Thirty-Seven Read online

Page 12


  Derek laughs. He backs up. He looks at me, trying to intimidate. It isn’t working because he feels my gaze lacking selfish fear. He turns back to Two. “Oh, and a quick pro tip: you looking fucking horrible with a shaved head.”

  “ Thanks, babe.”

  “Crazy,” Derek says. “You’re fucking crazy.”

  “Love ya. Thanks for stopping in to visit.”

  Derek struggles for a departing comment and then falters and shakes his head and walks to the door, slamming it as hard as he can on the way out. Two turns toward me. She smiles and I am out from behind the counter and I take her in my arms and her body shakes and she presses her head to mine and the whites of her eyes are bright and I don’t have to tell her I’m proud because she understands and “Blue Moon” plays and things are good.

  Two says, “It’s time for our noon dose.”

  27. STUDENT

  Something changed after The Notes. There was a different energy around the house, an anticipatory excitement. Before there’d be stretches of days when one of us wouldn’t say a word. We were sick. We were on a journey inward. We didn’t have much to say. But that changed. After The Notes, we talked at all hours of the day. There’d be groups of us huddled around the patio or in the kitchen or even in our dorms, eight of us in a communal conversation, naked in our bunks. We had ideas and we had untrue reports and we had stories of our own adventures across the country. Twenty-One kept talking about how the wife and mother of the house he entered in Santa Barbara had come downstairs to the kitchen while he was writing his message and he’d had to crawl into the pantry for cover, but the woman opened the pantry and stood two feet away eating handfuls of Honey Nut Cheerios—and we listened on with smiles.

  We felt like we were changing the world.

  We felt better than everyone else.

  We felt like we were the only ones who’d ever been privy to Truth.

  Something else changed, too. Or maybe I simply became more attuned to what had been going on around me the entire time. One and Five spent more and more time together. I told myself it was nothing out of the ordinary. They’d lived together for over three years; they talked in groups; they were siblings in Honesty. But I couldn’t forget Five’s lie to me while standing in the ocean. She loved him. And he loved her.

  This concept messed me up because it felt unfair to the rest of us. We were a family, and families didn’t choose favorites, and why wasn’t I either of their favorite? On some level I realized these feelings were nothing but jealousy. I felt unloved and spurned and neglected, even though I was surrounded by people who held me as I got sick. I wanted One’s approval. I wanted Five’s sexual interest. I wanted One’s sexual interest. I wanted Five’s approval.

  Wants. Selfishness. Fears.

  They came on strong and I felt alone with them because One and Five were my usual sounding boards. I asked One for more Cytoxan and he told me I was already pushing the absolute boundary of what my body could handle. I begged. He said it was beautiful, a boy searching with this much Honesty. He told me he’d give me an extra shot a week, but only for a month.

  One night, I was especially sick. Everyone in my dorm was asleep and I couldn’t stop vomiting and I didn’t want to wake them so I curled on the couch and prayed for death and for a different life and for my selfishness to disintegrate once and for all.

  That was when I heard a door open and close.

  I slipped off the couch and crawled to the hallway.

  I saw a silhouette standing at One’s closed door. I was pretty sure it was Five. She knocked softly. The door opened. I watched One take hold of Five. I watched them kiss. I watched their bodies press. I watched them disappear behind One’s locked door.

  I waited in the hallway for close to two hours.

  The door finally opened. At first, neither of them saw me. They pressed foreheads. Five turned to head back to the dorm. That’s when she saw me. She put her hand to her mouth and said, “Fuck.”

  One turned in his doorway. He stood there completely slack. He was my father after completion. He walked past Five. I feared he was going to hit me. He knelt down to my level. The whites of his eyes shown. He asked if I was well enough to walk to the boulder. I thought about Thirty-Eight going to the boulder with One and then Thirty-Eight falling, the back of his head caved in. One didn’t wait for me to respond. He took hold of my arm and forced me to stand. He wrapped the quilt I’d been carrying around my shoulders. He told me to step into any pair of boots.

  We didn’t say anything on the walk to the boulder. The air was dark but changing, the first hints of light coming from the calls of invisible crows. I thought about being killed and I thought about being betrayed and I thought about the fact we had no rules and they’d done nothing wrong and that some of us fornicated because it was done in Honesty and then I thought about how nobody was allowed in One’s room and it was different, what I’d seen first in Vegas and then in the hallway, different because it was exclusive. Different because it was love like the rest of the world. Selfish.

  We sat on the boulder. My entire body shivered. One didn’t say anything while I got sick. My lungs felt full of fluid. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt awkward around One.

  Finally, he spoke. “Life is funny sometimes.”

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even look over.

  “It’s the cruelest creature imaginable, but its patience is astounding.” One blew on his bare hands. “It gives you gifts before you know how to handle them. Then it rips those gifts away. If we do the work to humble ourselves—the work we’re doing here—then life will once again give you her bountiful goods.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “I love all of you.”

  “Why are you hiding it?”

  One took a second to respond, “Can you feel it?’

  “What?”

  “How close we are to changing everything? It’s happening. We’re doing it. You’re doing it.”

