The Fading (16 page)

Embracing his condition, he returned again to ways he might capitalize on it. Aside from being a thief, there were a hundred
other roles he could, in theory, play.
The hero rescuing kittens from trees, but to whom would the victims and near-victims be grateful? He could play the voyeur,
pervert, stalker, spy, but he had been observing from the outside for so much of his life, more than ever he craved intimacy,
not artificial thrills taken from a distance. His unfulfilled moment with Julie, and the damage his longing had caused, had
scared him off women, and in the years since, the other half of the species had become to painful to contemplate, let alone
torture oneself with by following into gym shower bays.

He had come close to playing the seething monster, destroying property and inflicting harm simply because no one had to know
it was him. Sometimes he dreamed of setting fire to anonymous buildings, smashing clothing store windows, stealing a Mercedes
for a few hours of joyriding before launching it into Sunshine Canyon. But always there was the fear of emerging from the
blink in the midst of such hijinks. There was no telling when he would come back, in front of witnesses, and he didn’t want
to wind up in prison, waiting for his next episode to make his escape.

Contrary to the books and movies that exploited his condition, opportunities did not flower before him. He didn’t need excitement.
The simple life would do, if only he had someone to share it with. He was like a blind and deaf man, a schizophrenic or an
epileptic like his former classmate Jesse Lubbens. Hostage to his sickness, his ON/OFF switch. He was a young man unique in
his particular ailment and yet, in all other
respects, shared so many of the challenges and needs of any other disabled person.

What he really needed was a partner – in the simplest definition of the word. Someone to share the burden, and help him grow
to manage it on his own. Someone who could fill the role of caretaker, mentor, trusted confidant, coach and friend. Someone
who accepted him for what he was, and who would be there during the long climb out. A partner, and some kind of job.

Noel was slopping the last of the cereal into his mouth, staring out the patio window, watching as a guy layered in winter
work clothes shoveled the courtyard, Walkman headphones clamped over his knit Broncos cap. He was bobbing and weaving as he
cleared a path in the last of the white crust, scattering rock salt the way a farmer feeds his chickens. Mindless labor. Simple
work.

There appeared to be some pleasure in this until a tall older man in a dark suit and long wool overcoat approached the snow-shoveler.
He was long in the legs and trunk, a big loping dullard of a guy with chapped lips and, when he removed the beige Isotoner
gloves, obscenely large raw fingers. Wiggling pink bananas, flexing and clapping together as he attempted to warm them. The
shoveling dude removed his headphones, blew a wad of phlegm into the nearest snow bank, and cocked an ear.

They chatted for a minute, but the exchange was not a happy or casual one. They were standing too close and their lips hardly
moved. Noel did not figure them for
family or friends. Maybe employer and employee, but he’d never seen either on the apartment grounds before now and he’d lived
here over two years. Something linked them, something he could not name but could almost taste.

Well, their sunglasses for starters. Hard to be sure from here, some thirty feet away, but they seemed to be wearing identical
Ray-Bans. The classic Wayfarer design, square at the top, round below. Popular sunglasses ever since that movie star wore
them in that huge comedy hit a couple years back. But still a curious coincidence, the two men being of such obviously different
social strata.

And why did they look so frustrated with one another? The older man, who might have been an All-American basketball player
in his youth, like that loose cannon in the Rabbit novels Noel had read when he was fifteen, was now playing the role of the
coach. Stabbing his obscene fingers into the shoveler’s sweatshirt. What the hell – it wasn’t like the guy had been doing
a poor job. The entire courtyard’s concrete and flagstone square was immaculate, clear of all snow and ice …

That was it. The patio had been clear all morning and, Noel was almost certain, yesterday morning, too. He remembered looking
at it when he and John went to the store and again when they left for dinner. He had been watching every step because he felt
so weak from his stay in the hospital. Also, it hadn’t snowed last night.

So why was the dude shoveling the same patch over
and over, pushing little spilled piles of the stuff back into the banks lining the perimeter?

‘Because it’s bullshit,’ Noel said, walking to the glass sliding door. The shovel job was just cover for something else.

As if they had heard him speak, both men turned their heads. He was standing in plain view behind the glass, but of course
they couldn’t see him. The veil still had him, but that didn’t change how it felt. Two sets of dull eyes in their pinkish
cold faces, staring right at him.

