Authors: Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall
Ghosted (26 page)
It’s hard to think when you’re moving like this. A misstep in the moonlight can send you flying. But he is already flying—so that, too, is hard to keep in mind, and eventually he stops trying. What good is thinking? Better just to keep moving. Every moment he holds on is another he doesn’t fall. That is the meaning of everything: the bliss of adrenaline, gambling, horseback and drugs.
The white horse, whinnies. He can feel it, too.
Mason held the reins in one hand and his cellphone in the other, still riding through the dead zone. There were too many races being run—he could feel the aching of a distant satellite, his animal tiring, the battery dying. Ahead was the city, the cellular network—but before that, a cliff. He could sense it in the moonlit darkness. It was as real as Sissy or Circe or Sarah, as real as the Man in the Black
Helmet, as real as those evasive cellular waves, as real as Willy’s left side and right. It was
time
that was false, or at least horribly skewed.
You’re running out of time
.
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Dig it:
“In seven days, Prisoner Seth xxxxxx shall be released into the custody of Sudden Street Halfway House where, for the next 42 days, he will be confined. During this time he will begin a med/ psych program. If after 42 days Prisoner xxxxxx is responding favourably to treatment, it may be deemed acceptable to begin curfew, to general parole.”
So says the Man.
The week before Christmas I will walk out of here. And in a bag I’ll carry two things: this notebook and the top of my head.
Oh, happy day …
Maybe even without the danger ahead, the waves of adrenaline, the volatile speed of riding horseback—without the horse’s breath like wisps of fog, the sleep deprivation and all the drugs and booze—maybe even without all that it would have been dreamlike: he had been riding, after all, for five long years, or maybe forever. He tried to think clearly.
Text requires less
.
He flicked open his phone.
Less power, less reception
.
As he rode, Mason typed with one thumb:
Willy’s life in danger! Get her somewhere safe!
But he couldn’t send the message.
Get out of the dead zone
.
The battery was dying.
Send the fucking message!
He couldn’t get reception. He closed the phone and gripped the reins, his boot heels digging in. They hit another speed, racing through the night—horse and rider, demons on their backs.
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Things I’ve Done
by Seth Handyman
I was born, as were most of us, from a bloody shitty cunt.
I opened my eyes, still dripping.
I saw everything.
I did things typically, unknowing, and it felt fucking good.
I spent my allowance on budgies and tore off their wings.
I spent the rest on candy and ate it.
I watched everything carefully.
I stole gum from purses, magazines from doorsteps.
I worked on my muscles, lured dogs from neighbouring yards and cut off their ears, then testicles. Learned fast I’d be shunned—didn’t mind the cliché: just the getting caught, and more the fucking punishment. That felt like losing.
I turned ten, pushed a whiny boy named Brian off the jungle gym headfirst down the hole for the fireman’s pole. He was concussed, I cried, people took care of me. It was the best birthday ever, and a week later I got another—for mine had been ruined. Sadly Brian survived, and became even more neurotic.
I killed two swans and tried to tie their necks in a knot—it was tougher than you might think.
I beat a crossing guard’s daughter with her own shoes, blackening her eyes.
Went to juvenile detention.
I did a lot of drugs, sold a lot of drugs and mixed them together—into new drugs, then sold those. I convinced a male nurse to fuck me, then I beat him with a flashlight.
I travelled. I read books. I wrote. I dove into canals. I threw empty bottles from rooftops, cars colliding in the street below.
I stopped travelling, became a DJ, raped a girl with red socks, rediscovered rock ’n’ roll, decided not to kill her, then hit the road again.
I studied Buddhism.
Drank a lot.
I tied a boy named Jeffrey to a furnace and peed on him for three days while eating strawberries, drinking gin and raping him.
I rolled drunks to buy drinks for drifters. I singed their eyelids with cigarettes.
I loved life, took what I could, was imprisoned for it, yet remained optimistic.
Then, all of a sudden, I was released.
And moved to a place called Sudden House—I became once more, for the most part, free. Free to be me, to live and love and write.
I enjoy the writing more each day. In fact, I came on this page.
And now I’ll try it again.
For I am an optimist: coming, coming … Oh, I am a poet.
On a quiet night, there is profound rhythm to the hooves and breath of a strong horse. It moves upwards through the rider’s gut and changes the beat of his heart, the tenor of his own breathing. Wind made of speed rushes past their ears. The horse and rider breathe together, drum rolling across the earth—hooves thudding and clicking—until the sound is like a message.
Down the cliff. Down the cliff
.
You’ll never make it
.
Down the cliff
.
Hooves and breath. Hooves and breath.
A book on your back like a monkey junkie.
And the dark rider knows: somewhere out in front of him, the Earth gives way to nothing.
