I Will Rise (24 page)

“Besides, I hate being so goddamn cryptic. It feels good to get everything on the table.”

Well, there’s no denying that the dreamer knows what it is doing. The mere mention of number three, and now this sudden unveiling, have set me on edge. I already hate this motherfucking Allen Michael, and now I hate him even more because of his association with my girl.

“Do you visit him like you visit me? You know, sexy and confident and well, sexy.” I embarrass myself with my candor.

“Here’s how it is. You ready?”

I shrug my shoulders.

“I can sense your discomfort, Charles. Let me start by saying that we, you and I, have something way more special. I don’t know him like I know you. We have faith. We’re here for each other. With him, it’s a much more distant relationship. When I visit him, it’s not like when I visit you. It’s not like reality. It’s more like when you really dream, how you don’t really have choices and everything that happens, or is about to happen, feels like it has been planned a long time in advance. Things are blurry and dreamy and disjointed. Information is muddled and based almost solely on feeling and instinct. That’s why I don’t know his name. That’s why I was surprised to hear his voice on television. I didn’t even know he was a TV…what did you say…physic?”

“He swindles people. He tells them his dead wife helps him contact their dead loved ones.”

Annabelle takes a second to think about this. It’s obvious she did not know this about number three. It seems to bother her. She physically shrugs, as if she is convincing herself it doesn’t matter (I suppose what Allen Michael does for a living doesn’t really matter) and then continues:

“I still don’t know how we all fit together, I just know the voices are drawing us together. You are setting us free, touch by touch, I am making sure we get where we need to go, and he holds the final piece of the puzzle. It is harder to garner information from him because as I said when I visit him it’s like I am dreaming. Last visit, just before you picked me up, I was close to understanding.”

“I still can’t believe this. The way that guy walks around, thinking he is the shit. God, he makes my skin crawl.” I am debating whether I should tell Annabelle about Alice Michael. Does it matter? Are her visits somehow part of all of this? Before I make a decision, Annabelle says:

“We are linked for a reason. The dreamer has been planting the seeds and preparing the rebellion for a long time.” She digs into her pocket and pulls out a small medicine vial. She opens it and dry-swallows two pills. “Maybe now we’ll get some real answers. I’ve been visiting you for years and Allen for a little less than a year. It seems that every time I make contact with him I am pulled away by morning, or my fucked-up parents or—no offense—a shift in my dreams to you. With you here watching over me, I should be able to establish a connection and keep it. These pills should keep me out for a while.” She holds up the bottle, recaps it and shoves it into her pocket.

Lying down and getting comfortable Annabelle closes her eyes. “Go take your shower and then relax. I should be back in the morning with some news and a solid plan. Maybe, if I get enough information early on, I’ll be able to shift and come visit you.”

“Annabelle?” I ask, an idea striking me.

“Yeah?”

“When did you go blind?”

“When I was twelve.”

“You’re forty-five now?”

“Yeah.”

“Right.” I take far too long to do the math and then blurt, “Thirty-three years ago! What day?”

“What?”

“What day did you go blind? Do you remember what day you went blind?”

“Of course I do. I’ll never forget it.” Her face lights up as she realizes what I am getting at. “Why didn’t I make the association before? March thirteenth. Your birthday.”

“My birthday. I’m born, you go blind and Mrs. Allen Michael dies.”

“Who?”

“Alice Michael, Allen Michael’s wife.”

Annabelle frowns and her mouth becomes an angry line. “He has a wife,” she says this low and under her breath.

“Yeah,” I fire back nonchalantly. It is all too obvious there is something more going on between her and Allen. I decide to keep Alice’s birthday visits to myself.

Annabelle shakes her head, takes a small breath and brightens. “I’ll get us some answers.” She smiles. “I’ll be seeing you soon.”

“I hope so.” And I want to leave it at that, but I can’t control myself. I snap, “The idea of you with that snake makes me feel fucking crazy. Maybe you shouldn’t have told me.”

