing down further. This was obviously annoying, for he swerved in front of me, making me hit my brakes hard to avoid a collision. He began to slow more, drawing me provocatively into his harassment. I was very panicky by this point and searched the console for a button that would signal my emergency flasher. Maybe that would work, I thought. There was still no letup in the rain, and I strained to be watchful for his brake lights ahead of me. Unable to readily identify the flasher button, I fumbled open a panel of shellacked hardwood and saw a set of hidden controls. One of them was a button labeled, AUTODIGESTION.
What did I have to lose? I figured it was only a matter of time before I got myself PincerLocked or worse, so I punched the button. It must have been important, because to do this I had to flip up a little hinged rod that lay over it, obviously designed to prevent accidental use. It was time to see what a Piranha could do. If mainstream America could afford cars with PincerLock or whatever, then I was curious to see what a car like this could muster—a car that a rich guy like the late Ralph Ebe could afford.
The message on the dashboard screen read, ARE YOU SURE? I hit it again, quite sure. By this time we were crawling on the Interstate, occasional cars whizzing past, saluting our imminent confrontation with horns. I patiently waited for autodigestion, whatever that was.
All at once I heard a grinding creak, a straining of metal against metal. Then, as I was least expecting anything like dislodging, I was stunned when the entire passenger compartment snapped upwards. My head hit the roof when this happened.
This thing was opening its jaws!
The car lurched forward on its own. I couldn’t see a thing, the top of the hood angled upward as it was. The digital tachometer faded away and a diagram of my victim appeared in the soft glow of the green monochrome screen. A schematic of the vehicle, actually depicted as moving in real time, was labeled PHASE B HADEAN AVATAR, ALUMINUM/TITANIUM: CAN BE DAMAGED, CAN BE SORRY.
Even the steering wheel went rigid as it was locked on target. I rechecked the firmness of the connections of my seat belt. Abruptly the whole front of the car clamped down. It felt like a collision, and with the hood down again I could finally see. My car was taking a bite out of his car! It must have been something for him to see, my car opening its “jaws” and then chomping down.
So, O.K., how do I disengage? I wondered. Enough was enough, and I didn’t want to miss my exit. The Piranha had other plans. Up I went again, down crashed the hood again. I was bouncing wildly as my car chattered its grille on its prey. I could hear the clanging of loose pieces of tailpipe and bumper knocking under my car as I rode over them. Up and down I repeatedly was jolted by the couple of tons of machinery that so valiantly defended me. The rumination ended as the car seemed to punch its delicacy away with a final blow not unlike spitting it out. The controls, that is, the steering and speed, were once again returned to my control. I saw the other car, the Hadean Avatar, run like hell, its tail end unable to be placed between its legs, because it was a horrible twisted mess of both shredded metal and dangling naked bulbs.
I pulled my car over to the shoulder and got out. I got soaked, but this wasn’t bothersome. I was surprised, and yes, proud to see that the ol’ Piranha had only lost a couple of teeth. I paused to reflect that it felt good, for once, to be the one doling out the beatings. I had left the motor running, because I didn’t want to take a chance on the car not re-starting. The Piranha seemed to share my pride, its running motor idling at varying speeds which gave it a growling sound.
I was back at fifty-five in no time, and a mile or so after the biting attack I took my exit. I passed the old cemeteries now—the really old ones. All of those little white houses sat unsinking on the reclaimed marsh that was New Orleans, because something as narrow as a buried casket had no chance of avoiding the eventual bobbing back up. They surrounded me as I slipped onward, now rolling down City Park Avenue toward my eventual destination of Esplanade. The rain was finally letting up enough to put my windshield wipers on an intermittent setting. I thrilled at the chance to hold my Abby again.
