Thrust (18 page)

At times the individual may hear several voices carrying on a conversation. Less obvious than the 'positive symptoms' but equally serious are the 'negative symptoms' that represent the absence of normal behavior. These include flat or blunted affect, such as a lack of emotional expression, apathy, and social withdrawal
.

"How about me?" Chase asked.

"What?"

"My voice.
 
Do you do mine?
 
Would you, up on the stage?
 
Me and Shake?"

Of course he would.

"Yeah," Jasper said, "all of you.
 
And Mr. Barth too."

Chase understood that Isaac had a guardian angel now.
 
Full-time protection and endless admiration.
 
Jasper would fluff his pillows and feed him chicken soup for the rest of his life. Isaac would finally have an artist around that he could ask all his questions, hoping to find out what made somebody write or bring a
porta
-potty on stage instead of going into accounting.
 

If only he ever learned how close Jasper had come to taking him out, for the arcane power of the page.

They walked into the Narrative Bone Palace and the place was already thrumming.

Shake had started early.
 
He must've wanted some free time to wow the crowd without Chase screwing up the reading.
 
He stood at the microphone, grooving and doing some of the old soft-shuffle as he worked the stage.
 
The ladies bopped in their seats, the husbands already coming unhinged.
 
Everybody squirming for different reasons.
 
He hadn't even gotten to the
suck it down
part yet.

It was enough to see his chocolate brown bad self strutting, holding his arm out now, down to some woman in the first row, expecting her to toss up her panties so he could mop his brow.
 
Better than throwing them on the sidewalk.

Those tremendous black hands opened, his shining bald head alive with light.
 
He did another shuffle, tripping a little as he went, the ladies letting out
oohs
like he was on a trapeze.

His
rhythmless
glide stuck and wavered, the crowd leaning over in their seats as though waiting for him to hit the ground.
 
He clawed at the air, the darkness deepening around him, colors being siphoned away from the weak track lighting.
  

Jasper whispered, "What would you both like to drink?
 
I'll get it."

Chase watched Dawn and saw that she had reverted back to the fey blonde girl stranger.
 
She blinked at him, dimples as deep as gouges.
 
Her deadpan eyes changed color again as he watched, blue to green and back again.
 

He felt the reality of Dawn and Jasper fading from him, or him from them.
 
They had entered his story and made just enough of an impression to alter his course, however slightly, and now that he had come around to this new direction, they had grown unnecessary.
 

But there's no need to be rude.
 
Chase said, "No thanks, Jasper," and drifted over to the bar.

Timmy
Wiggs
' threw back a double shot of JD.
 
The short sleeves of his black silk shirt tightened around his biceps.
 
Well, Chase thought, look at this.
 
Timmy's arms were perfect, with fine hair growing over a series of black flame tattoos on the left, a name on his right.
 
Chase cocked his head trying to read it.

ISABELLE

He'd never seen it before.
 
The gods were giving him another message.
 
Chase tried putting it together.
 
Break it apart if he could.
 
Is a
belle
?
 
His trick brain pointing him towards a woman?
 
The belle of the ball.
 
Who would it be?
 
Dawn?
 
She was out of the picture.
 
Goth Chick #1?
 
#2?
 
#43?
 
They were skulking in the corners too.
 
Some of the other schizophrenics, they had interesting voices telling them what to do, how to formulate designs and plans, where to look for their purpose.
 
Chase always had to figure it out himself.

"Who's Isabelle?" he asked.

Timmy gave him the freaky scowl, left eyebrow arching.
 
"You kidding me?"

"No."

"I've told you that story."

"Who is she?"

"You know this, man."
 
In a whisper that was still loud enough to be heard down at the far end of the bar.
 
"You been into the gin bottles again, Gray?"

"No."

Shrugging, stretching out his arm so the name caught in the light.
 
"Isabelle is the name of my niece.
 
She was born the day I got back from the Gulf War."

Chase waited.
 
So did Timmy.

"That it?" Chase asked.

"It's not enough?
 
What the hell were you expecting?"

"I was hoping for more."

"There isn't any more.
 
More what?
 
Besides, you've heard me talk about her a million times.
 
She's in tenth grade now.
 
Won the science fair last week with some project on fruit flies.
 
Genetics.
 
That stuff.
 
You really don't remember me telling you that?"

Genetics and stuff.
 
You didn't have to have a thought disorder that diminished your ability to think clearly and logically to forget that.
 
Even if it was often manifested by disconnected and nonsensical language that renders the patient incapable of participating in conversation, contributing to his alienation from his family, friends, and society.

"Gray?"

An affected person may believe that he is being conspired against, called paranoid delusion.

"Gray?"

"Yeah, I remember now, Timmy.
 
Sorry about that."

Knowing not to push it, sensing the ground had already weakened beneath them, Timmy hovered for a few seconds and nodded, aimed his chin at the stage.
 
