by Greg Gerke
As I walked home one pleasant summer evening in Buffalo, New York after working at the homeless shelter I came upon an old green Pontiac Grand Am jutting out from a driveway onto the sidewalk. In the backseat was a heavy man completely wrapped in cellophane. I opened the door and his eyes lit up. I cut the wrap away from his mouth with my keys. He coughed and gurgled. He had a thick mustache and a complexion that could have been Egyptian.
“Thank you, thank you,” he muttered. He was American, but from an older, more distinguished part, maybe New Hampshire. I guessed he was close to sixty.
“They left me one slight opening down by my neck. I could feel the air sucking in and out.” I went to cutting free his arms, then legs. When I finished he sat on the seat, stunned. “I’ve been here for hours, I don’t know. Forgive me I’m too dizzy to talk. I’ve been running through my life. Making amends—I thought I would surely die.” His face went crooked and his oily fingers grabbed onto my sleeve for support.
We were on Delaware Avenue, the city’s main thoroughfare. The driveway led to an old mansion. One of many, some were too pricey to be occupied, while others housed lawyer’s offices and assorted non-profits the city had provided for a song. This one—gray-bricked, with elegant, thin, green windows from the turn of the century—was unknown to me. Before that day I never noticed it.
“Who were they?” I said.
“They’re awful. I don’t know where they came from. They abducted me at lunch time. I had just come out of the bank.”
“Robbers?”
The man sat in a thin tee-shirt and underwear. His belly spread out before him, resting on the tops of his thighs. It looked as if he had peed several times. “I’m so embarrassed,” and his head dropped like an over watered flower.
I held his hand tight. “Don’t worry, we’ll get a taxi — ”
“I was supposed to close on a house this afternoon. I’ve been waiting years for it to be available.”
Already I was in the street, flagging. If I was as disoriented as him I’d want to get back to reality as soon as possible. The sun turned down slowly — a patient, meticulous dimmer. A hornet buzzed past my ear.
The man eased himself out of the car and walked over to me, his belly quaking with every slow step. “Get back,” I said. “It will be more difficult if they see you.”
He wiped his brow with a black sock. A third from somewhere, he still had two on. “Surely you recognize me?” he said.
My hand dropped and I studied him. I’d never seen him. Was he delirious?
“My name is Frederick Epps.”
“Epps?” I said and shook my head. I looked at him. His face was warm and friendly. He seemed at ease in his nightwear, like we were on a movie set.
“You went out with my granddaughter.” He put up a finger. “Not the same name. I have grandchildren by two different families.”
Cars tore past us. It was a Tuesday night. People wanted to get places. They didn’t have time to interfere.
“Justine,” he said proudly and waddled over to an oak tree, shifting onto all fours before sitting.
“I don’t know what to say.”
He squinted. “You should say you’re sorry.”
My eyes curled and I huffed. “Justine is a wonderful person.”
He slammed the ground between his legs. “She’ll never live down your leaving. She’s had three breakdowns in five years, and you work at some homeless shelter, pawning yourself off as a good samaritan?”
“I don’t pawn—”
“You should be in prison for how you treated my girl.”
I put my hands up. “Look, this is a joke. Her grandparents were dead. Both sets. I remember that clearly.”
He burst into laughter. “People always think they know better. No matter how many times they’ve been proven wrong. No, they insist, this is how it should be, this is how the world works.” He slapped his leg and shook his head.
The smell of piss finally crippled me. “I have to go.”
“Where do you have to go to?”
“I — Someone very special is waiting for me at home.”
His icy lips came together in a smile. “Just go.”
I turned to leave but couldn’t. “I can’t just leave you here. Let me help you get a cab.”
He stood up and tucked his undershirt into his boxers so his stomach would be covered. “Unnecessary.” He stepped into the street and a white Bentley stopped for him. Two men were in the front, they stared ahead as he got into the back and then they were gone.
I looked at the car with the open door, the faint scent of urine still in the air. My cell phone buzzed, showing I had missed a call from Heather, my girlfriend.
After I came home we had dinner and then we made love. Heather feel asleep and I kissed her nose. Did I deserve such happiness if I had ruined another woman? I had been as crazy about Justine as I was about Heather. We just worked better together. I wanted Justine to be with the man of her dreams too. Hadn’t she earned that after struggling with our breakup? She had waited a year for my mind to change, even after I’d moved to Buffalo. Since it was only eleven and Oregon was three time zones before us, I called a friend who might know what became of Justine.
Mike, the bumbling wedding photographer with three pet corn snakes. “Hey Chuck, how the hell are you? You fall off the planet?”
“No, no, no. You know, we bought a house. All that bullshit.” I walked into the living room, closing the bedroom door.
Mike told me a few wild stories of new hallucinogens a Turkish woman had introduced him to, I laughed and just before he launched into another I said, “Hey man you ever keep up with Justine?”
“Yeah, she’s not doing too good.”
“No?”
“She was involved with this older guy and then she was pregnant. The guy left. She lost the baby. Oh man, it’s the ugliest story.”
