I Will Rise (10 page)

“I didn’t kidnap you!”

“When I realized my mommy was gone and a stranger was in her place, my heart lurched with joy. It was finally happening. You finally came. As strange as it may sound, I’ve dreamed about you and your hand many times before all of this. I dreamed that you would come for me.”

Eddie stares hard into the rearview and locks eyes with me. The intensity pumping forth from his little peepers raises the hairs on the back of my neck.

Trying to lighten the mood I ask, “When you said
genius
, did you really mean
crazy
?”

“I’m not crazy.” Tight-lipped and intense as ever.

I ignore the little psycho. Three minutes later we are pulling into the Denny’s parking lot.

“Charles?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want to go back.”

“Whatever.” I get out of the car and open his door. “Let’s go eat.”

Eddie just sits there. He is staring at the Denny’s. Lots of losers are hanging about the lobby, bikers and truck drivers and the like. One guy is even wearing one of those plaid hunting hats with the goofy earflaps.

“Let’s go.” I gesture for him to get out of the car.

“I’m in my pajamas.”

“So? Grab something from all of those clothes.” I point at the laundry strewn all over the backseat.

“They are my mommy’s clothes. I can’t go into a restaurant in my pajamas.” Eddie’s eyes plead with mine.

“Do you see that guy in the hat.” I point at the idiot. “If he can wear that, you can definitely wear your pajamas.”

He looks unsure.

“Come on, I’ll race you.”

This perks him right up. “I’m fast,” he yelps as he jumps out of the car and starts booking to the restaurant. I guess the little guy just loves to race.

“Hang on,” I call after him. “We start when I say go.”

Eddie puts on the brakes and comes running back. “Okay, shake.” He jabs his little clawlike hand at me.

I nod my head and grab his hand.

My head blossoms—dark tunnel of death-down—the flower wilts. Vision wavers. I struggle to let go, to override the death grip when I see Eddie’s eyes in the center of my brain. They are wet and tired and dead. I close my eyes and shake my head and obliterate the image.

Next thing you know I’ve managed to break contact. My hand is a little red and tiny wisps of smoke snake from Eddie’s hand.

The little boy looks lost for a second and stares at his hand as if in a trance. He shakes it off and the look in his eye changes. He looks happy. He shouts, “Go,” and takes off running.

I stare after him, hoping that I didn’t just do what I think I did.

Chapter Eight

Exhumation

Eddie Lee Wiggins can eat an entire Grand Slam breakfast all by himself. Or at least so I’m told with wide-eyed enthusiasm as he pushes aside his children’s menu and assorted crayons. The boy’s demeanor has flip-flopped dramatically and I’m thinking bipolarity enjoins the genius gene flittering about the insides of his forming skull. The poor little guy is a real mess—only five and already a great sea of hurt and worry and insecurity has taken root within. This sunny change is welcome though; he seems less like a tortured, brooding, disappointed brainiac of an adult and more like an idiot-happy five-year-old. It’s nice to see him smile and get excited over something as simple as finishing a grown-up-sized breakfast.

“…all by myself. My mommy tried to help, but I told her there was no need, I could eat every item on the plate!”

“That’s real cool, Ed.” I lean back into the molded plastic of the booth, stretch my arms high above my head and yawn, which is strange because I don’t really have to yawn.

“Eddie, I prefer Eddie, Ed is too…” Something stops him from expounding (as he tends to always do about everything and anything) upon the reason he prefers the formal vernacular of his name. His little eyes grow even wider and he points at me.

“What?”

“Bbbblood. Blood.”

Stretching and pseudo-yawning has hiked my sweater up over my navel. My abdomen isn’t a pretty sight. The color drains from Eddie’s face. I lean forward, pull on my sweater and wave it off. “It’s nothing. I…”

Before I can explain, a waitress appears. She looks like every career waitress you’ve ever seen: a little grizzled, smoker/coffee drinker—the effects of which show big-time in her leathery skin and the saggy purple bags that underscore her eyes—she looks hardened and tired and ever regretful, she is the consummate coffee shop veteran. With these waitresses you never know, some are nicer than your grandma, some are meaner than Hitler.

