PALINDROME (2 page)

Two: Is That Me?

I
felt groggy as I opened my eyes and
was immediately aware that my environment had changed. The air was
cool and dry. Even in my impaired state I knew that I was now
indoors and lying on a bed. I touched my arm and felt goose bumps
rise as I slid my fingers along my forearm. The room was dark and
quiet, and it took a moment for me to realize that my top and skirt
were gone. I frantically touched all over.
Thank God!
My bra
and panties were still on. My heart started to race wildly, and my
adrenaline level surged. It took a moment before I was able to
gather my thoughts.
What happened? How long have I been out?
The last thing I remembered was being on the dance floor and
feeling as if I were about to pass out. I remembered Vincent’s
eyes, the eyes of a cold-blooded reptile. I didn’t think I had been
raped, but I couldn’t be sure.

My mind was fuzzy, and my head ached. My
vision was blurred when a face came into view. It was my face.
Christ, was I dreaming? Was I dead? I didn’t know which horror to
embrace. I could feel my chest tighten and my breathing become
labored.

“Shhh! Don’t make any noise.” The face in
front of me—my face—was holding a finger to her lips. “Are you all
right?” she asked.

I nodded nervously before whispering. “I
think so. I hope so.” I felt tears welling up. “I don’t know.”

“You’re okay. You haven’t been here long. I
think I got here in time.”

And then I found a higher level of
consciousness, and somehow I understood.

“Can you get up?” she said.

“I think so. I’ll try.”

“Slowly. Take it easy. You were really out of
it.”

I put my feet off the side of the bed one at
a time and felt the cool wood floor beneath them. She handed me a
sheet. I used it to cover up. “You wait right here. I’ve got
something to do.”

“No, wait with me. Wait here! Where are you
going?” I pleaded in a muffled whisper.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I’ve got this.
You’ll be fine.” I watched as she walked to the mirror and checked
her appearance. As she walked toward the bedroom doorway, I noticed
that she was wearing my skirt and my top. The very edges of my lips
curled upward.

She opened the door, and I watched her glide
slowly but purposely out of the bedroom. She told me to wait, but I
couldn’t, I wouldn’t. There was no glue strong enough to bind my
feet where I stood. I crept slowly to the door and kept myself
hidden in the shadow so that I wouldn’t be seen.

Vincent was in the other room. He had just
kicked off his shoes and had begun to unbutton his shirt. The TV
was on, and the volume was up high. He jumped when she entered the
room. He clutched his chest.

“Shit, Babe, I thought you’d be out for hours
yet,” Vincent said. The cocky, lizard-like expression was gone.
Confronted, his expression indicated guilt.

Out for hours yet? Why?
I
wondered.

Vincent seemed as if he had been caught off
guard. He shuffled his feet nervously as she approached. Clearly,
he did not know how to deal with the change of circumstances. I had
a clear view of them both as she moved closer.

When the change comes, it comes quickly. I
watched attentively and waited for that moment when it would
arrive, the moment of revelation that I knew would hit Vincent
hard.

And then it came. I first saw the muscles of
her upper back grow large. The slope of her shoulders changed into
a powerful contour that led to well-developed deltoids. I saw her
biceps swell, and her arms become sinewy and muscular.

Vincent appeared to be frozen to the floor.
He was mesmerized by the changes that were taking place before his
eyes. Her leg swept backward, and her torso tilted into an aikido
pose in preparation for the enormous blow I knew she was about to
deliver. Without warning, her flattened hand shot forward like the
release of a catapult. Her hands moved too quickly for my eyes to
follow. I heard a loud whoosh as air was forced from Vincent’s
lungs, and the thud of her hand as it smashed against Vincent’s
chest. It was like the thunder that followed a flash of lightning.
I heard the smack against the Sheetrock as Vincent slammed into the
wall. Plaster flaked to the floor. The wall cracked as it gave way
to the force of the blow, except where Vincent’s head hit the wall,
where the heavy support beam resided behind the Sheetrock. Vincent
slid to the floor. Blood ran from his ears.

The home theater system fell when Vincent
slammed into the wall. It tumbled from the wall unit and crashed to
the floor with a thud.

