CHAPTER TWO

(Six Months Earlier)

It had been unusually arid on that fateful day six months ago—even for mid-June. For that reason, I had committed to barreling down the steamy Ohio interstate with no protective gear other than some fingerless gloves, a pair of black leather boots and my trusty three-quarter helmet. Under normal circumstances, I would have preferred to don a riding jacket as well—especially on the highway—but, with the oppressive temperature being what it was, I was willing to risk the forty-five-minute ride in a violently flapping T-shirt instead.

The wind breaking around my body had my shirt behaving as if it were having a seizure but I didn’t care because it was also making my ride much more tolerable; that ceased when I merged onto the off ramp and came to a stop behind a large semi-truck. The loss of air flow, as I waited there for the light to turn green, had me sweating almost instantly. Until that moment, I had been enjoying my ride to Diane’s. In the sudden absence of the helpful wind, however—with the heat and the fumes from the truck accosting me—I quickly grew thankful that her house wasn’t much further.

A few minutes later, I was dismounting in Diane’s driveway. Once I had secured my helmet to the forks and locked them, I strode toward her front door, where I was treated to some melodious reggae tracks pouring out of her living room speaker. I liked that about Diane. She had a creative mind, which often manifested itself in the music she chose. I wasn’t sure if she’d hear her doorbell, with the circumstances being what they were, so I made a fist and pounded it against the frame of her door.

“C’mon in,” I heard her yell, in a friendly tone, from behind the obscured walls of her tiny home.

As soon as I crossed the threshold of her doorway and entered the living room, I fondly recognized an intoxicating, skunky stink wafting through the air. She had been smoking the devil’s lettuce and my nose was reveling in it. “Thanks for waiting for me,” I chided her.

“What?” she called back, in a mildly offended tone, from behind what I could now tell was the bathroom door.

“It smells good in here,” I answered.

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I left some for you on the coffee table, if you’re interested. Help yourself. I’ll be out in a few minutes. Sorry! Girl stuff!”

“Take your time,” I said, while simultaneously collapsing into her couch, as though I owned it myself. “The AC feels good.”

“Yeah; can you believe this heat?!?” she remarked. “Are you sure you still want to walk?”

“Eh… I’m kind of wishing I wasn’t wearing jeans but yeah. I think I would still like to walk. It’s only, like, a mile and a half, right?” I had asked the question while frowning at a napkin, on the coffee table in front of me. On it were several orange slices, along with a discarded peel. When Diane answered in the affirmative, I carefully slid it all away from me—toward the edge of the table—and then picked up a clear plastic bag that had about ten nickel-sized, sticky, green buds lying at the bottom.

As I lifted the bag closer to my face to inspect its contents a little more carefully, I could see the greenery inside was covered in thin red hairs and microscopic, white, glistening crystals. “This stuff looks pretty good,” I called out, in a voice slightly louder than the music filling the room.

“It is. Try it.”

“I don’t know if I should. I’ve got the bike...”

“Well,” she began, “by the time we walk there, wait for a table, eat and walk back, it’ll be at least three hours. Plus, I’m gonna have some margaritas… If…” she hesitated, “that is… if it won’t bother you, I mean.”

“No; I’m fine,” I responded, as I pinched some of the shake from the bottom of the bag and packed it into the pipe-like apparatus that had been placed on the coffee table. Soon after, I brought it up to my lips and, with one flick of the lighter, I ignited the plant and began sucking its fumes into my lungs. I held the smoke there for a few moments, until it became uncomfortable, and then released it into the air, thereby adding to the smell I had noticed when I first walked in. I then slunk back into the couch and told Diane, “You know, you should really just get a license for this stuff.”

“I know.”

“It’s not hard to get one.”

“Yeah. I know.” With that, I heard the distinctive-sounding motor of a hair dryer kick in, which signaled the end of the conversation—or at least her temporary disengagement from it. Before she activated the device, I had been primed to tell her all about the economic, medicinal and ethical benefits that come with a legalized approach but she had already heard me pontificate on all of that several times over.

