Frank Black

(Note: If you are reading from the beginning, please scroll down to "Wednesday, November 6." I have once again exceeded the single post limit.)

The roof. I was on the roof. Sitting now, not standing, on the concrete of the roof. I was breathing heavily and my heart was racing, pounding. I stood up and walked to the brick wall that lined the edge of the roof and looked around me. The city. This was the city all around me. Recognition began to kick in. I saw the diner. The diner! The lights were still on. The diner was open twenty-four hours a day. I looked at my watch, noting that it wasn’t even midnight yet. I walked inside and decided to eschew the elevator in favor of the stairs. It was only a few flights down. Just walk it off a little, Cam. Walk it off.

---

My apartment was dark and cold. I went to the back of the living room and closed the window. I didn’t even remember opening it. I put my workbag down on the couch and sat down next to it. I flipped on the television but after about 15 seconds of wholly disinterested channel flipping, I turned it off. Television sucks. I went over to my desk and, sweeping aside pens, pencils and ceramic shards away with my foot, turned on my computer. I watched it boot up and then I turned it off. I had no patience for this now.

Frank Black was coming. I didn’t know when but I knew he was coming soon. He’d gotten to Maggie this morning. He’d gotten to Pete sometime this afternoon. Was he going to get to me next or was he going to find someone else first? I had some other friends. Dave, Jack, Ray. No one else that I really came into day-to-day contact with, just a couple of guys that I instant messaged with from time to time. Would Frank Black go to them first or would he come right here?

It didn’t matter. I needed to prepare myself. I needed to fortify myself. What would be my first line of defense? How would I protect myself from him? Better yet, where would he come? Would he come here, to my apartment? He obviously knew where it was. He’s probably looking in the windows right now. Lower the blinds. Quickly. How could you not have done this before? Why would you leave the blinds up? With the blinds all the way up, he can see in here. Put them down, not as easy. I went from room to room. My bedroom. Lower the blinds. The kitchen. Lower the blinds. The living room. Lower the blinds. I can’t believe you left the blinds up.

It was dark in the apartment now. I hadn’t turned a light on when I came in. I went over to my desk and turned the lamp on but it was small so it only lit the corner by the desk well. The rest of the apartment was still sparsely lit and bathed in shadow. I walked over to the window in the living room and peeked through the slats in the blinds. Where are you, Frank Black? I know that you are out there. I know that you are watching me. You aren’t across from the living room, are you? I went into the kitchen and peered through those blinds. Are you over here, Frank Black? Are you across from the kitchen? Shit. I can’t see you here either. Bedroom. Are you over there? Are you across from the bedroom?

He’s coming soon. He’s out there. He’s going to be here soon. You have to do something. What can I do? First things first, I needed to protect the apartment. How could I protect the apartment? Time was of the essence. He could be here in days, hours, minutes, who knows? He could be standing outside of the door at this very moment, with his hand cocked to knock on the door. Or now. Or now. Or now. Good god, I had to do something. What could I do?

I locked the door. Both the top and the bottom lock. Idiot. Do you think a lock is going to hold this guy? Not just one but TWO locks? One lock could never hold. But TWO? Certainly, two locks would thwart the person that’s been keeping a watchful eye on you for nearly a week. He wasn’t thwarted by any of the places you went to. None of the people you saw could convince him that he should leave you alone. One lock could certainly not deter him. Two locks, however, would turn back the mastermind that has crafted a scheme and invented days into to stalking you. Two locks would make him throw his hands up and say, “I give up. Cam Gordon is good.”

I looked around the living room. I needed something heavy. The couch? No, too much, too bulky. The chair. The big easy chair. Bring that over here. That’s good. That’s a good start. I went over to the chair and circled it once to try to figure out the best way to pick it up. I was, after all, only one man. Lift with your knees, Cam, not with your back. Frank Black could march in here with ease if you are lying on the floor with back spasms. I decided against lifting the chair and for dragging it. I lugged it over to the door and propped it up against the door. It’s still not enough. I needed more. I needed more bulk against the door. If he beat the locks, he could just push the door open with a little force. The table. The one by the door that I was always banging my knee on. That table could work. In fact, just eyeing the empty space, it seemed like almost exactly the right size. I took the table from the small corner that it rested in, brought it over and wedged it in. A little too long. Push against the side. Push. Against. The. Side. Got it. It’s in there.

