Cross Roads (7 page)

Pulling back the curtain, he spied the same sprawling countryside he had briefly seen from the portal in the wall.
When had that happened? Last night or yesterday or never? Stone walls rose in the faraway, and inside of them were terraced open spaces, trees growing haphazardly, some in clumps, others solitary. A few buildings dotted the landscape, barely noticeable and unremarkable.

Tony heard a knock at the door. Three taps, like before, and Tony steadied himself against the wall, prepared for another inside-outside switch.

“Come in?” It came out more a question than an invitation, but it didn’t seem to matter.

“Can you grab the door?” came a vaguely familiar voice from the other side. “My hands are full and I can’t open it.”

“Uh, sure, sorry,” apologized Tony as he pulled the door inward.

There stood the stranger from before, with the penetrating dark brown eyes, and suddenly Tony remembered “safe.” This man said he was “safe.” “Safe” had been a relief, but was now deeply perplexing.

“Okay if I come in?” the man said with a grin, holding a tray of coffee and pastries. He appeared about the same age as Tony. Dressed in jeans and a woodsy shirt, the man had dark bronze skin that looked hued by sun and wind.

Tony suddenly became aware that he was wearing a blue-and-white hospital gown, a draft notifying him that it was open at the back. It seemed oddly appropriate and disturbing. Feeling exposed, he used one hand to clutch and close the opening as best he could. “Of course, sorry,” he apologized again, not knowing what else to do, and stepping aside, he held the door open so the man could enter.

“I’ve got some of your favorites: coffee from Barista, a McMinnville Cream and Mango Tango from Voodoo Donuts, and a jelly from Heavenly Donuts. The almost perfect way to start a day.”

“Uh, thank you!” Tony picked up a large mug of steaming coffee, a vanilla latte with perfect foam, a feather design etched into its surface. He took a sip, piping hot, letting the flavors settle before he swallowed, and then sat down carefully on the edge of the spring-loaded bed. “You’re not having any?”

“Nah, tea man myself, and already had enough this morning.” The man pulled a chair closer to Tony and sat down. “I suppose you have more than a few questions, son, so you ask and I will answer as best you can understand.”

“Am I dreaming?”

The man sat back in the chair and smiled. “Well, for a first question you ask an involved one, and I am afraid the answer will not be very satisfying. Are you dreaming? Yes and no. Let me see if I can answer the question you meant and not just the one you asked. Anthony, you are in a coma, up the hill at OHSU, and you are here, too.”

“Wait, I’m in a coma?”

“Yup, I’m right here, and I heard me say that, too.”

“I am in a coma?” Tony was incredulous. He sat back, and without thinking, took another sip of his scalding drink.

“And this?” He nodded at the coffee.

“That is coffee.”

“I know it’s coffee, but is it, you know, real? How can I be in a coma and drinking a latte?”

“That’s part of what you wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain it.”

“I can’t believe it, I’m in a coma,” he repeated, stunned.

The man stood up and put his hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Tell you what, I have a couple things that I want to do, so I’ll be right outside. Why don’t you gather up your questions and meet me out there. Your clothes are hanging in
the closet over there, and you’ll find your boots there, too. When you’re ready, just find your way out.”

“Okay” was all Tony could manage, hardly glancing up as the man slipped out of the room. It strangely made sense. If he was in a coma, then these occurrences were only expressions of deep subconscious wanderings. He would remember none of it. None of this was real, or true. The thought reminded him of Irishman Jack, and he grinned to himself. The realization was attended by a sense of relief. At least he wasn’t dead.

He slurped his latte. It certainly tasted real, but there must be triggers in the brain that could stimulate other parts like memory and together could manufacture a pseudoreality, like drinking coffee, or, he thought as he reached for a Mango Tango and took a bite, like one of these. Wow, if you could package this somehow, you could make a killing—no calories, no coffee or sugar side effects, and no supply-chain issues.

He shook his head at the sheer lunacy of this experience, if it could even be categorized as one. Does an event that isn’t real and will never be remembered qualify as an experience?

