I Will Rise (25 page)

Who cares about Allen Michael? He’s a fucking panty-waste. I am the most important man in the world, not him. I am the destroyer, not him. Annabelle is mine, not his.

Human casualty number one, a teenager in a parka (despite the ridiculous Arizona heat), struts across the parking lot. As we near each other I raise my right hand— he doesn’t miss a beat, the poor fool, and slaps me a high-five. The moment our hands touch, my eyes turn inward. My heart has become a dead planet, a free-floating world of markers, a tombstone shell.

“Smooth suit, homie,” he says in passing.

“Thanks, man.” I smile back and continue toward the terminal. It is bursting with people of all colors, shapes and sizes.

Here we go.

I move through the crowded airport, head down, brushing against groupings of people. As I did in Vegas, I spiral out of my body and watch myself pressing through the throng. Death to electric light, it spreads hungry, buzzing throughout the terminal like killing lightning. Every human in the entire place lights up and I spin in ecstasy, shouting silent victory as I drop back into my head.

That familiar, morose emptiness turns my insides into a graveyard and the eye wall stretches out into what seems like infinity. The guilt generally creeps in about now, undercutting the adrenalized soul-sucking rush and bringing my mood down. Not this time. This time I am charged. This time I am validated. This time I am in love.

She loves me.

Proclamations in the car, delayed reaction, warmth settling in, creating a hovel of bliss in the pit of my stomach.

She loves me.

The eyes jitter and blink wet and try to impose their doom-and-gloom message of hate, but I am shielded, sheathed in layer upon sticky, gooey layer of adoration.

She loves me.

Fast-walk out of the terminal, threshing butterflies pulverizing my stomach with excitement, each footfall brings me closer.

She loves me.

And why did I do what I did? Why did I brush her off and kill her decrees? Spiteful idiot. She gave me an in and I destroyed it.

She loves me.

Fuck my chemistry. Fuck the monster inside me that forbids love. It is part of me, true, ingrained and growing since day one, but so what? Just because the dreamer wants me to hate doesn’t mean I have to. I am in control. Now that I know what I know, I would be an idiot not to rebel.

She loves me.

I am practically on fire with exhilaration by the time I reach the car. I thunk the door handle with my stump, curse myself, correct myself, and pull open the door with my shaky, nervous, nervous, nervous right hand.

“I didn’t mean what I said earlier,” I blurt out as I get in. “I…”

Annabelle rolls her head in my direction and looks through me with her clear eyes. They look sleepy.

“Wha?” she mumbles. A dribble of spittle dribbles from the left corner of her mouth.

“Annabelle?” She looks like she is out of it.

“Pills.”

“You took the sleeping pills?”

“Yeah. I’ll see you soon. Use the map and get us to Ontario, okay?”

She is too cute, all tired-eyed and loopy. “Okay,” I answer.

Annabelle smiles and closes her eyes.

Driving and thinking and at first all is well. I am still on my love kick and pleased as puke to have my girl,
my girl
, riding along with me. I am thrilled to be here, taking care of her, making sure no harm comes to her. I am more than her new love, I am her protector, I am her eyes. But then, I start to wonder where she is, you know, while she is dreaming, and why she isn’t here with me. I start to get angry and jealousy monsoons red in my head. Down and pissed, the eye wall returns and I get even more down. I start thinking about Eddie and the horrible possibility of child abuse, molestation, rape, dismemberment. I think about his overdeveloped noggin having to deal with it. That’s the worst. Not the physical degradation or the pain, or even a violent, sick death, but all the things your mind can do to you before and during all of that. Eddie’s intelligence mixed with his hyperactive children’s imagination, his jaded purity, would surely eat him alive long before death wiped away cognition.

We are such mentally frail creatures.

I wonder if death has caught up with Logan, who is probably better off dead, but a decent human being just the same. It is strange how goodness manifests despite corruption. It isn’t really fair to call human beings evil because for every vile trait within us, there are a few good ones. Sometimes I doubt Annabelle’s “kill ’em all” edict. Look at someone like Logan. Look at someone like me. We deserve lots of shitty things, but do we deserve to die? To be no more?

Okay, assessment time:

Do I believe in Annabelle’s dreamer?

Do I believe in Jim’s undead?

Do I believe in my old God?

