October (19 page)

His stomach heaved again, throwing a trickle of bile up his throat, which he tasted and then involuntarily swallowed again.

"Jeez," he heard someone say.

He was lifted. To himself, he felt insubstantial. Racking shivers shot through his body. For a moment, he was able to bring his eyes back to the world to see the face looming over him.

He saw the face.

"Buddy . . ."

"Yeah, Davey," he heard. The word was stretched out, as if a train was pulling the words away from him like taffy. "
Jeeeeeeeez
. . .”

He tried to say "Yes." But a weak wash of bile rose into his throat from his constricting stomach, and his eyes were filled with heat, and the fever took him to its secret place.

This is not me.

The movie in James Weston's head was out of control. In the back of his throat, he felt something constrict when he breathed, felt something like foam filling his cranium. The movies were running much too fast, edited in much too chaotic a fashion, like Fellini films. He reached his hand up and wondered if it was his own hand; he saw it from a great distance, through a telephoto lens, miles away at the end of his arm. He could barely see what the fingers were doing if he tried to wriggle them. His body below his neck felt cold, weighted, as if at the bottom of the ocean. But he knew he could run very fast if necessary, could move those hands, way out at the end of his arms, like scissor blades, if made to.

This is not me.
But yes, it was. Since a time he barely remembered, old footage of an apple orchard, a dog with a thick coat, the bite of an apple, acid but sweet—not like that acid in the back of his throat now—Ben Meyer putting his hand on his shoulder like a father, a blue, high, cold sky with blossoms of cloud, he had been in this other movie, and it was not his own. He was not the director.

But it was him.

He discovered this as he lay on the couch in the living room, staring at the ceiling. He felt a momentary rush of the sprocket, a letting go by the thing above the back of his throat. For a brief moment, he was really looking at the ceiling, and not just facing his eyes toward it.

He felt himself flood through his body. He held his hand up before his face, seeing it close by. A rush of memories roared through him. He gasped with the brightness of the images. He felt himself on the verge of a great revelation

No, the thing in the back of his throat, the new director, said, immediately regaining control, putting the packing back into his cranium, starting the other movie. But the images faded slowly: Ben Meyer trying to rise as James hit him with the hoe; Martha's face as he advanced on her, the pulpy sounds of the strike, his own wheezing grunts of effort. He saw, fel4 witnessed in
CinemaScope
, the joyful greed of the thing in his head, the pure electric lust, the orgasmic building toward the moment of dissolution, the climax as the curled hook of the ruined hoe shot into the eye of the dog Rags, bursting back into the brain—

He saw himself straddling an old man in an Irish cap, his own arm rising and falling, smashing a weapon into the lifeless, bloody face—

My God, what is inside me?

No.

The thing in the back of his throat pushed James Weston back deep into the recesses of himself. James realized the thing had let him think this last thought, had enjoyed his reaction and his full realization of his entrapment. The thing had let him free, for a tiny moment, only so that it could enjoy his despair.

Yes
, the thing said, pushing him down to near invisibility.

James tried to scream, but he could no longer see through his own eyes, hear through his own ears, and knew his mouth had stayed mute.

Later, the thing let, him rise into himself the tiniest bit. James felt the workings of his body far off, like a man in a tiny, windowless room in the head of a giant robot. He felt the machine heave under him, sensed the oil juice through the joints as the legs pumped and the arms swung. Before him was a movie screen before the show, a kaleidoscopic vista giving him hints of movement, sight, sound.

The screen cleared, and he saw through his eyes.

He saw, but had no control. He felt as if his head were in a clamp, his eyes taped open.

He was walking into town, just abandoning the path from Ben Meyer's orchard, past the farm stand. He saw the white, flat ribbon of sidewalk, people moving in peripheral vision as if through a fish-eye lens. He stopped for a light, then crossed the street.

He glimpsed his own long arms, at the bottom of the screen, swinging like pendulums on either side of his body. Sound came to him filtered, cottoned, fuzzy.

He crossed another street. He walked over the black tarmac of a gas station, past the pumps, caught the sharp odor of gasoline, trampled over a clump of weeds forming a boundary and onto another tarmac covered by a long fiberglass awning. The awning, supported at the far edges by white poles, fronted a glass-walled building with benches inside. Above the door, in shaded letters: NEW POLK BUS STATION.

His hearing sharpened. At the perimeter of his distorted vision, a bus yanked into view, pulled under the awning, wheezed to a stop. The long doors in the front folded open.

Passengers disembarked: an elderly woman carrying two pink hatboxes, protesting that she needed no help; an old man in a wrinkled raincoat behind her, telling her she did; a student in sunglasses, books under his arm; two men with briefcases; James's father.

His father.

In James's tiny room in the top of his head, he made a cry of astonishment. It did not reach his lips. He tried to push himself out to his extremities, to widen his eyes, throw his hands up, step back, turn. Run.

Instead, he felt his body smile, felt the muscles in his face pull back into pleasure.

"Hello, Dad," James heard his voice say. Through the faraway lenses of his eyes, he watched his father study him, aging face expressionless, holding his bag, standing at the bottom of the bus steps.

"I came," his father said flatly.

His father looked so
old
.

Now James remembered the phone call. He remembered the thing making him punch the numbers, putting anguish in his voice, pleading for reconciliation, speaking sincere words, saying he was sorry, that they had to talk, that his father must come up to meet him.

James tried to scream. But his head was held in that vise, his eyes taped open, watching through the projector lenses of his own eyes the movies directed by the thing in his throat.

