“You were levitating, Nicholas.” Nakota, sudden appearance over my head, looking as if she too had mastered the trick but no, she just took a seat on the couchbed back, looming down from there. “You were hanging in the air over the Funhole for at least thirty seconds. At least.”
“Bullshit.”
Randy said, “More like a couple minutes,” but she shook her head, how often had I seen that dismissive shake, used exclusively when she knew she was right, absolutely knew it, and I was scared, now. Scared of the way they kept looking at me. Scared of the way I couldn’t exactly remember exactly what I had done.
“You were right about him,” Randy said to her. He drank off his beer, reflexively crushed the can. “Gotta take a leak,” he announced, distracted politeness, shaking his head still in private wonder and moving off unerringly in the direction of the bathroom, maybe his bladder had a homing instinct. Door barely shut before I heard the vast luxurious stream, and I said quietly to Nakota, still above me like a gargoyle, “What’s all this shit you fed him, about you need me for the Funhole?”
“It’s true,” she said.
“My ass. For God’s sake, you’ve been coming Here yourself for weeks, you know you—”
“I can come here all I want,” she said, “but nothing happens.”
“What do you mean, nothing happens?”
“I mean,” with cold emphasis, “nothing happens. It just sits there. It doesn’t have a smell, it doesn’t—it’s not active without you, Nicholas. You’re a catalyst. You’re—”
Alarmed, I tried to sit up, to speak away her words, she was scaring the shit out of me and she wouldn’t stop: “Would you like to see our video, Nicholas? Randy’s and mine? We did it with his friend’s camcorder. Fifty minutes of pure static.”
“Come on,” grabbing at a straw, the merest twig, anything, “I wasn’t even there when—”
“You got the camcorder the first time. You sat with me to watch it. You said for you it never changes, it’s always the same image.”
Heart beating in time and I could feel my hand itching, itching hard under the bandage. “So what?”
“So it’s not like that for anyone else. Me, Randy, Vanese—”
“Who’s Vanese?”
“His girlfriend. We all see something different, all the time. But not you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care.” And then, leaning down so her hair brushed mine, “I didn’t want you to know. Ever. I didn’t even believe it myself at first until the first time I tried it alone—”
“When was this?”
“Few months ago.”
“A few monthsT
“Nothing happened. Nothing happened with Randy, either. I could bring an army in there and it wouldn’t make any difference. That’s the point, Nicholas. Nothing happens without you.”
Randy, beer in either hand. “Here,” and he even opened it for me, put it in my hand but I didn’t want it, I didn’t want them there, either of them, maybe Nakota most of all. I felt tired, almost sick, and I didn’t want to hear any more bullshit, I just wanted to nurse my hand in silence and be left well enough alone.
“Go home,” I said, closing my eyes. “Shrike. Go home, Shrike.”
I heard Randy stand, heard the subtle creak of his boots. “Ask him if I can bring one,” he said to Nakota, who bent to me again.
“Nicholas, Randy wants to bring one of his pieces.”
Still eyes closed, “Pieces of what?”
“Sculpture, he’s an artist, a metalworker. You saw his stuff at the Incubus, remember? He wants to set one up by the Funhole, is that okay?”
“Why are you asking me?” I sat up, staring at th’em both, the beer toppling, splashing cold against my ribs. “Why are you asking mel It’s not mine, I’m not in charge of anything here. Do whatever you want. Just do whatever you want!”
“Listen,” Nakota to Randy, gaze still on me, “we better go.”
“I’ll bring that piece by, man,” and they left, then, finally, closing the door with an odd gentility and me left alone with my new terror, the rest of the night spent talking myself out of what Nakota had said, talking myself as far away from it as I could get.
When I woke my pillowed arm was numb, sticky-slick and, blinking, I saw my hand coated to the elbow with fluid as neat as a glove, a coy pink with tiny clots of deeper color spattered in some pattern which in my overwhelming disgust I chose not to decipher; I ran to the bathroom, literally ran, as if my arm was on fire, plunged it into the sink and turned the hot water on full blast, head averted like a fastidious driver past a smoking wreck, till I could feel the water on my plain bare skin, a plainly painful heat. I shut it off, toweled my arm, and found all of last night’s beer rushing willy-nilly up my throat so, bending, I had to take care of that, too.
Wiping up, back to the couchbed and without a voluntary glance tearing off the sheet—pink, too, and wet, that much I had to see—jumbled ball and straight to the trash, no thanks, I puked once already this morning. Deeply grateful to discover it was Wednesday, my day off, my content evaporating when knock-knock at my chamber door and Randy’s hesitant behemoth voice: “Hey, Nicholas? You up, man?”
Shit If I could have broken his neck I would have, just for the pleasure of the silence after the snap. “Yeah,” rubbing my frowsy face, vomit breath and less than half a phony smile. He carried something metal, silver and black and about two, two-and-a-half feet high. Looked something like a ladder as seen on the verge of a whiskey pass-out. Or maybe that was just my woozy perspective. Say what you see.
“Dead End,” Randy said, nodding at the metal thing, and I remembered in a halfass way the bit last night about bringing over a piece of his art, apparently this was it. Actually it was almost interesting—a ladder, yes, but crooked, twisted, the rungs less stepping spots than dirty tricks, descend at your own risk was the first-glance impression, but I was really in no mood to critique anything, so I tried to indicate this by what I was hoping was an innocuous nod. I did it a couple times for good measure. Randy didn’t say anything, just stood there, so I said, with another nod, “It’s really nice. Really.”
“Should I just put it in there?”
“Yeah. Go ahead.”
* By the time he came back, I had had time to wash my face, drink some water. He stood in the doorway, shook his head to my offer of coffee. “Gotta get back to work.” He was wearing the “Randy” shirt and a pair of jeans that I saw at second glance were not actually black but black with grease. “I got my truck outside.” My all-purpose duh look; “Tow truck, man. All-Star Towing. My day job,” and he smiled, shrugged. “Gotta eat, you know.”
“Me too. Every day.”
“Well. I’ll see you, man. Maybe later on tonight? Shrike said something about it.”
Maybe in hell, Randy, you and Shrike both. “Sure.”
When he had gone I sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and trying again to convince myself that all Nakota had said was worse than bullshit, just her own weird little way of fucking with my brain, and Randy, why Randy was obviously suggestible. By the time I was through with my coffee, I felt much better, and after a shower I felt almost good. Out, I said to myself. Climb out of this rathole and go do something.
Very cold but no wind, that kind of winter calm where every step is magnified, my friends the crows in bleak formation and me crunch, crunch, through the bitter crust beneath; it felt good to walk, hands in pockets, head down and breath leaking in thready white through my reddening nose, walking in a winter wonderland. Very few other people out. I stopped and got a newspaper, took it to a Burger King where I sat with a large coffee and read, feeling the peculiar unhappy serenity induced only by the steady perusal of disasters too remote to do anything about but feel wretched; it put all my stupid petty worries to rest. No, I am not Funhole Messiah, I just know too many weird people.