Instead, I waited there on the couch, in silence, trying my best to ignore the hair dryer and focus on the music permeating the strangely decorated room. Diane had a flair for the macabre, which was evident in all the dead insects she had placed in glass cases and hung on her walls. In the middle of all of them, however, there was also a large black and white framed picture of her on stage, playing her violin; I remember thinking that it seemed out of place amongst all the creepy-crawlies everywhere—or maybe it was they who were out of place. I always thought my cousin should have been a musician but I couldn’t deny that she seemed content as an entomologist too.

As I waited for the THC to take effect, I stared, from the couch, at a thin white lab coat she had draped over a chair—until some bizarre sort of praying mantis-thing I’d never noticed before caught my attention. It had been encased in amber and looking at it made me wonder what the world was like back when it roamed free.

Eventually, I grew impatient and convinced myself that I would need to metabolize a bit more smoke in order to feel its effects so I hit her bowl two more times before setting it back down on the coffee table, where I had found it. Just as I finished exhaling, the blow-dryer stopped and the bathroom door opened.

As Diane walked into the cloud hanging in the air she warned, “Be careful, man. This stuff is probably a lot stronger than what you’re used to.”

“Honestly, I don’t feel anything but thanks for the warning. You look nice, by the way,” I said with a smile.

Diane was a few years younger than me (not quite middle-aged but not that far from it either). She typically dressed her age but it wasn’t out of necessity. If she had wanted, she could have passed for someone in her late twenties. On this particular day, she had chosen a long, flowing, orange-colored summer dress that went all the way down to her pasty shins. It stood out against her long, brown hair that she had been fastidiously grooming only moments ago.

“I just gotta grab a pair of flip-flops and I’m ready,” she then told me. I nodded and smiled at her, as she stood there in the hallway. Then, as if she had just thought of it, she asked, “Are you sure you’re still okay with Hector’s? I completely understand if you want to go somewhere else.”

“No. It’s okay. I… I actually think it would be… sort of ‘therapeutic,’ you know?”

“Have you been there since…?” but she left her question hanging indefinitely.

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. You sure you’re not gonna freak out?” she asked with concern.

“I want to see it,” I said calmly. “I’ve been thinking: that view from the patio there—that’s probably the last thing she ever saw.” With her head hung low, Diane told me the same thought had crossed her own mind, as well. She almost seemed ashamed to admit as much.

“I guess I must have told you this before,” I then stated, “but one of the girls they interviewed said Beth had already passed out before she even got into the car. She said her friends basically carried her there. Said they were all stumbling around, laughing and half-carrying, half-dragging Beth, toward the car.”

“I’m so sorry, James. I know you loved her very much.”

“I did,” I admitted before tapering off for a moment. I left that last word hanging and Diane was waiting for an explanation so I decided to give it to her. “She was my entire world, Diane, but things… things were not great.”

“I know. You told me.”

“Yeah; I’m sorry. I don’t mean to harp on it; I just… I haven’t told many people. You’re one of the only ones who knows everything.”

“Don’t apologize!” she interjected. “It’s fine. I don’t mind at all.”

“Thanks. I just… I know I said this before but I often feel like I’m dishonoring her if I’m honest about the state of our relationship. The night that she… Almost no one knows this,” I admitted, “but she actually left me earlier that night. She packed a bag and just… left. I knew it was over but I didn’t know I’d never see her again! People at the funeral—they kept talking about how much she loved me and… and I knew it wasn’t true. I had to just nod my head and keep silent though.”

“James, I don’t… That’s just so awful.”

“I know. And I’m sorry. I realize I can tend to drone on about it with you. I just don’t have many people I can talk to about it.”

“Oh my God! It’s fine! Really!”

I thanked her as she walked toward a pair of partially disintegrated, black flip-flops that appeared to have been placed, in a designated spot, beside her front door. With her leg extended and her toes pointed in the direction of the flimsy footwear, she addressed me: “You know, if you ever want to tr—” but she was cut short by the ringing of her phone, in her purse, on the table in front of me. “Crap. Hold on,” she instructed, while walking over to retrieve the item. “Do you mind waiting outside, while I take this?” she then asked, while staring at the device.

“Not at all.”

“Thanks. It’s my mom. I just need a little privacy. I’ll be quick.”