His mouth said, "Thanks. All I want to do is talk. I think we owe each other at least a chance to make it right."

He saw a flicker of something in his father's eye, a crack in the stone face. He felt his smile widen. Abruptly, his father put out his hand and grabbed his arm. "Jesus, you got big. Could have played ball. You look a lot like me."

"Dad," his mouth choked out. His faraway legs stepped forward, his hands reached out, his arms enwrapped his father, held him tight.

"Never thought I was this soft," he heard his father say.

"This is the way I hoped it would be," his mouth answered, and his father mumbled something against him and held him.

James tried to scream, tried to thrash, but the movie rolled on.

They began to walk. Their long, similar strides, their rush of conversation, carried them through the gas station, across one street, another.

The sidewalk came to the grass path up the hills. James's hand took his father's arm gently. They climbed, stopped halfway up the hill for his father to rest.

"Not so young anymore, kid," he said, taking a long, slow breath, smiling. "You're in better shape than me these days."

They climbed on. His father asked him about Hollywood. His mouth talked about cast parties, meeting Richard Burton, kissing starlets on-screen.

"Damnedest thing I ever heard. Son of mine a famous actor," his father said.

At the top of the hill they rested again. The day spread around them like a carpet, yellow fields, New Polk nestled like a pumpkin in the midst of blinding autumn colors.

"I waited too long," his father said. "I'm sorry."

"Rest, Dad."

His father looked at him evenly. "I treated you pretty tough when you were a kid. You were sixteen. I've never forgiven myself. I shouldn't have been such a hard son of a bitch."

"It was my fault, too."

His father smiled. "Can we call it even?"

"Okay."

They descended the hill.

"Tell me more about the starlets," his father said.

A gunshot sounded. James looked at his father, whose eyes widened in question. They both turned, looked at the top of the ridge by the apple orchard.

A figure was there, shouting. The dog, Rusty, was with the figure, barking.

James felt rage fill the thing in the back of his throat, almost flow out to the skin, the face.

The figure, a boy in a leather jacket, shouted, "Get away!" He held something aloft and a puff of smoke came out of it. Another echoing shot reached them a second later.

His father looked at him. "Who is that?"

His mouth answered, "No matter."

James felt his arm rise up, knock his father to the ground.

His father tried to rise. "Son—?"

James felt his hand strike his father again, push him down flat, climb over his chest, pin his arms. His hand pat-ted the ground, came up with a weighty rock.

His father stared up at him as he hit with the rock, hit again.

See?
the thing in his throat said to him.

James tried to scream, to sob, could only watch.

His legs stood him up. Through the long lenses of his eyes he looked at the boy and Rusty standing on the lip of the slope. Rusty barked. The boy's hand with the gun in it lowered. The boy turned and ran. The dog yelped angrily and then followed.

James felt the thing's rage run through him. He ran madly up the slope, long legs pumping up the dirt path, into and through the apple orchard.

He climbed a stone wall and soon reached the end of the orchard. He felt his legs stop; saw the boy and dog retreating below, toward town.

His legs turned, brought him back into the orchard.

He stopped breathing heavily, then ran to a nearby apple tree, screaming, and began to rip the branches from the lower limbs. He squeezed apples in his fists, shouting. He bleated at the sky, throwing his head back, beat at the trunk of the tree with a torn length of branch.

NOOOOOOOOO!

The branch broke, and he beat at the tree with his fists. The red rage subsided.

Go
, the thing in his throat said to him.

The movie darkened. Fuzziness filled James's little room. The long lenses clouded. He felt vague movement; heard the sounds of digging.

Later, the movie returned, in low light and through much fog. His eyes were staring at the ceiling in the living room of the farmhouse. There was a noise, and he felt himself rise. His legs walked stiffly to the front door and his eyes looked out, watching a black Ford Thunderbird curl up the long driveway and stop dustily in front of the house. His ears heard the driver put the car into park. Then, a door opened on either side and two people got out of the car, his agent, Samuels, and Marcie.

He opened the screen door and stepped out onto the porch; they looked up at him expectantly.

"Hi," his mouth said.

Samuels, removing his sunglasses, said, "So, big shot. You called, we came." He smiled his white smile. "Ready to be a good boy now?"

Marcie smiled, too.

The thing in his throat let him smell Marcie's hair as she passed him into the house. His hand shook Samuels's hand warmly.

"Yes," his mouth said, so detached from his own futile screams. "I'm ready to be a good boy now."

It took Davey six days to recover.

Buddy almost called an ambulance the first night. At four in the morning, lying on Buddy's rumpled bed, Davey began talking in broken sentences, eyes wide, skin dry and hot as paper left in the sun. One hand lay limply, unknowingly, on the dog's head.

Buddy found a thermometer in the back of the top shelf of the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, shook it down, slipped the glass instrument under Davey's tongue. It read 104.2.

"Ain't good," Buddy said.

When, an hour later, Davey's temperature had climbed to 104.6, Buddy decided to call an ambulance. But just as he went to the front hallway to use the phone, headlights illuminated the living room through the front window, and he heard the bad muffler on his old man's car as it pulled into the driveway. He ran back to his bedroom and closed the door.

Davey lay quietly asleep on the pillow. When Buddy felt his forehead, he found that it had cooled.

The next day, Davey's fever dropped. By that night, he had begun to eat. Buddy stopped at the A&P after school and bought a can of chicken noodle soup, a box of crackers, a small bag of dog food. He heated the soup in a tinny saucepan on a hot plate. Davey held some of it down.