Ha ha. Try to get in now, Frank Black. Give it a shot. I challenge you to try to get into this apartment. I have turned this apartment into an impregnable fortress. What else could I stack up there? The entertainment center. It had the TV on it too. That would work as extra weight. I put all of my weight into the side of the entertainment center. It began to move. Slide it along the wood floor. Push it over there. Almost there. Clunk. That was the sound of wood meeting wood. It was there. Wait. Turn it lengthwise. Put the long side up against the side that has the love seat and the table. That will totally block the door out. He’ll never get in.

The apartment was secure. I thought it was secure. What if he got in? What if he got past all of that? You need to defend yourself. I wish I had a gun. How great would it be if I had a gun now? I couldn’t get one right away. I’d have to wait five days. Fuck the government. Don’t they understand that I need a gun now? Frank Black is coming. I need to protect myself. Frank Black is going to come here. He’s going to pick my locks, move the furniture I stacked against the door and the where will I be? Face to face with my stalker and nothing to protect myself. I must have something around the house. Knives? They were all butter knives, dull and harmless. Come one, Cam, think. You must have something. There must be something here that you can protect yourself with. Tire iron, crowbar, paperweight, rusty spoon, anything. You must have something in this crummy apartment to protect yourself with. Mace, hair spray, household kitchen chemicals, oven cleaner, something.

Wait.

Last holidays. Didn’t your aunt give you one of those desk sets? One of those ugly, brown things that have scrap paper built in and spaces for office supplies. They have office supplies in them. They have to. What did you do with that piece of shit? You didn’t throw it out. I know you didn’t throw it out, Cam. It’s around here. Think. Check the hall closet. No, not that one. The one where you keep the spare towels and toilet paper and stuff. It has to be in there. All the way in the back. You must have buried it under the spare blankets and sheets. Where is it? It’s not back there. Check the other closet. Check the closet where you keep your jacket and the tennis racquet that you never use. Back behind your golf clubs. That’s where it has to be. Look harder! It’s there. I know it’s there. I just have to find it.

GOT IT!

It was ugly. My memory hadn’t failed me in that respect. It had brown vinyl trim, with taupe paper to use for scrap and notes filling ninety percent of it, the entire middle. Along the top were two gold plated pens in bank pen-like holders. On the left side of the pens was a pair of scissors resting in a scissors-shaped holder. On the right side of the pens was a letter opener, also resting in a holder that was in the shape of the item. Both of these could be very effective weapons if wielded properly. Very effective weapons, indeed.

The scissors had sharp edges and a point. The letter opener simply had a point. The scissors were clumsier to handle. The place to put your fingers was big and didn’t allow for the hands to work them nimbly without revealing them. The letter opener was easy, like a knife, and could be concealed very easily, in a jacket pocket, in the palm of my hand against my wrist or some other place on my person. The decision seemed fairly straightforward. It would have to be the letter opener. I palmed the letter opener and practiced a few quick cuts and jabs with it. This was easy. This was quick. This was …

OW!

I looked at my forearm and discovered that the letter opener had sliced a three inch gash in my arm on the last back swing. There was a brief moment of calm while the blood searched for its new path and then a flood. I went to the bathroom, put my forearm in the sink and turned on the water. Crap. This was beginning to sting also. The blood must have been on its way out of my heart. It was an oxygen-filled bright red, now reaching a gush out of my arm. Look at that color. It was so red, like Cherry Kool-aid, like a Popsicle, like a stoplight. I didn’t want to apply pressure to make it stop. That red hypnotized me.

My head began to fuzz a little and I applied pressure on the cut. I looked under the sink for my first aid kit. I knew it was down here somewhere. I needed medical attention now. I needed tape, gauze, Neosporin, alcohol. Things to heal my wounded and now throbbing arm. That’s what I needed. My hand hit the edge of a small canvas bag and I grabbed it and pulled it out from under the sink. I took a gauze pad out and sopped up some of the blood from my arm. The cut had stopped bleeding and once again, I thanked the forces that be for my superior clotting ability. I wrapped the cut lightly with a bandage, making sure to allow the wound some air. Then I palmed the letter opener to make sure the bandage wouldn’t provide any resistance. No problem there.

The wound was a minor setback. If Frank Black was coming, I would be ready.