Though the Mojave desert twists its barren dead-lands through the windshield of Annabelle’s parents’ car and into my eyes, I daydream them away. I see through this world and through my dead bones and into my metaphorical heart and I find myself there, naked, fetal, screaming for God, screaming for guidance, screaming for the father I never had.

No matter how hard I try to buy in, God and baby Jesus and guilt still beat strong at my core. It’s like my life— who I am, what’s happening to me—are all of these jacked-up patterns, wavy tendrils, and God, baby Jesus and guilt are the off-kilter weavers. Something inextricable, something beyond flesh, beyond real, something solid, binds me to my old beliefs. Though I would never admit this to Annabelle or anyone, or even myself, a strong part of me still believes that when I truly die, when I am released from this dead shell, I will ascend and float through the gates of heaven and take my rightful place alongside my father and brother.

I believe this.

I don’t believe this.

It’s so much easier to take comfort in the fact that I am completely insane.

It’s easier to believe in the dreamer or the undead or the tooth fairy.

It’s easiest to believe in love.

“I am undeniably, certifiably crazy,” I say aloud for emphasis.

“Indeed you are,” Annabelle giggles back.

I look over. She is still asleep.

“Back here!”

I look in the rearview and smile big. Annabelle’s gorgeous dream form waves. My stomach waves back and my throat goes dry. “Hi,” I manage to choke out.

“You look good, Charles!”

“Thanks,” I answer, a little taken aback.

“The suit,” she clarifies. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Oh, right. This old thing?” I joke. Annabelle looks pretty good herself. Her hair is a little darker than the last time I saw her. It’s almost jet black, but there are still streaks of plum here and there. The red is completely gone. She is still wearing a white baby tee (no slogan) along with those familiar plaid bondage pants and boots. Her body is curvaceous and delicious and perfect and she has the face of a goddess. Flawless skin, symmetrical features, contours in all the right places. My eyes squint from the sheer beauty.

“Sorry I conked out on you.” She gestures to her sleeping body and makes a disgusted face. “God, I am horrendous. While you were doing your thing at the airport I felt useless, so I swallowed down a few pills and tried to get us a little more information.”

“From Allen Michael?” The name rolls off my tongue like a cantankerous disease. Heat wells within.

“Easy.” Annabelle senses the accumulating invidiousness. “Good news. Everything is moving along right on schedule. Or at least that is the impression I gathered.” She notices her sleeping body once again and makes another disgusted face. “How far from Ontario are we?”

“According to the map, another five hours or so.”

Annabelle points up ahead. “Pull off the freeway here.”

“Here?”

“Get a room at that motel. You see it?”

An Eazy 8 sits lonely, flanked by a gas station and a McDonald’s and nothing but desert as far as the eye can see. I exit the freeway and ask, “Don’t we have to get to Ontario and then L.A.?”

“Yeah, but it’s better for us to drive at night. I figure if we only got five hours to go, we might as well relax here for a while and take off around midnight. Besides, I can’t stand looking at her.” She points to her sleeping body. “I gotta get away from that filthy thing.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” I say in defense of her sleeping body. “You’re beautiful.” However, now that I take a second look at Annabelle’s real-world body, directly contrasting it with her dream form, I have to admit she is right. In comparison to the otherworldly perfection of her dream form, her real body is filthy and disgusting and unwashed and greasy and fat and pocked and odorous and…I stop myself before I make a disgusted face involuntarily.

“Like you care,” Annabelle scoffs.

“What?”

“You don’t love me. You’re incapable, remember? You wouldn’t want to give me the wrong impression, would you?”

I swing the car into a parking spot and Annabelle’s dream form leaps out. Turning off the engine I get out and try to explain myself. “I didn’t mean those things.”

Annabelle folds her arms across her chest. She looks pissed and her dark eyes glow ominously. “Save it.”

“I—”

“Neither did I,” she says, cutting me off. That weak shit, that was the stupid fat sleeping thing in the car. I know you love me, I also know it’s all a sham, I also know that it doesn’t fucking matter.” She walks up close to me and puts her ecto-lips to my left ear. “I also know that I don’t love you. I don’t love anybody.” Backing off, she commands me to go get a room.

