August 14-A man came into my room this morning and we had a talk. He had thick brown hair. He was a trifle portly, as well, but he had such an expression on his face that made him seem amiable. I’ll attempt to transcribe our conversation in here. It won’t be verbatim, but it will be close.
“Hey, buddy.” (That’s the man talking).
“Hello.”
“You probably don’t remember me--”
“You’re right.”
He laughed a little. I don’t know why, though. By this time he had taken a seat under the television and I was sitting up in my bed.
“Well, I’m your brother.”
“Hello, brother.”
“The doctor said you had amnesia but they’re hoping it’s a temporary thing. He wanted me to come down here and, uh, see if I could possibly bring your memory back.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“About what?”
“That you’re my brother. It’s inconceivable.” I didn’t want to tell him where I’d been. I had the suspicion that he was one of THEM. The one’s who kept me in that complex.
“So, you don’t remember anything?”
“Anything…of what?”
“Your life? I don’t know. In general, you don’t remember anything?”
“I remember what a television is, if that’s the type of thing you’re referring to. I remember that Christmas is December 25th. I remember Easter.”
“Uh huh. Well, let’s get you caught up on some things. When you went into the coma--
“Coma?”
“You don’t remember what that is?”
“No, I remember what it is, but I most definitely was not in a coma.” Trying to trick me! That blasted devil! But, why? I know he wants me back in that complex. I know he wants to torture me yet even more!
“Okay…um--Well, anyway, before you ‘went away’ I was in college studying animation at UCLA--”
“Where was I? What was I doing before my departure?” I thought that even though he was obviously lying about most things, he could still give me some indication as to what my life was like before the complex.
“Um, high school. You were in high school.”
“High school?” Then, I thought for a moment. I am nearing old age! I must’ve been away for a long while. But, of course, I couldn’t really believe a word that was coming out of his mouth. But, I’m always one for a good story and argument. Well, I’m not much for arguments, but this man was making it too simple. “How long was I gone?”
“Five--Almost six years.” Does he think I am THAT daft?
“Impossible!”
“Look, you don’t have to believe me--”
“I am an old man, sir. If I had left during high school it would be far more than five or six years passed.” He stared at me for a moment with the face of an aloof idiot, but suddenly changed his demeanor back to full consciousness.
“Let me ask you this: Where have you been all this time?”
“In a complex.”
“A complex?”
“Yes, a complex.” He wants me back in there. I know he does. I know it!
“Well--I would like you to put all your assumptions about me aside and, more than that, stop interrupting me. I’m trying to help you. If you have that mindset then maybe we can make some progress. You with me?”
“Carry on.” I figured I might as well give him the courtesy of a civil conversation.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” The man sighed after I said this. He seems to be easily aggravated.
“Anyway. For our entire lives until I was about thirteen and you were eleven (and please, like I said before, put away your assumptions and let me finish my story), we lived in Eureka, which is in California…which is where we are now.”
“I see.”
“Yes, and we lived here with our mom and dad. Oh yeah and stop me if you remember any of this.”
“I doubt that I will.”
“Okay. Well…dad got a job in Los Angeles. He’s a Baptist minister. Or he was one, anyway. So, we all moved down there to L.A. It wasn’t anything that anyone really wanted to do. Dad just had ‘the call,’ I guess. And anyway, we got there and about two months into our stay, dad got a letter from the people in the church, telling him that he needed to reform or resign. It was corrupt. The people were. The whole church was. But we didn’t know. Mom and dad hid all their dislike of the church from us. In fact, you and I kinda liked the church. Well, you never really warmed up to it. But, regardless, you liked some aspects of the church. Dad was the one most torn up with it. After all, he was the pastor. He’d cry at nights, he punched a hole through a wall once, he’d come inches away from blatantly insulting the church people right from the pulpit. He preached for about a year, every Sunday, about the corruptness of the Pharisees and of Nineveh and of Sodom and Gomorrah. And I’m rambling, but do you remember any of this?” I sighed a bit.
“Los Angeles, yes. But, otherwise, nothing comes to mind.” Regardless of all its absurdity, his tale was quite enchanting.
“Well, we kinda just lived through it. And like I said, me and you lived kinduva…what’s the word I’m thinking of?”
“Parochial.”
“What does that mean?”
“Sheltered, but in relation to a church or parish, I believe.”
“Uh…yeah…I was thinking of ‘sheltered’ but I guess that could work.” There was a pause for some moments and he continued yet again. “Well, after about four years, dad finally resigned the church; not because he was under any pressure from the church people, but because he felt he’d finally been ‘released.’ The pressure had stopped a long time before that. So, we moved, but we stayed in L.A. because dad’s a plumber, too, and he had started his own business. And for about nine months we went to another church. It was a big church. And dad chose it because he just wanted to relax for a while. It was nice going there, though. But, right from the start, we knew it was temporary. Then, we went to another church. The pastor was a friend of dad’s that he’d met during his stint as a minister. Ironically, it was called New Life. The church was called that--New Life Church. And the only reason I’m talking so much about churches is because they have so much to do with our lives, I guess.”
“New Life?” It was at that point that I realized he was definitely one of “them.” How else could he know so much about my life in the complex? It was becoming evident that he was trying to lull me into believing his story and then maybe leaving with him while all the doctors thought he was my brother. He was trying to get me to remember things from the complex so I would mistake them for things in his so-called reality. I wouldn’t buy it, though. I’m too clever to be beguiled by such an arrogant cur.
“Yeah--you remember it?”
