Epiphany Jones (4 page)

The crunch of the cereal echoes in my skull as I go over everything that’s happened today. The sludge in my head hasn’t left. It still feels like I haven’t slept in weeks. And as I eat, gazing into the darkness of my living room, I still feel someone watching me. And then, with a spoonful of coloured children’s cereal frozen in front of my gaping mouth, I catch two green eyes leering at me from the darkness.

Without taking my eyes off the eyes watching me, I grab a kitchen knife and inch my way into the living room just enough so I can feel around the wall and find the light switch. And that’s when I see it.

The Van Gogh.

And what do you do when you find a stolen painting worth millions sitting on your living-room sofa? You lock the doors first of all, and then you close the blinds. Then you search your house for the person who put it there. Then a thousand thoughts fire through your mind like bullets. How’d it get here? I should call the cops. No, they’ll think I stole it. I should call the museum. No,
they’ll
think I stole it. I should sell it. No, I need to calm down.

I turn on the TV. I need to relax. No such luck. A reporter is talking about the stolen Van Gogh. She’s on location, in front of the lion statue outside the museum.

On the TV, the reporter says, ‘On loan from an unnamed benefactor…’

She says, ‘Estimated value: over ten million…’

She says, ‘Employee attacked in his studio…’

I am in so much trouble.

Then on the TV, the reporter says, ‘Sources close to the case have just informed us that they may have a lead.’

And this is where I expect the reporter to tell me to wait just where I am. The police will be right over. Finish your Trix.

‘Police are saying that they have questioned and released – for the time being – a “person of interest” in the case,’ the reporter is saying. Then the image on the screen cuts to footage of the museum from this afternoon. You see a man with his fat wife and plump little Mexican children. They’re standing in front of one of the big, green lion statues outside the museum. ‘We shot this footage today for a story about the fifty-million-dollar renovation of the museum’s west wing,’ the reporter says. ‘It’s now thought that this was around the time the theft occurred.’

And on the TV, the Mexican family has walked out of frame and now we see a group of Asian tourists with cameras around their necks. And behind them…

‘We’ve learned that, due to electrical work on the renovation, the security cameras were apparently disabled for an unknown amount of
time this afternoon,’ the reporter says. ‘Authorities aren’t yet sure if the thief knew of the lapse in security.’

Behind the Asian tourists stands a woman.

A woman with skin like cream.

And hair as dark as a raven’s folded wing.

A woman with a mutilated ear.

The footage on the television, it shows the woman, the one from my dream. The one in the silverware factory. The hallucination at the coffee shop. The one who’s nothing more than another figment of my imagination.

But it can’t be.

Figments can’t appear on film.

I
covered the Van Gogh with a sheet and haven’t looked at it since. Then I watched the news all night to see if there was any new information. And to see if they would play the footage again in which I saw my figment. But no subsequent story ever showed the same footage. Even if one had I’m sure she wouldn’t have been there again. Once you’ve stolen a Van Gogh and you start seeing your imaginary friends on TV it’s easy enough to connect the dots: I’m going crazy because I’ve come off my meds and now I’ve put someone in the hospital.

At seven this morning I stole my neighbour’s
Tribune
from across the hall. The headline on the front page read ‘
MAYHEM IN THE MUSEUM!
’ Words from the article jumped out: ‘
PHOTOGRAPHER
’, ‘CRITICAL CONDITION’, ‘CO-WORKER’, ‘PERSON OF INTEREST’, ‘STOLEN VAN GOGH
.’

I threw it back into the hall.

At nine I called my shrink’s office and got an appointment for three.

‘I think I’m sick again,’ I tell my shrink, before I’ve even sat down. I say I think my figments are coming back.

‘Slow down, Jerry,’ he says. ‘What do you mean?’

And I suddenly wonder if my shrink watches the news. I wonder, how far does doctor-patient confidentiality go? So I lie and say that I was at the video store at lunch yesterday. I wanted to buy a DVD, only I had forgotten my wallet. When I left the store I saw one of my figments across the street. Then, when I got home that night, I discovered the DVD sitting on my couch.