About a mile or so later I was deep into City Park itself, knowing I must be crazy to be there by myself at such an hour. I pressed on. There were no boogeymen, or if there were they respected my hungry vehicle. I was finally on Esplanade, moving slowly toward the river, the French Quarter coming up on my right, the lower French Quarter approaching on my left. The Roe vs Wade Home for Unwed Mothers would be soon, I hoped. It was late and I was rattled, my eyes shifting right and left to catch a glimpse of that austere building’s facade of mail that enwombed its unwed mothers. As it turned out, I didn’t need such a keen eye, because the riot pointed the place out splendidly. It was on the other side of the street. I didn’t know what was going on, but it was wild. There were hundreds of people, mostly women it seemed, jostling about with each other. There were police cars authenticating the incident, even paddy wagons. I made a U-turn at the end of the avenue, where Elysian Fields met it, crossed around the neutral ground, and approached the site by creeping along the street until the fighting got in my way. The Piranha lay perched at an angle determined by the crowd, not in any way subscribing properly to the correctly designated parking spaces.
I jumped out of the car to tell a non-pregnant woman that that was no way to treat someone who was. She was handling her rather roughly, and I hated to see it. I painfully remembered my own bruises and injuries from my fresh out-of-body experience as I saw the blows these two were dishing out. I guess any suffering I had, sufficiently hiding under my enthusiasm to scoop up my Abby, resurfaced and made me flinch over the fight in front of me. And this brawl was not the only one. There were dozens going on. But this was the one that I could stop or so I thought.
“Ladies! Ladies! Stop! C’mon, break it up,” I shouted as I made the mistake of getting between them. They both grabbed me and threw me right into the on-coming policeman.
“Oomph!” he blurted at the time of my impact. “Hey, watch it, fellah,” he said. I kept myself from falling by catching on to him. He helped me and then eased away as I caught my balance. I was somewhat beaten up myself from my rape at Ava’s, and the policeman assumed my swelling and lumps were from the issues being entertained here. “Look, you gotta stay out of it. These women’ll kill you.”
“Trouble here?” I asked.
The cop looked curiously at me. “Yea, well,” the policeman explained in good faith, “the union’s at it again.”
“Excuse me?” I asked. We both backed up a little when the mob extended for a moment toward us, then retreated back like some hostile amoeba. The policeman was in black, with one of those bullet-proof vests on his chest. He wore a helmet that hosted several skulls on it to indicate how many times he had done something apparently extreme in the line of duty in this terrible place.
“The union,” he repeated. “The abortionists’ union.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t follow,” I admitted, only half-way paying attention as I spied every pregnancy I could for signs of Abby, all the while praying she was not in this free-for-all.
“The abortionists’ union,” he said again. Just then a pop bottle flew past both of us at head level. We ducked. “See this clinic right here next to the home?” he asked, pointing to the green single-story facility where we stood curbside.
“Yes,” I answered, still searching the faces.
“Well, that’s the abortion clinic here.”
“Right here?” I asked, temporarily halting my search. “They put it right here, right next to a home for unwed mothers? That’s a bit tacky, isn’t it?”
“Actually, Mister, you’ve got it backwards. They put the home right next to the clinic, and not the other way around.”
“Who did?” I asked him, as I was still confused. Another projectile went past. We ducked again.
“The abortionists’ union did,” he answered me.
“The abortionists’ union put up a home for unwed mothers?” Now I was really baffled.
“This is a movement of the last wave of ’em who went on strike about a year ago. You know, the abortion workers wanted more benefits, went on strike; the corporation fired them, hired scabs; you know the story. Typical union fare.”
“And?”
“And their plight became a national concern, then a shit-in-the-fan movement, and now if they all ain’t getting themselves pregnant just to make a statement.”
“Abortionists? Getting pregnant just to make a protest?” I was astounded.
“Oh, sure,” said the cop. “Right-to-lifers all the way. They know the clinics hate that shit with a passion.” He paused to regard the fighting, and then he spoke again. “It’s kind of beautiful in a way. If it weren’t for abortion, these babies that’re gonna be born of these ladies here would have never been.”
Somewhere, maybe even here, this might have made sense. Thomas Greally would have been proud.
“So what’s all the fighting about? I’m looking for someone who’s pregnant.”