“Say no more,” I stated, whilst rising from the couch and venturing back toward her front door. She thanked me, as I was turning the knob, and, before I shut the door behind me, she had already connected the call and greeted her mother.

Once I was outside, I slowly shuffled back to my bike and leaned up against it, as I waited for Diane to conclude the call. It was at that moment that the psychoactive component of the controversial plant I had inhaled began to really make its presence felt. Diane was right. This particular strain was, indeed, quite a bit stronger than the low-dose, sleep-inducing variety to which I was accustomed. “Creeper.” That’s what we used to call buds like these. It took a little while for their effects to “creep” up on a person.

As my muscles loosened and the stresses of my life somehow became far less important, I looked across the street with a mixture of both contentment and mild paranoia. In the neighbor’s yard, a solitary goose was wading in a three-foot-deep pond that may or may not have been intended for him. After what seemed like hours of staring at the bird, Diane finally emerged from her house and asked, “Ready to go?” She was already locking the door behind her, as she anticipated my answer, but I waited until she had moved closer to me before indulging her with one.

“I’m actually pretty high,” I responded, as I straightened up off my bike and fished a pair of sunglasses out of my saddlebags. “I think I accidently overdid it.”

“I warned you!” she exclaimed. “Did you want to stay in and just order something instead?”

“No. I’m okay. I actually prefer to be outside—even in the heat,” I admitted, while slipping the dark lenses up, over my nose. “It’s nice.”

“Yeah; I’d like to walk too,” she agreed, as I zipped the storage compartment shut.

“As long as you don’t mind my stupid commentary. You know I’m talkative when I’m high.”

We had already begun our journey when she laughed and said, “No. It’s fine. Talk away. I feel like I haven’t seen you since Grandpa Singer’s funeral!”

“Yeah. That was… a while ago,” I said slowly, with what she must have perceived was a struggle to gather my thoughts.

“What do your AA buddies say about you smoking weed?” she then inquired with a smirk.

“I don’t really advertise the fact that I use it. I’m not ashamed of it, mind you. I just don’t feel like trying to explain it to people who can’t grasp it.”

“Can’t grasp what?”

“For me, it’s all about a person’s intent,” I said with conviction. “My intention with cannabis, unlike alcohol, isn’t to party—not now, at this point in my life, anyway. My PTSD got me my prescription but the truth of the matter is that it’s more of a cheap form of meditation, ya know?”

Diane absent-mindedly nodded her head so I continued: “I think I accidently overdid it back there but, under normal circumstances, it’s a way to help me wrangle my mind and keep it from ruminating on the past… or shooting ahead to the future. It helps me to concentrate on what I’m doing, or should be doing, right now, in the moment. For that reason, it keeps me focused, which by default, also makes me more a bit more creative. That’s sort of what meditation’s supposed to do too, right? This is just a faster and cheaper way to achieve it, don’t you think?”

“Huh?”

“Sorry,” I laughed. “I’m rambling again.”

“No; I’m sorry,” she countered. My mind was somewhere… else. Please. What were you saying again?”

“It wasn’t important,” I stoically asserted, while purposefully falling behind my walking companion, in order to avoid a child’s tricycle that had been carelessly abandoned on the sidewalk, directly in front of my path. After we passed the tiny machine, in a single-file line, she waited for me to catch back up and take my place beside her. When I did, I asked, “So what did your mom have to say?”

Diane then confided in me that her father’s condition was much worse than what we had all believed. Alzheimer’s. The doctor’s most recent prognosis—the one she had just discussed with her mother—wasn’t very inspiring either. “I was wondering,” she then admitted, “if I should try and tell him the truth, during one of his more lucid moments—you know, so he can get in order whatever he needs to get in order. So he can ‘make his peace.’ Then again,” she argued with glassy eyes, “maybe it’s better to not say anything.”

For a few seconds I stayed reticent and let the singing birds, in the trees above us, break the silence surrounding us. Using them as my muse, I then told her the following: “The day before my dad died—when it was obvious he was at the end—everyone knew it. The doctors knew it. My family knew it. I knew it. I heard him ask my mom, at one point, ‘Is this it? Is this the end?’ She told him it wasn’t and, well, he died in his sleep, later that night.”