I ask him if it’s possible that my psychotic depression is getting
worse. That instead of just seeing people who aren’t there, is it possible that I am becoming them? Is it possible I have some kind of split personality and unconsciously carry out actions under their persona? Is it possible to do all this and not remember?

‘Which of your figments did you see?’

I say, ‘A new one. Not Rachel.’

‘One you haven’t seen before you were on the mifepristone?’

I nod.

‘And when did you start to see this figment?’

‘Several weeks ago,’ I remember. ‘Only I didn’t realise she wasn’t real. I saw her once on the sidewalk in front of the museum. Then sitting in the garden at the side of the museum. I thought it was coincidence when I noticed her in a few different places, but then I remembered that I dreamt about her years ago. That’s when I realised I had gone off my meds. I knew I should have come for a refill sooner, but I kept putting it off. I thought she’d go away. But then I saw her at lunch and she felt more real than ever. And now the DVD…’

‘Continue, continue,’ he says.

I originally went to this shrink when we moved to Chicago because my shrink in LA recommended him. But for my tastes he’s too talky. My old shrink would just prescribe medicine and be done with it. This shrink loves to hear about my feelings.

So I tell him how I’ve started dreaming this old dream about her. How in the dream she’s terrified; how she fights off intruders.

My shrink listens and then says, ‘Last time we spoke, a few months ago, you had just been turned down for a raise, am I right? This would be around the same time you started seeing this figment, correct?’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Maybe three weeks later.’

‘Right … two months ago was early February,’ he says, watching me closely. ‘Three weeks after that – well, Jerry, that’s around Emma’s birthday, isn’t it?’

‘March second.’ I look away.

‘You ever heard of Occam’s razor, Jerry? It says that, all other things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one. Now,
what’s more believable? That you are suddenly suffering from split personality disorder and secretly stealing DVDs? Or that, because of the stress of rejection from not getting your promotion, the fact that you’ve gone off your meds, and the relatively close timing to your sister’s birthday, your brain has had a relapse and started giving you nightmares and making you see a figment again? You know stress aggravates your condition. And as for this figment, this dream – is she like Rachel? Have you ever thought you touched her, talked to her, had sex with her?’

No, doctor.

‘Our minds play tricks on us all the time,’ he says. ‘You know this more than most. I mean, Jerry, I buy things all the time and forget I’ve bought them.’

I didn’t buy a ten-million-dollar painting and forget about it, I want to say.

‘You’ve never talked much about your sister’s death, but I think you should seriously consider how it’s affected you.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘
Fine
, Jerry,’ he says with a pause. ‘The dream. Let’s go to the dream. The girl in your dream is around Emma’s age when she passed, right? This girl is scared as faceless invaders attack her, while you lie in the background, naked and helpless. Jerry, it seems like you’re visualising what you felt like when Emma’s leukaemia invaded her body.’

And I squirm.

‘Though you were present, there was nothing you could do.’

Yes, I could have.

‘You were in effect – as in your dream – naked and helpless. You were
only
a child. Are you hearing me? There wasn’t anything you could have done.’

But I could have.

My eyes feel swollen. ‘Could you up my dosage, Doc? Could you, just for a little while? Just until this thing passes? I got lazy. It was my fault. I got off the meds and I think I really need a top-up to get me back on track.’

‘I really think the best thing for you,’ he says, ‘is to get out of your box. A little trip can do a lot of good. The world is a wonderful and amazing place. Go see some of it. Take a vacation. What about Heather? You two still seeing each other?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m seeing Heather tomorrow,’ I say. ‘Doc, I’ll look into a vacation, I promise. But, in the meantime, could you just up my dosage a little? Please?’

‘OK,’ he says after a long pause, ‘but I want to hear about your vacation next time I see you.’

‘For curiosity’s sake,’ I say as he scribbles the prescription, ‘let’s say I was completely nuts. Let’s say I did steal that DVD and not know it. You think a court would let me off due to my … condition?’

‘Of course they’d let you off,’ he says, handing me the note. ‘It’s not like you tried to kill anyone, right?’

