Tracking Time

whispered, 'Chloe, come back.'

Maslow's head throbbed. He didn't know why Chloe had locked him in the closet. She knew he didn't like hide and seek.

'Chloe.' He struggled to move and found that he was stuck.

He was terrified and wished he could be more like his sister. She could stay still for fifteen minutes or more. In the middle of a game she could leave her hiding place and find a new one, sneaking like a cat. Chloe wasn't afraid of anything.

'Please don't leave me here, Chloe. I don't want to live without you,' he whimpered.

Chloe could sneak up on him anytime she wanted to. 'Boo!' She scared him to death.

'Chloe?'

The smell was like the flats where they used to dig for clams at low tide on the Cape. It smelled like the house the day it was opened for the first time in the summer. Once they found a dead bird in the fireplace. The lady who came to clean told them that a downdraft of the wind must have caught the bird and dragged it down the chimney where it couldn't get out. The idea of the bird trapped in the fireplace, beating itself to death against the bricks, upset the twins, and they had taken the small desiccated corpse outside for a proper burial in the sand.

Mold and rot were the odors in his nose, like the space under the house where Chloe and he once hid to escape their second sailing lesson. He'd been eight and a terrible swimmer. The instructor had made them all capsize their little boats and tumble into the freezing choppy bay with all their clothes on. Maslow had panicked in the cold water even though the life jacket kept him bobbing on the surface.

When his father came up for the weekend, Maslow told him he didn't like sailing and didn't want to go out again. His father got so angry he hit him. Hit him really hard. After that Maslow started wetting his bed again.

One morning his mother wrapped him in the wet sheet at breakfast and told him she'd send him to day camp just like that if he ever did it again. So he and Chloe hid under the porch. All morning they heard their parents fighting and looking for them. He'd always hated hide and seek.

He lost consciousness thinking he was a bad boy hiding from life with his sister. Hours later, he woke up again. He still thought he was on the Cape even though the house had been sold soon after Chloe died.

'Close the window, Chloe, it's raining on the bed.' Maslow moved his lips. He felt like shit.

A roar came and shook the earth. He couldn't get away from the sound. It came again and again. His mouth was crusted with dirt. Dirt was in his mouth, too. His mind wandered around his life. At one point he was telling the pretty blond doctor taking care of his sister that he'd rather die than Chloe.

He still dreamed about the way the doctor ruffled his hair, and said, 'You're a fine child, we don't want to lose you.'

He tried to explain that he was the boy, he should be the one. Boys were always picked first.

But she shook her head. 'We can't make the change. It doesn't work like that.'

Why not? They were twins. They had the same blood. Wasn't he supposed to get whatever she got?

'You're the lucky one. It's not your fault. You just didn't get it.'

But would he get it later?

'No,' the doctor said. 'No. You won't ever get it.'

But how could he know that? He wandered on through his life. He lost consciousness again. The next time he heard his own gasping breath he thought he was drunk at a loft party in SoHo.

Ninth grade.

The cool kids had gotten a couple of kegs of beer, marijuana, and some pills he later found out were Ecstasy. About seventy-five kids were there. His friend George had invited him. When Maslow told him he wasn't allowed to go to loft parties, George told him not to worry, it wasn't a real loft party. George had this car service. He said they could leave anytime they wanted. Maslow's father was away on a business trip, as usual, and his mother hadn't cared about anything for a long time. So he went in George's limo.

George got them in the door. Then he gave Maslow some beer. Maslow took it even though he was nervous. It looked like a loft party to him. He drank some beer and started talking to this girl, Gloria. The beer made him feel less nervous. Gloria was very pretty. She asked him how old he was.

He thought his answer over very carefully. Gloria looked pretty old to him, maybe as old as eighteen. She was wearing a tight dress, really short. He was afraid if he said sixteen, she might think he was too young.

'Seventeen,' he said.

She made a face. 'I'm only fifteen. You're too old for me.' She was dancing alone to the music.

Quickly, he changed his tune. 'I was just kidding. I'm really only sixteen.' He felt stupid; he couldn't even dance with her.

'Why lie about something like that?' She walked away.

He had another beer, and the beer made him feel it didn't matter. After a while he had two more. Then George passed him a bong and he had a few puffs. He'd seen bongs in the Village, but this was the first time he'd had one in his hand. He puffed and the pot smoke nearly took his head off.

That was how he felt lying in a puddle unable to move now. He had no idea where he was or how he got there. There was dirt all over him. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to be awake and remember his dead sister, about whom he did not think much anymore. It was very dark, the roar came and went, and the smell was like death.

Ten

Almost as soon as Jason had finished talking with April, he was sorry about involving the police in the Maslow situation before looking into it a little further himself. As the morning progressed, several explanations occurred to him. Maslow was on staff at Manhattan East, a psychiatric hospital. An emergency there-a suicide, or some other crisis, could easily have kept him busy all night. Maslow might well have been on call last night. Jason forgot to mention that to April, and later felt a little ashamed of himself for using a police detective as his own private investigator.

Jason's anxiety about what he'd done was transmitted to his first three patients. He was supposed to maintain the highest level of interest in the most detailed of accounts of his patients' daily lives. As soon as his attention wavered, and the precious empathic bond was severed, his patients always retaliated. He understood this, but he was human and these comments often got to him despite all he knew.

That morning, between nine and eleven, Jason took three direct hits from nuclear warheads. From his eight o'clock-a young woman who had a great job and many suitors but felt numb and hopeless inside-he learned that he was a cold and selfish man who used to be good-looking and well groomed but was now a depressing slug who would never have the love of anybody worthwhile. Like herself.

'You remind me so much of a man I went out with, Tony Ramero, who was a premature ejaculator,' she said.

Jason's eight-forty-five patient, a bazillionaire who kept trying to pay Jason with his Centurion American Express card for the free air miles, was scornful of Jason's tendency to buy four identical blue and red ties for twenty-eight dollars from vendors on the street. 'You're some cheap bastard. I bet you never go to a decent restaurant,' he charged.

Jason did go to decent restaurants and liked his ties. He didn't reply as he wanted to: We all have our money issues.

At quarter to ten Jason called April Woo to tell her about Maslow's hospital job. She wasn't there. The thought that she might be looking for a man who was at work made him feel really guilty. He went next door to say hello to Emma and the other April. He played with his beautiful baby for a few minutes. She gurgled her baby secrets, drooling into his ear, then spit up on his shoulder when he kissed her good-bye. Jason's ten o'clock patient remarked that he smelled of throw-up again, then announced that he was sick and tired of Jason's hangovers.

'You look like shit. Circles under your eyes, shirt coming out of your pants. A spot on your shirt. You're a mess. You should see somebody about this.' This from a guy who made daily cocktails out of every prescription upper and downer known to man and considered a drug-free day one when all he did was