---

Silence. The silence was deafening and it was immediate. I was bathed in darkness and I lay quietly, still on my couch, waiting for something to happen. I cradled the letter opener in the pocket of the cargo pants that I had been wearing for nearly 4 days now. They were beginning to get dirty and they reeked faintly of the smoke that had attached itself to me at the bar. I thought briefly about changing them but I didn’t want to take the risk of moving, of turning my back on my now barricaded door. There was no point in changing now. It was all about waiting. It was a waiting game now.

I closed my eyes, my heavy lids inviting the brief moment of rest, but then they shot open. There could be no sleep now. Do not succumb to sleep. There must only be vigilance. Don’t let your guard down, Cam. He could be here. He could be outside the building, outside the door, upstairs, anywhere. The only place that he cannot be is in here. This place is secure and you must keep it that way. You must not let him move in on this. This is yours. This is where you live. He is not invited. Frank Black is not welcome here.

The darkness was suffocating, save for the little bit of light that filtered in through the mostly closed blinds, casting shadows all over the living room in different shapes and sizes. They were all over the wall, darkening portions of paintings handed down to me by relatives that I hadn’t seen in years. Even the couch that I was laying on was speckled with oddly formed shapes. I moved my hand over the light and cast a shadow on my stomach. My hand looked odd in the shadow, my fingers elongated from the angle of the light that shone in. I turned may hand sideways and the shadow cast was like one finger. I turned may hand again and my fingers reappeared. The shadows were odd and they were omnipresent. Light made things certain and the shadows obscured them. The things in my living room that I was so well acquainted with became uncertain and hollow. I couldn’t trust them. The pictures on the wall, the lamp on my desk, all casting shadows in bizarre shapes and patterns that made me question their form, their reality.

I walked over to the living room window and peered out the blinds again. Movement. What was that? At the corner of my vision, I saw movement. My hands found the letter opener in my pocket and I palmed it, as I had practiced, against the gauze bandage that was wrapped around my arm. There it was again. Who’s in here? Who’s darting back and forth in the periphery of my vision? I crept along the living room wall, slowly, my front hand guiding me along the wall to the corner where it turned into my bedroom. There it was again, behind you. The movement is behind you. Go that way. Over there. The movement came from over there. Someone in here is darting from place to place. Catch him. Find him.

I moved toward the kitchen, slowly still, stepping forward with my toes to make as little noise as possible. Whoever is in there, I’m going to get you. If you are in there, just get ready for me. Just a few more steps now. I got to the kitchen and put my free hand on the open doorway. I spun around. Nothing. The kitchen was empty. There was nothing there. I backed out of the kitchen and stood in the doorway, surveying the living room. There! It came from the right. No! Now left, look left. It’s over to the left. NO! Right again, right. It’s on the right now. Go! It went to the bedroom. Go! Go to the bedroom. Not right, not left. The bedroom. Go! Don’t you see the movement? It’s quick but it’s there. Get over there. In the bedroom now. Go!

I didn’t see anything except the movement. It wasn’t dead ahead. It was at the fringe. It was off the center. I couldn’t catch up to it. It was right when I went left and left when I moved right. It was in the kitchen when I went to the bedroom. I couldn’t catch up. And now, now I’m running from corner to corner and room to room, trying to catch up to it, wherever it is that’s where I’m not. I can’t catch it. I just can’t catch up. Goddammit, will you slow down a little bit? I can’t catch up to you. I can’t see you. Who are you? What are you? Why are you darting from place to place? This apartment isn’t that big. How are you so fast? Stop moving for one second. Look, there it is! Right, go right. Now left. Left. Come on, Cam. Follow it. Like the Simon Says toy you had when you were a kid. Keep going. Yellow, red, green, blue, red, green, red, blue, yellow, green. It’s easy. I can’t. It’s too fast. It’s too much. I can’t keep up. Slow down. Just a little bit. I need you to slow down. I can’t keep up.

Where are you going? Back and forth, back and forth. It’s too much. I’m in the kitchen now. Not here. Bedroom. Not there. Go right. Not right. Now left. Not left. The other side of the living room. Gone. Back to this side. Not there. Bedroom again. Still not here. Behind you. NO! Not behind me. Now behind you. Still not behind me. Turning around, twisting. Room to room. Nothing. Just movement and quick. And EVERYWHERE. Constantly moving, moving. There’s nothing but moving and I’m moving too. Slower, but still moving. Place to place with no result. Nothing to see, just empty and dark. Each room, one after the other, empty and dark.