“Then you came to the right place. This here’s the Roe vs Wade Home for Unwed Mothers. It was put up by the national chain owned by the sympathizers for the abortionists’ union. It’s the place they put you, right here next to the clinic, when you’re protesting. Of course, you gotta be knocked up. And ya gotta need to protest.”
“And that’s why the hostilities,” I surmised.
“Sure,” he agreed. “It’s great. We break up one of these things two or three times a month.”
“But it’s almost dawn. What time did they start this?”
“Are you kidding? This’s been going on for a couple days now. It’s a good one. What’s really great is when sometimes a couple of the abortionists’ll hijack one of the knocked-ups outside on the sidewalk and drag her fightin’ and screamin’ into the clinic. And they’ll say, ‘Whoops, accidentally aborted another one.’ It’s hilarious if ya stop to think about it.” A bullet shattered the picture window of the clinic, the putty around the edges of the window still not having been razored away properly from the last installation. The policeman reflexly hit the dirt with the sound.
“Look out,” he warned as he stood back up, “it’s gettin’ pretty serious.” He stopped talking for a moment while he seemed to be looking for anyone with a gun. “And then sometimes,” he finally continued, “one of the clinic hopefuls’ll get kidnapped by the home and you never hear from her again.” He chuckled. “Not until you hear her in the beauty of natural childbirth. From up there.” He pointed up to the top of the home, three stories up, where towels were hanging out from an attic window to dry. The pregnant girl in the fight closest to us finally retreated away from her opponent and toward us. She was bleeding on her knees from where she had been pushed down. In our protection, she sat on the cement, cursing the clinic in front of her.
“Excuse me,” I said to her.
“What!” she yelled.
“Uh, I’m looking for a pregnant lady named Abby.”
“Who are you calling a lady, you life support system for a scrotum.”
“Not you, that’s for sure,” I answered angrily.
“Oh, and I suppose we, as ‘ladies,’ have to live our lives as defined by you, huh?” I could tell she was still a little upset by her fight. The policeman loved it. She continued her diatribe. “You worthless gun barrel for that ‘contribution’ fired out of you. Look at me!” she sneered, referring to her enlarged abdomen. “This is true existence—that I can do this. Not you. You’re a ghost, mere fertilizer!” She seemed satisfied that she had made everything clear to me. I considered her “true existence.”
“Ah, yes,” I taunted, “but you still can’t do that without me.”
“Oh yes I can,” she beamed.
“Well, perhaps so,” I conceded, “but you can’t have this ‘true existence’ without something from me. So you see, you need me for ‘total existence.’ There really isn’t any true existence without total existence.” And that’s when she stood up to slap me hard.
I reacted before I could think; I pushed her. “You want to be autodigested?” I threatened. Then the policeman slapped her back.
“Answer the man,” he commanded her. “Who’s that you’re looking for?” he asked me.
“Abby. Abby Bentley or Bartley or Brinkley or something like that. Or maybe even Ava or Ana.” I sure sounded stupid, and they both knew it. What name was on her chart? I asked myself.
“Yea,” she said as the cop held her elbow in that hurting way taught at police academies. “We have someone like that. She wasn’t even union, just a knock-up. She went to stay at her boyfriend’s apartment just this morning. She said she’d come back to us if the sonuvabitch ever showed up there again.” The pregnant girl eyed me up and down. “You’re him, aren’t you?” she asked, with some newly found respect. “You’re the sonuvabitch she hated.”
“Uh-oh,” murmured the officer. He feared the mob that was moving our way. We backed up farther and farther until it was obvious they were stopping to encircle Ava’s Piranha. They began rocking it back and forth attempting to roll it into the front of the clinic. The clinic supporters, the scabs, considered protecting the building with themselves, to be ready to catch the car and rock it back. They reconsidered, however, and dismissed this plan, but not all at the same time, as several got themselves pinned by the vehicle. From under the car, lying on its side on bricks and glass and them, could be heard their shouts for help.
