23
Except for the Crescent, the little city of Caledonia was located across Pacific Coast Highway from the ocean. The town was long and narrow, built like a vagina, according to the wisdom of Pete Banning. Main Street was the slit, the center of town, down in the valley. The lipsâthat's what Pete used to call the twin sets of low hills rising on either sideâcradled the slit. The inmost ones had been well built-up for years, but the outer hills had seen real construction only in the last two decades. Pete's brother, Will, lived on top of the outer lip that bordered by the highway. Quite a few people lived there now. But when Mickey Elfbones was a kid hanging out with Pete, a trail had run for several miles along the hill above the highway.
It was still there in places, just a worn dirt track that had ceased to be of interest once you couldn't hike it without running into homes. When Mickey was a kid, it was vaguely off-limits because of lack of fencing, but the hill was wide, and though parents told kids not to hike up there, they'd done the same when they were kids, and nobody much cared, as long as you were on your feet. Just your feet. No bikes. Even then there were metal
NO BICYCLING
signs posted, and if you did it and got caught, the cops could write you a real ticket.
Of course, kids did, though not as much as you'd expect, and Pete, who was all for breaking laws, happened to like that one a lot because it pissed him off when asshole kids would fly by while he and Mickey were on patrol. They did that a lot when they were nine, ten, eleven years old. Pete loved to patrol. They pretended they were soldiers, and they'd scrutinize the town and the highway with cheap binoculars as they walked.
But there was this one kid, Andy Faircloud, a grade older than them, and a lot bigger, who loved to honk this stupid horn and race between them on his bike, which usually had a card snapping in the spokes. Pete tried to knock him over, but couldn't, and he wouldn't even entertain Mickey's suggestion that they rat him out to the cops or his parents. That was chickenshit, Pete said.
So one day, around Halloween, they hiked up the hill and hid behind some bushes. There, they opened their backpacks and put on Grim Reaper robes and painted up each other's faces to look like skeletons. Mickey had wanted to use masks, but Pete said those weren't scary enough. After the makeup, they put on black gloves on which Pete had painted white skeleton hands. It was really pretty cool.
They walked a short distance to a broad-trunked live oak and sat behind it. It was located at a curve in the trail, a nice wide space. They waited, and pretty soon, they heard the snapping card as Andy Faircloud approached. Mickey waited until Pete gave the high sign, and they leapt out from behind the tree onto the trail, not eight feet in front of Andy. Andy screamed and lost control of his bike, the front end wig-wagging madly for a second or two, and then Pete screeched and lunged at him, even though it was obvious the kid was about to crash right next to them. But Pete's action made Andy turn white, it made his screams go silentâand the kid tried to avoid the Grim Reaper with a hard left. Mickey thought the kid probably didn't even realize what he was doing, he was so scared. The bicycle, Andy still hanging on, flew off the hill and disappeared. It took only a second or two, but it felt like forever. Pete grabbed Mickey and propelled him toward the edge just in time to see the bicycle, the boy holding on with a rictus grip, tumble end over end before it hit Highway 1.
A semi, a double, came around the curve at the same time. The horn blared, brakes squealed, but there was no way it could stop. Mickey saw Andy Faircloud's eyes on him before the truck squashed him flat.
“Idiot,” Pete said, yanking him back by the shroud. “We gotta get out of here.” Mickey was numb. He ran with Pete to the shrubs where their backpacks were hidden. They stowed the shrouds and gloves into their packs, then Pete pulled out a bottle of lotion and some rags. It took about ten minutes to erase all the makeup.
After everything was stowed away, they stayed hidden for a while just in case anybody else came up to check out the sirens that followed not long after the huge truck jack-knifed all over Andy's body, spreading him like strawberry jam across the highway. After fifteen minutes passedâthat along with the fifteen minutes they'd spent cleaning up seemed like a reasonable amount of time to hike up the hill after the accidentâthey returned to the oak, not even having to bother smudging out footprints because the afternoon wind had come up and was doing it for them. They sat down and watched the show.
Immediately, Mickey threw up. Pete cursed him and made him bury it. Mickey complied, then told himself it was a television show he was looking at, that it wasn't real. The truck blocked most of the highway and local cops were down there setting out flares and directing the small amount of traffic around the accident, letting north- and southbound traffic take turns using the southbound lane closest to the ocean. There were fire trucks but no fires, and there were boxes and boxes of Tide detergent spilling from one of the trailers. Pete loved that. Mickey was grateful that the bright oranges, yellows, and reds of the boxes helped hide the gore.
An ambulance took away the driver about the same time that a TV crew started filming. Another ambulance crew was picking its way around the wreckage. They wore gloves and were carrying big black bags. Every now and then they'd put something in a bag and Mickey would feel his stomach lurch while Pete would comment, “Parts is parts,” and snicker.
