Westlake Soul (14 page)

My head flopped, hit the buffers and stopped. I groaned again.

“This is going to be a night with Westlake,” Dad said, parking my chair in the middle of the room before taking a seat next to Mom. They clasped each other’s hands and that was nice to see. “A night
for
Westlake. We don’t know how long we’re going to have—” And here he stopped and his face stiffened and Mom rubbed his back. “We don’t know how long Westlake has got, so we’re doing this tonight, as a family, united in our love for him, and with a wish that our beautiful son and brother finds everything he wants in the next life.”

Everybody was crying now—
already
, and things were only just getting started. Have to admit, I was crying, too. Impossible not to. I edged from my body to absorb their love, and
felt
it. A real and solid thing that I cradled. The tears in my eyes were too small to see, but they were there. And they were real, too.

Hub came in. Head low. Tail low. He saw everybody crying, then turned around and walked out. Hub hasn’t taken this well—hasn’t really been able to face me. He sleeps alone most nights, and gone are the days when he’ll jump onto my bed and rest his head on my legs.

I heard his paws clicking down the hallway. The sigh of his body as he sagged onto the floor at the foot of the stairs.

“So here’s what we’re going to do,” Dad continued, wiping his wet cheeks. “It won’t be easy, I know, but we’re going to watch a few home movies, then we’re going to share our favourite memories of Westlake while listening to some of his favourite songs. This is our tribute to him, and our way of showing how deeply he touched—” Dad’s words choked to a stop. His face stiffened again and he sobbed, hiding behind one forearm. A full forty seconds before he was able to speak again. “This is already harder than I thought it would be. Anyway, yes . . . our tribute to Westlake, to thank him for bringing us so much joy.” Now Dad looked at me. His throat worked as he tried to suppress the sobs. I wanted to fly out of my chair and hold him so tight. “We’ll never forget you, buddy,” he said. “You’ll always be a part of our family . . . our lives.”

Mom taught Niki how to fold her Kleenex while Dad selected a few home movies and pushed the first of them into the player. Within moments I was on TV. Baby Westlake. The date in the bottom right corner of the screen read, 04/03/88. Newborn. In Mom’s arms, my tiny head snuggled in the pillow of her elbow. Mom was teasing her pinky into my hand and I gripped it tight, my pudgy fingers dimpled, fingernails the size, and shape, of sesame seeds. Cut to Dad holding me, in his hippie days, with hair down to his shoulders and beads in his beard. He was crying on TV, too, but with joy this time. His amazing eyes shone. His hair then was the same colour as mine now. My scrunched little face pressed against his chest, content in the fierce glow of his sun.

We watched home movies for an hour and a half—a window on a world where only happiness existed. My first Christmas. First birthday. Three years old, my face covered with vanilla ice cream (you can hear Mom and Dad laughing their asses off in the background). Aged six, holding Niki for the first time (her tiny hand curled around my pinky). Three different Halloweens, dressed as a zombie, a vampire, an Oreo Cookie. Two vacations, one in Disney World (screaming at Goofy—the seven-foot-tall version, which still looks freaky, even today), the other camping in Algonquin Park (Dad pretending to be a bear, chasing his squealing, delighted children around a tree). Eight years old, playing soccer, my hair almost white in the sun. A little older, on a swing set behind Aunt Janey’s house. I kick my legs and soar, wanting to loop-the-loop—unafraid, even then. Me and Mom playing Twister, and I’m laughing because her ass is in my face. Fourteen years old, my first surfboard, Dad filming me as I tackle ankle busters at Cocoa Beach. Sixteen years old, play-wrestling Niki, giving her a noogie.

This and more. A boat of memories sailing only tranquil waters. Just a regular kid, a regular family. And it reminded me how much I used to smile. We
all
did. The frickin’ happy family—like we lived on Sesame Street, or something. Only my life, or my death (eventually), will bring those smiles back. This in-between state is destructive in so many ways. I welcome the end of it. One way or another.

So we watched home movies as darkness edged all red light from the sky. Niki moved to the sofa and sat with Mom and Dad and they hugged each other and wept, and sometimes they laughed or commented on this and that, but mostly they wept. Strange tears. Melancholic, yet touched with joy. I wondered if they were differently shaped. I took their love and pressed against it. Nobody saw my upper lip twitch. Almost a smile. Nobody saw the tear curve around my cheekbone, fall from my jaw.