  “It’s dishonest.”

  “Bringing the world Truth is the opposite.”

  “Your relationship.”

  “Is a gift. It’s a gift for living in Honesty. It’s the world’s way of mending past transgressions.”

  “Why her?”

  “Those who seek find one another.”

  “Why not me?”

  “When you are ready, you’ll be rewarded with a symbiotic love.”

  I didn’t tell One that that wasn’t what I’d meant.

  “And it will be like nothing you’ve ever experienced. Believe me. Because you are searching more diligently than anyone I’ve ever seen. Including myself. The rewards awaiting you are going to be infinite. Otherworldly. Literally, from another world. You have accessed a level of Truth that most of humanity doesn’t even know exists. And you’re still so young. It’s…” One stopped talking. He shook his head. “Honestly, and this pains my selfish core to admit it, but I will: I’m jealous of you.”

  I couldn’t help but smile.

  “I am. I really am. The entire notion of The Notes was your idea.”

  “I didn’t really think of it.”

  “You did. It arose naturally from within you, because you are so thoroughly plugged into Truth. And when you are in that trance-like harmony, every action is purposeful, every idea is Honest, and everything you do produces change.”

  One put his arm around my shoulder. I shivered and he rubbed my back and we stared at the world trying to wake up.

  “This is a moment in history that will be remembered,” One said.

  “Right now?”

  One laughed. He said, “What we are doing. What you are doing.” He stopped rubbing my back and then I felt cold. “If I confide in you, will you promise me it doesn’t leave this boulder?”

  I nodded. I thought about living with secrets. One must’ve seen the concern because he told me lies of omission were okay if they served Truth. I told him I wouldn’t say anything.

  “I’m going t
o need you in the next few months, more so than ever. Not just because we’ve embarked upon the impossible task of righting the world, but because…”

  One trailed off. I finally looked up and over. He stared down at me. His face looked swollen from that angle. I tried to look at the whites of his eyes but his pupils were in the way.

  “The true student knows when he’s in the presence of his superior.”

  “I know you’re sup—”

  “I’m talking about myself.”

  “Huh?”

  “You have a once-in-a-millennium yearning for Truth.”

  I stared at trees emerging from nothing. My body shook, but it wasn’t from the cold and it wasn’t from the chemo, but from the power of recognition, self-recognition, esteem.

  “I have taken this group as far as I can,” One said. “My strengths are in the rebuilding of broken lives. Of creating family. Of harvesting love. It is you who will lead the world to change.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “I will assist you until you are ready to lead. The others…I think it best if we keep things status quo. We don’t mention Five and mine’s relationship. We don’t mention the proverbial passing of the torch from me to you.”

  “Okay.”

  “At least until you’re fully ready.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’ll know when this time arrives.” I nodded.

  “For the time being, we will keep these conversations to this very spot, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  One wrapped his arm back around my shoulder. He pulled me so my head rested on his arm. We sat like that for a while and my nose felt numb from the cold and One told me I was going to change the world and I didn’t look up to see the whites of his eyes because I couldn’t take it if they were lying.

  28. SICK (V)

  My esophagus burns at all times. Swallowing is an effort that hardly seems worth it. I try to eat rice but it’s too much work. When Two uses the toilet after me,

  she sees my bile mixed with blood and she says it’s gone too far and I say we are making progress. We shave our heads every third day. We have quit watching TV, opting for music, either Elvis or the bass-heavy trance Two likes. It feels good to see our individual ribs. Two’s breasts have shrunk and her arms are little more than bone. We take turns cleaning our five-gallon buckets.

  We ingest ipecac four times a day. We now swallow laxatives and stool softeners every morning. We have been doing this for a month.

  It’s not the same as chemo, not even close. Our regimen is more like punishment than a permanent state. But it’s working because I quit thinking about having sex with Two and about getting a box spring and Two is doing well because she’s quit crying about feeling sick and about Derek and she’s even started asking to up her doses of everything.

  Sickness bears Honesty. Honesty bears change.

  We seek with as much Honesty as we can muster.

  Yet we’re blocked with fear and want and memories of how we wish our childhoods had been. It’s time for Reprieve.

  It feels wrong having Two buy the DMT, but she knows people and I don’t. I insist on paying for it. She arrives at my apartment around ten on a Friday night. It’s our fifth week of Seeking. Two’s excited. She tries to hide this fact because she thinks it demonstrates selfishness. I tell her it’s all good. I tell her Reprieve is both a celebration and a tool for digging deeper into Self. She tells me she’s never smoked Demisters and I tell her it’s easy. I turn off all the lights except for the lamp she’s given me. I hold the tin foil. I tell her not to suck too hard. She laughs. She’s nervous. She takes three hits. I guide her backward, her bald head a fragile egg being placed underneath a mother’s warmth. It’s my turn and I take four hits and the taste is my adolescence and I want One to hold me and I close my eyes and enter the void.

  I’m all over the place.