“Forget it!” shouted one of the pregnant women. “We just aborted you!”
“I love it,” shouted the policeman. And then to me, jab in my ribs included, “Women, who can figure ’em?”
It would be a twenty minute jog to my apartment, to my Abby who was still carrying my child. I was thrilled, which distracted me from this whole insane episode. My movement was in leaps, in spite of how sore I was from my fight while out-of-body as well as between the women. I couldn’t believe I pushed that woman, I thought, as I rushed on. It was just a shove, but still I couldn’t believe I did it. Men hurting women—was I at home here? I cried.
Demoted to pedestrian status by the riot, I ran to my building. I sprinted down Decatur, crossed Canal Street, and was nearing Riverscape. I thought of the real Ava. She had been on her own, I figured, in her own mission to find her Ralph. I could feel her wishing me luck the way I wished her the same.
I continued my run. I ran faster than I’d have ever thought possible. Injured as I was from my hovering knock-down drag-out in my out-of-body experience earlier, my bruises haunted my jaunt. Before too long I had developed a definite limp, but I pressed ahead, driven by my desire for Abby, although I could have had some help from the internal combustion engine of a Piranha. Finally...finally I reached my penthouse turned condo turned apartment turned tenement turned slum. The elevators, well...forget it. Although exhausted, I ran up the stairs flight after flight. On a particular landing was a heap of human wretchedness that at one point in my travels had been Mr. Robinson, my neighbor. Father of a banker way back when, I last saw him as the homeless Mr. Robbins. Now he lay crumpled in handicaps, one-legged, apparently blind, speaking nonsense out loud to no one.
“Mr. Robbins,” I called to him, leaning over him with a hand on his shoulder. His beard was matted. His skin was more yellow than Eddie’s at the Burger Nirvana so long ago.
“Rubens. The name is Rubens,” he corrected.
“Of course. Mr. Rubens, you’re sick. Isn’t there anyone who can help you?” He smiled with his whiskered cheeks, seemingly enjoying the onset of a lucid interval.
“Just you, my boy, whoever you are,” he said, not joyful for a possible rescue, but panhandling. I felt like someone who had run over a dog in the street while late for an important appointment. Should I stop and find the owner? Should I scoop up the poor thing and carry him to the vet? Should I just run him over again so he doesn’t suffer?
But this was deterring me on my mission. Why should this be my problem? Why should his impairments be my concern? I wasn’t the one with handicaps; I had my own life to live and my own problems to deal with.
I kept going.
Guilt? That was almost completely gone by the time I had reached my apartment. I tried the key, but it didn’t fit. I tried the knob and to my relief it turned, the door easing open. The slow creak was an unwelcome announcement. As soon as I had enough of an opening, I stuck my head in as if it were the most unimportant part of my body.
It was my place, alright, even though it was different, as expected. I wondered about me, though, because the place didn’t look half bad. The plastic covers on the lamps were gone. The whole place had an art deco motif that could be considered either hideous or stylish, depending on this layer’s most recent Southern Living issue. There were no lights on, but the dawn light filtered through windows throughout the layout.
“Abby,” I called softly. There was silence. I was still standing cautiously at the doorway, halfway in, halfway out—only my head entirely poking in to look around the corners of the felt-papered foyer. I called again. Still nothing. I opened the door more, and the creaking made me very uneasy. I entered with all of me and looked around.
The foyer and den were misleading, because they presented a false first impression. The other rooms told a different story. What kind of an animal lived here? But although there were all of the signs of the beast, there wasn’t a trace of the beauty. After checking out the whole place and then checking it again, I took to the stairs, leaping over Mr. Rubens, still vegetating in his debilitation. The rest of the flights flew under me. The stair landing adverts had become even more bizarre. On one landing, the second floor I think, I just had to stop. Our favorite psychiatrist was once again well represented. He had his face in the framed ad this time. He looked like hell in the picture, sporting a five o’clock shadow and little scars at the corner of each eye—the kind drunks have from falls.
