We Are Monsters (7 page)

Chapter Twelve

For Jerry, some days the world made sense; its great cosmic mystery could be explained in the life cycle of a chrysanthemum. The seed gets nutrients from its environment, grows and blossoms into a flower, unveiling its vibrant beauty, disseminates its pollen on the wings of the honeybee, then wilts and returns its essence to the earth, enriching the soil for chrysanthemums to come.

Some days, though, the world is a roiling stew of insanity. A cacophony of discordant voices, of contradicting ideas, of irrational impulses, of impossible images. During such days, the flower becomes a creature of dark complexity—a carnivorous species with nefarious fangs and acidic saliva, waiting to devour whatever wanders too close. The flower, then, is both a thing of beauty and an instrument of death. It simply depends on perspective—an unstable, unreliable, inconsistent filter for assessing reality. Reality became even more unpredictable when the filter malfunctioned, when it was removed.

The absence of the filter allowed Jerry to see the duality in all things. It offered a view behind the veil. A stark look into the raw chaos of the cosmos where life operates on a subatomic scale, a swirling soup of photons coalescing into the image of expectations. An indifferent energy field of infinite possibilities made material through the force of the collective unconscious.

The world is illusion; we only pretend it's real. That was the purpose of the filter, to make the mystery appear mundane. To make it safe to smell the flowers.

The pills provided an artificial filter, a murky lens through which the world assimilated itself into its familiar form. But it was nothing more than a false representation of the way the world should look, according to the makers of the medicine. Not the creator of the world.

Still, Jerry didn't know which was better. The chaotic view behind the veil or the predictable sights supplied by the fabricated filter. These were his thoughts when Alex walked through the door, and Jerry saw both a beloved sibling and a hostile stranger. Then a shadow emerged from behind Alex, and Devon walked into the room.

“What do you say we go home?” Alex said. He was holding a small, scuffed suitcase containing Jerry's few personal belongings. He set it beside the door and smiled. His smile wavered the longer he stood there waiting. “Come on, Jerry, let's get you out of here.”

Jerry blinked his eyes and stood, holding out his hands as the room swayed underfoot. He struggled to keep his head from sagging and to move his feet forward. That was one thing about the fabricated filter. It produced a heavier world.

“That's it. Take your time,” Alex said, placing a hand against Jerry's back and guiding him towards the door.

“Will you escort him out?” Alex asked Devon. “I'm going to load up the car.”

“Not a problem,” Devon said, circling behind Jerry as Alex stormed out the door.

When the footfalls had faded, Devon grabbed Jerry by the arm, digging his fingers deep, pinching the median nerve against the bone.

“Don't think I forgot about you,” Devon growled into Jerry's ear. “Think you can get away with biting me? No, sir. Not a chance. I'm gonna hunt your crazy ass down like a rabid dog.”

Jerry turned his head and looked up into Devon's face. The filter revealed a pudgy black man in a crisp blue shirt, but he feared what was behind the veil. He tried to speak, but his tongue was a dead thing, decaying in his mouth.

“Crazy-acting motherfucker,” Devon spoke through the side of his mouth, relaxing his grip as they ventured into the hallway. He smiled as a nurse passed by. “You're weak, is all you are. Weak in the mind. You ain't gonna get no pity from me, you biting-ass bitch. I'm gonna pay you back.” He gripped his arm again and every few steps would grind the nerve against the bone.

They approached the doorway to the doctors' parking lot and Devon waved at the station nurse.

“Aw, you leaving us, Jerry?” she asked.

His half-lidded eyes hid the pain. When he tried to speak, all that came out was spit.

“Well, don't be a stranger.”

Devon opened the doors and pushed Jerry through. “You may be getting out of here, but I'm gonna come pay you a visit. You can believe that.”

Alex was waiting in his car by the curb, the engine idling. His wife was holding open the rear passenger door. Devon walked Jerry up to the car and helped him inside.

“There you are, Dr. Drexler. Need anything else?”

“No, that's all, thanks.”