I
step outside, where the cold bonds with my sweat and I feel like I’ve been dipped in an ice bath. My stress appears as rapid, clouded plumes of frosty breath, one after the other. Calm down, I tell myself. Think, I say. What’s been done has been done. Roland is in the hospital; the painting is at my place. Roland can live; the painting can be returned. If this upped dosage can hold off any more hallucinations, maybe I can fix all this. Or at least prevent it from getting any worse.

I start towards the Walgreens a few blocks away, but each time I come to an intersection I get the feeling I’m being followed. But every time I turn around, all I see are the crowds of the city moving like herds. With the prescription in my hand, I think,
Just keep moving
.

But when I get to the Walgreens I turn around again and I distinctly see my figment half a block away. She doesn’t seem to notice me though, which is my brain trying to fight off my hallucinations. I dart into the pharmacy and give my prescription to a young Asian woman who reads it, glances at me, and then turns to find the medicine. I breathe deeply.
Stress brings on my figments. Calm down. Calm down. This medicine will stop them – just like before.

But then a series of horrible thoughts occur to me. What happens if Roland dies? And what happens if this medicine doesn’t help any more and my figments won’t stop? Electroshock therapy? I don’t know what would be worse: jail or being confined to a psychiatric ward my whole life, shuffling around, drooling, being a half-person. Are those really my only options? Back on the street the sounds of the city are hyper-loud in my ears. At the other end of the block is my figment, who turns and sees me. I turn around, pretending she isn’t there. My feet feel weak. My stomach hollow. I feel a panic attack coming. I need to go somewhere quiet, somewhere safe. I need to go to someone who I can talk to, someone I can be honest with, someone who I know won’t turn me in.

M
y mom lives in one of those big greystones in Lincoln Park. When we moved from Los Angeles she said she’d always wanted to live in a nineteenth-century house, but in LA, especially in my dad’s LA – a world of parties and glamour – anything but chic modern would’ve moved you down in your social circle. LA wasn’t for my mom. She didn’t fit the lifestyle. She wasn’t like my dad. He thrived on it. He drank it up and grew from it. Every year he added another ring of glitz and glamour to his trunk. But my mom, she was intelligentsia at heart. She always thought celebrities were silly. She only put up with it because she loved my dad.

Roland suggested that my mom look in this area of the city. He grew up in Chicago and studied photography here before moving to LA. Whenever Roland came to our house in Orange County to see my dad, my mom seemed stressed. I got the feeling she never really liked him and didn’t care much for his line of work. ‘Photographs don’t represent reality,’ she told me once. ‘They represent how something looks for one two-hundredths of a second. They only show you what something was for a fraction of a blink, not what that something continues to be. Yet everyone thinks the subject in the photograph is walking around, looking just as perfect, this very moment.’

But after my father died my mom and Roland bonded. It’s because Roland decided to move back to Chicago. They finally had some common ground.

If you were sitting in my mom’s house and didn’t know a thing about her, you would swear she was religious. There are paintings of saints everywhere. Or, not saints, but
saint
. Singular. One saint.

My mom is probably the country’s top expert on medieval French history and one of her pet subjects is Joan of Arc.

While other moms told their children bedtime stories about knights on quests to kill dragons and save princesses, my mom told my sister and I stories about Joan.

‘Joan of Arc,’ my mom would say, ‘was the only person in all of human history, of either sex, to lead a country’s army at the age of seventeen. She united France and stirred the hearts of old and broken soldiers to come to the battle lines once more, driving the English out of France.’

‘But how’d she do it, Mommy?’ my sister would ask. When my mom told her Joan of Arc stories, Emma was always curled up in her bed, next to mine, clutching her covers. ‘I’m so glad she beat the English, but how?’

‘You don’t even know the difference between France and England,’ I said.

‘Shush, Jerry,’ Mom protested.

‘I do too! France us where they eat frogs and England is where Americans came from,’ Emma squealed. She loved when she had an answer for something.

‘Joan,’ my Mom continued, ‘believed she heard voices from God. She believed her voices were giving her orders about what to do, where and when to fight.’

‘Were her voices from God?’ my sister asked.

‘Well, some said – mainly the English,’ and she ruffled Emma’s hair at this. ‘Some said she was a witch. Others think she had a disease that made her hear things that weren’t there. But all we know for sure is that a young girl did the most extraordinary things – things men with a lot more experience, education and skill – were never able to do.’