I continued to watch until I was sure that
Vincent was unconscious and then I stepped into the room. I began
to sob, although I didn’t understand which emotion had moved me to
tears.

“He’s not moving,” I said. “Why isn’t he
moving?”

“I hit him hard.”

“So hard that he’s not moving? Oh my God, I
don’t know what to do. What should we do?”

“It will be all right,” she said. “Try to
calm down.”

“Calm down, how can I calm down?”

She knelt alongside him and placed two
fingers against the side of Vincent’s neck. “It’s okay; you can
breathe easy,” she said. “He’s gone.”

Three: The Morning After Can be Such a
Pill

The
weather was much cooler on
Saturday, and the sky was gray. Technically it was still morning,
although I had the sense of being lost in time. I had lost hours
the night before, as well as the memory of events I wasn’t sure I
wanted back. I couldn’t even remember the address of the house from
which I had been rescued, but somewhere in the town of Islandia, a
dead man was decomposing. We had left him in the spot in which he
had died, with the air-conditioning turned down so low that frost
was practically blowing out of the vents. It would be days before
the odor grew strong and the maggots began to digest his rotting
tissue, but I doubted things would stay quiet that long.

I was sitting on a bench near Lake Ronkonkoma
with my big sunglasses on, sunglasses large enough to shield me
from a solar eclipse, sunglasses so large no one could see my face.
I stuffed my hands into my pockets and waited for Ax to arrive. A
breeze came up from the south. It felt good against my cheeks and
bare arms. I had probably been alone no more than ten minutes, but
it felt like much longer. I was struggling to piece it all
together. What had happened from the time I passed out to the time
I came to in Vincent’s apartment? What had happened in between?
Somewhere, down deep, I felt the need to go to the hospital and
check to see if I had been raped, but I didn’t. I had the sense
that I had been rescued in time. Besides, a police report was the
last thing I needed. I had always lived a complicated life, and I
had learned for better or worse to cover my tracks. Above all else,
I had learned to fly under the radar and live on the
“down-low.”

I heard the sound of a car approaching and
then the creak of the rusted door as Ax got out. He was so light on
his feet that I didn’t hear him approach. He sat down next to me
and handed me a cup of coffee. “Double pull of espresso—this should
do the trick,” he said.

I took the paper cup and shook my head
woefully as I sucked the first sip through the hole in the plastic
lid. “What the hell? Why does this always happen to me?”

“You know why it happened.”

I laid my head down on his shoulder. “Yeah, I
guess I do.”

We were quiet for several moments. We sat,
sipping coffee and allowing the passage of time to heal us. It was
a process I was very familiar with: sitting and waiting, watching
the clock and hoping that the pain would subside—sometimes it did
and sometimes it didn’t. I’m not sure how long we sat there, but
neither of us complained about being bored. The healing was far
from done, and I didn’t know how long it would take.

A pretty young woman was walking her dog, a
stunning black Lab. I noticed Ax staring at her. She looked like an
early Marilyn Monroe—not the bleached blonde Marilyn with tweezed
eyebrows, but the early Marilyn with auburn hair, the Marilyn that
had yet to be tainted by Hollywood, President John Kennedy, and his
brother Bobby. She looked like Norma Jean Baker, the original.
“She’s gorgeous.”

“By any man’s measure,” Ax said.

“Gonna talk to her?”

He continued to watch her while the Lab found
a choice spot and returned to the earth that which he no longer
needed. Ax turned to me, admonishing me with a stare. “You know I
don’t do that.”

“You’re painfully bashful. I’ll do it for
you.”

“No.”

“Ah come on, I’m not wearing makeup; I can be
you in two minutes. C’mon, please?” We were both in jeans, tees,
and kicks. I would have to lose the bra, of course, but I have the
dexterity of a Three-Card Monte dealer and can get out of my bra in
the blink of an eye.

“No.”

“Why? I’ve been you before.”

“And I’ve been you—but only for the right
reasons. We can’t let it get out of control.”

“Ah c’mon, Ax, five minutes of innocent
flirting. You can time me. If I don’t get her cell phone number in
five minutes, I’ll pull the plug.”