Dad had burned a CD of some of my favourite tunes. He’d done a pretty good job, too. A good selection of upbeat (AC/DC, The White Stripes, Kings of Leon) and suitably depressing (Coldplay, Radiohead, Leonard Cohen), along with a few classics from the likes of The Beatles and Hendrix. He turned off the TV and put this on, and for the next hour or so they shared their favourite Westlake memories. Again, a good selection, and I listened through alternating waves of pride, sadness, and joy. At one point, Niki got up from the sofa, crouched beside my chair, and held my hand. She squeezed my fingers, like she was a baby again. She shared her memories with a smile and I can’t recall a time that I was more proud of her. It crushed me that I couldn’t thank her for being my sister, and my friend. Mom and Dad danced to Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat.” Dad had his arms crossed over Mom’s back, pulling her close. Mom’s head was on his chest, eyes closed and wet. Every now and then Dad would kiss the top of her head. They shared everything. Pain was huge and real, but in that moment, as Cohen sang, it was manageable, small enough to hold.

“More,” Mom said, and grinned.

“Another dance?” Dad asked.

“Maybe later,” Mom said. “More.”

Dad frowned. Niki, too.

“
Mooooore
,” Mom said again. “Don’t you remember? That was how Westlake used to say Mom. It was his first word.”

Dad nodded and kissed her. “Always Mommy’s little boy.”

“He adored his Daddy, too.”

“
Gaaaah
,” Dad said. “That’s how he said it—like he had something stuck in his throat.”

I smiled inside, brought the memory forward: Gaah and More, their large faces hovering over me. The sun and the moon. Dad would always laugh because, when I was hungry, I’d point at Mom’s breast and say, “More . . .
Mooooore
.” So much time had passed. The world had shifted. I’d gone from being a regular kid with an infinite smile to a broken thing. A shell. But they were still Gaah and More—the sun and the moon—to me.

The music stopped and there was silence. It stretched, almost to the point where it ached, and I knew what they were thinking without having to dip into their minds:
Are we doing the right thing?
This was not something they were seriously considering, and certainly nobody said it out loud. I wished I could put their minds at ease—assure them that I understood their decision, sympathized with their situation. My head flopped to the other side. Mom and Dad nodded. A small but resolute gesture. Niki broke the silence by blowing her nose.

They kissed me goodnight. Niki first. High on the cheekbone. She squeezed my hand again. “I love you,” she said. Then Mom, her fingers in my hair, her kiss on the side of my mouth, and the muscles in my lips tried to react, reciprocate. “Sweet dreams, baby,” she said. Dad wheeled me through to the groovy room and lifted me into bed. He pulled the sheets up, tucked me in, then cupped my face in one hand. “You’re the son I always wanted, and the son I’ll always have. I’m so proud of you.” His kiss landed square in the middle of my forehead. He left my room, in tears again.

Gaah
, I thought.

They talked for a little longer and I left them to it. I wanted to work but was too emotional. So I lay there and stared at the ceiling. Mostly gloom, but the door was half open so I could see a wedge of Surf City Blue in the light from the hallway. Niki eventually went to bed. I heard her computer ping and click as she checked her e-mail and updated her Facebook status. Then the bed springs bounced and she flicked off the light. Soon afterward, very softly, “Famous Blue Raincoat” again. Mom and Dad dancing, holding each other close.

A beautiful, difficult evening. A celebration of a life I haven’t quite finished living. Everybody is sleeping now, including Hub. He moved into the living room when Mom and Dad went to bed—walked past my door without looking in.

Silence.

Almost.

I can hear him. Dr. Quietus. Close by. He won’t come for me tonight; he just wants me to know he’s there. His laughter is the sound of breaking bones. His breathing is the wind in a narrow space. If I could walk to the window and pull open the blinds, I would see him. Floating in the dark. Hands pressed to the glass. Eyes like clock faces, watching me.

I worked through the night—lit a fire in the motor cortex to see if I could excite some movement. The heat was incredible but I had no choice but to endure it. Sweating, coated in ashes, I tried to move my left thumb, then my left foot. Hours passed like grave soldiers marching rhythmically to battle, knowing they may never return. I thought—and how my heart leapt!—that I had succeeded when my left leg jerked beneath the sheets. Pain gripped my pelvis, drove screws to the bone. The movement was involuntary, though; I fanned the flames and tried again, but there was nothing.

I succumbed to exhaustion at some deep time and slept motionless while the clock carried on ticking, as if my bed and I had been sculpted from the same slab of granite. My dreams were unkind. Parents with scissors. Headless babies. I was too tired to control them. I awoke to the light of midmorning and a truckload of pain. In my legs. My stomach. My shoulders. I stared at the walls. A muscle in my forearm twitched. It was 9:42 AM.

Forty-eight minutes.

