The Guardians

Randy looks around to make sure no one is listening, though in the Old London's murk there could be a guy six feet away holding a boom mike over our table and we wouldn't be able to spot him.

'What we did was a crime,' I say.

'You're the one blabbing about the past into a Dictaphone. So why are you talking to a machine about it and not me?'

'That's different.'

'Realy? Haven't you ever wondered if we al would've been in better shape if we'd just shared what we were going through instead of trying to bury it?'

'I'm not sure sharing something that could send us to prison is great therapy. I'm wondering if you forgot that part.'

'I haven't forgotten.'

'Good. Let's not start forgetting it now. We're supposed to give a statement to the police tomorrow about being in the bar last night. Once that's done, and so long as Betty doesn't need more help in clearing up Ben's things, I plan to get the hel out of here.'

'Isn't that tidy?'

'I happen to like tidy.'

We busy ourselves with our steaks. Hoping for our tempers to even, for the bad wine to bring back its initial good feelings. We just chew and swalow. Or in my case, chew and spit a mouthful out into my napkin. It turns Randy's attention my way. And I am about to explain that with the Parkinson's, griled meat can sometimes be a chalenge to choke down. But instead I say, 'I saw something.'

Randy continues to look at me precisely as he had a moment ago, as though I have not said anything at al.

'Back then,' I go on. 'And then, just yesterday, I thought I saw it again. When I was looking at the house from Ben's window.'

'What was it?'

'Me. I thought it was only a reflection in a mirror the first time. And then, I guessed it was only you, or Carl, or Ben, because he was a boy about our age, looked the way we looked. Except it wasn't one of us.'

Randy blinks repeatedly over the vast distance of the tabletop.

'I saw him too,' he says.

'So it wasn't just Carl and me.'

'Carl?'

'After we found Heather. He told me he'd seen someone. Or was it that he'd only heard someone? Anyway, he was pretty messed up about it.'

'Join the club.'

'I mean he was even worse than I was.'

'Worse?'

'He held my hand.'

'You and Carl held hands?' Randy asks, as though this fact is more shocking than both of us confessing to having seen the living dead. 'I'd pay a good chunk of change to have been around to see that.'

'You had more money then.'

'True. Maybe I should give up this acting thing and go back to dealing weed and mowing lawns.'

We both want to go back to half an hour ago. I can see it in Randy's face just as he can see it in mine. But now that we've said what we've said, the implications are rushing to catch up, and they're too numerous, too wrigglingly alive to hold on to.

'What happened in there?' I find myself saying. 'What happened to us?'

'Trev. C'mon,' Randy says, reaching his hand toward me, but the table is too wide.

'Was there something wrong with that place? Or something wrong with us?'

A cleared throat.

The two of us look up to see the maitre d’ standing there, hands clasped over his belt buckle. A vacant smile of blue bone.

'Something sweet, gentlemen?'

MEMORY DIARY

Entry No. 10

We must have thought it would be easy.

Force a man into the celar of an abandoned house, accuse him of murdering a female coleague in the very same location, then stick a tape recorder in his face and expect him to confess. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Except I'm not sure even this was true.

I know now that you can do terrible things without an idea. You can do them without feeling it's realy you doing