“Anytime.” Devon gave Jerry a final pat on the arm. “See you around, partner,” he said, and closed the car door.

Jerry's arm continued to throb, but after a couple of minutes he couldn't remember why. The motion of the car rocked him in his seat, and every time he blinked, it seemed like he was somewhere different. A highway. A parking lot. A sidewalk. A hallway. A door. Like pictures in a slideshow. That was another problem with the filter—it often lacked fluidity.

He was with a woman now. She held him gently by the arm as he shuffled forward. A curtain of glossy, black hair concealed her face. He swayed as he walked and his arm pushed pleasantly against her breast.

He blinked again and was now staring at a plate of food—a fried chicken leg, mashed potatoes soaked in gravy, a small pile of green beans. He heard voices and tried to lift his head, but it was too heavy. It was like a cinder block attached to a flower stalk.

“Now that he's home it should get better,” he heard a voice say.

Home,
Jerry mused, looking around, recognizing the familiar interior for the first time. The threadbare floors, the ticky-tacky walls, the hand-me-down furniture with sagging seats and scuffed surfaces, matching only in their uniform lack of design. Was this his home, this transitory outpost for wayward wanderers? This box that had been lived in by dozens of others and would surely be lived in by dozens more.

He hadn't chosen to live here, had he? Of all the places he could live in all the cities and all the towns and villages and yet-undiscovered places on this orbiting rock, why here? Whose choice had that been, if not his? In this infinite existence of limitless potential, why was he assigned to this particular reality and what was the point? Better yet, how could he break free?

Chapter Thirteen

When Alex was a kid he used to imagine what it would be like to have dinner at his big brother's place after they grew up. It was nothing like this. Huddled around a small square table listing a bit to the right. Its faux wood top warped from water spills and spotted with shadows cast by dead moths lying in the light fixture above. The peach-colored carpet was a leopard skin of stains and reeked of mildew, and he could hear
Jeopardy
playing at full volume through the paper-thin walls.

Jerry didn't seem to mind his living conditions, however. He hardly seemed awake, for that matter, with his half-lidded eyes staring blindly at his plate of food. The higher dose Alex had prescribed appeared to be working. Drowsy was better than delusional, as far as he was concerned.

At least Rachel's attitude had improved. She hadn't even made a remark when Alex picked up dinner from Popeye's, only realizing the correlation to the name of her flattened dog after placing the steaming bag of food in Rachel's lap. Sympathy always brought out the best in her.

“He shouldn't require too much of your time,” Alex said, talking to Rachel in front of Jerry as though he weren't there. Glancing at his unfocused eyes made it clear that he wasn't really.
“If you don't want us to see, why don't you just cut out our eyes?”
Alex speared a stack of green beans and used it to scoop up a bite of mashed potato. “Just check in every couple of days to see how he's getting along and show him a familiar face.”

Rachel began to nod her head, cutting into her chicken breast after excising the skin. She displayed the intense concentration of someone being assigned a secret mission from the director of the CIA. “How long do you think it'll be before he's able to return to work?”

Alex dabbed the corners of his mouth with a crumpled paper napkin. He glanced at his brother, then quickly averted his eyes. “There's no telling. I don't even know that he'll be allowed back. We're just going to have to take it day by day.”

Rachel sighed. She looked at Jerry and shook her head. “I don't get it. He was doing so well. What happened?”

“What do you mean, ‘what happened'? Schizophrenia happened. It's the nature of the disease. He's always going to have these…” Alex twirled his drumstick in the air like some whimsical conductor, “…episodes. The best we can do is help minimize them with medicine.”

Jerry's apartment always gave Alex the creeps. There was something surreal about it, like visiting an alternate reality where his brother had been replaced by a psychotic imposter.
This is not where you were meant to end up,
he thought, recalling their shared bedroom, their childhood bond. His hero had become his patient. His father's favorite son had become a burden. But he knew that Jerry still lived somewhere deep inside that scrambled mind. That was the most troubling part—to think of the brief moments of lucidity when the old Jerry would awaken to this new life and wonder where things had gone wrong.