‘But
how
?’ my sister pleaded. ‘Did she ever fall in love and get married? Did she have a dog? I bet she had a dog with her.’

Emma was allergic to dogs and always wanted one.

My mom smiled and touched Emma’s cheek. ‘No, she never got married, baby. And as far as we know, she never had a dog.’

Emma let out a little growl at this. ‘If she didn’t have a dog and if she was crazy, then how’d she beat the English? And why didn’t she get married ever?’

‘She was really ugly,’ I told her, ‘like you.’

‘You’re uglier,’ she retorted. ‘Why didn’t she have a dog?’

My mom placed her hand on my sister’s belly. ‘I don’t know why she didn’t have a dog, baby.’

‘Maybe she was allergic to them,’ I taunted.

Another little growl from Emma.

My mom gave me a sharp look before she carried on. ‘As for why she never got married, well, Joan was what you call a quester – a person who has a powerful sense of purpose – they believe they have to complete a great and important mission.’ My mom’s voice practically hummed as she said this. ‘And questers – they live for their quests. They don’t see any life outside of their mission. Their spectacular focus is what gives them their strength, but it’s also what makes their life so singularly joyful.’

‘So she never got married?’ Emma asked, her heart clearly wounded.

‘I’m afraid not,’ my mom answered.

‘Well, what happened to her?’

‘THEY BURNT HER ALIVE!’ I bleated out.

Emma shrieked.

‘Jerry, that’s enough,’ Mom said. ‘Both of you go to sleep. Now.’ She kissed us on the cheeks.

When she turned out the lights and closed the door, Emma was the first to break the silence.

‘Jerry.’

‘What?’

‘They didn’t really burn Joan, did they?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because when you get older, you can’t have heroic stories without a sad ending. People like the hero better if they die for something. That’s just how it is.’

There was silence in the room for almost a minute.

‘Jerry?’

‘What, Emma?’

‘I wouldn’t let anyone burn you.’

‘I wouldn’t let anyone burn you, either,’ I said.

I
set the picture of Emma I’ve been holding back on the mantelpiece when Mom comes in.

‘Sorry, dear,’ she kisses me on the cheek. For a woman of fifty-five, my Mom is stunning. She could have been a model if she’d wanted. ‘With the Joan lectures coming up at DePaul, I’ve been on the phone non-stop. How are you? What’s new?’

What’s new?
I thought she’d already have some idea. I thought Roland would have called her to tell her where he was. I don’t think he has any family left. I say the first thing that comes to my mind, like I’m on autopilot. ‘I, uh … Heather and I, we might take a trip.’ I feel confused.

Mom pauses a beat too long. ‘Heather? That’s … great, Jerry. What happened to Harriett?’

‘What? No, Mom. She was before.’ Mom smiles a reassuring look. She’s only ever wanted the best for me. She’s going to be heartbroken over what I’ve done. ‘Mom, haven’t you seen the papers? Don’t you know what’s happened?’

‘I’ve been so busy I haven’t paid attention to the news in days.’ The phone in her den rings.

‘Mom, I need to talk to someone,’ I say over the ringing. ‘I need someone to listen to me. Really listen.’ The phone rings again.

‘Of course, dear, but – I’m sorry. Let me just get that. I’ll be right back.’

‘Mom, I think I shoved a tripod leg through Roland’s eye,’ I practise in my head.

‘It’s the Dean,’ my mom says, peeking her head around the door. ‘We had a conference call scheduled. Can you sit still for half an hour? Maybe watch some – maybe read a little? Then we’ll talk?’ Mom, she loves me but still treats me like a kid sometimes. She still thinks TV is a bad influence on me.

‘Sure.’

‘Thanks, honey,’ she says and slides the den door shut. I take out my little opaque-orange bottle of 486s and swallow two of them. So far, so good. No figments.