Staring at the sidewalk cracks consistently appearing and disappearing below my brown-laced black, leather boots (a poor choice for both fashion and a hot Ohio afternoon), I added that, “I always wondered: did he go to bed thinking he was going to awaken the next day—that he still had time to say something he hadn’t yet said? Or did he know? I just remember thinking: if he had asked me that same question—if he asked whether or not this was the end—what would I have said to him? Would I have told him the truth? Would I have urged him to make his peace or would I have lied to him and tried to put his mind at ease with false hope? To be honest, I don’t know what the right answer is—for you or for me—and, uh, I’m glad he didn’t ask me. Because… Because I honestly don’t know how I would have answered him and I think—no matter which way I chose—I would have always second-guessed and regretted my answer.”

Diane looked upset. I could tell she was deep in thought—no doubt questioning her own situation—when she sniffed loudly and asked, in a slightly broken voice, “What’s happening to our family, James? It’s like, one by one, we’re all falling apart.”

Although I didn’t verbalize an answer, I made sure she saw the forced, half-smile I offered, before dropping my head low to stare at the unending sidewalk.

“I assume you heard about Aunt Angie.” she said with a detached callousness.

“Yeah…”

“My mom told me the other day,” she explained. “I told myself I wasn’t going to mention it but…”

“She tell you what she did this time?” I asked, as my eyebrow crested over the ridgeline of my shades.

“She… no. All she said was that it had something to do with a talk show or something.”

“Apparently, she thought the host of one of them was sending her secret messages, through the broadcast, that only she could decode. Devin found all of her scribblings about it, in one of her notorious notebooks—page after page of ‘translated’ messages from the TV.”

“Oh.” Diane said, while unconsciously slowing her pace a bit.

I could tell she was having trouble finding the right words so I tried to provide some humor to our conversation by adding, “Hey, at least she’s not dismantling everything she owns, looking for government listening devices this time.”

“Yeah,” Diane uncomfortably chuckled.

“Or getting caught trying to climb onto the roof of a random office building because the Secretary of Defense is sending a helicopter there to pick her up, for a top-secret mission.” Another uncomfortable laugh. For a moment we walked in an awkward silence until I broke it with, “It’s okay, Diane. You know the cycle by now.”

“I know.”

“Crazy Aunt Angie. She has an episode; she’s admitted somewhere; they regulate her medication; they release her; she stops taking it because she thinks she’s cured and, shortly after that, the delusions start again. Rinse and repeat. She’s been that way since long before you or I were ever born.”

“I know,” she started. “And my mom said the same thing. I just never know how to comfort her about it. She’s… She loves her sister. Both of her sisters—obviously—but… It’s just a lot for her right now. I just don’t know how you stay so calm through all of it.”

“You know how these things go, Diane. In three months, she’ll be out.”

“Yeah…”

“And then, after another eight or so, it’ll happen again,” I added, as I quickly knelt down to retie my boot.

Diane silently chewed on her lip, as she patiently waited for me to loop my generic, non-matched, grocery store laces together. Once I finished and we had begun walking beside each other again, she persisted: “You know, she told me once how no one ever believes her… about anything. Can you imagine how awful that would be—to just keep everything to yourself? Writing your crazy thoughts in notebooks because anytime you say anything even remotely strange, everyone assumes you need reevaluated or re-medicated?”

I could tell that reminiscing over our aunt’s schizophrenic escapades wasn’t bringing Diane the levity I had hoped it would and so, as I casually stepped over a pothole in the side walk, I asked if she’d rather change the subject of our conversation. When she responded in the affirmative, I inquired about her love life. After a bit of prodding, we spoke of discarded boyfriends, for several minutes, until I eventually asked, “So who’s this new guy I keep hearing about?” I lightly nudged her with my elbow, as I asked my question.

“We’re just friends,” she said with an overdramatic, watery eye roll. I then lowered my glasses and shot one of my own back at her (for comedic effect) to which she grinned and added, “I mean, I’ve thought about it, sure, but it’s not really a big deal. Right now, we’re just friends and that’s fine.”