“No. Not really.”
“Okay. The pastor there, his name was Gore. We were never told his first name--we just called him Pastor Gore or Brother Gore. I don’t know why, though. Do you remember him?”
“No.”
“Ha. That’s funny. He had a granddaughter--never mind. Anyway, going to that church is basically the reason you went away. You met a girl there (not Gore’s granddaughter). A very pretty girl, but she was about three years younger than you. You’d seen her before. That particular Baptist section (like a parish) had youth ‘gatherings’ of all the churches in that section. So you’d seen her while dad was pastoring at that other church. But you didn’t really see her that often and you never really spoke a word to her. But when we started going to New Life, you saw your chance to actually DO something, I guess. But, you were both very shy. And for a while, about four months I’d say, you guys didn’t really say anything to each other. Eventually, I guess, you warmed up to each other. You didn’t really officially say you were ‘going out,’ because you were both too afraid to admit it ’cause you didn‘t want to be rejected. It was actually kinda funny. She’d follow you around everywhere and when she wasn’t following you, you were following her. But, you were 17 and she was 14 and it was just kinda awkward, I guess. The church people started to dislike you because they saw you as an odd boy on the verge of manhood and they saw her as the little girl that had grown up in front of their eyes. And her brother was very protective which didn’t help much. They didn’t think you should be thinking about such a young girl. So they offered Gore’s granddaughter and so did Gore, himself. I kinda talked about that before. She was older, but less mature. And you thought she was really annoying. Anyway, the one you really liked moved. Moved to Merced with her parents and her two little sisters in June of that year. What year was it? Oh, I don’t remember. Her brother stayed in L.A., though. You and her took it pretty hard. She came one last time in July, I believe, and she finally told you she liked you and you told her you liked her. Blah blah blah. Then, about two or three months after she left, her brother said something smart to you one day about her, and you overreacted. You’d brought a knife to church to cut some rope for the pastor for a play or something. Then you pinned her brother up against the wall with the knife at his neck. And then someone hit you over the head with a fire extinguisher. And that was it. You remember any of this?”
“Let me ask you one question--what were her parent’s names?”
“Um…Jean and Ronald, why?” J & R! I remember the blasted table!
“Jean and Ronald…I see, I see.” Then I glowered at him for a moment, while my chest was almost audibly boiling. I don’t know why. With great pauses between my unnecessarily malevolent words, I said “Get out, now.” I pointed towards the door. He was stunned. Or at least he looked that way. He started to say something again but I gave him a look as if to say, “No, leave,” and pointed to the door again. He stared at me for some amount of time with a look of a spiteful dog whose bone had just been thieved. I stared back with the same expression. Then he let out an exasperated sigh of air, stood up, flipped the chair over childishly, and walked out of the room. He could be angry for all I cared. How did he expect me to react? He was making himself too conspicuous. He used too many subtle examples from the complex which I won’t bore you with. Because, had you been there, it would’ve been obvious. Which doesn’t make any sense because “you” weren’t there. But, I’m not talking to this pad. When I refer to “you” I’m typically referring to myself. Not in this case, I suppose. Well, for one, the J & R inscribed on the table the rose sat on. I don’t know why I would’ve made that connection. He seemed to be referring to the rose with his account of the girl, and it only seemed germane to associate the table with being her “parents.” And the girl’s two little sisters I guessed were the two empty pots. And the cactus, her brother. There were more. But I can discern what they are from perusing my precise description of our conversation. He made a valiant attempt. He didn’t look how I imagined “they” would look. Not in the least bit.
My memory in this place is oddly more amplified than in the white complex. I remembered, in total, the conversation between the man and myself with hardly any mistakes, but in the complex, I could barely remember the small chats between the nurses and I. Certainly, my brain must have been infected while in the complex.
In this room, the walls are white. The bed is white. The floor is tiled and beige. There are various medical devices about me. There is a gray television hanging up in front of my bed. And there is a brown chair underneath it. There are some delightfully blue curtains on the window to the left of my bed. To the right of my bed, is a tan end table. On top of that is a dusty record player. At the front corner of the room is another brown chair. Both chairs are plastic--the type you might see in grade school. There is a mirror near the door of the room that I don’t care to look in. My memory seems to be slowly coming back.
The television here is quite useless. There’s nothing good that ever comes on. Except for Nightline. That is the one show I will tolerate. The fellow that anchors it is very captivating. I should hate to see him leave. The only negative aspect is that it comes on so late that I can hardly keep open my drooping eyes.
I had a dream last night about the complex. It was very windy, for some strange reason. I was back in my room. I decided to take a walk in my dream. Well I didn’t actually decide to, but you get the picture. And suddenly I was taken up on the roof of the complex. I could barely stand up because the wind was so intensely harsh. And the tree, which I could still not see the top of, was tilting with every gust, as was I. And the clouds in the sky became darker and darker as the moments went on and I found myself getting farther and farther from the tree. And I could see the tree finally plummet down, crushing the complex below it. At that point I was so far away from the tree that I was forced to squint in order to see it with any clarity. Everything around me at that moment was white. And I turned around and there was the red rose. Flawless in her consummate and rigid pose. And the mannequin suddenly appeared behind me and I turned to see him. Everything around him had become dark black in contrast to the vivid white I had seen before and the pallor of the mannequin himself. He said, “Don’t let this happen. For your own safety, don’t let it happen!” And then I awoke. I miss the rose.
Now that I think of it, that man did look somewhat familiar. |
Submission Name: Morose Thorn (Chapter 6)
