"This is your discarnate self, Jeffrey. Doesn't it sicken you? Don't you see why your soul is so far from releasement?"
Bedford paused, the leather dripping red, hungry for a second taste.
"Restore balance, Jeffrey."
Bedford/Jackson looked down at the huddled, quivering Claybo.
Dr. Edelhart spoke again, gentle, encouraging. "Resolve the conflict and heal the emotional vulnerability. Seek your spiritual reattachment."
Jackson felt dizzy. The whip wilted in his hand. He wanted to vomit. He couldn't believe he had ever been so brutal. Not in any of his lives. "I didn't…"
"Denial is not the path to wholeness, Jeffrey. Empower yourself."
Tears trickled down Jackson's face. He could feel the eyes watching Bedford from the cabin door. A witness to his spiritual fracture. How could he possibly make this right? How could he become a soul-mind healed?
Sobbing, he turned to the only one he could trust. "What do I do now, Dr. Edelhart?"
"You know the answer. I can only lead you to the door. The final steps are yours."
Jackson bent to his victim. Claybo looked at him, wide-eyed, wary. Jackson placed the whip at Claybo's feet. Then he slowly unbuttoned his shirt, his skin pale in the sunset.
Jackson knelt on the ground. He put his face against the dirt, pine needles scratching his cheek, dust clinging to his tears. "Free me," he said to the man he had whipped.
"Mar's?" Claybo’s voice was wracked with hidden hurt.
“Do it.”
“Yes, suh.” Claybo slowly lifted himself, his shirt hanging in rags from his dark muscles. Both men were on their knees, equal.
"Whip me," Jackson commanded. Then, begging, "Please."
Claybo stood, six-three, a man, black anger. He fumbled with the whip, making an awkward arc in the air with its length. He snapped his wrist and the leather slapped against Jackson's bare back.
Not a strong blow, yet the pain sluiced along Jackson's spinal cord.
Jackson swallowed a scream, his lungs feeling stuffed with embers. He gasped, then panted, "Harder."
The agony was soul-searing, but Jackson knew the blow wasn't nearly hard enough to drive the transpersonal residue from his soiled psyche.
The whip descended again, more controlled this time, scattering sparks across Jackson's fragmented but hopeful spirit-flesh. Claybo was intelligent for a darkie. A fast learner. The whip fell a third time, inflicting a deeper, more meaningful misery. Flogging Jackson closer to whole.
"Your hour's up," Dr. Edelhart interrupted.
Jackson came around, brought back by the words that he'd been trained to recognize as the trigger that would pull him from hypnosis. He blinked as he looked around the office. He was soaked with sweat, his muscles aching, his throat dry. Dr. Edelhart was standing over him.
"How do you feel?" said the doctor, eyes half-closed as if studying a rare insect.
Jackson tried the air, found that it came into his lungs, then out, though it tasted of tannin. He was alive, back in the reality he knew. Years away from the scarred night of his soul. A strange peace descended, though he was tired, drained.
"I…I feel…" He searched through Dr. Edelhart's catalog of catch phrases, then found one that seemed to fit. "I feel a little more integrated."
Dr. Edelhart smiled. "I feel that we've made true progress today, Jeffrey."
Jackson sat up in the chair, energy returning. "Wow. I haven't felt this good in years."
"A hundred and forty, give or take a few."
"How…how did you know?"
Dr. Edelhart waved at the diplomas and framed certificates on the wall behind his desk. "I'm the doctor. I'm supposed to know."
Jackson stood, walked the soreness from his legs. "I could run through a crowd right now, and not even notice all the eyes watching me. I don’t feel angry at all. Nobody to hate."
"Progress through regression. But… " Dr. Edelhart's word hung suspended in the air, like a tiny sliver of discarnate spirit.
"But what?" Jackson said.
"Let's not forget. This is only the beginning. A giant step, to be sure. But only a step."
Jackson looked at the carpet. "I should have guessed it wouldn't be that easy. Not after spending months just to get to this point."
"Now we know where your spiritual bondage is. Next time, we can go a little farther."
Jackson gave a smile, enjoying this moment of enlightenment. He was on the road to recovery. Sure, it might take months, maybe years. But he'd be whole. Even if it killed him.
Or rather, killed Dell Bedford.
"Funny, isn't it?" Jackson said. He always felt a little more informal at the end of a session. He'd be on top of the world for the next few days, no worries, the spiders at bay, the clowns snoozing in circus shadows. He'd even be able to take the elevator to the street.
Dr. Edelhart seemed to be in a good mood as well. "What's funny?"
"My fragmented past life. That my psychic wound would be racism. Well, racism, sadism, masochism, the whole laundry list we've already been through."
"What's so funny about that?"
"Well, you being black and all. Or should I say African-American?"
"Black's fine. Maybe it's not a coincidence at all, Jeffrey. Spiritual paths do have a way of intersecting here and there along the way. Sometimes more than once."
Jackson looked into the doctor's eyes. For just a second. Then the brightness was gone, the doctor shielded behind his clinical expression, lost behind the other end of the magnifying glass.
But for just that one second, Jackson had seen Claybo in there, hunted, haunted, vengeful. Wet with his own psychic scars.
No. Jackson shook the image from his head. He wasn't here to drive himself crazy. He was here to be healed.
"See you next week, same time?" Jackson said.
Dr. Edelhart smiled. "I'm looking forward to it."
###
METABOLISM
The city had eyes.
It watched Elise from the glass squares set into its walls, walls that were sheer cliff faces of mortar and brick. She held her breath, waiting for them to blink. No, not eyes, only windows. She kept walking.
And the street was not a tongue, a long black ribbon of asphalt flesh that would roll her into the city's hot jaws at any second. The parking meter poles were not needly teeth, eager to gnash. The city would not swallow her, here in front of everybody. The city kept its secrets.
And the people on the sidewalk- how much did they know? Were they enemy agents or blissful cattle? The man in the charcoal-gray London Fog trench coat, the Times tucked under his elbow, dark head down and hands in pockets. A gesture of submission or a crafted stance of neutrality?
The blue-haired lady in the chinchilla wrap, her turquoise eyeliner making her look like a psychedelic raccoon. Was the lady colorblind or had she adopted a clever disguise? And were her mincing high-heeled steps carrying her to a midlevel townhouse or was she on some municipal mission?
That round-faced cabdriver, his black mustache brushing the bleached peg of his cigarette, the tires of his battered yellow cab nudged against the curb. Were his eyes scanning the passersby in hopes of a fare, or was he scouting for plump prey?
Elise tugged on her belt, wrapping her coat more tightly around her waist. The thinner one looked the better. Not that she had to rely on illusion. Her appetite had been buried with the other things of her old blind life, ordinary pleasures like window shopping and jogging. She had once traveled these streets voluntarily.
Best not to think of the past. Best to pack the pieces of it away like old toys in a closet. Perhaps someday she could open that door, shed some light, blow off the dust, oil the squeaky parts, and resume living. But for now, living must be traded for surviving.
She sucked in her cheeks, hoping she looked as gaunt as she felt. The wisp of breeze that blew up the street, more carbon monoxide than oxygen, was not even strong enough to ruffle the fringe on the awning above that shoe shop. But she felt as if the breeze might sweep her across the broken concrete, sending her tumbling and skittering like a cellophane candy wrapper. Sweeping her toward the city's throat.