“And what am I supposed to do, sit here,
twiddle my thumbs, and watch myself flirt?”

“Go sit in the car if you don’t want to
watch. Better still—” I took off my blast-shield sunglasses and
handed them to him. “You’re as good as invisible.”

“No!”

“C’mon, she’s such a hottie . . . and she
loves dogs. Where are you gonna find a combination like that?”

“Fine, but only because you’re such a
ballbuster.”

“Yeah, right. You’ll thank me when the two of
you are curled up in front of the fireplace.” I was feeling alive
again. “She’s not looking.” My bra was already unhooked and on its
way into my bag. “Turn toward me, I want to get this right.”

“I’m your brother; you can’t do this from
memory?”

“Quiet.” I closed my eyes to clear my mind
and then gazed intently at Ax. The eyes are the hardest part to get
right. It takes lots of concentration to copy the pigmentation in
the iris accurately. I can’t feel the iris as it changes, but
somehow I know when it’s just right. The muscles and soft tissue
are easier. I can feel them moving and squeezing as I meld them
into the desired shape. Ax’s nose has a slight bump in it from
where his sensei had accidentally broken it. In a moment, I felt my
hair retreat off my shoulders. My jeans grew loose in the seat, and
the sleeves of my tee shirt tightened around my arms.

“Hurry, she’s about to—”

“Done.” I sprang off the bench and turned to
go after her. “Your dog is gorgeous,” I said as I called after her.
She stopped and waited for me. I turned back to Ax after I saw the
smile I had been greeted with. I whispered to Ax, “It’s in the
bag.”

So I looked like a man, but I was, after all,
a woman and once we started to talk . . . well, you know, it was a
solid ten minutes before I returned. Ax was waiting eagerly for me
when I got back. “So?” he asked with excitement in his voice.

I held up my phone so he could read the new
contact. “Her name is Geena, and you have plans for next weekend.”
He smiled the biggest smile I had seen from him in a long time. We
pounded fists.

“You’re unbelievable.”

“And she’s even prettier up close. I
should’ve—”

“You should’ve what . . . kept her number for
yourself?”

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.” I
started singing Katy Perry, “I kissed a girl and I liked it.” I’m a
regular hetero girl, but there’s no denying that girls are
pretty.

“What do you think would’ve happened when she
realized that you don’t have any junk?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, what do you think
she’ll do when she realizes you suck at making conversation?”

Ax couldn’t hold back the laughter.
“
Sista
, that’s when I break out my junk.”

We were both rolling. “You are such a smooth
talker.” Tears were running down my cheeks. We had almost forgotten
that we had just killed a man.

Ax stopped laughing. I saw it in his eyes
immediately; reality had just clawed its way back to the surface.
“No one will ever catch us,” I said.

“I don’t want to have to live the rest of my
life being someone else: the guy at the mall, someone I sit down
next to on the railroad—that’s not the kind of life that I
want.”

“He deserved it. You said he drugged me.”

“Oh, he definitely drugged you. I found GHB
tablets in his pockets. I got there just in time.”

“Thank you.” More tears, tears of sorrow
mixing with the tears of laughter that were already drying on my
cheeks. “So, you didn’t tell me . . . how did you find me?”

Ax lowered his head. He was embarrassed.

“You followed me again, didn’t you?”

He nodded without looking at me. “I just do
it to—”

Part of me wanted to scold him for the
unending invasion of my privacy, but the other half of me wanted to
hug him again and cry. “I know. You’re protective.” I kissed him on
the cheek. “What would I do without you?” I thought back to the
evening before and searched for the face in the crowd my brother
might have hidden behind, but like the rest of the evening,
everything was a blur.

I was thankful, of course, that he had been
there last night. He had been there for me many times before.

“I didn’t mean to kill him,” Ax said, “but I
knew he was dead as soon as I hit him. I lost control.”

“I’m the one who lost control, not you. I got
drunk and put myself in a dangerous situation. You found me with a
lowlife animal who drugged me and was about to rape me. You can’t
blame yourself.”

“But my training.”

“Easy on yourself, ninja boy, you’re only
human.”

“I practice control every day. I shouldn’t
have let my emotions take over the way they did.”