CODEPENDENCY IS AN ADDICTION, the message read. IT IS AN ADDICTION TO RELATIONSHIPS. WITHOUT HELP, THE VICTIM FACES A LIFETIME OF CRISES. IF YOU’RE IN LOVE AND YOU DON’T LIKE IT, SEE ME. IF YOU’RE IN LOVE AND YOU DO LIKE IT, WE GOTTA WONDER IF IT’S THE RIGHT LOVE FOR YOU. LEAVE THE WONDERING TO US—DEPT. OF PSYCHIATTRITION, BLOWN AWAY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL.
I was in love myself, but I’d already seen the good doctor; and now I hoped to get to see my love. I kept going, out of the stairwell and into the lobby. I didn’t even know where I was going, but I wanted to get there fast. My body ached, now stiffening up a little. Within a moment I was out of the main entrance of the building and running aimlessly out of the door. In just the few hours since the mild temperatures at Popp’s Fountain, the weather had snapped much more nippy. The frigid, stinging spray—because that is what the New Orleans winter drizzle does—pricked my entire face, erasing the musty warmth I had felt from inside my building just moments ago. Miserable weather. What really stopped me cold, though, were the four meanest Sisters in red and white I’ve ever seen.
Boy, were they pissed!
Now I don’t have to tell you what the red and the white stood for. What I didn’t understand was what they stood in my way for. After all, with Abby alive and well and pregnant, Sister Chaz and Landrum (names?) weren’t framed for Abby’s murder like yesterlayer. I had to figure that this world’s version of that scene probably hadn’t pleased them either, because they were obviously here for me. Or maybe Mr. Rubens?
“Uh, hello, Sisters,” I said nonchalantly. Not Mr. Rubens. It was me. As was their obvious talent, I was grasped by the big knuckles on these mountains of women and silently carted off to the waiting hospital ambulance. This time, as the name read, it was Blown Away Memorial Hospital for the Deprived and Depraved.
“Back to B.A.M.,” the Sister Chaz said.
“Right, Sister Chaz,” the driver responded, her name apparently sticking. So off we rolled, the driver in the front by himself, me sitting on the mounted stretcher with the four members of the Butch League around me.
“Mind if I drum up some business, Sister Chaz?” the driver asked.
“Census is low, chum,” she answered gravely.
“Arrrright,” he beamed. I dreaded what they might mean, but his purposeful swerve proved me right.
The jogger must have popped ten feet into the air, landing on his ass. The driver screeched to a halt and then burnt rubber in reverse to reach his doomed victim.
“Oh, I think it’s broke, asshole,” the runner said to the driver, supporting his right leg, puffing in pain. “What the hell? Who did this to me?” In the turmoil of being struck, tires screeching, and EMS-personnel uncertainty, he didn’t realize his rescuer was the culprit.
“Ambulances have the right of way,” the driver said to Chaz.
“First rule of filling a hospital,” Chaz said back. Then he tossed his head toward the other Sisters. “He said, ‘It’s broke, asshole.’ He thinks his asshole’s broke,” he called to them, laughing. Then he said back to his jogger, as his only apology, “Life’s tough in the big city. C’mon, I’ll help you in.”
“If I ever find the guy that clipped me, I’ll kill ’im,” said the jogger. All but Chaz snickered, and I guess it was pretty funny in a demented, sick, depraved sort of way—in a Blown Away sort of way. The driver opened the rear door of the ambulance and threw him in. He landed on his back. I knew why he was going to Blown Away; I just didn’t know why I was.
“Howdoyalike that?” said the driver, “you open the door for people and they breeze on in without so much as a thank you, like I’m a goddamn doorman.”
“Oh, here, let me help you,” I offered to the jogger. There was no similar help offered from my kidnappers.
“Oh, wow,” the jogger said, experiencing his pain out loud and using my support for mobility. “Umph.” He lifted himself onto the mounted stretcher on the other side of the ambulance.
“Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ooh, shit!” he further expounded.
“Hurts, huh?” I asked, only to get a disapproving look from my captors which made me regret my question.