The hotel clerk is nowhere to be found, but a pegged wall lousy with room keys is within arm’s reach of the reception counter. A few sidelong glances followed by a quick lunge does the trick. Big-time relief as I walk back to the car; I don’t much feel like killing anyone what with all of this wishy-washy love-emotion swirling within me.

“What about your body?” I ask Annabelle’s dreamy dream form as we ready ourselves to find the room. “Should we just leave it in the car?”

“It’ll be fine until I wake up,” she calls over her shoulder as she makes for the hotel.

* * *

The digital alarm clock reads 3:30. Eight-plus hours to kill. Annabelle’s dream form sits on one end of the bed, I sit on the other. Silence hangs between us like an impenetrable fog.

The digital alarm clock reads 4:15. Seven-plus hours to kill. Annabelle lets out a humongous sigh, I do the same and fall back onto the bed and stare at the ceiling.

“What did you mean you didn’t mean those things?” Annabelle finally comes round.

“I only said them, those things, that I don’t love you, because I am an idiot and I never know what to say.”

“So you really do love me.” Her voice is soft and soothing. She scoots a little closer and lies on her back beside me.

“How can I not. And it’s not the dreamer or something implanted inside me, it’s you.” I am good. I continue to stare at the ceiling, but I feel Annabelle smiling.

“Smooth, Charles.” Her smile widens.

“It’s true. You can’t see it because you’ve been blind and locked away and down on yourself, but even though I only know a little about you, I already know that you are extremely lovable. You are deserving of and you are owed love and if things were different, if the world were to continue, it would be a horrendous travesty for you to be denied, for you to deny someone, such an opportunity. Hell, if things were different, I would steal you away to some secluded island and love you until we died naturally.”

“You would?”

“Unquestionably.”

“You’re an idiot. But you’re sweet. I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For everything I’ve done and everything I do.”

“Me too.” I turn my head and look at her. Annabelle’s dream face is no more than three inches away from mine. We look into each other’s eyes and half smile and a funny thing happens, a wonderful thing, a big rolling wave of warmth galvanizes my insides. My brain tingles. Her big, beautiful dark eyes bore into my anti-soul and entwine themselves within. Everything goes blurry, skin twitches, sweat beads—my mouth is a desert and every fiber in my being wants to touch her, wants to reach out and embrace her tiny frame. My left hand, phantom hand, not there, but there just the same, buzzes and begs for me to reach out. Alas I resist, but the missing hand still has a mind of its own and jumps into action. I break communion with Annabelle and roll back in a panic. Too late, my stump has pressed into her breast.

“Relax, Charlie. I’m not really here, remember?”

I do, but I don’t. I mean I know she is not really here, as clearly evidenced by my stump floating somewhere in the center of her transparent chest, but I forget, or at least I allowed myself to forget. Nevertheless, these feelings, these welling passions are most assuredly real. My stump reacting sans my permission is assuredly real. And it scares me because who is to say I won’t react the same way around the real Annabelle? What if the scabs between us finally heal and we are close and we are vibing and impulse takes over me.

I settle on my back and resume staring at the ceiling.

Annabelle moves impossibly close, the transparent edges of her shape fluttering over the defined, solid edges of my flesh and bone perimeter. “What’s wrong, Charles?”

“I’m tired,” I mutter.

“We were just having a moment, weren’t we? I mean, until you pulled away.”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to touch you, not even for pretend, not even now while it’s safe because I might fuck up and touch you when it isn’t.”

“You won’t.”

“I’m very clumsy.” This is very true.

“I trust you.”

“Brave girl. I wish there were some way I could join you, you know, as a dream.”

“Maybe you can.” Annabelle sits up. “Maybe you can sleep and I can find you or you can find me.”

“You think?” The idea makes absolutely no sense, but then again neither does any of this. “Do you really think it will work?” I sit up.

“It could, I suppose. Lay down and try to sleep.”

“I’m dead. I don’t think it’s gonna happen.”

“Try.”

So I do and it’s a mad struggle just to keep my eyes closed at first, Annabelle and I giggle at my mostly failing attempts and I have to keep refocusing and restarting, but after a number of tries I feel it coming on. My muscles exhale and my brain sputters happily, as if to say,
Finally, you idiot.
God, if I knew I could sleep, I would have done it ages ago. I just assumed being dead and not really ever feeling the need to sleep meant I couldn’t.