I’m about to bring both my hands down together, my fingers all intertwined, down on Grandpa Razor’s mess of a face, when Borgo grabs my hands and tells me to stop. He tells me that if I don’t, I’ll kill this guy. He says, “Already, he won’t look the same for a few months at least.”
I stop. I fall back on the floor, my legs crossed, and look down at my hands.
They’re shaking from my rage. They are all ballooned up and red. My hands, they look like the hands of a boxer’s after a night of cheap rounds and hard faces. I look up at Borgo and say, “You don’t look very good, Doc.”
Borgo’s lump on his head is bigger than I thought at first. A classic egg.
Borgo says, “It’ll heal.”
“You see anything?” I ask.
My shrink tries to laugh but he says it hurts his ribs. He says, “If I didn’t stop you, what do you think you would have done to him?”
“Pounded him into a deep retardation.”
“Where do you think that’s coming from, Ade? You were never this way before.”
I shake my head, look at my hands again. “That’s because I think I’m someone else now, Doc.”
SIX
The two girls in my life, both of them are sitting on Paige’s bed, staring at me.
One of them, Paige, has her mouth dropped open. I’ve seen this look from her before, it’s the same expression she had when she saw Vanessa Pallor, who she was sure was a lesbo and had a major crush on, making out with Carlos “Mad Bull” Lopez.
The other, Vaux, is closing her eyes and, I think, holding back tears.
I’ve just finished telling them that this guy I’ve been battling, the same guy Vaux’s been sleeping with, is my kin. I’ve just described, in almost excruciating detail, how I tried to turn Grandpa Razor into a pile of something he’d probably eat. And I said, “Basically, it comes down to something entirely biblical here. It comes down to brother versus brother and even though I’m still going into this with a plan of stopping it, of changing it, only now I think I might actually for real have the capacity of doing it. I mean, I didn’t before, but now I could totally see myself killing him.”
It’s been pretty much silent since then.
Paige’s never liked anything too quiet for too long and so she’s the first one to talk. She says, “That’s not good.”
Vauxhall starts to talk but stops herself. She looks way vulnerable.
“I was thinking at first that this is kind of the way the Incredible Hulk was, you know? The smart guy, the weak guy, Bruce Banner, trying to stop himself from raging into this monster of destruction. But it’s not really the same because it’s still me. It’s just like me amplified. And really, what I’m most worried about is that I won’t go back. If I kill Jimi, then this is it. This is me forever. The future Janice showed me, it’s pretty much for sure.”
Paige asks, “What do you think’s happened to you? This change?”
I take a deep breath, hold it in a while. “I don’t know, but it’s something severe. And what’s funny is that I’m not sure which I like better, you know? Me being messed up and concussed and high and not remembering most of my life, or the clean me who has some serious anger issues and is dealing with this familial insanity? Honestly, ignorance truly is bliss, I think.”
Another spell of silence and then Vauxhall asks, “Have you tried to see?”
“See what?”
“The future. Have you tried knocking yourself out after we were together?”
“No. What are you thinking?”
Vauxhall looks to Paige, gives a half-smile. I’m not sure Paige knows, but now she has a pretty good idea something went down. Vauxhall says, “I think that maybe your abilities changed. Mine did, they got heightened, so maybe yours did too. You think it’s worth trying?”
“Maybe. But I don’t know if I want to try now. I don’t want to see something that will just crush me. I think it’s best to stay right here, in the now,” I say.
Vauxhall asks, “What’s next then?”
“It’s about time I went home,” I say.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ONE
Dr. Borgo—
Funny getting a letter from me, right?
How old-school is this? Anyway, I’ll keep it short and sweet. First off, I want to thank you for helping me out with the whole Grandpa Razor scene. Really, it wasn’t you helping me out so much as you saving me from killing the guy. Sometimes, when I’m thinking back on it, I worry it wasn’t the best idea to have stopped me, but then I come to my senses and realize I’m just being pessimistic. And that’s the reason I’m writing.
What the hell is going on with me?
Seriously, it’s like I’ve got that multiple personality disorder thing that always pops up as the killer’s motivation in those bad cable movies. Actually, I don’t think I do, but whatever it is that’s going on with me, it’s disturbing. Not so much disturbing to me as it is to everyone else around me. My friends, they’re kind of freaked out by it. My girlfriend, the person I’ve been in love with for like ever, she seems scared of me. How terrible is that?
So I was just writing you for those two reasons. 1. Thanks. 2. Can you help me explain this? I don’t think I’ll be able to stop by the office anytime soon. And I don’t think it’s something you’ll need to run blood tests or whatever over. Frankly, if the future that I’ve seen happens, then I’m sure you’ll be seeing tons of me when I’m in the Alzheimer’s Wing.
Cheerio!
Ade
P.S. Chances are pretty good you’ll get this letter after everything goes down on the beach. Just wanted to let you know that I appreciate all your help over the past few years. Means a lot to me. Late.
TWO
I don’t bother with the side entrance tonight.
There are two freaks on the porch, a young dude I’ve seen before and a woman with a baby asleep in a sling on her chest. When they see me they do these excited little jumps and even clap their hands.
The young guy wants me to tell him when he’s going to get married.
The woman, she wants to know the same thing.
I sit down on the porch and they sit next to me looking with the most eager eyes the same way they’d sit listening to a guru. These people have never actually met me. Never heard me speak. They have no idea what sort of week I’ve had and what I’m gearing up to do when I step inside my house.