I whirled around. Still nothing. I whirled again. Nothing again. I whirled a third time. Uh-oh. I didn’t feel right. My head was light. My feet were clumsy and slow. They hit each other and I lost my balance. I struck the floor on my injured arm and I screamed in pain. The letter opener fell from my hand and bounced away but I snatched it up before it had time to get out of my reach. My arms throbbed from the pain but I didn’t move. I just lay there, waiting for the movement to stop but it didn’t. It kept moving. I jerked my head left to follow but it was gone. I nodded my head back and forth furiously trying to keep pace but all I was doing was saying no. I didn’t see anything, didn’t catch up to anything. And I just stayed on the floor, the wooden floor with the connecting tiles that zigzagged through my apartment with ease, with fluid motion.

Finally, I just put my head down to the floor and stared across it at eye level. The tiles danced across the floor. The small amount of light that peeked through the closed slats of my blinds reflected off of the shiny wood, and my eyes readjusted. There was something on the floor, off to the side all the way across the room. What was it? What interrupted my field of vision at its depths? I got up off of the floor and walked across the room, ignoring the quick jumps at the edge of my vision. I kneeled down to the floor and reached to the very corner of the apartment. Look at that. It was the missing tile from the floor. I walked over to the empty space in the floor and replaced the newly discovered tile. I smoothed the piece with the back of my hand and went back to the couch to lie down to keep an eye on the door.

---

I was hungry, so hungry, but I couldn’t leave the apartment. Not now. Who the hell knows where Frank Black is? I couldn’t risk even going to the diner, not until I confronted him. Not until I’d seen him, gotten him here. No, I needed to stay on the couch, watching the door. I needed to make sure that when an attempt was made on the credibility of the two locks that held my door closed I would be ready. It was nearly three in the morning now. The sun would be up in a few hours. I needed to distract my hunger, to keep it at bay, at least for another little while.

“Focus on the breathing now”

It isn’t that easy. You have me on this couch here. What are you trying to do to me? I can’t focus on my breathing. I’m too busy focusing on you, on your voice telling me to focus. I’m too busy focusing on that pink sweater set that you are wearing today. I’m too busy focusing on the clock on the wall. I’m too busy focusing on what the point of this exercise is. There are a thousand other things for me to focus on except for my breathing. It’s a beautiful, sunny day out today. Look at how amazing the sun is today. I wonder what they are doing in gym class today. Do you think today is an indoor or an outdoor day? It has to be an outdoor day. Maybe they are walking around the track, just walking around the track and enjoying the sunlight bathing their faces. Do you think they are playing football? They could be playing football. I wouldn’t be playing because they always pick me last but I would sit on the sideline and just lie back on the grass and let the sun soak into my body. I could be doing that.

“Cameron, you’re not focusing.”

I am focusing. I’m just not focusing on you. I’m not focusing on my breathing. I know what you want me to do. You don’t have to keep repeating it. Deep breath in and hold for ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Good, now let the breath out slowly. Is that what you want? The same boring breathing exercise that we’ve been doing since I came here, since we first met. I can’t do this now. I can’t do this. I need to be out of here. Can I go now? Can I please go now? I get it. I need to relax, but I can’t relax in here. I need to go somewhere else, anywhere else. Can you take me somewhere? Can we take the rest of the time to go somewhere? How about the supermarket? A baseball game? Cuba? I need to go somewhere and not be doing breathing exercises.

“Let’s stay focused on the breathing.”

I can’t. I can’t focus on the breathing. Is it stuffy in here? It’s very stuffy in here. We need to get some fresh air in here. It’s stifling. We need some circulation in here. Can we open a window? Please, just open that window over there and I’ll focus on the breathing again. The air in here is horrible and it’s warm and if we can get some better air in here, I’ll do the exercises. It smells in here. It smells of your perfume. All I can smell is your perfume. Did you have tuna for lunch? I smell tuna. Did you leave tuna in your garbage can? No, Chinese. You had Chinese for lunch. I can smell it. Let’s just open this window over here. Just a little bit. Why won’t you let me open this window? What are you afraid of? It’s hot in here and I need to make it cooler. I’m sweating profusely. OPEN THE WINDOW!