“Maybe, but remember, we trust each other. We love each other. I love you. Good night. Now relax.”

Her declaration has me floating. I curtsey and whisper, “Good night,” as I make for the TV off button. Stupid Allen Michael goads his audience of drooling sheep. He preens and smiles too widely and acts as if the littlest meaningless facts—my husband carried a gold pocket watch, Uncle Steve served in the army, Ruby hates root canals—are the keys to the fucking kingdom. I press the off button with a vengeance and then stomp off to the bathroom

Why did it have to be him? Anyone but him. God, AAARRRGGGHH, fuckshit. Man, I hate that motherfucker. The mere sight of him and his snake-oil three-ring circus has knocked me right off my cloud. So much for Annabelle’s heartwarming declaration. So much for rational thought.

I get out of my clothes, set the shower on stun (warm, warm, warm) and let wonderful pressurized water work at my dead body. Gunshot wounds have all but disappeared, except the monster hole in my stomach. It looks a lot better than earlier though; it’s dry and rough and has stopped leaking suspicious-looking fluids. The jet stream obliterates tension, washes away the muck and fortunately I am able to let the building jealousy go (for now).

Finally, a little peace.

My life has become such a roller coaster. Moments crowding moments, consuming moments, the next moment turning to the last moment before I have a chance to catch my breath. And it doesn’t even seem like it’s real. Everything is moving too fast, like living in a perpetual state of kinetic hypermotion. Like getting lost in the hectic thrush of a hummingbird’s wings.

I have no hand.

Things come out of my stump.

I’m in love.

It is in my power to destroy the world.

I’ve made friends.

Mr. Shithead thinks I’m a good person.

I’ve stolen many cars.

I am needed.

People lie for their beliefs.

I am a murderer.

I am caught between Annabelle and Allen and Alice.

But I am none of those things. I am back in my shitty apartment. I am praying to an empty God. I am failing. I am overweight and unfriendly and built to lose. I am putting a gun to my head, or my head in an oven, or my oven in a lake of fire, and I am going nowhere, forever, fast.

Or so I feel in my foundation, in my base, in my nucleus, which is still somehow stuck in the past. Which is still jackrabbiting around my abdomen, pretending that yesterday or the day before never happened.

My brain on the other hand, my eyes, my stuffing, my layers, my insulation, know better. They have touched change. They have witnessed all-out revolution.

I am a murderer.

Eddie touched, dead in time, on his way down, but snatched before the fall and maybe tortured or raped or broken. Tortured or raped or broken and it’s my fault and I die even deader inside when I think about it, but that’s just it: I haven’t thought about it. I haven’t, not since Vegas, and what is wrong with me? He was my friend, my only friend, my best friend and I almost don’t care that he is gone. True, I only knew him for a short period of time, but then again I was only born a short time ago. Born of the fire, dead inside, risen dead, dead in the head, dead in the sloppy internals where emotions play. Incapable of lasting feelings.

All my life I wanted a friend like Eddie, another person who respected me and valued my opinion and enjoyed my company and all my life I’ve searched, I’ve made efforts, and all my life I’ve been shunned and spit on and turned away. Why did I kill him? Why didn’t I try harder to protect him? Because inside I am incapable. I am empty. I can’t mourn, because I can’t emote. Not genuinely anyway.

Oh sure, I love Annabelle, but she has said it herself, I only love her because I am made to love her.

But what about these feelings?

The warmth like magic in my guts?

The loopy, drunk head rush?

And what about the fact that I can feel guilty for not properly mourning Eddie? Doesn’t that in itself signify emoting?

I am dead, but my heart is alive?

Or maybe, and I think I’ve hit the nail on the head with this one, it has nothing to do with my rebirth. Maybe it has to do with me, as a person, before I died. Maybe this is how I am, how I was, and it is the reason I have never had friends. When I think back, which I do not like to do, there have been a smattering of friendships in my life and they have all at one point or another failed. I have always blamed the world or my parents or my hand or even the dissolute friend. Maybe I’m the one to blame, maybe I’m the one who can’t make it work, because I only care about myself.