“No,” he said, puffing more, “it feels good, ass-breath.”
With this, Sister Chaz popped him in the mouth. “Be a man,” she commanded.
“Room for more?” the driver asked.
“No,” answered Sister Chaz. The driver sulked but kept driving. He had a very greasy, dark-haired head. There was a plastic partition between his driver’s seat and the rest of the vehicle. This partition behind him, elsewhere clear, was opaque in a round splotchy shape of grease that was from his head resting back upon it. He rested it back now; he was a well-oiled, relaxed driver.
What a sport, I thought of Sister Chaz, who denied him any more targets: her knowing when to say when. I dared not speak another word, because I had no wish to be slapped; my life’s had more than enough slaps. Yet I wanted desperately to know just what was going on. Why did they come for me? Had she been following me ever since The Greality Tour of this layer? What was going to happen at Blown Away Memorial? Why wasn’t this broken leg patient aware that the culprit of his victimization had been this ambulance terrorist? Didn’t he see us coming? Where was Abby? And what were the mole women doing at my apartment building? A stake out?
As the jogger and I bounced along in the back of the ambulance, I became frightened. What if Ava back there was still the true exister I’d been travelling with? I surely ditched her in a hurry based on my out-of-body experience. What if she really hadn’t slid or left behind this world’s version? There were two back there, one asleep and one with crazy eyes aimed right at me. Who was who back there? And what if the out-of-body experience had been just a dream? My old famous fears again. I closed my eyes to the siren of the ambulance and to the moans of the jogger and to the stares of the good Sisters. I swayed back and forth to the turns of my transportation. The Sisters, owing to their bulk planted solidly, didn’t rock at all, even with their hands hanging loosely at their sides.
The ambulance eventually swerved with a screech into its designated space at the hospital with a perfect sudden deceleration. It was up a ramp, and the jogger and I fell back against the rear exit. The Sisterhood exited through a sliding side door, but orderlies popped open the rear door meant for me and my jogger, whereupon we tumbled out.
“Hey!” the jogger shouted. “Watch it, will ya?”
As I had expected, neither of us were treated smoothly. In fact, we were handled like airport luggage—like New Orleans International Airport luggage—all of the way to an apparent waiting area which was a six-by-six cubicle with no furniture. It’s only decoration the Blown Away plaque, its Mission Statement, the pliable credo which had changed with the slides:
GIVE US YOUR POOR SOMETIMES, YOUR RICH ALWAYS, AND YOUR EXCUSES NEVER. GIVE US YOUR UP TIGHT, OUT OF SIGHT, AND IN THE GROOVE—WE’LL TAKE CARE OF THEM, ALRIGHT.
We both slumped to the floor, he because his bad leg yielded, I from a little sigh that snowballed into a sudden depressive hopelessness. For the longest time we just looked at each other. Finally, I tried to break the ice.
“Gee, I hope it’s not hurt too bad.”
“Fuck you!” he said back. This was very thick ice. This was solid nitrogen.
“Oh, yea?” I said back, “well fuck you, too, O.K.?”
“You’re looking to start some trouble?” he asked, mindless of his own trouble.
“I guess,” I surmised, “that you’re just going to walk on over to me and show me what for.”
“You bastard!” he said and started chasing me around the small square footage of yellowed linoleum by dragging his rear end after me. The wear on the tiles impressed me. How many other rear ends had buffed this floor? His was certainly doing a good job, that part of his anatomy in hot pursuit of me. If it hadn’t involved me, this would’ve made for great comedy, I felt, realizing that some asshole was chasing me. Still, it wouldn’t be funny if he caught me—he might try to bite my thigh or something.
“Aw, c’mon, guy, you should be mad at the driver, not me.”
“I’m just mad,” he said, “and you’re here. And I’m hurting,” he puffed, “and as long as I’m hurting and you’re here, and I’m mad…” he puffed some more.
“...then you’re going to trounce me. Bravo,” I said, still prancing evasively. Suddenly, he stopped to catch his breath.