“This is great,” Pete said, and licked his lips. “Hey, you want to go down there and get interviewed by the news? Be on TV?”
“What? You mean confess?”
Pete punched him in the ribs so hard it brought tears to Mickey's eyes. “Asshole. Confess to what? We didn't see it happen. We came up here to see what was going on. We're just concerned.” He stopped talking and looked at Mickey like he was a piece of bad pork. “Forget it. You can't act.”
Tow trucks came and one of the trailers was righted just as twilight began to fall. Mickey saw a piece of bicycle, a bent handlebar. A hand and part of an arm were attached to it. “It's late. My parents are going to kill me if I don't get home,” Mickey said, trying to sound like everything was okay.
“Man, look at that.” Pete looked at him, eyes bright, a creepy smile on his lips. “We made all that happen. Just you and me, pal. And we take it to our graves.”
“To our graves.”
They rose and walked to their homes, had their dinners, saw the accident reported on the evening news, and were reminded by their mothers never to ride their bikes on the trails. They went to bed. Pete slept like a baby.
Mickey didn't sleep at all that night. He had seen the face of fear, the real face, the eyes, and it would haunt his dreams, along with the strawberry gore and the shadowy glimpse of the arm ripped from its body. He felt fear of a kind worse than his father's dogs could ever instill. And he carried it with him forever, even though his adulation of Pete, brave and bold, grew. He loved his hero and he also feared him.
Â
Â
Now, standing in the home of Colonel Wallis Tilton, Retired, Mickey felt some of that old fear return. He remembered Tilton from his short stint in the military. He was a square-jawed man with a white mustache and piercing blue eyes and you could feel his presence, like a powerful force. He led men because he was obviously born for just that purpose, and if there was a God, Mickey knew he looked like Wallis Tilton. Even now, with Tilton in a polo shirt and jeans, tilted back in a La-Z-Boy, sipping lemonade brought to them both by his doting wife, Tilton seemed to be looking right through him. Seemed to be seeing into Mickey's soul.
He knows about us.
“What's wrong?” Tilton asked.
Mickey turned. “Nothing.”
“You look like you've seen a ghost, son. You about jumped out of your skin. Have your lemonade and tell me why.”
“I, uh, touched a live wire, sir. Just gave myself a little shock.” He stepped away from the television and flicked the remote, clicking onto The Chuckles Channel, which Pete had told him to start doing, who knew why, then a few other new ones. “I think you'll be pleased with your new selection.” Then he handed the remote to Colonel Tilton.
We're going to have to do something about Elfbones. He's becoming a problem
.
“No,” whispered Mickey.
“Are you talking to that ghost, son? Because you look like you just saw it again.”
“I'm sorry. I thought I heard something. It was just the television.”
“The sound is muted.” So saying, Tilton unmuted it.
Oprah was being interviewed by a woman. He'd heard a man's voice, the same one as the night before. He looked at Tilton and shrugged. “Maybe I picked up a radio signal on a filling.”
“Then judging by the look on your face, you'd better go see your dentist.”
“I think I will.” He felt naked.
He's trying to eavesdrop on us right now.
Quickly, he gulped the lemonade, then gathered his tools, gave Tilton a pamphlet about his new cable box, and got the hell out of there.
Outside, he still felt like he was being watched, but at least it wasn't by Tilton, a.k.a. God.
Before starting the van, he did his paperwork and tilted his head back and closed his eyes.
Is this what it feels like to go insane?
24
Will's last patient before lunch was Mia Hunt Hartz, a woman who was at least as pretentious as her name. He saw her once a month, and it was all her idea. Everyone who was civilized had a therapist. She had suggested on more than one occasion that it was a pity there wasn't a psychiatrist in Caledonia and she had to make do with a mere psychologist. A few months ago, he had suggested she drive down to San Luis Obispo for better service. She hadn't complained again. Will couldn't stand the woman, who was merely a bully in a female body.
She didn't have any real problems, except for being a vapid, shallow bitch, but that wasn't a problem either, not for her, at any rate. A rich daddy's girl, she also ran a thriving real estate office, and was a former neighbor of Will's when he'd lived in the Heights, Caledonia's version of Beverly Hills. Occasionally, she fucked rich older men who gave her presents. The woman was a living, breathing cliche.
But today, there was more. The cliche's world had been rattled. There were children in her yard, she told him, awful little children, three of them, running through her gardens, trampling her prized Venus flytraps (well, she actually said Dutch irises, but Will thought flytraps were more fitting), and climbing a century-old oak tree that had been allowed to live when the house was built. The childrenâshe wasn't sure, but thought there were two of one sex and one of the otherâgiggled and shrieked with laughter. Mia Hunt Hartz, upstairs, opened her bedroom window and yelled at them to get out or be arrested.