  I feel Jerome entering me and I feel him grab the back of my head and it’s so close to One’s touch and then things are dark as my face meets cinderblock. I’m mute, living in a psych ward. I’m a fifteen-year-old boy silently urging my father to climax so I’ll be left alone. I’m John Doe and Mason Hues and Thirty-Seven and One. I’m a teacher. I’m a leader. I’m a boy who knows more about the world than anyone else, even One.

  I think I hear crying, but I’m not sure.

  The crying gets louder and I see the body that houses Two’s consciousness sobbing and I know she’s broken down walls that aren’t supposed to be broken. I reach out and take her hand. This calms her because all we want is connection.

  She tells me everything is beautiful and everything is horrible. I know exactly what she means. She tells me so much of her life has been about sex. I tell her people’s loss of connection to God results in this particular perversion. She asks if I think she’s pretty. I tell her she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Her pinky is a grazing deer on the grasslands of my ribs.

  Two says, “Was it better before?”

  My eyes are only partially closed. I see Two’s hipbones poking out from her jeans. They make me think of smashed dinner plates. I ask her what she’s talking about.

  “In Marble, with the others.”

  “Different.”

  “Different better?”

  “Just different.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “We thought fear could change the world.”

  “Fear dissipates,” Two says.

  “Exactly.”

  “Then what changes the world?”

  “God,” I said.

  “Do you believe in God?”

  “No.”

  “How can there be no accidents if there’s no God making sure everything goes according to plan?”

  My body is a supernova swallowing itself, everything exploding through contraction. It’s modus ponens. Something has to play the role of God, and that something is us. I sit up at the same time as Two, both of us floating and sinking and dying and becoming immortal.

  “Fuck me,” Two says. “That’s it. The One Truth: we’re God.”

  29. GOD8

  8 In Dr. Sick, O’Connor uses the words God and Savior fifty-six times. That’s roughly once every ten pages. Most often, O’Connor writes about how everything Dr. Shepard did was to cement his role as Savior to first The Survivors, and secondly the world.

  The only times I can remember One uttering the word God was in relation to love. We spoke about it one night on the boulder, as we’d taken to doing every evening since he’d started privately deferring to my judgment. For some reason, I asked what his daughter’s name had been.

  “Zoe.”

  “That’s pretty.”

  “She was beautiful.”

  “Do you still miss her?”

  “Every day,” One said.

  I nodded. He asked if I missed my family. I shook my head and then I nodded.

  One said, “People are adaptable. We’re programmed for it. It’s how we survive.”

  “To lie to ourselves?” I said. “To believe in God.”

  I laughed and One didn’t and then I was quiet. “That’s really what it’s all about, you know? How else does anybody get through anything?”

  “Sex and narcotics and TV,” I said.

  One smiled at me, but it was a pitying smile. I felt young.

  “It’s a shit deal, if you think about it. Life, I mean. We all die. We all hurt. We all lose. The only way any of us can get through is by turning to God. Have him take it all away.” One snapped his fingers. “A hundred virgins, cloud-filled beds, reunited with everyone who has so much as smiled at you…if there’s no reward, why the hell would anyone keep on?”

  “But it’s believing in a lie.”

  “It’s surviving.”

  I threw a pebble against a tree. It made a soft thud and then fell into the snow. I said, “In a way, God’s kind of the opposite of Truth.”

  “Not God, but people’s reliance upon God, that’s the opposite of
r />   Truth.”

  “Simple,” I said, smiling. “Then all we have to do to enact change is to kill God.”

  One said, “You can’t kill something that lives in every human.”

  “Then we’re fucked,” I said.

  “You’re thinking about it wrong. It’s not about killing or destroying or any such violent behavior—it’s about giving.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “We give them the gifts they expect from a nonexistent entity.”

  This conversation wasn’t in Dr. Sick because I didn’t tell it to the Feds. But even if Henry O’Connor had known about this exchange, I wonder if he would have included it. To me, One’s words seemed to go against the monster O’Connor painted in his book. For starters, it shows a complexity I didn’t know One had in regards to his notion of God. He believed and he didn’t. He wanted there to be meaning and he was scared there wasn’t. He needed to think of his daughter waiting for him inside of pearly gates, but he was unable to. Secondly, O’Connor’s main case was how Dr. James Shepard was a textbook cult leader, skilled in the dark arts of brainwashing in order to impart a God-like aura around his bald head. But that’s not true. Yes, we loved him. Yes, we looked to him for answers. But he never once spoke about being chosen or selected or that he was even any better than the people we hid from. He lived by a simple doctrine aimed to conduct an Honest life surrounded by a loving family of his own choosing. The other stuff—The Notes, the DEA agents, The Day of Gifts—came after something genuine was lost.

  Sometimes I wonder if it was my showing up.

  Dr. Turner had a different take on God. She talked about how God was synonymous with guilt for much of the world, at least in our country. She spoke about morality, which she argued existed in each human. It could either be nurtured or left in a smoldering car in a sea of asphalt. She talked about the notion of God arising when people didn’t know how to make their actions and thoughts match their ingrained morality.

  I don’t know, it’s probably the same thing.

  But my point, at least initially, is that One did not view himself as God. He believed himself to be great and to be loving and to be willing to die for what he believed was a change the world needed, but he did not believe himself capable of miracles.