“Breath in deeply.”

If I breathe in deeply, I’m afraid I’m going to throw up. All of the smells in here, your perfume, your Chinese food, all of it, it’s making me gag. I’m afraid to breathe. I’m afraid to swallow. And it’s getting hotter in here. I want to take off these clothes. Maybe then I’ll be comfortable but I feel like I’ll want to tear off my skin. Just dig and tear off my skin until I felt a little cooler. That’s how hot it is in here right now. Why won’t they let me do anything here? All you are doing is watching me. All the time, you are all just watching me. Cam, come inside. Cam, eat your dinner. Cam, take this pill. Cam, don’t open that window. All I want to do is get a little air in here. That’s all. Why won’t you let me get a little air in here and cool off?

“Cam, are you OK?”

No, I’m not all right. I’m hot, so hot. I want to tear of my clothes, my skin. All I want is to be cooler and until I am, I’m not all right. I can’t swallow. Holy shit. I can’t swallow. Get me a glass of water. Quickly please, there’s not much time. I need some water to help me swallow. So dry. My throat. So dry. Water, liquid, from the tap, bottle, anywhere, I don’t care, just get me something. What are you doing? Where are you going? Don’t go to your desk. Who are you calling? Are you calling my parents? Don’t call my parents. Please don’t call them. They are going to yell at me. They are going to do something, punish me. I don’t know. Don’t call them, please. I’m trying. I’m trying so hard to be normal. I’m trying so hard to listen to you people, but you don’t let anybody do anything. You don’t respond to me at all. I tell you I’m hot. You don’t do anything. You sit there and tell me to breath. That doesn’t help, not at all. You are on the phone. God, you are on the phone. There’s a glass of water right there, just give it to me. Bring it over here. I want to swallow. I feel like I swallowed sand. Like a thirsty lost wanderer in the desert running to a mirage and scooping up the sand to drink. Was that me? Did I wander to a mirage and sip up the sand?

It hurts now. God, it hurts. My attempts to swallow are painful and long. I can barely breathe in here because of the heat. TURN OFF THE HEAT! I don’t know what to do. I see the clear glass on your desk. Bring it to me please. You are off of the phone? Who did you call? Why did you call them? Who’s coming here now? Are my parents coming here? They’re so far away. They can’t be coming here. Who were you talking to? It was the men, wasn’t it? You are calling the men in here. What are they going to do to me?

“Just relax, Cameron.”

Jesus Christ, they’re here. Wait, where’s the jacket? They don’t have the jacket with them. Why would they come without the jacket? Did you tell them to lose the jacket? I don’t get it. What could they do without the jacket? Hey, get off of me. Get the fuck off of me. Let go of my arms. What are you doing this for? What did I do to you? I’ve never done anything to you before? How do you live with yourselves, holding me down like this for no reason? Don’t you know that I just need water? I would have done the breathing exercises, all of them. All I needed was an open window and some water and this bitch wouldn’t do that for me. This bitch in her ugly pink sweater set and that suffocating perfume that smells like she rolled around in kitchen disinfectant. Why did she call you here?

OW!

My arm. What was that? What did you do to my arm? Was that a shot? You gave me a shot. Of what? I don’t know. I’m not angry anymore though. I don’t feel warm either. Well, not uncomfortably warm. I do feel a little warm, tingly, like when your foot falls asleep and you have work the blood back into it. It feels nice and comfortable. The men weren’t here to put me in the jacket. I wasn’t mad about it anyway. I wasn’t anything really. Just sleepy. Kind of sleepy. What was I even talking about? It’s so nice when the sun is out, warm on your face. So warm.

(gasp)

I shot upright, clutching my shoulder. Where were they? The men. Where were they? Were they here at all? Are you here? I have a letter opener. I’ll take all of you. Try to hold me down now. I’ll take all of you. DO YOU HEAR ME, MEN? ALL OF YOU. I looked around the apartment. No one was here. Not now, anyway. Only me. I let go of my arm and let it fall to my side. I double-checked my bandage, which was still intact. My throat was dry, so I went to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water that I drank standing up in the kitchen, before pouring another and retreating to the living room. I placed the glass on the coffee table. I felt my pocket.

Shit.