We luck out and get a sweet one. With a smile, a playful wink and a pleasant, “What can I get for you gentlemen?” she leans in and reaches across Eddie. Apparently, the discarded children’s menu is a matter of concern. She repositions the paper menu so that it sits directly in front of the little guy.

“You don’t like these colors, hon?” She picks up the crayons and holds them in front of Eddie’s face. “Do you want me to bring you some different crayons?”

Eddie looks at me and then quietly, under his breath, he says, “I don’t color.”

I motion with my hand for him to forget it. There’s no need for the genius explanation or any kind of long, drawn-out Eddie-esque conversation that will stick in her brain and make us stand out any more than we already do. I look up at the waitress and in an attempt to derail the situation start throwing our food orders her way. “My buddy here will be having the Grand Slam and I’ll have an English muffin.”

The waitress turns her attention toward me and wrinkles her nose. It’s obvious that she is doing everything in her power to be polite and not comment on my disheveled state. I ignore her struggle and repeat the order. This works, the crayons go into her apron, and like the old pro she is, she tends to the order.

“Which Grand Slam would you like?”

Eddie takes over and the waitress expresses how impressed she is with how well-spoken he is.

“I’m a genius,” he says.

Here we go. I try to send Eddie a message with my mind: Shut up, Cool it, Chill. A strange lump rises in my throat.

“You just might be,” the waitress giggles back.

Something is gathering at the base of my brain. I feel a seizure building, not now I pray, not now, talk about remaining inconspicuous, not now and my hand is relaxed, inactive, so everything must be okay. But what is this feeling?

Eddie responds to the waitress’ laughter with a serious, “No. I am.”

My thoughts start to fracture. Inside I feel spun. My hand is still. What is going on? A seizure is definitely blossoming. Eddie is getting ready to go off.

So much for not standing out.

Thankfully, the waitress stares a little blankly and instead of giving Eddie the chance to start talking, she asks us what we’d like to drink.

“Water,” I mumble disconnectedly.

“Chocolate milk.” Eddie looks to me for approval. I nod shakily. The seizure continues to build, my mouth goes dry and I grip the table in anticipation.

Order complete, the waitress smiles wide and heads off to another table.

The moment she’s gone Eddie picks up right where we left off. Concern creeps back into his eyes and he reiterates, “Blood?”

“I’m okay, just a little messy. I’ll go clean up.” I’ve got to get to the bathroom or outside or anywhere but here. I can’t make a scene.

“What happened?” Eddie gestures at my sweater. “That’s a lot of blood.”

Suddenly, Eddie’s voice trails off and reverberates about the insides of my skull like a leaden Ping-Pong ball. The “d” in blood stretches out infinitely. My throat constricts and my veins feel as if they are filled with helium, but there is still no activity in my hand. The chaos palm is quiet, dead, and that old familiar seizure buzz is building to fever pitch in the center of my brain nevertheless.

A wave machine in my head. A shrink ray in my head. Eddie asks me if I am okay and his genius voice comes out muffled and distant. He looks like he is miles away.

“Long story,” I mumble, trying to keep it together. The world around me gives in and warps and spins and becomes a spiraling black tunnel and at long last it’s upon me. I am gone. At the end of the dark tunnel, Eddie persists.

“Are you okay?” his lips mouth, but the words are hollow, empty and soundless. I squint and strain for a clearer picture. I wonder if my body is jittering about on the floor. The dark tunnel shrinks and Eddie’s body jumps jarringly to the foreground. His skin has gone rotten, dead and brittle and I can see his kid skull through flesh gone as flimsy and opaque as Dead Sea scroll parchment. Worse, those once bright, information-bursting little eyes have dulled, grayed out and filmed over.