‘Go fuck yourselves,’ Noel said.

They didn’t react, simply returned to their conversation. Were they just a bit calmer now? Less animated? Trying to look ordinary,
as if this were just a property manager rattling off a to-do list to his hired hand? Maybe.

Or maybe the shoveler had been hired to watch Noel’s apartment. To watch him. Maybe they knew he was in here, invisible or
not, and were waiting for him to venture out again. Maybe some shady people or some organization had caught onto his activities.
Maybe this was CIA shit creeping around his home, about to get up in his business. There could be surveillance mikes up on
the roofs, aimed at his sorry pad, recording every word and flush of the toilet.

‘I am coming for you tonight,’ he said to the window. ‘I will find you in your homes and pee in your Apple Jacks.’

The men did not look at him.

More likely he was being paranoid. But if anyone had
a right to be paranoid, wasn’t that person him? He hadn’t broken any major laws. But what he was … what he could do … It was
only a matter of time before someone with deep resources and big plans caught wind of that, wasn’t it?

The shoveler was talking now, his apparent superior nodding along. Noel swore he could feel them resisting the temptation
to look at his door again, but they didn’t. The big boss in his tweed overcoat patted his man on the shoulder and the two
of them walked to the end of the courtyard, out of Noel’s view.

He thought about walking out, coming up behind them screaming, ‘Hey, assholes, I’m right here! How about it? You want some?’

But he didn’t do that. He pulled the louver blinds, and went back to the kitchen, pacing, hovering around his island, drank
a glass of water. He sat on the couch, couldn’t concentrate. He flipped on the TV, got up, checked the courtyard again. Neither
of them had come back.

The afternoon sun came and went with impatience, and before he knew it he had wasted another day.

He was in the kitchen microwaving one of the premium-brand TV dinners John had bought for him when the phone rang, making
him jump. He hadn’t gotten a phone call in months and the ringing seemed ridiculously ominous. Then he remembered he was supposed
to call his dad and report that he was still alive. This must be John, calling at almost ten p.m. California time.

Noel picked up on the seventh ring. ‘Hello?’

‘Noel, it’s your dad.’

‘Hey, how are you?’

‘Just fine. How are you holdin’ up, bud?’

‘All good here,’ Noel said.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah, Dad.’

‘What’ve you been up to the past two days? Was hoping I’d hear from you last night.’

Last two days? Hadn’t his dad just left last night? Did he expect Noel to call him in the middle of the night, after his plane
ride home? Or had he slept all night, through the day and another night? Jesus …

‘Sorry about that. I meant to.’

‘No big deal, just so long as you’re feeling better.’

‘I am. Looking for a job, eating a lot. Healing.’

‘You clean the arm with the stuff they gave you?’

‘Makes a hell of a mess, but yep. Looks real clean.’

‘Did you schedule an appointment with, what was his name, the therapist?’

‘Dr Albe. Next Tuesday, eleven a.m.,’ Noel lied, though actually telling the lie almost made him want to make it come true.

‘That’s good, son. I think a few sessions down that road will make you feel a lot better.’

Make
you
feel a lot better, Noel thought.

John took up the slack. ‘Listen, I hate to bother you when you should be resting, but I have a favor to ask and we don’t know
anyone else out there. I’d come back and do it myself but I can’t leave Lisa now. Her parents are
still up in Santa Barbara for an extended fundraiser for Hugh’s largest charity. It’s absurd the amount of money these people
… never mind all that. We haven’t heard from Julie in a few days and Lisa’s getting worried.’

‘About …?’

‘Thing is, the more she told me about Julie’s last phone call, the more skeptical I am that she’s holding up her, uh, responsibilities
out there. All I’ve got is her address and phone number, and between you and me, I think her roommates are shining me. Maybe
Julie asked them to cover for her.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ Noel said. ‘Call them?’

‘Actually, you’re just down the street. A mile or two at most. House up on the Hill, next to campus. You know the Hill?’