"I think something's happening up there."

Shake had fallen into a fugue state.
 
It took a second of scanning the audience for Chase to find a guy drinking beer, wearing a
poofy
linen pirate shirt.
 
That had been enough to throw Shake off his rail.

Chase grabbed one of his poetry collections from the sales table, walked down the center of the room, and took the steps up to the stage two at a time.
 
He read for about twenty minutes, sort of breezing around Shake a bit, trying to make it look like some kind of performance art.
 

After each poem, Chase would gesture towards Shake, sharing the recognition, and the puzzled audience would applaud dutifully.
 
"Let's hear it for Shake Sunshine Jr., ladies and gentlemen!"
 
It was weird, but still not quite up there with Conrad's
poopie
act.

Okay, so you embrace what makes you unique.
 

Shake began to loosen where he stood, the deadlock freeze wearing off.

Hanging onto the mike stand, running his free hand through his hair and trying to be Lenny Bruce cool, Chase let his voice get husky and said, "We have a very special treat for you all tonight.
 
The Narrative Bone Palace is proud to introduce you to a young poet making a hell of a wave on the New York scene."
 

He spotted Nurse
Jez
in the same spot at the back of the room as she'd been standing the other night.
 
The fact didn't frighten or thrill him, hardly even puzzled him this time.
 
The perfume-laden air grew heavy with a sense of irrevocable finality.

"Many of you are already well-acquainted with his unique style.
 
Prepare to be enticed, and please give an outstanding welcome to our very own... Jasper Cox."

See how it all fits together, Chase thought.
 
There's a reason for almost everything in the long run, even if you couldn't put it into place until the very end.

Jasper wasn't even surprised.
 
He made his way to the mike and looked like he wanted to lick it.
 
He didn't make any acknowledgment, just took in the crowd, swelled where he stood, and dove into his first poem.
 

Two hundred and forty pounds of immobile black man wasn't easy to move, but Chase eventually wrestled Shake towards the curtains.
 
By the time they were both off stage, Chase was panting and really wanted to grab that dude in the
poofy
pirate shirt and throw out his entire wardrobe.
 
Who wore clothes like that anyway?

"Shake, I want you to listen to me."
 
Touching him gently on both sides of his face.
  
"You're going to do something right now.
 
It's not difficult.
 
You were made for this.
 
Listen.
 
You are going to let the words absolve and redeem you."

It was enough to get a shimmer of action in Shake's eyes, a spark that died immediately.
 
Chase tried again.
 
"Shake."
 
No, this called for some shock therapy.
 
"Ron.
 
Ron Wilson.
 
This is where you belong.
 
Come up.
 
Come on back, Ron.
 
You're letting the words absolve you.
 
They will redeem you.
 
You know this in your guts, where it counts most."

Shake started coming out of it even more, really unwinding until he was up and running again and glanced over at Chase.
 
"Hey, man, where'd you go?
 
For a drive?"

"Yeah."
 
It was always better to agree.

"You still going by the hospital?"

"Yeah," Chase said, already trapped in the pattern, unable to stop himself.
 
He would've laughed if he could've.
 
Of all the times to get sucked in by the old current.
 
"It helps to calm me."
 

As he kept circling town, driving back and forth between the community college and the library, heading out on the parkway
—

"It's cool, man.
 
Look at me."

"—to gun past Garden Falls, where the shadow of the buildings sliced down alongside the moon."

"Gray, come on," Shake said.
 
"Come on back."

"He'd stop off at bars and have a few more, speaking to no one. He did that for a couple of years, biding time, feeling a slow movement and rise under his skin."

"It's all right."

"That was all right," Chase said.
 

He and Shake were hanging onto one another.
 
Colliding patterns really had a way of taking your feet out from under you.
 

"You still seeing Nurse
Jez
?" Shake asked.

"Yeah.
 
She's back there right now."

"You're not going to like this, but you have to believe me.
 
You've got to trust me on this one, man.
 
She's not there.
 
She's not real, Gray."

"Maybe she survived the fire."

"You aren't listening to me.
 
She's not real.
 
She doesn't exist.
 
She never did.
 
You made her up."

Well, isn't that some fun,
slappy
shit to pull.
 
"No."

"It's true."

"You told me two days ago that she died in the fire."

"You were freaking about your father, completely confused.
 
I figured I'd tackle one delusion at a time."

"She read poetry to me on the ward.
 
All the suicides.
 
Plath,
Brautigan
, Berryman.
 
I had sex with her.
 
She fucked me into the floor.
 
You don't make that up."

"Most of us don't," Shake admitted, already back to sagely plucking at the twin prongs of his beard.
 
"You do.
 
You did.
 
She gave you a way to get through it."

It almost never paid to argue with someone nearly as crazy as yourself.
 
Chase asked, "Was there a fire?"