“Charles, are you okay? Answer me if you are okay.” More silent words.

Eddie’s jaw is decrepit, disjointed and fucked up. He continues trying to get my attention, continues noiseless yammering with that precariously positioned jaw. A few more sentences squeeze through and then his jaw falls off, slams onto the tabletop and explodes into a cloud of dust.

Tongue wagging, tubing flapping, noiseless words continuing and wouldn’t you know: the missing jaw doesn’t impede Eddie’s concern one iota. He blinks a few times and then his eyeballs deflate, shriveling like putrid olives, receding into his head.

Eddie is falling apart before my eyes. My eyes. And I have to take a second to ponder: how am I doing? Again, am I rolling around on the ground? Am I still sitting in the booth? Have I gotten up and left? I don’t feel like I am a part of my body. I am not viewing all of this through my eyes per se, I am buried somewhere in the center, I am a thousand eyes, floating detached. I am the tunnel and the tunnel is me.

Eddie’s head shakes and an army of maggots pours forth from his empty eye sockets.

This is getting pretty freaking ridiculous. Eddie doesn’t even look like Eddie. He looks like an insect farm. He looks like a disgusting mass of ruined flesh. He looks loose and unjoined, a collection of disengaging atoms.

I close my eyes and try to shake it off. Of course this does nothing. Eddie’s molecules vibrate into nothingness. The tunnel spins and lengthens and suddenly I am falling. A giant hand materializes in the distance. Its palm opens wide. A circle of corrugated flesh yawns and stretches and pulls me toward the deep crimson mystery waiting at its center.

I close my eyes and try to shake it off. Everything changes. I am still falling, but this time I am in the vast digital blue. I see two hands—one is mine, the other Eddie’s—speeding toward each other like dual phoenixes rising to the sun. They meet and in a flash of white light and smoke: anti-color, anti-sound, a vacuum of collapse.

Fetal skeletons.

Billions upon billions of dying souls.

The long, satisfying sigh of release.

I close my eyes and try to shake it off. Upon opening them I am glad to see the world and an intact, ever-concerned Eddie have returned. I am sitting in the booth, same as it ever was. Fortunately, the seizure was completely internal. Unfortunately, the seizure still fucks with my vision and causes everything to roll and shimmy-shake as if I am viewing life through a wall of heat.

Here but not really here.

“Charles?” Eddie sways. The booth sways. The plate glass windows sway.

I manage to speak. “I’m fine, Ed…uh Eddie. I just got a little dizzy. I’ll be right back.”

As I stand, fighting to keep composure, Eddie narrows his eyes. “You’re not abandoning me, are you?”

“Relax, I’m just gonna hit the bathroom.” I start walking away.

“Charles?” Eddie calls after me. I turn my head and he continues, “I’m not going back. I’m sticking, okay?”

“Right, right. You’re sticking.” Shaking my head, I make my way to the bathroom.

By now everything has equalized and I feel one hundred percent.

Dead seizures.

That was way, way different. Somehow my hand isn’t involved. The hell pit, that evil well of spasmolytic pressure, the source from which my seizures have crawled and wreaked havoc upon my life for so many tumultuous years, has relocated. It’s now centered in my head. It no longer spreads from my hand and infects the body. It’s in my head and the change is drastic. Before, there was a cool sense of detachment, like watching a bizarre movie unfolding around me. My body went wild, my mind went crazy, and me, who I am at my core, just sort of kicked back, watched the shit go down and waited it out. I hung out as the world spun around me. Not anymore.

The body has been factored out of the equation, which is good.. While I’m away my mass is safe from hard surfaces and sharp objects, but what’s worse is I am forced to participate. I feel involved. That freak-out was extremely freaky because it took me along for the ride. It threw me headfirst into the maelstrom. I’ve always hated my seizures because they made me feel uncomfortable and defective, but again, they happened around me, encircling and trapping me. This one (I hope it’s the only one) was purely revolting. It made me feel sick and evil and deader than dead. It didn’t happen
around
me, it happened
to
me, it turned me inside out and abandoned the general esoteric senselessness of previous seizures. It felt more real. It was me.