With the last bite of donut, Tony felt it was time to face what awaited him on the other side of the door. Though he assuredly would remember none of this, here he was, with nothing to lose by going along with whatever this was. So he quickly dressed, grateful his imagination supplied warm water to wash his face. Taking a deep breath, he stepped outside the bedroom.

He found himself emerging from the wing of a rambling ranch-style house that had seen better days. Paint was flaking off the woodwork and everything felt tired. Sad and tidy, it was much below the standard to which Tony had grown
accustomed and definitely was not ostentatious or pretentious. His room opened onto a wide wraparound deck, it, too, worse for wear. The stranger stood leaning against the railing, picking at his teeth with a piece of grass, waiting.

Tony joined him and looked out over the expanse of property. It was an odd mix, this place. Parts of it looked somewhat managed but much of it was unkempt and disorganized. Behind nearby broken fencing he noticed the barely recognizable suggestion of an abandoned garden overrun by thistle and thorn and dense weeds, an ancient oak at its center from which hung a dilapidated children’s swing barely moving in the breeze. Beyond that lay an old orchard, unpruned and fruitless. In general, the land looked worn and abused, spent. Thankfully, patches of mountain wildflowers and the occasional rose had populated some of the worst scars, as if softening a loss or grieving a death.

Probably something wrong with the soil, Tony surmised. It seemed water and sun were in supply but so much depends on what lies beneath the surface. The breeze shifted and Tony picked up the unmistakable scent of daphne, sweet and gentle, a reminder of his mother. It was her favorite plant.

If, as he suspected, all this was a manifestation of his brain trying to find its way by connecting stored thoughts and images, it made sense that he felt a surprising, unexpected ease here. Something here called to him, or at least resonated. “Safe” had been the word this man had spoken over him. Not exactly a word he would have chosen.

“What is this place?” he asked.

“It’s a habitation,” the man responded, looking into the distance.

“A habitation? What exactly is a habitation?”

“A place to dwell, to abide, to be at home in, a habitation.” The man said these words as if he loved this place.

“Home? Huh, that’s something Jack said about this place, although he said it wasn’t ‘exactly’ home. He also said it wasn’t ‘exactly’ hell either, whatever that meant.”

The man grinned. “You don’t know Jack. Extraordinarily clever with words, that one.”

“I didn’t understand everything he said, but I started to get the gist of one thing—the difference between real and true.”

“Hmmm,” the man grunted and remained silent, as if not to interrupt Tony’s processing. They stood for a time, side by side, each seeing the place through different eyes—one compassionate, the other uneasy and a little dismayed.

“So, when you say this is a habitation, are you talking about this old run-down house or does that include the property, too?”

“It includes everything, everything you saw yesterday and more; all that is inside this enclosure and all that is outside of it, everything. But here,” he said, his hand spanning the entire enclosure, “is the center, the heart of the habitation. What happens here changes everything.”

“Who owns it?”

“No one. This place was never intended to be ‘owned.’ ” He enunciated the last word as if it were slightly repulsive and didn’t belong in his mouth. “It was intended to be free, open, unrestricted… never owned.”

There were a few seconds of quiet as Tony considered the right words for his next question. “So then, who ‘belongs’ here?”

A smile toyed at the corner of the man’s mouth before he answered, “I do!”

“You live here?” he asked before thinking. Of course he did. This stranger was a complex projection of Tony’s own subconscious, and somehow he was interacting with it. Besides, no one would actually live here, in the middle of nowhere, alone like this.

“I certainly do.”

“You like living alone?”

“Don’t know. I’ve never lived alone.”

That piqued Tony’s curiosity. “What do you mean? I haven’t seen anyone else here. Ohhh, you mean Jack? Are there others like him? Can I meet them sometime?”

“There’s no one like Jack, and as for the others, in due time.” He paused. “There’s no hurry.” Another silence followed, almost awkward in duration. During these spaces between conversation, Tony had been trying to conjure up some image or memory that would begin to make sense of what he was seeing, but nothing came. No picture, no idea, and as far as he could remember not even an imagining that resonated with any of this. How was it possible that all this was simply a projection of his drugged brain scrambled inside a coma? He was drawing a blank.