They didn't even look at her, just kept playing. She yelled again, but they acted, she said, like she didn't exist, the little monstrosities. Not monsters. That was too common for Mia. Only monstrosities would dare enter her world.
Mia exited the room and found her maid, directed her to go down and detain them while she contacted the authorities. She returned to the window, her phone in her hand. The children still played. That was when she noticed them race over her prize koi pond, which was ten feet in diameter, impossible for the invaders to jump. But they must have, she said, because they crossed straight through the center without splashing, without even rippling the water. Unable to get a clear signal on her cell phone, she moved away from the window to call the authorities, and had just completed the call when her maid used the intercom to report that the children were gone.
Mia didn't cancel the call, of course. After all, she paid those people's salaries! When a nice young officer arrived, she accompanied him into the backyard to show him the damage, and she was mortifiedâabsolutely mortifiedâto find not a leaf out of place, not a footprint in sight.
Will had to work to keep from smiling, to do the job he was there to do. He tried counseling first. She merely looked down her nose at him when he attempted to reassure her that sometimes things just work that way. Then he suggested what he believed really happenedâthat since she saw them from her bedroom, where she had gone to take a twenty-minute nap in her easy chair, that she may have experienced a certain type of dream that happened only in the hypnogogic state. He started to explain, but she cut him off; Mia didn't even want to know what “hypnogogic” meantâno one could hypnotize her, she announced, revealing a flaw in her alleged Stanford education.
Valedictorian, my
ass!
Hiding his amusement, he gave her what she really wanted: a stronger Valium prescription. Since she really liked her tranquilizers, he gave her a sample pack and told her she could pick them up at the pharmacy tomorrow, and that the number would be whatever Dr. Rawlins recommended. He wanted to talk to Gabe personally about this oneâhe had a feeling she might have several prescriptions going at once.
Mia Hunt Hartz wouldn't leave his private office without his escort. She wasn't afraid of being alone or getting lost, she was just a pretentious society bitch. Once she asked him why he didn't employ a valet to park his patients' cars. Amazedâthe lot was directly adjacent to the entrance, for Christ's sakeâhe'd told her no one had ever asked. She sniffed at that. She sniffed at almost everything with her long, narrow, pointy nose.
She waited while he opened the door. He routinely opened the office door for his patients, both sexes, and never thought twice about it, but with her, it made his blood boil. More precisely, it made his neck muscles tighten. He hid it, and walked out to the reception desk with her. He could smell the luscious aroma of food from Chen's Iron Wok before he saw the uniformed cop setting brown paper bags of food on the desk in front of Kevin.
“Well, Officer Hoyle,” said Mia Hunt Hartz, looking the handsome young man up and down disapprovingly. “No wonder you couldn't find any trace of those horrible children who trespassed the other day. It must be difficult to enforce the law and hold a part-time job as a delivery boy.”
“Ooooooh.” That was Kevin, almost inaudible, but highly amused.
The cop, whom Will had met but couldn't quite place, finished setting down the bags then turned his square-jawed, blue-eyed Nordic face to Mia. He stared at her. She stared back defiantly. It was a staring contest. He wished Conan O'Brien was there to send his masturbating bear in to stand behind the officer and cause Mia to lose the battle.
Seconds passed slowly. Food was cooling down. Will's stomach growled. Neither starer would give in. Fortunately, there was Kevin.
He came out from his glass office and stood beside the cop. “Will Banning, Eric Hoyle, you two met at our Halloween party last year. Remember? Eric was dressed as a policeman because he was technically on duty and WillâDr. Banningâand Maggie Maewood came as Hades and Persephone.”
“How charming,” drawled Mia Hunt Hartz. “That's our country girl veterinarian, I believe? A little old to be playing the virgin bride.”
Kevin read in Will's eyes what others could only guess atâKevin was like thatâand he whisked up to Mia and took her arm, a big false smile plastered on his face. “Dear, you're all paid up and Doctor needs his lunch, so let me see you to your car.” He propelled her to the front door, craning his neck once to make a face.
“You just spent an hour with that woman?” Eric Hoyle asked, shaking his head.
“Twenty minutes. But it seemed like an hour.”
“That's how long I was with her. It seemed more like two days.” Eric grinned. “I take it you heard about her invisible trespassers.”
“Yes.”
Eric glanced around. “Seeing her here explains a lot.”
“No,” Will said. “She doesn't need to see me. It's purely a status thing. She must have a personal housekeeper, investment banker, therapist.”
“She's not nuts, then?”
“Who's not nuts?” Kevin asked, joining them. “Mia Cunt Hurts?”
“Shhh. Kevin, there are people in the waiting room.”
“There were. I told them we were closing until one o'clock and sent them to lunch. We're all alone, just the three of us.”
