There
was this penguin glitch. But I could work around that. How hard was it to avoid penguins? And the zoo was sending those penguins back to New Zealand, in any event, so I could even go to the zoo with Danny… go again, that is.
I was starting to panic. My heart shivered, like some small bird in an ice storm. I heard a sudden loud, thumping sound, and I looked to the door, but the sound was behind me, coming from the kitchen. I got up from the bed; my legs felt boneless but, by an effort of will, I was able to walk.
I reached the doorway to the kitchen and leaned against the frame. The sound was coming from within the refrigerator, a muffled, booming sound. The fridge rocked from side to side, and half a dozen cockroaches skittered out from under it and shot across the dirty linoleum.
The refrigerator's door banged open releasing billowing clouds of grey mist that blew over me, soaking me, plastering my hair to my forehead. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, he was there. He was wearing a tuxedo, and his eyebrows were now complete circles around his eyes. He'd drawn a small purple patch of mustache above his purple lips. These embellishments still failed to define him. He was a sort of manic blur, a creature my mind refused to bring into focus.
"Derrick Thorn," I said.
He clapped his white-gloved hands. "Yes. I think sometimes you forget me, but then I come back because you remember me, you remember me and you keep your bargains!"
I did remember him. It wasn't like remembering, though. It was like entering a room that held stuff you'd lost, stuff you'd completely forgotten about, and now, here it was. You recognized it immediately, and that was the word, really,
recognized.
I recognized the bloodstains on his white dress shirt and on his gloves.
"What did you do?" I asked.
"We have the bargains, you remember? You say, 'Forget the bargains. I take my son of the child support and I leave, and no more bargains.'"
He shook his head ruefully, studying the floor. "That is the rule. Is up to you. No bargains? Very well, no bargains, and I go away."
"And now? Why are you here now?"
"Ha, ha! I am always around, but you cannot see me, and so you must drink the alcohol and then-ha! ha!-I am clear as sunshine."
"You came because I started drinking?" I was talking to a supernatural creature, a
pooka. Or maybe I was talking to my hallucinatory self. Did it matter?
Derrick shook his head. "No, I come because you of the slyness are. You say, 'No bargains!' but then you be the clever one and go through the channels! Yes, the channels! The penguins at the apocalypse they will be of rejoicing and singing your name 'Silvers! Silvers! Silvers!' They will say, 'We be always holding for you gratitude and love!'"
"I don't understand," I said.
"You be joking all the way through, I see. Okay! But the penguins, you give them the freedom! You get them out of the prison and to going home! Hooray!"
I remembered. "No bargain," I had said, and this creature, this pooka, had let Danny go. And now this creature thought that I had set the penguins free and-
"So I keep the bargains!" Derrick shouted. "We make the deals! Is done! Done deal! I see you at the Christmases with the ex-wives of your anger. I confess, I be the spy on the wall. I see your
true wishes, and I obey them. And no troubles for you, be so assured of this."
"What have you done to Danny!" I screamed, and I lunged forward. Maybe I expected my hands to slide through him; I don't know what I expected, but my hands found his neck, and his flesh was cold and boneless, and I squeezed, and his neck, like some balloon thing, no, like paste in a tube, his neck collapsed beneath my fingers, and his head swelled, seemed to leap at me like a child's toy, his head round and smooth and big as a basketball and growing bigger, tongue out-
bright blue!-and teeth every which way like a ragged shark's mouth and, from this mouth, a high, keening sound that was, I'm sure, laughter.
Derrick's head exploded with a bang, so loud that my eardrums seemed to have burst in sympathy. I fell back and watched as Derrick, headless, ran in circles, making a
huh, huh, huh, sound, flapping his arms like some big water bird slowly building for take-off, before he came to rest with his back to the wall, and slid down the wall, legs straight out in front of him, convulsing briefly, and finally growing utterly still, above him a great swatch of bright red like a thick exclamation point ending in his body.
I went back into the bedroom. I didn't have any plan, exactly, but I didn't need one because the phone rang. I answered it. It was Danny asking if I still planned on taking him to the ice skating rink next Sunday, and I said sure. He wanted to know if I could pick up June too; she lived close by, and it was okay with her parents. "Sure," I said.
Danny said goodbye, and I put the phone down, got up and went back into the kitchen. Derrick Thorn was gone, it seemed, leaving nothing but a lot of blood. On closer inspection, I found a tiny, balloon-like skin. I was able to make out the bowtie, even the tiny, polished shoes. I carried this deflated cast-off to the sink, turned the garbage disposal on, and dropped it down. The disposal made a stuttering, chugging noise, as though gagging.
I walked to the refrigerator and opened the door. The fridge was empty except for a six pack of beer and Gunther's head. I poured the six pack out in the sink, and went back and regarded Gunther's head again.
I don't feel good about this. I mean, I'm not a complete asshole, and I realize that my problems with Gunther weren't Gunther's fault. I could have explained that to that stupid pooka if he'd taken the time to ask.
I do have to say that even in death Gunther had managed to hold on to his deeply refined, disapproving air. He wasn't wearing a horrified grimace; he seemed sort of serene. I guess I'm saying that he didn't appear to have suffered. I double-bagged him in black plastic trash bags and took him down to my car.
They never did find Gunther's body. They won't find his head, either.
I know I had a part in Gunther's demise, but it would be hard to explain the nature of my involvement to the police, and I'm not going to try. You're my sponsor, and I trust you. This is fifth step stuff, and I know it won't go any further.
I know one thing: I'm done with drinking. I'm back to a meeting a day, two-a-day on weekends. I know I'm powerless over alcohol. And I know I don't want to ever see Derrick Thorn again, and I'm pretty sure I won't. Oh, I don't think he is dead. In fact, I'm certain his departure was just another one of his jokes.
Remember that hospital meeting you took me to last week? There was this guy sitting across the room in a hospital gown. He stared at me throughout the meeting, and he headed straight for me when it ended. He looked bad, the left side of his face scraped raw and something seriously wrong with one of his legs so that he moved up and down and left and right like some busted wind-up toy. The worst thing, when he got up close-and he got
close, his face six inches from mine-was the death in his eyes, the cold-water craziness at the bottom of those muddy, red-rimmed pupils. Or maybe the phlegmy sound of his voice was worse, I don't know. Maybe it was the sum of his infirmities, the weight of ruined days, the dank reek of his breath. No, probably the worst was what he said: "I know you. We got a friend in common. He says, 'Don't be a stranger.' He says maybe he'll see you around, and you can share a few beers and have good times." He shambled off, just another wretched, booze-ruined derelict. But I had to sit back down in a chair and ride out the vertigo, because I didn't think it was a case of mistaken identity.
If I take a drink, he'll be waiting. I'll walk into a bar somewhere. I'll sit down on one of the bar stools. I'll look up at the television, and I'll see a lot of penguins tobogganing on their bellies down an ice slope, and behind me, I'll hear his voice. "Oh, the happy penguins!" he will shout.