shut down.
I told Jake what had happened with Melissa. How depressed I was. How much I loved my daughter, and worried about her.
Maybe it was the novelty of the guy thing. Whatever.
She’s in treatment? he asked.
Kelly? No.
No. Melissa.
In a manner of speaking.
I told him about Steiglitz. His pessimistic prognosis.
At least you have your work, he said to the back of the bar.
Hah, I said. Not a consolation.
I told him about Warwick. Probation. Stress. Anxiety. Fear of failure. Loathing of my colleagues. Most of them, anyway. I didn’t mention Dorita. Some things were sacred.
I knew I was out of control. Drunk. Stoned. But whatever. It felt good to share it with someone. He seemed to be listening, if only with one ear.
You seem preoccupied, I said.
He turned to me. His eyes were vague. He was looking through me. I glanced at Hal, down the bar. He was writing something on a napkin.
I’ve had my issues too, Jake said.
Haven’t we all, I said. Listen, I don’t mean to bore you with all this stuff. We all have problems. I shouldn’t complain. My daughter’s wonderful. I’m a successful lawyer. Don’t listen to my whining. I’ve got all my arms and legs. Hell, I’m not even missing a digit. The world is full of people worse off than me.
No, no, he said. I didn’t mean it that way.
I suddenly saw how sad a person he was. I felt a wash of sympathy. He was my buddy. My soulmate. We understood each other.
I guess that’s why I became an actor, he said.
Right, I said, pretending to know what he meant.
So I could live in an imaginary world, he amplified. The real world was so fucked up. Is so fucked up.
You said it.
My father was a creep.
I didn’t say anything. He was gearing up to tell the whole story.
We all need a confessor.
His father was a drunk, he told me. A mean drunk. He beat Jake’s mother. He broke Jake’s leg when Jake was eight. Kicked him. Because Jake had skipped school. Jake’s sister was older. Didn’t want anything to do with the family. Jake thought he knew why. His father had abused her. Snuck into her room late at night. Unspeakable things.
Dark, said Jake, it’s all darkness.
There were tears in his eyes.
50.
We weaved down the block. I thought I’d lost my keys. I checked every pocket twice. Jake giggled. The third time round, I found them. In the first pocket I’d checked. Jake giggled some more. It took me five tries to get the key in the lock. When I finally succeeded, I looked around. To see if my new best friend wanted to come in for a nightcap.
He wasn’t there.
I was puzzled.
The dope, I mused. It slows down time. I’d probably been fiddling with the keys for ten minutes. He’d wandered off.
I shrugged.
I opened the door as quietly as I could.
I stumbled. I hung on to the banister. I kept myself upright.
Melissa sat up on the couch.
Who’s there? she said.
Sorry, I said, it’s me.
Come here, she said.
I staggered to the couch, fell down into the cushions.
She opened her arms.
My God, I thought, what’s happening?
I kept falling.
51.
I woke. I was naked on the bed. It was the middle of the night. Someone was hammering a rusty spike into my right temple. Someone was boiling vinegar and dirt in my stomach. A small deceased rodent was rotting in the back of my throat. I went into the bathroom. I felt like throwing up. I held it back. I looked in the mirror. I didn’t like what I saw.
I went back to bed. I tried to sleep. It didn’t work. I tried to read. Something about Zeno’s paradox. How you can never get from A to B. Because you always have to get halfway first, then half of that. And halfway to there. And on into infinity.
I closed my eyes again. The room slowly revolved. The blackness came.
As I drifted off to sleep, I thought of Steiglitz.
He entered my dreams.
He’s in the park. Kelly is there. She’s young. She’s a small child.
He’s playing with my daughter.
She looks afraid.
52.
I went downstairs.
Melissa was sprawled on the couch. She was on her back. Her mouth was open. She was snoring. A line of saliva drooled from the corner of her mouth, forming a pool on the sofa cushion.
I stood and stared.
I went back upstairs. I took a shower. I made it hot. Very hot. Maybe I was scalding myself. It felt a bit like that, through the gray metal fog. Perhaps I’d end up red and peeling, in monstrous pain. I took some comfort in the thought.
I walked dripping from the shower. I threw myself naked on the bed. I closed my eyes. I tried to reconstruct the night before. I remembered Jake. Our conversation. That I’d said too much. His revelations. His sadness. Our awkward stumble down the street. His vanishing. Where had he gone? I didn’t trust my memory. Melissa, beckoning me. And then? I wasn’t sure. Could it have been? That she’d have welcomed me like that?
She was bent over the coffee table, face down, legs apart. I was holding her hips, lifting her in the air. I was strong. I was hard. I pulled her up. I dragged her across the room. She moaned. She wanted more. Take me hard, she said. Show me who’s a man. I propped her up against the mirror. I took her. Took her hard and long. I was