This is no secret or big surprise. I am majorly fucked up and I know it, but now that the end looms it’s a shame because I think I am finally growing confident enough and brazen enough to face myself, to open up and come clean and let the world in so that I might let something out. There is a dreadful flutter in my stomach, a dead excitement that wishes we had the chance to give living another shot.

Oh how thinking hurts. I am starting to miss that hyperkinetic blur. I am starting to miss not being able to think. I am getting anxious and ready to run, ready to get away from my idiot internalizing.

I towel off and put on Jim’s spiffy suit. The mirror is as useless as the bathroom is steamy—zero visibility—so I open the door and wait for my reflection to come clear. Slowly, I fade in to focus. I slick my hair back and put my hands in my pockets and try to look cool. And fuck me, you know what? I do look cool. Well, cooler than I have ever looked before and that’s saying something, because I have never looked cool before. Never.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I stare at Annabelle as she sleeps.

Thump, thump, my still heart mimics swooning as best it can.

Thump, thump, my brain swells and kicks me in my cognition: she is with Allen Michael, with Allen Michael, embracing Allen Michael, pledging her love to Allen Michael, and a tidal wave, red and blistered and molten, swells and reduces me to ash.

My stump quivers and the tendril tips peek out from within.

A thought: I can touch her. I can touch her now and talk her through those five death steps until she hits acceptance. When she has come to terms with her fate, maybe she will let me touch her more. Maybe she will let me hold her and kiss her.

I can touch her and deliver her.

She deserves it. With her parents murdered, she deserves it. Not just murdered—tortured—and how can I love someone like that? I am just doing my job, I am not killing for fun, I am not torturing anybody. As horrible as the notion that Annabelle is a corrupt, cold-blooded, cruel, torturing murderess is, it just doesn’t settle in. It won’t register inside. The idea flitters and I picture her flying through the black, topless, eyes glowing like bloody jewels, covered in canine viscera, ripping Paunch’s skin from his body, but then it’s gone and I want her close. I shudder and a lump rises in my throat and a brief chill freezes my blood, but then it’s gone and I am left wondering about love and warm escapes and the romantic notion of dying for the cause.

I can touch her and deliver her.

She deserves it. Laughing with Allen Michael, she deserves it. Holding his hand, probably touching him like crazy. Pins and needles when I imagine them together, alive and healthy and magnetic, Annabelle in dream form, sexy as hell, and Allen Michael slicker than shit, charming the world to its knees with his baritone earnestness. Worms of distaste slink throughout my entirety and my heart drains of color. Inside there is a riot of movement, an army of tendrils. I am no longer Charles made up of Charles’ parts and flesh and bone and goop—I am death, the destroyer, the worm god, a host. And the more I think of them together—the more I think of Allen Michael’s coifed hands around my Annabelle’s dreamy waist—the more I feel as if I am going to explode forth in a twisting mess of frenzied, hungry coils and shoots.

I can touch her and deliver her.

Jealousy ripping my brain in two, I can touch her into a gooey mess of melted flesh and charred bones. I can serve her up in clumps to Mr. Allen Michael and then sick my tendrils upon his beautiful head. I can open him up and look for antennae or receptors or any kind of strange chemistry, maybe an odd grouping of nerves like the ones that used to reside in my palm, anything that might be capable of putting him in contact with the dead (though I think I would find nothing because he is full of shit!).

The tendrils creep out a little more and I take a deep breath. But no, I won’t touch her and I won’t let the demon of jealousy get the best of me. A few more deep breaths and the tendrils recede. My stump grumbles. I stare at Annabelle, watching the rise and fall of her chest, listening to the even flow of her breathing, grinding my teeth, welcoming back adoration and waiting with electrified impatience for her return.