The Hill was a nickname for the University Hill neighborhood, but really just the three or four blocks of 13th Street where
it split off Broadway near campus, a sort of informal mall with a barbershop, head shop, a few bars, a pool hall, late-night
taco joints, record stores, the old Fox Theater that used to be a movie palace but was now a venue for up-and-coming bands
and Disco Inferno throwback parties. Noel thought of the Hill as a poseur playground, a place where the trust fund babies
and skate rats kicked around, trading dope for $5.00 concert tickets and Ralph Lauren socks. If you wanted drugs of any kind,
he guessed the Hill was the place to find them.

‘Of course I know it,’ he said. ‘I grew up in Boulder, remember?’

‘I’m aware of that,’ John said. ‘What I meant is, how well do you know it? The people, the scene?’

‘Oh. Not very. It’s not my thing.’

‘Well, we’re worried it might have become a bit too much of Julie’s scene.’ John paused, clearing his throat in that way he
always had done when he wanted to impart the seriousness of the matter. ‘I was thinking maybe you could take a walk by her
place. See what you see. Shit, that sounds awfully creepy. We don’t need be dishonest about this. We’re just concerned. Just
knock on the door, introduce yourself to the roommates – the one I spoke to is a Sarah? Sarah or Sasha. If you can find Julie
and get a look at her, see for yourself how she’s doing, that’d help Lisa calm down a good bit.’

‘And you’re worried she’s, what? An addict now? No offense, I just want to understand what I’m walking into.’

John sounded relieved someone was asking straight questions. ‘I don’t know, but yes, maybe. There was an incident a couple
years ago, when she was in high school. Pot. A few pills. We didn’t think it that unusual for an eighteen-year-old, and her
grades were still top-flight. But she’s been going through a lot of money this semester and her grades have tanked. Her emergency
credit card is maxed out. Can you take a walk for me, Noel?’

‘I guess so. Yeah.’

John caught the hesitation in his voice. ‘But what?’

How should he word this? ‘Well, last time I saw her, she wasn’t exactly … I mean, it’s a little weird me showing up out of
nowhere now, isn’t it?’

‘I hear you. But time has passed. Lisa and I agree it wasn’t all your fault. I think the two of you were young and impressionable.
Got your hormones mixed up, all right?’

‘That’s not how you felt two days ago.’

‘I was angry, Noel. We were talking about things I thought we agreed were not helpful.’

‘So you don’t think I forced myself on her? I just want to be clear.’

John sighed for the third or fourth time. ‘Whatever happened, it was an accident. We know that. Julie knows that. And my sense
was, aside from the scare she had, I think she liked you just fine. You’re a good guy. I can count on you to do the right
thing and avoid any, ah, decisions that might upset her, right?’

‘Of course,’ Noel said. ‘I’ll see what I can find out.’

‘Today?’

‘What?’

‘Can you go by tonight?’ John said. ‘Lisa’s starting to panic, so the sooner the better. Call me back collect.’

‘It’s gonna be midnight by the time I get there,’ Noel said.

‘Is it that late? Even so, might be the right time to have a peek, nothing more if the lights are off. But if there’s a party,
you see what I mean?’

‘Okay,’ Noel said. ‘I’ll do a walk-by tonight, see if the place is Animal House. If not, I’ll go back tomorrow morning and
knock on the door.’

John gave him the address on 10th Street, one block off College. Noel started to write it on his palm, but the
ink became disappearing ink and he had to start over on the back of the frozen dinner box.

‘Got it.’

‘Thanks, Noel. Keep warm out there. We saw on the weather you got yourself some new snow.’

‘Not yet, but probably soon.’

‘Let me know.’

Before Noel could answer, John hung up.

Noel went upstairs and dressed warmly, knowing he couldn’t take the 4-Runner. Two days he’d been under. How was he going to
contact Julie in this state, the same state he had been in when he nearly killed her mother? Maybe it would release him tomorrow.
Tonight he would just have a look, see what he could see while no one could see him. If she was up to no good, his current
condition might even prove to be an asset.

At just a few minutes past midnight, Noel stepped out to find that his father had been right. The sky had formed a blanket
of deep gray and was now releasing a slowly descending storm of snowflakes. He would have to be careful. Soon there would
be enough for him to leave footprints. He shouldn’t be doing this. But being outdoors and walking in the cold felt good, woke
him up and made him feel alive in ways he hadn’t felt in months.