“Do you know that the ambulance driver was the guy—that he swerved out of his way to get you?” I asked him.
“I’m not surprised,” he answered.
Not surprised? I hoped to get a glimpse of the psyche of this layer, which could only help me in my present and soon-to-be predicaments. This insight would depend on his answer to my next question.
“Why are you not surprised?”
This guy is out there minding his own business, jogging to be healthy, for God’s sake, and this ambulance driver is given sanction by his hospital to maliciously take aim and fire at him with his vehicle. Like a reptile zaps a bug in mid-air with its tongue.
“Yea, well,” he said, grimacing, no doubt a pain surge from his asscapade. “I guess,” he continued, “I was just in the wrong place at the right time.” He pause to groan, but continued immediately after. “I was there, he was there; I could get hit, he could do it; he could benefit by it. He owed me nothing, so he did it.”
And the imagery of a reptile or some sticky-tongued amphibian still stuck in my mind, that long tongue whipping out and snagging a nameless flying or jogging prey. And a like creature comes across the aggressor and fights with it—just for the hell of it—a result of distrust, and co-existing with distrust can be insulting to one’s stability. And one lizard fights with another. And one man drags his ass all over linoleum to fight with another man.
Of course these worlds were making less and less sense. There was no sense! No sense meant no right or wrong. No right or wrong meant no screw-ups, no excuses, and no bullshit! I was truly in a reptilian world where the highest species was dominated by one of the oldest parts of his brain. I was in a place where evolution donated no barrier to these parts, but in fact embraced them. Where frontal lobes need not apply. Where conscience meant remorse and excuses and bullshit.
I became startled at the breakthrough of understanding for me here. Although I had hoped to dissect the psyche of this layer with my inquisition, I was surprised to actually come to quite an important realization about myself:
It might be remembered that I had once described sliding as flexing the cerebral buffer that passively suppressed the more primitive areas of my brain. That mystical barrier that surrounded Homo amphibia, the barrier taken for granted by everyone but me, I likened to a very fat man who, by mere sitting, passively suppressed this area’s rearing its ugly head. I, of course, could make the fat man, 700 pounds I think was the number I used, jump up and down on this primeval area and, in so doing, further foster its dormancy. In this way, I went on to explain, my sensorium out-distanced itself even farther from the savage thoughts that are in us all; made my brain look even further down its nose at this crude remnant from the past.
And here I was being chased by this struggling victim who would fight to the end, even with anybody. Driven by the amphibian that was his only emotion, I turned to him to understand his world. In doing so I realized that all of the slides had to go into a deteriorating direction. The more I enhanced the suppression of that censored part of my brain, that is to say, the more I slid, the more my perspective demonstrated distance from it; the more I could look at my new environment with contempt for its lack of sense and its further separation from both God and soulful volition.
And so it occurred to me that I may not be travelling the worsening road at all, but I may be just seeing a static world with gradual increments of my contempt for its imperfections. I really didn’t know which was worse.
And in this more deteriorated world, or alternately, with my more contemptuous perspective in a place I had never really left, my gluteal gladiator had non-directed rage. He suffered no real indignation. He merely reacted. I wondered how reptilian thought would react to the advanced concept of compassion. I offered him my hand.
He spat on it.
Man, I hate spit. I don’t much care if I get slapped or pushed, but please don’t spit on me. I rubbed my hand on my pants leg along with I’m sure a few cell layers of skin. This joker was on his own. Now I knew that this was a different place than where I had originally begun. This was no static world.
I was still the constant.
Suddenly, the only door opened. There stood Sister Chaz directing an entourage of orderlies. “This one to Orthopedics,” she said of the jogger. “And that one,” she said of me, pointing, “he needs to be in Observation...in Psychiattrician.” And off I went, dragged by three big orderlies, although they were smaller than any of the Sisters.