Those horrible imaginings of poor Eddie falling to pieces have seared themselves into my retinas. They unsettle. It’s not cool to imagine images of dead children. They stick. And I picture Eddie, decayed, unwhole, jawless: “Charles, I’m not going back. I’m sticking, okay?”

Sticking? Was that some sort of threat? Or not a threat, but a nonnegotiable statement, a concrete fact, an absolute reality?

Suddenly, an odd thought pops into my head: who has kidnapped whom here?

Strange freaking kid. So damn serious. It’s a bit unnerving the way he has decided to latch on.
I’m sticking
, what kind of possessive, obsessive shit is that? Maybe running out isn’t such a bad idea. I hadn’t really thought of it myself, although I’m sure I would’ve gotten around to it. I mean, I can’t drag this kid around with me forever, and ditching him would probably be the easiest way to get rid of him. It might as well happen here at Denny’s. I don’t have any money to pay for breakfast and have to ditch out anyway. Sneaking off and tearing out of here alone is probably the best idea I never had.

Head down, I push into the bathroom and head for the sink. Denny’s takes no chances. A stopper or pulley thing or drain plug or whatever is needed to seal the drain means overflowing sinks. I keep my head down, afraid of what I might see in the mirror, and retrieve an enormous wad of toilet paper from the stall. Returning to the sink, head still down, I turn on the cold water and stuff the toilet paper, suffocating the drain. Resting my head on the cool lip of the sink I wait for the water to rise and think how easy it is to thwart Denny’s precautionary tactics.

The fucked-up head seizure is completely done—no more shimmy-shakes—but I still feel like super-shit. Something inside me, not in any particular spot, but throughout the undersides of my skin, in my bones, in my organs, feels very wrong. The sink reaches capacity and water spills over the lip. It kisses my forehead and spatters down onto my dirt-caked shoes. I reach and turn off the faucet. Closing my eyes extra tight—I’m still not ready to look in the mirror—I stand upright, peel off my sweater and drop it to the ground. My tattered shirt simply falls to pieces and joins the sweater. I breathe in deep and then plunge my head into the sink.

The water goes to work. Dirt and sweat and blood float from my skin. My hair waves free. Instinct forces me to hold my breath, but the water is aggressive. It snakes its way into the corners of my eyes, the cracks of my lips and tries to breach my nostrils. I open my lids and let it entomb my eyeballs.

I wait for the lack of oxygen to start burning my lungs. I wait and I wait and I secretly hope the need for air will arrive, but it never does. I open my mouth and allow the water full access. I sniff in hard with my nostrils. The water tunnels up my nose and down my throat, but there is no need to fight it or clamor, there is no burning tingle or defense mechanism prompting me to surface. I can stay under forever if I want to. I am one with the water and it is apparent I have stopped breathing. It’s weird because I don’t feel like I have stopped breathing. Or rather not breathing doesn’t feel any different than breathing. And I am sure there are a number of implicit advantages to not breathing, like staying underwater for instance, but there is also that creepy, ultimate confirmation that I am dead. I am truly dead—no turning back, no happy endings. It’s clear that this mess can end in one way and one way only.

Not that I expected anything different. It’s just that my new place in the world, my new position of power, makes me somewhat of a success, and it’s kind of a shame that in the end I won’t be able to enjoy any sort of satisfaction, or live my life with the knowledge that the reason I am the way I am, fucked up beyond repair, is because it has been planned. It doesn’t matter that none of this is my fault and that maybe somehow underneath it all I am decent and normal and worthy of respect. When all is said and done I am already dead. I am already dead. It doesn’t want to click, so I think it again: I am already dead. This is going to take a long time to sink in. It’s going to take some getting used to.