“Hey.” Rachel sat up straight in her seat; she placed her hands flat atop the table. “What about the medicine that
you're
working on? When will that be ready?”

Alex plugged his mouth with a chunk of fried chicken. He wasn't ready to tell her about his failure with Philax. He wasn't yet sure what had even happened or how to fix it. And he was afraid it would lead to further questions regarding their finances that he was equally unprepared to address. He rolled his hand in the air to pantomime progress as he chewed the chicken into paste. Eventually he had to swallow, and Rachel was still staring at him expectantly.

“Well…” she prompted.

“Soon,” Alex said. “The tests have been successful so far.”

“I ain't no queer bait!”

“We're just waiting on final clearance from the FDA, then we should be ready to move into the development phase.”

“That's great!” Rachel clapped her hands together and held them against her chest. She took a deep breath and leaned forward. “I'm sorry, I… Well, with the events from last night I forgot to ask how things went.” A strand of hair fell across her face and she tucked it away. “So it works,” she said, her eyes sparkling, her full lips stretching into a wide smile.

Alex shrugged. “Yeah. I mean it hasn't been officially approved yet, but…” He looked into her eyes and saw the enamored girl who had once been awestruck by his intelligence. He returned her smile, basking in her sudden adoration.

“But, yeah, it works.”

Rachel lowered her voice. “Well then, why don't you use it to treat Jerry? I mean, isn't that what it's for?”

Alex, who had just taken another bite of chicken, nearly choked. He coughed into his napkin and took a small sip of tea, his face turning red. The sound of his swallow was enormous in the quiet room. “It's still a ways from being available for commercial use. It could take some time.”
Especially now that I don't have a prospective buyer or any way to even test modifications to the compound.

Alex turned and looked at Jerry, his once handsome brother who had wasted into this gaunt, withered shell of his former self.
He's still in there, though.

Rachel seemed to read his mind. “Forget about commercial use. What about family? What about your brother? If it works, couldn't it help get him well? Couldn't it help bring Jerry back?”

“Eli would never allow it.”

“Why should Eli have any say in how you treat your brother? And…” Rachel reached a hand towards Jerry and began stroking his arm, “…if he's not being treated at the hospital, why would Eli have to know?”

Jerry began to rock back and forth. He hadn't eaten. Rachel placed a fork in his hand and guided it towards his plate of food. He raked it through the mashed potatoes, then fed it into his mouth and moaned. Whether from satisfaction or disgust, Alex wasn't sure.

Rachel smiled and continued, “I mean, it's your formula. You created it. Forget all the rules and regulations. If it can help Jerry get well and he's under our care, I don't know why we have to wait for some bureaucratic commission to tell you it's okay to use. All that should matter is what's best for Jerry.”

Alex looked at Jerry and his faraway eyes; a tan patina of mashed potatoes coated his slack tongue. It had been over ten years since his father had come by to visit. He couldn't handle seeing his son in this state. And it seemed as though he had written Alex off as well; no modicum of success would ever make him worthy of his father's respect.

But what if he was able to bring Jerry back to his former self? What would his father think of him then? And if in treating his brother he was able to work out the kinks of the compound in order to sell the formula to a future buyer, well, wasn't that what the fancy pharmaceutical execs referred to as a win-win?

“We'll have to keep it quiet,” Alex said.

There was a sparkle in Rachel's eye; she shimmied in her seat and quietly clapped her hands.

“And this means you'll have to keep a close eye on him.”

She pointed two fingers towards her wide-open eyes.

“But, yeah. It's about what's best for him.”

“Alex, it's the greatest gift you could ever give him.”

It's the greatest gift I could ever give my father,
he thought, then raised his cup of tea. His cheeks ballooned as he blew out a gust of air.
And it just might help save us from financial ruin.

“To Jerry,” he said.

Tears welled in Rachel's eyes as they touched paper cups.