“Why the smile then?” I asked with another nudge, as we slowly traversed the narrow sidewalk wrapping around the very old, forgotten neighborhood.

“Well,” she sighed, “last night, we were texting back and forth and he wished me good night. He’s never done that before.”

“So why do you sound bummed about it?” I confusedly asked. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“I don’t know if it was a good night—like, indicating some feelings, possibly—or if it was a dismissive, ‘Leave me alone,’ good night, as in ‘Good night. Please stop bugging me now.’”

“The ol’ preemptive good night,” I mused, while swatting away a pesky gnat attracted to my sweat.

“It just came out of nowhere. He texted something. Neither of us responded. The conversation seemed to have arrived at a natural stopping point and then, eight minutes later, I got the ‘I’m heading off to bed; good night’ text. So was that a ‘Good night. I wish I could talk to you more’ or a ‘Good night. You’re pestering me; please stop’ text?”

“Eight minutes, huh?”

“Yeah. What do you think?”

“What do I think?” I echoed while squinting up at the sun, from behind my shaded eyes. “I think he… what was his name again?”

“Kevin.”

“Kevin,” I repeated aloud. “I think it’s unlikely that Kevin knows the exact number of minutes that transpired between texts and that he probably isn’t obsessing over any minor details like that either. Having said that, though, I can appreciate what you’re saying. I’d probably be doing the same thing that you are.”

“Thank you for your wise words, O Love Guru,” she playfully scoffed. “Tell me: how’s Fisky? Are you currently dating or not dating? It’s so hard to keep it straight.”

“She can’t commit to any longevity with me,” I said emotionlessly. “Just the same as I can’t commit to saying ‘no’ every time she wants to try again. This time, though… It feels different this time. I really don’t think she’s coming back.”

“That really sucks. Are you okay?”

“She just feels like my last chance, you know? In all these years since Beth’s death, she’s the only girl I’ve been able to care about and I don’t think I have it in me to start over again with someone else.”

“There are other girls out there, James. I might even know a few I can introduce you to.”

“It’s okay. At least I still have Chris,” I joked.

At this, Diane broke out into a full-blown guffaw. “The dude who did your mom’s cabinets?”

“Yup.”

“He’s still calling you?”

“He never stopped.”

“Just think,” she started, as we passed under the shade of a massive oak tree in the front yard of a quaint, offbeat, yellow, colonial home, “If your mom hadn’t had to go and meet my mom that day—if she hadn’t asked you to come over and stay there while he installed her cabinets—”

“Then he would have never been able to chew my ear off and coerce me into giving him my phone number,” I interrupted.

“I can’t believe he’s still trying to hang out with you,” she laughed.

“Me neither. I know he has plenty of friends. What’s so special about me?”

“Do the voice!” she teased. I shook my head in defiance, which forced her to beg. “C’mon! I love the way you do his accent. It’s so funny!”

“I’m not in the mood,” I grumpily replied.

“Is he still trying to get you to work with him?” she asked somewhat dejectedly.

“Yeah but that’s not gonna happen.”

“Well, you need to do something. My mom told me you walked out of your last job without having any prospects lined up at all! Are you crazy or what?”

I could feel my body’s temperature rising, as we continued our stroll through her neighborhood—to the restaurant that was just across the street from one of the allotment’s back entrances. The sweat from my armpits began to drip down and form small, moist pools where the hem of my sleeve and the body of my shirt connected. While trying to reposition my clothing, in a failing effort to displace the soggy fabric under my arm, I ventured, “That was the worst job I’ve ever had and I’m including my teenage, fast-food days in that statement.”

“Why?!?” she laughed.

“I could barely convince myself to pull into the parking lot every morning. Every inch of my soul told me to keep driving. Everything this company did conflicted with who I was. Down to my core, it felt wrong and I had to lie to myself every moment of every day, just to keep from walking out the door and never coming back.”

“I get that but still,” she argued, “I don’t know if I could just up and leave a job—even if it was a crummy job.”