Honestly, I feel bad about what I say to them. First I clarify that I’ve gone clean and there won’t be any more visions. “Besides,” I add, “I only ever saw
my
future. Not anyone else’s. Also I should mention that the last time I did something, it didn’t look good. You might want to forget about the future being anything but grim.” And then I get into detail. Some of it, I’m embarrassed to say, I make up.
The young guy, he lopes off the lawn head hung low and shaking.
The woman, she’s just trying to keep her baby from screaming.
I get inside to find Mom waiting up for me.
I haven’t seen her in a few days, but we fall quickly into old habits the way trained monkeys might. When I walk in she does not get off the couch to hug me. She just smiles and opens the Revelation Book and clicks her pen open. Also she’s sipping tea and watching PBS.
I sit down on the other end of the couch and she shuts the television off and says, “Thank God you’re back.” Then, opening the Revelation Book, she asks, “Where do we start?”
“With nothing,” I say.
She starts writing. Says, “Okay, and in the nothing?”
“No. Really. Nothing. No visions. Like I told you.”
“No visions?” She looks me over. Sees my skin unbroken. My bruises yellow if there at all and nothing wrapped around my head. No busted lip. No stitches. She asks, “What are you doing, Ade?”
“I’m not knocking myself out anymore, Mom. I’m done. It’s been a while now.”
“Did Baby Jesus tell you to stop?”
“No.”
“Why? I don’t…” She’s shaking her head robotically.
I tell her that I don’t talk to Jesus. I tell her that I never have talked to Jesus and that Jesus never has and never will figure into the visions. I say, “All the things we’ve seen, all the things we’ve traced out, all the stuff about my future self, it doesn’t get good for me because of Christ. It gets good because I stop.”
Mom closes the Revelation Book and sighs.
I say, “I’m in charge of my own life, Mom. What if right here and right now is all that matters? What if everything else, everything you want to read in that book, what if it’s all just dreaming? Just wishful thinking?”
Mom moves over to my side of the couch and starts massaging my shoulders. Says, “You remember when we went to Cave of the Winds in the Springs? You were only ten or maybe nine at the time and the whole drive down you were carrying on something crazy. Anyway, we’re in these caves and you’re just having this fit. The tour guide is ready to leave us behind. She’s looking at us and frowning and ready to just kick you down into some bottomless shaft. The whole tour you’re getting on everyone’s nerves. Just driving everyone crazy and I can’t seem to do a thing about it. I’m embarrassed as all hell. I’m trying to calm you and trying to look like a decent parent, like an effective parent, but it’s going nowhere. I’m temped to turn back when we enter one particular part of the cave system and we’re looking up at all the stalagmites and stalactites—I can never remember which is which—and you suddenly stop complaining. You go silent. We had to stay in that room for five minutes longer than most tours stay. Everyone on the tour was fine with it because you were finally being quiet. You sat down on that cold stone floor so deep beneath the ground and just stared up at these rock formations. It was like it was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen. As though you were staring into the celestial heavens. Staring straight into the face of God himself. Sweet Jesus, that’s when I knew. Right then.”
“Knew what, Mom?”
Mom says, “I knew that you were a miracle. To be honest with you, I saw you in that cave and immediately realized that there was something more going on in your head than just the usual kid stuff. And you weren’t marveling at the strange developments of nature either. You were seeing beyond what all of us see. The world’s a curtain, Ade, and you were seeing right through it. Right though to the other side. To the strings and the hands that hold them. You saw the geometry of the Maker’s design. We see the simple wings, but you see the souls headed to Hell. You see the needle. What the rest of us only guess at. What scientists can only dream about.”
Mom’s talking dragonflies again.
She says, “Come in the kitchen with me.”
I look around the corner, up the stairs, and to the kitchen where the lights are on and two women, both Mom’s age and type, are sitting at the table drinking tea and looking back at me. They’re smiling, faces wide and warm. Also there’s a laptop and a projector sitting on the table.
In the family room, now with my back to the kitchen, I ask Mom who these women are.
She says, “Part of our flock. You’ve met them before.”
“When?”
“Many times.” And she touches my head. “It’s okay if you don’t remember.”
“Why are they here? It’s the middle of the night, Mom.”
“Waiting for you, Ade.”
I’m tired and trudge into the kitchen, head down, ready to just bulldoze through and maybe give these women a wave. That doesn’t work. As soon as my feet cross into the light of the kitchen, they’re up off their chairs and wringing their hands and patting my back and pushing me (so gently) to the head of the table. There’s even a cup of tea waiting there for me.
I sit and one of the women, a chubby one with a mess of curly hair, says, “You need to put your faith in the Lord. If he beckons, you answer the call, don’t you?” And Mom says, “Jesus
is
love, Ade.”
Of course, this all sounds very familiar. I saw this when Jimi hit me with the baseball bat and the vision was dull. Well, here it is again only in real time. The déjà vu built right into the very fabric of my life.
I actually look forward to seeing where this leads.
“What are you guys talking about?” I ask.
“Love. Duty,” Chubby says.
The other woman—she’s got straight brown hair and a long-time-smoker’s face—says, “Being in love is the best thing ever. Wonderful. Have you seen this girl in the visions? Has the Lord directed you to her?”
Mom tries to answer, but Chubby shushes her.
I say, “I did seen her in a vision.”
Eyebrows up, Smoker says, “How far out?”
“I saw her two years ago. She’s here now.”
Smoker smiles. Chubby sips her tea. Mom crosses her arms and looks at me sad. Her eyes flickering closed and open and closed and open. Not blinking but signing something unconsciously.
I say, “I’ve loved her for years.”
Chubby, hands in prayer pose, says, “Wonderful, but…”