Chapter Sixteen

Rebirth

When Annabelle wakes, she opens her eyes and calls out my name. It feels oh so good to hear it, especially after the hours upon torturous hours of waiting. It also feels good to be needed, you know, to be the first thing on someone’s mind when they awaken. Yet perhaps I am giving myself too much credit; Annabelle really has no choice what with me being the only person around and her being blind. The first thing on her mind may have been me, except she probably doesn’t need me in the way I would like her to—no, she probably just wants to make sure I am here, probably much in the same way any waking blind person collecting their bearings would call anybody’s name when they wake. In other words, I am nothing special and her calling out my name does nothing to change that.

Shut up.

Brain has gone mushy, thoughts to mulch, coherence obliterated.

Over and over again, all night long: the dreamer? The undead? God? Love? Murderer? Allen Michael and Annabelle and Alice Michael? Mostly Allen Michael and Annabelle. A nice thick layer of resentment has built itself up within the fibers and tubing of my thoughts.

It’s weird being dead or transformed or whatever because I don’t sleep nor do I get hungry and since I can’t leave Annabelle here alone and I choose not to watch TV (I’m kind of scared of what I’ll see), I have nothing to do but stare and think and think and think about thinking. Needless to say I am glad Annabelle is awake.

“I’m here,” I anxiously respond to her call.

“Where?” She asks with that fear, you know the kind: the lilt verging on freaking out when she thinks I might fuck up and accidentally touch her or something. I don’t know why, but it annoys the fuck out of me. Chalk it up to thick, sick jealousy, chalk it up to frayed nerves, chalk it up to a night stuck in my head trying to make sense of the senseless, chalk it up to Allen Michael, chalk it up to whatever you want, just don’t let her do it again. Please.

“I’m right here.” I pat my safely distanced corner of the bed.

Sitting up and running her fingers through her hair, Annabelle can detect my irritation. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing. How was your
night
?” My voice twists unintentionally. I sound like a real asshole. Heck, I am an asshole—a jealous, combative asshole, greeting his adulterous girlfriend upon her return to reality.

“I am going to the bathroom, make sure you are clear.” Annabelle ignores my assholishness and hits me with the cold shoulder. She feels her way around the bed, I move clear, and she closes herself in the bathroom. Uncomfortable silence ensues.

Later in the car, the cold front continues. I thought we trusted each other. I thought we had become something special. Likely my attitude isn’t helping, but I can’t rightly turn it off. To make matters worse, Annabelle is holding a tightlipped grudge. She doesn’t like my jealous foolishness one bit and she offers no consoling words or assurances. She has only said enough to get us on the road and me up to speed with the plans as laid by Allen Michael.

Allen Michael: God, how I hate thy name.

The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, California, is our final destination. Along the way we are to stop at Arizona airport, Ontario International Airport and LAX for a little last-minute damage control. After a quick sweep of the terminals, light brushing, no scenes or attention-garnering freak-outs, Mr. Allen Michael will greet us and keep us hidden away at the Hollywood Roosevelt until it is time for the “joining”—a concept that is still fuzzy at best, a concept that I am beginning to despise.

Armed with a handy map procured from the rental office (which, by the way, smells like hell, the office not the map, thanks to the uncooperative, dead clerk), we have zero problems finding the Arizona airport. Despite the wall between Annabelle and me, my successful navigation has picked up my mood. I suck at direction and this is truly a small victory if there ever was one. I am even smiling a little as we park the car. Annabelle must feel a vibe or something because I look over and she is smiling as well. Finally, the uncomfortable silence is broken.

“This is sooo stupid,” she blurts out.

“Isn’t it?” I nervously chuckle. Is it?

“Sooo very stupid. I’m sorry, Charles.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, I shouldn’t have said anything about Allen—”

What? I thought maybe she was going to apologize for acting cold. And Allen? She calls him Allen? Not Mr. Michael or Number Three or That Guy or something innocuous and sterile? Not something, I don’t know…formal?

“I shouldn’t have told you. I promised Allen I wouldn’t and he said it was for the best and as usual he was right, but we, you and I, have trust and an understanding and I thought we could handle it. We’re friends.”

“You’re calling him Allen now?” I sound defeated and pathetic.