On the television a young black man is telling a panel of judges that God didn’t intend for him to win the singing competition, so he can leave with his head held high. The other contestants nod their heads in agreement – all certain in their belief that the supposed creator of the universe cares about television talent contests. I flip the channel, looking for something better to watch. I flip and I flip and I flip. And then I catch a glimpse of
her
. Jordan Seabring – my favourite actress. And when I say ‘favourite’, I mean the one I’d give my right hand to sleep with. Seabring didn’t get her first role until she was eighteen, well after my dad died, but if she were in the game when Dad was still alive she’s what he would have described as one of those rare, great stars that only come along once in a decade, the ones who capture the imagination of everyone from ten-year-old girls to eighty-year-old men.

Jordan Seabring has got this great doe-eyed innocent look in this movie. It’s a look that says ‘fuck me’ without seeming too slutty. Her lips are plump and her breasts are even plumper. I’m not even into blondes either, but there’s just something about her. If I had the choice of nailing Kate Beckinsale and Angelina Jolie in a threesome, or just one Jordan Seabring, I’d choose Seabring. I’d delete all my fakes just to nail Jordan Seabring once.

The shot on the TV is a close-up of her mouth as she takes a slow drag from a cigarette. Every little ridge that forms in her lips as she puffs is like a warm fold of a womb you just want to sink in to. Her mouth forms a perfect O as she exhales the luckiest smoke in the world, leaving an inviting dark centre between her lips.

And that dark, inviting centre between her lips, it’s like a trigger. And I wonder if Mom still has that TV in her bedroom?

W
hy don’t bedroom doors have locks on them anymore? I need to make this quick. When I flick on the television there’s a commercial break. Next to the TV is a picture of me in my college graduation gown. I look so stupid with my crooked smile. A fat zit is immortalised on my eyelid. I didn’t even want to do the dumb picture in the first place, because it didn’t feel authentic. I never went to a real college with a real campus and parties and drugs and girls. With my condition my shrink thought it might be too stressful. I took online courses at one of those for-profit colleges for four years.

But Mom, she insisted my degree was an accomplishment. ‘I’m so proud of you,’ she said. ‘No different than anyone else. Now let’s go rent a gown and get your graduation picture taken.’

The reason I look like such an ogre in my graduation picture, the zits, the puffy skin, the yellow teeth, is because I was having a reaction to my meds at the time. The picture next to mine is much nicer. It’s Emma at her third-grade class picnic. And you’d just die if you could see that big, Julia Roberts-like smile of hers in person.

I flip her picture around and rummage through my mom’s nightstand looking for some kind of lotion – anything that won’t be too sticky or smell too strongly.

I find Cocoa Butter Formula.

I find Makeup Remover.

I find Collagen Elastin Enhancer.

Jesus, doesn’t she just have some old-fashioned Vaseline?

On the TV, the movie’s back on. This is the scene where Jordan has to seduce the snooty businessman in the lingerie shop. It’s pure gold. She struts around him, changing her outfits in every shot.

Come on, where’s some fucking lotion? I open the bottom drawer.
Jackpot. A little tube of KY jelly peeks out from behind a stack of folded letters.

But then I think,
What’s Mom doing with a tube of KY
?

And, against my better judgment, I push the stack of folded letters out of the way and that’s when I see it. The thing that all sons dread: their mom’s vibrator. This isn’t just a little bullet one either. It’s one of those big veiny things. The kind that looks like it fell off a small horse. It’s got a ball sack you’re supposed to fill with hot lube. On its side, next to one of its fat, wormy veins, the words ‘
El Captain
™’ are embossed, complete with the little trademark symbol.

And I feel a little sick on the inside.

But on the TV, Jordan Seabring is in red lingerie and I think,
Screw it
.

I grab the KY. Jordan is bending over, pretending she has just dropped her bracelet so the snooty businessman has to take a nice long look at her ass. I take my cock out and splatter some KY on and start jerking. As soon as I do, everything that’s happened – all my troubles – begin to slip away.

In my brain, dopamine is being released. Dopamine is a pleasure chemical. It makes your worries disappear. As the dopamine floods my neurons, it doesn’t matter that Roland is in the hospital or that a ten-million-dollar painting is in my apartment. Even the fear of my figments returning doesn’t bother me. Pleasure and excitement exist in this moment and nothing else. You know how it is. The longer you live, the more shit happens, the more you realise life is just about getting from one chemical state of mind to the next.