“So, how long have you lived here?”

“Forty-some years, give ’r take. A lifetime, some would say. Barely a drop, really.”

“No kidding,” retorted Tony, shaking his head, the tone of his voice disingenuous and tinged with superiority. What crazy person would choose to live in this wilderness for forty years? He’d go stir-crazy in forty hours, let alone forty years.

Trying not to be obvious, Tony glanced sideways at the stranger, who either didn’t notice or simply didn’t care. Tony already liked him. He seemed to be one of those rare people who felt completely comfortable inside their own
skin, and at peace with everything around him. There was no detectable agenda, no sense of someone looking for an advantage or angle like most everyone else he knew. Maybe
content
was the word, not that anyone in his or her right mind could ever be content out here in this loneliness. To Tony,
contentment
and
boredom
were synonyms. Maybe the guy was just ignorant, didn’t know better, untraveled and uneducated. But here he was, an unexpected element inside some projection of Tony’s subconscious. He must mean something.

“So tell me, if you would, who are you?” It was the obvious question.

The man deliberately turned to face him, and Tony found himself looking into those incredibly penetrating eyes. “Tony, I am the one your mother told you would never stop holding on to you.”

It took a moment for the answer to register, and Tony took a step back. “Jesus? You? Are you
the
Jesus?”

The man said nothing, only returning his gaze until Tony looked down at the dirt in order to focus, and then suddenly it made sense. Of course it was Jesus! He had written his name on the list. Who better to conjure up in a drug-induced comatose state than Jesus, the archetype of all archetypes, an imagination buried in the deepest recesses of his neural network? And here he stood, a neurological projection that had no actual existence and no real substance.

He looked up just as the stranger cracked him across the face with an open hand, hard enough to sting but not hard enough to leave a mark. Tony was stunned and instantly felt anger surface.

“Just helping you perceive how active your imagination really is.” The man laughed, his eyes still kind and gentle.
“It is amazing how a projection with no actual existence or real substance can pack a wallop, eh?”

If anyone else had been present, Tony would have been embarrassed and furious. But he was more startled and surprised than anything. “Perfect!” he announced after collecting his thoughts. “See, that’s proof right there! The real Jesus would never slap anyone,” he claimed.

“And you know this how, exactly? From personal experience?” The Jesus person was grinning, enjoying himself. “Keep in mind, Tony, you have convinced yourself that I am a Jesus generated by a drug-addled subconscious. You yourself introduced this dilemma. Either I am who I say I am, or you believe deep down inside in a Jesus who would slap a person across the face. Which is it?”

He stood there, this Jesus guy, arms folded, watching Tony struggle with the logic. Finally, Tony looked up again, and answered, “Then I guess I must actually believe that Jesus is a person who would slap me across the face.”

“Ha! Good for you! Dead people
do
bleed!” Jesus laughed and put his arm around Tony’s shoulder. “At least you try and remain consistent with your assumptions, even when they aren’t true and regardless of the difficulty they add to your life. Hard way to live, but understandable.”

Tony shrugged and laughed along, thoroughly mystified by the reference to bleeding dead people. As if they both knew their destination, they together descended the steps and began walking up a hill toward a distant grove of trees. From below, these appeared to be congregated at the highest point of the property, nestled into the gray stone wall somewhere near but above where he had first encountered Jack. From that vantage point it was likely that one could see the entire enclosure and perhaps even over the far walls
and into the valley beyond. As they walked Tony continued to ask questions, the businessman in him puzzled.

“Forty-some years and this place looks pretty tired and broken. No offense, but is this all you’ve managed in all that time?” If he had intended to mask his insinuation, he was unsuccessful. Instead of reacting, the Jesus-man absorbed the implication.

“You might be right. Guess I’m not too good at this. This place is only a shadow now of what it once was in its beginning. At one time it was all a wild and magnificent garden, open, lovely, and free.”

“I didn’t mean to sound…,” Tony began apologetically, but Jesus waved it off with a grin. “It just doesn’t look much like a garden,” Tony offered.