Another spell of silence and then Vauxhall asks, “Have you tried to see?”
“See what?”
“The future. Have you tried knocking yourself out after we were together?”
“No. What are you thinking?”
Vauxhall looks to Paige, gives a half-smile. I’m not sure Paige knows, but now she has a pretty good idea something went down. Vauxhall says, “I think that maybe your abilities changed. Mine did, they got heightened, so maybe yours did too. You think it’s worth trying?”
“Maybe. But I don’t know if I want to try now. I don’t want to see something that will just crush me. I think it’s best to stay right here, in the now,” I say.
Vauxhall asks, “What’s next then?”
“It’s about time I went home,” I say.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ONE
Dr. Borgo-
Funny getting a letter from me, right?
How old-school is this? Anyway, I’ll keep it short and sweet. First off, I want to thank you for helping me out with the whole Grandpa Razor scene. Really, it wasn’t you helping me out so much as you saving me from killing the guy. Sometimes, when I’m thinking back on it, I worry it wasn’t the best idea to have stopped me, but then I come to my senses and realize I’m just being pessimistic. And that’s the reason I’m writing.
What the hell is going on with me?
Seriously, it’s like I’ve got that multiple personality disorder thing that always pops up as the killer’s motivation in those bad cable movies. Actually, I don’t think I do, but whatever it is that’s going on with me, it’s disturbing. Not so much disturbing to me as it is to everyone else around me. My friends, they’re kind of freaked out by it. My girlfriend, the person I’ve been in love with for like ever, she seems scared of me. How terrible is that?
So I was just writing you for those two reasons. 1. Thanks. 2. Can you help me explain this? I don’t think I’ll be able to stop by the office anytime soon. And I don’t think it’s something you’ll need to run blood tests or whatever over. Frankly, if the future that I’ve seen happens, then I’m sure you’ll be seeing tons of me when I’m in the Alzheimer’s Wing.
Cheerio!
Ade
P.S. Chances are pretty good you’ll get this letter after everything goes down on the beach. Just wanted to let you know that I appreciate all your help over the past few years. Means a lot to me. Late.
TWO
I don’t bother with the side entrance tonight.
There are two freaks on the porch, a young dude I’ve seen before and a woman with a baby asleep in a sling on her chest. When they see me they do these excited little jumps and even clap their hands.
The young guy wants me to tell him when he’s going to get married.
The woman, she wants to know the same thing.
I sit down on the porch and they sit next to me looking with the most eager eyes the same way they’d sit listening to a guru. These people have never actually met me. Never heard me speak. They have no idea what sort of week I’ve had and what I’m gearing up to do when I step inside my house.
Honestly, I feel bad about what I say to them. First I clarify that I’ve gone clean and there won’t be any more visions. “Besides,” I add, “I only ever saw my future. Not anyone else’s. Also I should mention that the last time I did something, it didn’t look good. You might want to forget about the future being anything but grim.” And then I get into detail. Some of it, I’m embarrassed to say, I make up.
The young guy, he lopes off the lawn head hung low and shaking.
The woman, she’s just trying to keep her baby from screaming.
I get inside to find Mom waiting up for me.
I haven’t seen her in a few days, but we fall quickly into old habits the way trained monkeys might. When I walk in she does not get off the couch to hug me. She just smiles and opens the Revelation Book and clicks her pen open. Also she’s sipping tea and watching PBS.
I sit down on the other end of the couch and she shuts the television off and says, “Thank God you’re back.” Then, opening the Revelation Book, she asks, “Where do we start?”
“With nothing,” I say.
She starts writing. Says, “Okay, and in the nothing?”
“No. Really. Nothing. No visions. Like I told you.”
“No visions?” She looks me over. Sees my skin unbroken. My bruises yellow if there at all and nothing wrapped around my head. No busted lip. No stitches. She asks, “What are you doing, Ade?”
“I’m not knocking myself out anymore, Mom. I’m done. It’s been a while now.”
“Did Baby Jesus tell you to stop?”
“No.”
“Why? I don’t…” She’s shaking her head robotically.
I tell her that I don’t talk to Jesus. I tell her that I never have talked to Jesus and that Jesus never has and never will figure into the visions. I say, “All the things we’ve seen, all the things we’ve traced out, all the stuff about my future self, it doesn’t get good for me because of Christ. It gets good because I stop.”
Mom closes the Revelation Book and sighs.
I say, “I’m in charge of my own life, Mom. What if right here and right now is all that matters? What if everything else, everything you want to read in that book, what if it’s all just dreaming? Just wishful thinking?”
Mom moves over to my side of the couch and starts massaging my shoulders. Says, “You remember when we went to Cave of the Winds in the Springs? You were only ten or maybe nine at the time and the whole drive down you were carrying on something crazy. Anyway, we’re in these caves and you’re just having this fit. The tour guide is ready to leave us behind. She’s looking at us and frowning and ready to just kick you down into some bottomless shaft. The whole tour you’re getting on everyone’s nerves. Just driving everyone crazy and I can’t seem to do a thing about it. I’m embarrassed as all hell. I’m trying to calm you and trying to look like a decent parent, like an effective parent, but it’s going nowhere. I’m temped to turn back when we enter one particular part of the cave system and we’re looking up at all the stalagmites and stalactites-I can never remember which is which-and you suddenly stop complaining. You go silent. We had to stay in that room for five minutes longer than most tours stay. Everyone on the tour was fine with it because you were finally being quiet. You sat down on that cold stone floor so deep beneath the ground and just stared up at these rock formations. It was like it was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen. As though you were staring into the celestial heavens. Staring straight into the face of God himself. Sweet Jesus, that’s when I knew. Right then.”
“Knew what, Mom?”
Mom says, “I knew that you were a miracle. To be honest with you, I saw you in that cave and immediately realized that there was something more going on in your head than just the usual kid stuff. And you weren’t marveling at the strange developments of nature either. You were seeing beyond what all of us see. The world’s a curtain, Ade, and you were seeing right through it. Right though to the other side. To the strings and the hands that hold them. You saw the geometry of the Maker’s design. We see the simple wings, but you see the souls headed to Hell. You see the needle. What the rest of us only guess at. What scientists can only dream about.”
Mom’s talking dragonflies again.
She says, “Come in the kitchen with me.”
I look around the corner, up the stairs, and to the kitchen where the lights are on and two women, both Mom’s age and type, are sitting at the table drinking tea and looking back at me. They’re smiling, faces wide and warm. Also there’s a laptop and a projector sitting on the table.