Already so weak, already failing, and my tube hadn’t even been removed. I needed to recharge and get my emotions in check—ready myself for battle. I was tempted to release. To the moon again, or to some cold, clear mountain where I could roost with eagles and fly above the world in a startling M-shape. I was afraid, though, that if I released I would never come back. How easy, to admit defeat and reside in bliss until the end. But not an option. And so I did the next best thing. I daydreamed.

Blissfully.

Virtual reality: a computer-generated environment that uses software and hardware to deceive the user’s senses. But here’s the deal: reality
can
be a state of mind. To believe that what we are experiencing is real . . . to see, touch, and smell . . . to feel emotion. We experience this every night when we go to sleep and surrender to the subconscious.
Dreaming
is virtual reality. No computer required.

I can control this reality. Another benefit of having flipped the iceberg, although one I rarely take advantage of. Dreams are like waves; they’re not always easy, but you just have to ride them. Daydreams are a little different—pedestals for fantasies. Here you can flex the muscle of your imagination, and indeed you
should
. Because of my familiarity with the id, I can achieve total absorption in my daydreams. I can touch, hear, taste . . .
experience
. Virtual reality, baby. And because my dreams had been so cruel, I decided to treat myself, to take a moment and recuperate here . . .

D
eep in a fairy tale forest. Golden pine needles underfoot and a thousand different trees trembling like cold men. “Where a
r
e you taking me, baby?” Yvette asks. I brush the hair from one side of her face and see that her ey
e
s are blue, but then she steps toward me, into a subtly different light, and they shift to green. I blink, my lips pulled into h
a
lf a smile. “How do you do that?” I ask, and Yvette shrugs. “That thing with your eyes?” She kisses
m
e and steps back and does it again. Green to blue. I imagine her irises like kaleido
s
cope glass. “Where are you taking me?” she asks again. I tell her it’s a surprise, take her hand,
a
nd lead her through the woods. Through pillars of sunlight and sprays of wild grass. Petals and burrs cling to ou
r
clothes. Nature is the sound of breathing. We are barefoot. I look down and see tiny sequins embedded in the polish on her toenails. They flicker, blu
e
and green, and I have to concentrate to keep my feet on the ground. Maybe Yvette senses this because she clutches my hand tighter, like a child clu
t
ching a balloon string. We carry on walking, scooping fragrant air into our lungs. Yvette occasionally remarks on t
h
e birds and flowers, all of burning colour, or copper-coated fawns standing in bars of light. “I feel lik
e
I’m in a Disney cartoon,” she says. We are walking so close together that her shoulder bumps my a
r
m. I am taller than her. My muscles are firm and real. “We’re nearly there,” I say, and a mom
e
nt later we hear the music. “A piano?” Yvette asks. “In the forest?” And I tell her that
a
nything is possible. We walk a little faster, toward the music, and step at last into a c
l
earing bordered by amazing trees. Sunlight strikes the raised lid of a grand piano (an 1896 Steinway Model B, just l
i
ke Nadia’s, but I don’t tell Yvette this) that is being played by Alicia Keys. A melody to fi
t
the mood. Delicate and dreamlike. Yvette gasps, covers her mouth with one hand, and looks at me in disbelief. I smile and point to the centre of the clearing, where a table for two has been set. Two roses in a cr
y
stal vase, champagne on ice, glimmering silverware. Johnny Depp is our waiter. He wears a white
t
uxedo and his hair is long and messy, like it was in
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
“What’s going on
h
ere?” Yvette asks, and I reply, “I just want everything to be perfect.” We eat exotic foods until our mouths
a
re sweet and stained, and then dance around the clearing as Alicia plays. Moonlight replaces sunlight. Shades of silver and whi
t
e. Johnny’s suit glows. Then we break from the clearing and run like wood nymph
s
through the trees, discarding our clothes. We are naked when we arrive at the waterfall. It is so high, and so stained by light, that it appears to fall from the moon and into a pool that co
u
ld be filled with mercury. Yvette dives in first. A perfect silhouette in the air. Barely a
s
plash as she meets the cold water. I follow with equal grace, swim deep, my lungs filled with silver oxygen. I find Yve
t
te and we shimmer, then bre
a
k the surface together. The moon pours onto us. Through the trees, am
i
d the high sound of falling water and
n
ight birds, we can still hear Alicia p
l
ay. “Why did you bring me here?” Yvette asks. We are so close, I can feel her ha
i
r on my shoulder. “Because you’re good for me,” I reply. “And I need to heal . . . to get strong for what lies ahead.” She
f
rowns and I kiss her before she can say anything else. We sink into the water and I imagine her closing those blue/green eyes, and in that moment I know that dreams are the reality that sustain lif
e
.