“I didn’t want to up and leave. I wanted an earnest conversation with my boss, where I could explain myself to her. I wanted to tell her how I was feeling but something unexpected happened before I could. My third week there—when I was already sick of lying to myself and was looking for an exit strategy—she accidently walked in on her husband and found him cheating on her. That started a really nasty separation. She became distant and unapproachable. She took to locking herself away in her office for hours on end—talking to lawyers and screaming at her husband. Sometimes she’d completely disappear for days. She was a mess and I felt bad for her. I hated the job but I had sympathy for her. I wanted to stick it out—until she could get her head back on straight, at least.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“Her son took over during all of this and he was… ‘difficult’ to work with. He was the icing on the excrement-flavored cake. Eventually, I reached a point where I couldn’t take it anymore—when I knew, without a doubt, that I couldn’t stand even one more day in the place.

“I had planned on talking to the boss after work that day but she disappeared, while I was on the phone. So I just left her a resignation letter on her desk. I always regretted leaving without a face-to-face conversation. I guess I just figured that she had enough on her mind and if she actually cared enough to discuss it with me, she could always call me. She never did, though, so I guess that probably means it’s been bothering me a lot more than it has her.”

Diane looked uncomfortable listening to my diatribe. It wasn’t surprising, then, that when she had the opportunity to speak once more, she tried to steer the conversation elsewhere by asking, “Have you ever thought about going back to teaching again?”

“My old man would be turning over in his grave if he heard you say that,” I quickly chortled.

“Your dad too?!? What’s with our family and teachers anyway?!?” she asked with annoyance.

As I kicked an acorn and sent it skipping across the street, I said, “You know, for the longest time, I thought that. Now, I just think that my old man knew I wasn’t being honest with myself.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t want to teach art, Diane. Not really. I wanted to create it! I think he figured that out well before I ever did and he was just waiting for me to get there on my own.”

“Well,” she said, scratching her chin, “you still could, ya know.”

“Nah. That ship sailed a long time ago.”

***

Diane and I continued to discuss our lives as we walked and, before I knew it, we were exiting her neighborhood and crossing a busy, four-lane road in order to get to the restaurant across the street. I hadn’t eaten all day and my growling stomach was telling everyone within earshot that I was famished. It made me feel self-conscious, while waiting in the line that had formed outside the front door. That feeling soon changed to remorse, however, as I scanned the patio tables, to my right, and tried to guess which seats Beth and her friends selected four years ago.

The line was moving terribly slowly, which afforded us some extra time to breathe freely. By the time we’d reached the lobby just inside the double doors, however, we had already strapped on our state-required, surgical masks. The hostess was wearing one too. She was a friendly young woman with green highlights in her otherwise auburn hair, and a small, golden hoop in her left nostril. I caught a glimpse of it when she addressed us and her mask lazily slid down over her nose. After a brief exchange, she gave us a circular pager and explained that it would light up when a table was ready.

The restaurant parking lot was crowded (as expected for a Friday night) but good fortune shined upon us and, without too much difficulty, we found an empty bench outside. The overhanging roof above it provided some shade and neither of us needed much coaxing before walking toward it and seating ourselves. Most other people, it seemed, preferred to wait inside of their air-conditioned vehicles.

For the most part, it was just another typical Friday night. Then, all of a sudden, something within me changed. It was though I had just intercepted a scheme for an impending attack against my own, already-beleaguered mind but there wasn’t enough time to properly thwart it.

Four feet above me, several blank, gray, rectangular panels that only I could see began to surround my head. Each one of them was the physical manifestation of some negative thought: “You’re not smart enough.” “No one loves you.” “You’re a failure.” “You’re going to die alone.” “We’re coming to get you,” etc. They were overwhelming—to the point that I couldn’t concentrate on anything else! From experience, I knew, at this point, that in about thirty seconds, they would start inching closer toward me and, when that happened, I would lose control.

As they came closer and closer, they began growing in size. They became more ominous; more threatening; more commanding. Closer. Closer. I knew I couldn’t escape. They were bombarding me. I couldn’t stop them. The timer had been engaged—the thirty seconds of impending dread before I was completely overwhelmed was already counting down. That helplessness—the inevitability of it all and that utter inability to escape it—was terrifying.

I remember turning toward Diane and telling her, “I feel like I’m about to have a panic attack.” She asked me if it would help to walk around a little. I said “yes” and that’s the last thing I remember.