I’d seen this dark corridor before. This was the psychiatric area named “Psychiattrition,” and these were the collection of rooms which were “Observation.” We passed door after door until we came to one with only a small vertical slit in it. The door was opened and I was tossed in silently, the silence broken by the metal thud of the arcing door. The keys insured my incarceration with their jingling as the deadbolt was thrown and tumblers scrambled. I sat motionless on the floor, one as clean as any movie theater’s after a weekend. I listened intently. All I could hear was running water, apparently collected rain through drain pipes coursing through the cement block walls.
“Anyone here?” I whispered. There was no answer. There was no rustling of the debris on the floor. I was alone.
The next hour was anxiety-laden, as I expected at any moment, and over and over at each subsequent moment, to hear the door fly open as a prelude to my being snatched out and off to somewhere unpleasant, like “Negative Reinforcement.”
The hour after that was better. The one after that I slept.
Unknown hours later I awoke. My eyes were finally adjusted to the darkness, and I was finally sure I was alone. It was so quiet where I was, almost like someone had pushed the pause button, stopping time altogether. Except, of course, for the muffled sound of rain somewhere. And there was also the high-pitch whistle of a vent overhead—like the ultrasonic whine from an old tube television. It was a great torture device, even if no one here had thought of it themselves. I arose and began to pace, if for anything, to make some more sound; the darkness was deprivation enough, but the silence was suffocating and dumbfounding. The water I heard was like white noise that amplified the effect. The high-pitch whistle could only be noticed consciously when the vent would come back on after having been off awhile.
I thought about the apparent groupthink of this world, revealed to me by the jogger: juxtaposition is the only ethic; one’s opportunity slithers up to another’s weakness. I figured the only opportunity I had was for discontent, and no one would take it personally if I complained a little.
“I want a lawyer!” I shouted as best as could be done through a slit. “I demand a lawyer! I demand my rights. Don’t I get my phone call? Don’t I get my gun?”
I got a headache is what I got. And I got hungry, too. And then I had a full bladder, not that anybody cared. I really did hold out as long as I possibly could but then did what any good reptile would do: I found myself a respectable corner in which to relieve myself. So strong was my aversion to doing this that at first I was caught in sphincter-lock. Sickeningly, I finally came through and hoped that my cell was not on a slant.
Of the twelve to eighteen hours that I’d been there with all of the privacy I could hope to ever have, it was unsettling to be visited during the very act of my relief. Of course! What better time! With my bladder only mostly empty I clammed up with the sound of keys. The door opened a crack just big enough to have an arm wave in a package drop, then it shut solidly again.
My pupils constricted from what seemed to be a blinding shaft of light from the twilit hall outside. When they finally rebounded to their murk-vision readiness, I identified the package where it had landed. It was one of those zip-lock plastic storage bags. In it were two items, one slightly edible, the other ballistic.
I examined the sandwich first—two pieces of stale rye comforting a dry slice of yellow cheese. My bon vivant days were definitely over. I declined any careful inspection of the cheese but just wolfed down the whole thing. And I thought I didn’t like rye!
The gun was a cheap affair loaded with six rounds. Six rounds? Now why would they give more than one round to someone they had hoped would do himself in? Not unless...
A roommate? These cubicles were used for more than one! I know—I’d been here before. More than one patient but with only one gun. Murder, suicide, both—all a big load off of a hospital service that could still get reimbursement for census.
This was a good guess. It made Sister Chaz’s census remark make sense in its senseless way. So now there was a new dread for me, worse than my unidentifiable predicament—that the door would open again and that the low-lux light behind it would stream in to introduce the arrival of a co-detainee who would probably know who had the gun. The dread worsened. Could I sleep with company? Probably not. If I were to sleep, would he take the gun and shoot me? Probably so. Could I reason with him and strike up a deal? Probably not. Could I shoot him first to avoid the whole senseless crisis?
Probably so. In spite of any assurance, pleading, or promises from him.
And so a most primitive part of my brain began to beat up on the higher lobes so as to emerge with a voice to be heard—an outranked lone senator, misunderstood on the cerebral floor, with the power of filibuster.