“What about — did she ever have to go in, like to the mental hospital?”
“No, she’s hanging in there. I don’t know who, but I hear she’s seeing someone else now.”
I looked into the dark back porch of the house. “Hey, she ever talk about me?”
“About you? Hardly,” he laughed. “It’s like you never existed. For her I mean.”
I held the phone away from me. Eventually Mike started in about his snakes that were on diets of white mice.
When I came back into the bedroom, Heather was examining her phone. She licked her lips, “I just got a weird text message.”
I took off my pants and slipped into bed. There were symbols, half letters, a Sanskrit of sorts on the LCD. Below was a translation in the regular alphabet—If you didn’t realize it. Mike was high.
Heather shifted, “Mike, your friend from Portland?”
“Yeah.”
“What is this about?”
“It’s all about clowns and practical jokes and foolishness. It’s beneath us and it’s behind us.”
“You don’t sound like yourself tonight.”
“No, no. I am, I am,” and I wrapped my arms around her.
Walking to work the next morning I thought I’d take a different route but I castigated myself as a pussy and continued on Delaware Avenue right to the place where I had found the man the day before. The car was gone but in that exact spot on the sidewalk was an Oregonian newspaper in blue plastic. Red magic marker arrows led me to turn pages to the metro section. On the bottom of the first page there was a short article about Justine Bennett, age twenty-nine, who had gone on a spree of robberies and finally drove her car into a pharmacy on Lincoln Street. She cut her body up as she walked through the broken glass to find the oxycodin she had been addicted to for over a year. The article was dated four months ago.
Birds were singing in the high branches of the maples trees. Hopping around, bringing food for their chicks.
I had given my life over to Justine and at most every juncture she had started fights about things like soap, accused me of desiring other women and constantly reminded me of how I needed therapy to sort out the issues that plagued our relationship. I didn’t want to believe she had erased me from memory but what choice did I have? I had found the love of my life, I had a fulfilling job and a nice circle of friends. The old, fat man had made me think the past meaningful for one bright moment.
I finally had to admit that one set of Justine’s grandparents were alive and the name the man supplied was genuine. But as of two years ago that Fredrick Epps was confined to bed. Whoever this other man was, he was only a shill, hired for an elaborate stunt.
As soon as I walked into work I shut the back door of the office and found the number of Justine’s sister Angela. I had to remind her who I was. “Chuck, why are you calling?”
“I don’t know. I thought I’d check in on everyone.”
“Everyone’s fine Chuck.”
“Justine?”
“Justine’s having some trouble. Why? Who told you?”
“The grapevine.”
“Well the grapevine should be more careful about who they speak to.”
“How bad is Justine?”
“Chuck come on. You’re not gonna fly here and be a savior.”
Every minute of the eight hours I worked I couldn’t help feeling responsible. It carried over to my job as well. In every client’s hopeless eyes I saw that I had let them down. They were denied SSI/SSD, their medications were causing massive side effects—it was all me, my fault. My co-workers told me to go home early but I refused and as I came down Delaware that evening again a car jutted out from the driveway of the old deserted looking mansion. This time a silver Corolla.
I inched forward. On the driver’s seat was a folder from American Airlines. I was booked to fly to Portland Saturday morning. One way. A mid-size rental car awaited me. From the airport were directions to the hospital where Justine was.
I walked home slowly, varying my route so it took me twice as long. Getting closer a piercing pain shot through my chest. I thought it traveled into my left arm but I couldn’t be sure. Always healthy, I’d never been in a hospital. Not to a doctor since grade school. I’d always treated the past as a time of learning. Mostly I had good memories. I never regretted breaking up with Justine. She went back and forth about me but once I even heard her tell a friend she wanted out too. I’d picked up the receiver and listened in. Just to know how to proceed. She wouldn’t have said such a thing if she didn’t want out. She knew we were bad together.
I told Heather Mike was in an embarrassing situation and he paid for the ticket. I would return the next day (before I left work I booked the return trip). With some reservations Heather agreed. She wanted to speak to Mike—maybe she could talk sense into him. But I would make that happen I assured her. And he had made me promise not to tell anyone.
I arrived at the hospital in the early afternoon. To visit I had to fill out a ridiculous amount of forms and then I was told I would only have ten minutes with Justine. Also because of a recent episode of trying to hang herself with pajamas, I would be behind glass. The second person who came to the desk was Martha, a woman in her late thirties with dishwater blond hair and a part between her front teeth. My accompaniment to the unit’s secured rooms, Martha eyed me truculently, “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“How so?”
She laughed. “I say ‘we’ for Justine, because I’m her right hand now. We had to tell her it was you. We needed her consent.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing. She just signed an X.”
The hallway smelt like disinfectant. It was unnaturally bright and the doors we passed had only silver doorknobs to distinguish them from the walls, no doorways. From the ground floor we went down two levels in the elevator. Martha checked the wrists of her white uniform. Bemused, I tilted my head. “If she sees a string or something foreign she’ll fixate,” she said.