“I hope you don't mind my joining you, Dr. Banning. I called Kevin about lunch and he asked me to pick up an order he'd leave at Chen's and eat with both of you.”
“Call me Will. Of course I don't mind.”
“There's more,” Kevin said.
“Wait, Kev. Will? About Ms. Hartzâ”
“You mean Mia Cunt Farts.”
“Be quiet, Kevin.”
Kevin raised his eyebrows and covered his mouth.
Eric shook his head, half-smiling. “She's not a nut case?”
Will paused. “I can't discuss her, but I think it's okay for me to say she's of sound mind.”
Eric looked a little disappointed. “So you think there really were kids in her yard? I swear, there wasn't a blade of grass out of place.”
“I can't break confidentiality, but the fact that she was taking a nap when they
apparently
woke her isn't confidential, I think.”
“You think she dreamed it?”
Will shrugged. “I can't say. But people who are between true sleep and wakefulness, are rarely aware of the hypnogogic hallucinations that precede true dreams. When they do become aware of them, they're often shocking in their reality. It's pretty common. In fact, I think a whole industry has grown up around hypnogogic dreams.”
“Will thinks alien abductees dream it all. It's very Jungian.”
Eric nodded, looking a little overwhelmed. “Okay, Will. That makes sense. I've had a couple dreams that I was positive weren't dreams.”
“But remember,” Kevin said. “Sometimes a penis is only a penis.”
“Kevinâ”
“The doctor's not a Freudian,” Kevin explained.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Will answered before Kevin could pour more murk in the waters. “Freud was known for believing that nearly everything had a sexual connotation. If a patient told him he dreamed of a tower erupting in flame, Freud interpreted this as a penis ejaculating. If a patient entered a tunnel, he was in a vagina.”
Eric nodded. “But you disagree?”
“Like Kevin said, sometimes a penis is only a penis. And often a tower is only a tower. Lots of times, climbing a tower is a dream metaphor for struggling to attain a goal, but only the dreamer really knows what a dream means.”
“Come on,” Kevin said, carrying the bags toward the group therapy room. Eric and Will followed.
“That is so cool!” Eric said, all boy, despite the uniform. “Maybe I could make an appointment sometime and you could tell me what a recurring dream I have means.”
Will chuckled. “I can't tell you. I can only ask you questions that will help you figure it out for yourself.”
They sat down at the round table. Kevin got paper plates and extra napkins from a cupboard and joined them. “Do us a favor, Eric. Don't make any appointments until things calm down. We're taking it up the ass here.”
“Kevin! ”
Kevin
tsked
at him. “Obviously, you don't remember Eric too well.”
“We said hello at your party, Kev. I don't
know
anything.”
“You didn't meet Barry? Eric, what was he wearing?”
“You know Barry. He wore a black suit. He won't dress up more than that.”
“So he was either a mortician or an MIB? Do you remember him, Will?”
“No.”
“Well, it doesn't matter. The thing is, Officer Eric is one of
us.
”
“
You're
gay, too? Really?” Eric stared at Will. “I don't believe it.”
“Will's honorary gay,” Kevin said. “Pass the Kung Pao chicken.”
“That's a relief. I thought I was slipping.” He passed a soda to Will, then started spooning Szechuan beef onto his plate.
“Eric always gets his men,” Kevin said. “Chopsticks all round?”
“Why do you always ask that? To torment me?”
“Yes.” Kevin handed him a plastic fork.
“Dr. Maewood's great. We've been taking our hounds to her forever,” Eric said. Like Kevin, he was an expert with chopsticks.
“She is,” Kevin said. “She and Will are perfect for each other. Neither of them can work the sticks. They're forkers.”
Eric suppressed a laugh. “So she's your girlfriend?”
“No. She's my best friend.”
“He's going to tell you how they met when they were four years old, yada, yada, yada. Sum it up: They do everything together but make love.” Kevin pointed a chopstick at Will. “He doesn't know it because he's straight, but they're meant for each other. She doesn't know it either.”
“Really?”
“Kevin . . .” Will was glad he was eating Kung Pao. It gave him an excuse to be red in the face.
“She's a woman, she must suspect it. Will probably does too. Will? Do you ever interpret your own dreams? Bet'cha she's in there.”
“Kevin, we've known each other too longâ”
“To mess up your friendship.” Kevin rolled his eyes. “She saw him through three bad marriages. Will, don't feel bad. Most gay guys are as bad at picking the right partner as straight guys are.” He looked at Eric. “It's so romantic. You should see them look at each other. They don't even know they're doing it. Not yet. It's the oldest story in the book, you know?”
“Kevin,” Eric said. “You're embarrassing Will. And me. Do you talk about Barry and me like this?”
“No, sorry.”
“How do you put up with him?” Eric asked.
“I'm not sure. It has something to do with my inability to stay mad at him for more than five minutes.”
“I hear you.”