Annabelle takes a deep breath and lays her head against the passenger-side window. Her eyes close. “Trust.”

Silence.

“Trust?” I goad.

She picks her head up, opens her eyes and un-stares out the window. “Trust is an important component in our relationship.” Long, drawn-out pause. I am about to goad yet again, but then she starts in: “I haven’t been telling you the truth. Last night when Allen’s show came on and I heard his voice I got so excited that I had to tell you, except as I had already told you, the instructions in my head made me promise not to tell you, but once I did it was too late, so I had to pretend like I knew less than I did.”

“You were lying to me?” My heart drops.

“Sort of. I already knew his name. I knew about his fame and his television show and I am a bit closer to him than I let on, but I told you the truth when I told you how I dream him. I told you the truth when I said you and I have something more substantial.”

“How close are you two?” Boiling. Black splotches blot intermittently, blocking out my vision. The air around us appears to wave with heat.

“Charles, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to deceive you, it’s just that I have been given implicit instructions not to talk about this; the success of our mission depends upon it. I should have never told you about Allen in the first place.”

“It’s a little late,” I practically scream. “How close are you two?” A few spindly tendrils dance from my stump.

“I’ve never had people care about me the way you two do. Not like a burden, an invalid, but like a mate, like someone you love. It makes me feel good. Intimacy lifts a weight, it makes me feel like I matter.” Slow tears stream from her eyes.

Redlining, more tendrils. “You were intimate with him!”

“No. No! But, in all honesty, I hope to be. He can touch me, Charles! He wants to touch me and sometimes I sicken myself with need. Sometimes I care about being held and cherished more than I care about our purpose! Sometimes I wish that I could love you back, but you are incapable, even though you think you love me, you are incapable, and I can’t give you anything, because you can’t give me anything back!”

I am this close to falling to pieces and striking out and whipping tendrils about the car until we are both nothing more than a jumble of pieces, ending this bullshit right here and now, when Annabelle begins to openly sob. I pull myself together and rest my forehead on the steering wheel. The tendrils recede.

Through tears: “Charles, I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t know how I feel and all of this human emotion crap shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter any longer, but it still aches through me just the same. I fight it, but it still chips away.”

“It’s okay.” My voice comes out tired and worn down. “It’s okay.”

“As much as I hate humanity and as much as I welcome the dreamer into my heart, I still care about you, I still care about Allen. There is a weird feeling inside, like you and I are meant to be together, and it’s frustrating because the feelings want so badly to be justified and normalized. But they aren’t normal, we didn’t meet to fall in love, we met to serve the dreamer even though sometimes I’m like fuck it, we can run away together, but then no, no, and I remember that I am not sexy, free, sighted Annabelle, I am fat, blind, trapped Annabelle and I can’t even touch you, and you can’t even touch me, and you’re not even alive and besides everything is going to end…”

It sounds like she is going to say something else, but instead she just cries. I want to wrap my arms around her and comfort her and I want to say nice things and I want to tell her that she can love me, she can give me her all and I will return it tenfold, but then I look at my stump, I look at the fat blind woman sobbing next to me, I look inside myself at my selfish heart, my incapable, defective capacity, and I keep quiet.

Annabelle’s sobs die away and the two of us sit in deafening silence for a good ten minutes.

“Annabelle?” I begin.

Sniffling. “Yes?”

“Everything is okay. You don’t have to worry about hurting me or hurting yourself or any of this messy emotional garbage because in a short while it won’t matter. We are here to do a job and it’s best that we keep our heads clear and focused so that we get it done. I’m sorry if I acted jealous and I am sorry if it is giving you the impression that I love you. I don’t. I am incapable. Hell, we don’t even know each other, so how can something like love be an issue? I mean, I guess you know me more than I know you, what with you dreaming me for years, but I barely know you and well, I don’t love people anyway, so there is no way I can be in love with you.”