“If there were something there, wouldn’t I distract her from it?”
“Not if she sees the string first.” I inspected my clothes. Martha smiled. “I’ve checked you already.”
When we came to the crest of a heavy door I asked her if there was anything I needed to know. “Try not to dwell on the past.”
I nodded and she unlocked the door. The high-ceilinged room was brighter than the hallway. It was very apparent Justine wanted Martha to leave. After she agreed to keep on her best behavior, Martha went into a small anteroom with a window. I stood against the wall, some feet from the glass.
Justine sat by an empty table in profile, her fingers moving like they played a piano. My diminutive Justine. Her hair less than an inch long, the one cheek I saw hollowed, emaciated. “What are you doing here?” she said, not looking up.
“I was compelled.”
Her head arched back like she laughed but no noise came out. “So, you’ve finally come back to me.”
Martha checked through the window.
Justine kept sideways. “So you’re checking up, huh? Well what do you see?” she said, raising her arms.
“I see you. You’re pretty.”
She chuckled wildly. “I’m a mess Chuck. I look like slop. Like-like-like a dope fiend.”
“No Justine. You’re getting well.”
“You’re right,” she said after a pause. She chewed the side of her lip and pasted her hands together in delight. “I did something even before I knew you were coming Chuck. I did something in celebration of being over you.”
“Really?”
She shuffled over to the glass, sidestepping some invisible marks on the floor and waited for me, one shoulder leaning on the glass. “I want to show you.”
I looked at Martha and she made an OK sign.
I came to the glass and looked down at her and I remembered. Laughing in parks, swinging, jumping around on each other like we were puppies. There was a reason I was here. You help your friends, the people you love. And if you used to love them you get over it and step forward.
“Justine, before you—I just want to say I really enjoyed our time together. It made me happy. I know that you had fun.” I shook my head and smiled. “And I’ll always be your friend.”
“Oh,” she inhaled and rose on her tiptoes. “Chucky, that’s so beautiful. I enjoyed our time too. Now look what I have here.”
She pulled something out of the pocket of her smock and turned directly to me for the first time. Gristly, debauched flesh lay in her hand. Half of her face was gone, with only a veiny, blue-hued semblance of cheek and forehead left. While one half of her smiled the other half remained void—vague outlines where lip had been now twined like licorice into the blood vessels just below her nose. She cupped the decomposed half of her face and lifted it like an offering.
I jabbed at my eyes and slipped on the floor. But it was like I fell off the ledge of a tall building. I kept plummeting. I tried to curl into a ball during the free fall but had no control. It was amazing but I would never hit, I just continued sinking and sinking, deep into the earth, beyond any hell, beyond ego.
When I awoke I was in a small doctor’s office. Smelling salts had brought me to. Martha was next to the doctor—a plump Japanese man with jet black hair and large, murky eyes. I struggled where I lay, but my body wouldn’t move. “Is she dying, is she dead?” I cried.
Martha held a cup of tea close to her chest and nodded. “Oh Justine is fine. We sure learned our lesson a few weeks. Only plastic forks,” she said wagging her finger. Then she shrugged her shoulders. “And we only let her carry her skin around as a palliative. You should see how some people react when they see her. One of her uncles, Timothy I think his name was, he ran out of the unit, jumped in his car and smashed into a newspaper stand. Luckily you just fainted.” She peered at the doctor. “The weaker ones cause less damage, don’t they?” and she giggled.
“It was quite a shock Chuck,” the doctor said calmly, his face recoiling from showing more concern. “But we have things that will help you sleep tonight.”
I scowled at him. “But I have to get back to the airport. My flight will be leaving soon.”
They looked at each other. Then Martha examined me with downcast eyes. “Try this from our perspective Chuck. We’ve been waiting to get you here for so long. Thirty some years. We couldn’t just let you go now. Plus think of Justine. How focused she’s been on your arrival.” She sipped her tea. “Now, now. Just imagine, you’ll be able to see each other in the community room every day. She really likes backgammon. Are you a backgammon wizard Chuck?”
I reached to strangle her but my arms and legs were strapped to the examination table and when I stretched my neck I saw two attendants standing by the door. Their exposed forearms like cinder blocks.
“But I want Heather. I want my Heather!”
Martha laughed and the doctor smiled, tapping his wide throat. “Everyone wants their Heather or whatever they call their special someone. Maybe someday you will find that she or he—she.”
My heart contracted and burst. If someone peeled back my skin they would find a burnt out crust of rotting shrapnel in my rib cage. Heather would come and save me. Someone would save me. No—yes. No. I sobbed like I’d never sobbed before.
The doctor readied a needle. “Now it’s time to rest.”
– Ed. Note: Tune in tomorrow for DSM’s interview with Greg Gerke.
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Greg Gerke lives in Buffalo. His work has or will appear in Gargoyle, Rosebud, Fourteen Hills, Night Train, Flash Forward Press 2009 Anthology and others. There’s Something Wrong With Sven, a book of short fiction has been published by Blaze Vox Books. His website is Greg Gerke.