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I think what’s funny is people trying to figure things out. They try to figure me out as if I’m like them. Pathetic. I don’t give a fuck, as in I got no empathy, asshole! Get it? But they try to get me by trying to relate to me. I don’t fucking relate! I do what makes me feel good. Period. Empathize with that, you pussy! If I were someone else, I’d just beat the shit out of me if it made me feel better instead of trying to understand. But people are just pussies and assholes. And I fucked them.
Fuck!
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You may notice that the last few pages have been torn out. There is a reason for that—just as there is a reason I have not written anything for the past four months. There is also a reason that I am writing this now—and it is NOT because I enjoy it. In fact I find this painful. It has taken me almost half an hour to write these fucking sentences, and they’re not even good. I am no longer a poet. But I will persevere, and explain all of this, for the sake of reason. I’m not saying this will be an engaging read. The writing is not good. But you must pay attention. I am writing this for you.
And keep in mind: even poorly written words can change your life. These are the ones that changed mine:
“Condition of Parole, Medical: progesterone treatment (injection q. 14 days) under force of law.”
At first glance the sentence doesn’t seem too bad—other than it is incomplete and some of the words are confusing. But don’t be fooled, it’s a doozy—full of ugliness, hopelessness and death. It can be found in paragraph four, page 11, of Seth Handyman’s “Conditions of Release,” a work I should have read more carefully.
Progesterone is a female sex hormone that suppresses androgen through shutting down the pituitary axis. This, in turn, stops the production of testosterone.
The side effects of progesterone are as follows: decreased
libido, decreased creativity, extreme depression. Simply put: I have been legally, chemically castrated.
And as it turns out, the key to life is not acceptance or love or balance: it is testosterone. Without it there is nothing: no sensation, so no desire, so no reason to do anything—to eat or drink or fuck or write. No incentive to choose one word over another. But it’s more than that—or should I say less?
If I look out the window, what do I see? A tree, two squirrels, a plastic garbage container, a brick, a man with a brown cap, three cars, a woman in a blue dress, an orange pylon. To me they’re all exactly the same. It’s not just that my sense of competition is gone—it’s that all competition is gone from the universe, so that nothing vies for attention. The woman is the pylon is the tree is the brick. And so why write, when one word describes it all:
ugly
.
U-G-L-Y.
You ain’t got no alibi.
Yer ugly. Yer ugly.
And it’s all yer fault.
So you see, with that one incomplete sentence—“Condition of Parole …”—I was robbed of everything: music, books, sex, power, pomegranates, women, pylons, trees and bricks.
In the end, fat Larry fucked me—gave me freedom and took away my life. I, Seth Handyman: brought down by a girl’s sex hormone.
Mason took the stairs two at a time. The apartment was empty. He plugged in his cellphone and called Chaz. No answer. He ran down the stairs and out—then down again, into the belly of the
Cave. And there he was, his oldest friend, wiping down the bar. He looked like someone strange.
“Did you get my text?” said Mason.
“What happened to you?”
“I fell off a horse. Did you get the fucking text?”
“Yeah.”
“And …?”
“And Willy’s safe,” said Chaz. “What do you mean you fell off a horse?”
Mason looked at the mirror, trying to look through it. “Is she in there? Is she back there right now?”
Chaz nodded. “You want to see her?”
He thought for a moment. “What time is it?”
“What?”
“I need a gun?”
“Your head is bleeding.”
“So?”
“I’m not giving you a gun.”
“Fine!” Mason took off his backpack and slammed it down on the bar. He held the edge of it, wobbling. “Then how ’bout a drink?” Chaz poured him a glass of Jim Beam. Mason did a quick succession of lines.
“What the fuck’s going on, Mason?”
“What time is it?” said Mason.
“Almost time to open.”
“I gotta go.”
“Oh, you do, eh?”
He took Seth’s notebook from his backpack and handed it to Chaz. “Hold on to this. And keep Willy safe.”
“Anything else?”
“I could do with a gun.”
“You mentioned that.”
“Just a small one …”
“Sit the fuck down, Mason.”
Mason stared at the mirror. “I gotta make last call,” he said.
“That’s
what you gotta do?”
“Yeah,” he said, then killed his drink and exited through the curtains.
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It was so bad I thought of killing myself.
And then, one day, something happened.
I was waiting for the doctor. As if a prescription of despair and emptiness isn’t enough, I have to go and wait to have it filled. So I was sitting in the doctor’s waiting room, trying to plan my suicide, when suddenly I heard a voice.
“Willy told me what you did!” it said.
I looked up and there you were, standing in the open doorway, shouting at Dr. Francis. I don’t know if you saw me. You were mad and self-righteous, fucked up and wound up. It was like listening to my very own God: “Don’t you accuse me of hurting people—or trying to save them! Take a look at yourself, Doc!”
And with a nod to me you left. You didn’t know me—but I knew you: my lucky star, my resurrection.
Yes, you, Mason Dubisee, are going to be the one who saves me.