I talk for a while longer, fortifying my lies, entrenching my falsehood and rendering it as believable as possible. It hurts because Annabelle is visibly shaken by my cold comments. I suppose she expected me to cry with her and plead for requitement. It is rather surprising, but I am finding out that underneath her “kill ’em all, humans are vile” attitude, she probably feels the same way about me that I feel about her. Despite the fact that we really, truly don’t know each other, there is a strange, strong, burgeoning love forming between us. I want more than anything to pursue it and push it and convince her to give us a chance, but something compels me to shut it down. Not for good, just for now. I don’t know why I am doing what I am doing, a part of me wants to go soft and suggest running away together, while a stronger, domineering part wants this. It wants revenge. It wants to watch her squirm. It wants to watch her fall helplessly in love with me. It wants her to feel what I felt (unrequited longing, aching). Mostly, I think I am still angry over her relationship with Allen Michael.

Yes, I am a bastard. And I feel this as I continue to hammer home the lie that I have absolutely no interest in her. However, I don’t want to be a complete bastard so I let it go and try to lighten things up. We’ll revisit this heavy emotional stuff another time.

“If anything, we are friends,” I say cheerfully. Annabelle still un-stares into the windshield. My trying to convince her that I do not love her, that her intuitions about me and perhaps herself were way off-base, has plastered a monotonous, listless expression upon her face. She looks neither sad nor happy. She looks numb.

“Annabelle?”

She nods her head and says, “Friends,” agreeably enough. The air between us feels empty; it feels like the complete antithesis of the vibe that flowed between us last night as we enthusiastically pledged our trust. We felt close, important to each other, mutually loved. Now, we feel like nothing.

“Annabelle?”

She nods her head again and after a slight delay says, “What?” It’s as if she is a million miles away.

“Are you okay?” I am kicking myself for being cruel. I should have capitalized on her subtle indications of love. This feels wrong.

Taking a deep breath she rolls her neck from one side to the other. Upon exhaling she says, “Are you ready?”

“Huh?” Ready for what?

“To kill us some filthy, motherfucking humans?” The spark has returned and she sounds like the Annabelle I am used to.

“Hell yes!” I blurt back.

Annabelle smiles big and tells me to touch them all. “Everyone, babies included, got it?”

I nod and then vocalize my agreement. “Let’s go,” I shout, jumping out of the car. This is kind of nice. Our relationship is pretty fucked up: I love her, she loves me, I have to pretend not to like her because I can’t touch her, she has to deny her feelings for me because she can’t touch me, we are both going to die shortly, and on and on and on, but when it comes to spreading the touch, we are on the same page, or at least she is all over the page, happy as hell to spread death, and I am happy that I am able to do something that makes her happy as hell.

“I can’t go.”

My rousing excitement dips. “What?”

“I can’t go. I can’t see and it’s too much trouble to guide me. I wanted to fall asleep and join you, but I slept too long last night.”

“Take some pills. I’ll wait for them to kick in.” It really makes all the difference if she is there. Like at the rest stop and that surrounded gas station. Touching felt right and manly and sexy and fun. When I am alone, it is scary and I feel kind of sad.

“I can’t. Not yet anyway. It’s too soon. I’ll join you at the next one, Ontario. Okay?”

I nod and say, “Okay.”

“Charles?” Annabelle turns her head and looks in my general direction. “I’m sorry about all that stuff, I just thought—”

“Don’t worry about it,” I cut in. “You want me to touch all of ’em, huh?”

Her face lights up. “All of them.”

“Your wish is my command, my lady,” I say in a noble, chivalrous voice. “King Arthur, human slayer, at your service.” I take a bow even though she can’t see it.

She giggles and I awkwardly shut the car door with my stump. Walking toward the terminal I decide to stop acting like an asshole and to start trying to love her, to start trying to make her love me. So what if this is ill fated, something is happening between us and it’s not just me, it’s her, I have confirmation of that now and I am a damn fool for trying to stop it. I am a damn fool for letting jealousy get the best of me.

Who cares about time?

Who cares about touch?

Love and loving is a state of mind, not a finite, diminishing thing, not a breakable, physical thing.