Where’s the letter opener? I had it while I was laying down here on the couch. I had it before my head hit the pillow and now it’s gone. Fuck. Where did it go? Someone came in here and took it from me. Did Frank Black come in here and take it just to fuck with me? I walked over to the door and looked at my makeshift barricade. Everything seemed to be in place. The chair was right against the wall with the table lodged against the wall keeping it in place. I had to reach around the entertainment center and brace myself to see, so that was still in place. Did he come in through the window? Fuck. I know I didn’t lock them. Maybe he came in through the window. This is only the seventh floor. I checked the living room window. It was closed but not locked. I clicked the plastic piece in place (Plastic? Was plastic going to be enough?) and the window wouldn’t budge. Good. I did the same with all of the other windows in the house.

Nothing was solved. I still didn’t have a letter opener. My first line of defense against Frank Black was gone and if need be I would tear the entire house upside down looking for it. If he got in here and took it somehow, I would have to resort to the scissors. The butt end of scissors sticking out of his eye would look awfully nice. Is that what you want, Frank Black? Check under the couch. I bent down and lifted the couch up. Let’s see. A bottle cap, lots of lint, sixty-four cents (a quarter, three dimes, a nickel and four pennies) and a couple of scraps of paper. Not there. Where was it?

I went into the kitchen and checked all of the drawers, looking through the silverware and the other utensils. I checked under all of the take out menus. Where was it? Why wasn’t it in my pocket? I went to the bedroom. Empty all of the drawers. Nothing. Under the covers? Nothing. Pillows. All of these fucking pillows. Not there. Was it under the bed? Not there either. On your desk? No. Under it? No. Look under the carpet. Why would it be under the carpet? Just look. Maybe Frank Black got in here, took it from you and hid it. He hid it somewhere in the apartment. Now you have to find it. So fucking find it. He’s playing games with you. Don’t let him get away with this. Find the letter opener. Find it. Then next time he comes here, show it to him and ask him if he wants to play games now. Do you want to play games, Frank Black? DO YOU?

I went back to the couch and tore the cushions off. The springs of the folding bed clanged and I caught a glint out of the corner of my eye. Was that it? Open the bed. Quickly. Not much time now. Open the bed and look. There it is! It had fallen into the crack of the couch, down and wedged itself beneath the bar of the bed all the way in the back. It was hard to reach. I had to wiggle my finger through the bar of the bed and my finger could just touch the point of the opener. I had to use my fingers like the little claw that they use in the arcade toy game. I was about as successful also. Come on, Cam, concentrate. The increasing amount of light coming through the cracks of the blinds glinted off the exposed metal of the opener and it was taunting me there in the corner. It left itself just out of reach and was now daring me to reach back and get it. Don’t taunt me. You have to help me, letter opener. Frank Black will be here soon. Any minute, he’s going to come plowing through that door, right over there, through my barricade and you are going to help me defend myself. Don’t taunt me like this. Don’t lie just out of my reach. Come to me. Help me. I was almost there, just a little further. Use your fingers. Reach out with your index and middle finger and use them like scissors. GOT IT!

OK, Frank Black. If that was a challenge, consider me up to it. I’m still here waiting for you.

---

I noticed that the sun was coming up, so I went into the kitchen, sat down at the table next to the window and raised the blinds slightly so I could see outside at my eye level. There was nothing in my refrigerator but water, a half-empty bottle of wine, an apple that was at least four months old and five thousand packets of duck sauce. I mulled over the idea of eating some duck sauce before almost throwing up at the thought of it and quickly discarding the idea. I sat now and my stomach growled angrily and I put a hand to my stomach to try to quell some of the hunger pangs that I was getting. I glanced out the window and I could see the diner off at the far corner. I could just run out for a second. It wouldn’t take long. I could get a Spanish omelet to go, with some hash browns and some orange juice and toast.

NO! You can’t leave. Not here. Not now. There is an apartment to defend. You’re livelihood depends on it. While you are gone, he will come here. Frank Black will come here and he’ll hide and when you get back, it’ll all be over. He’ll be here. He’ll have invaded your last sanctuary. Is that what you want? Do you want him to come in here and take that away from you? If that’s what you want, then leave. Go get your food and enjoy it. Might as well stay there and eat it with your girlfriend.

She’s not my girlfriend. She’s Maggie. She works at the diner. She brings me my food and she’s amazing. But that’s it. Nothing more. She’s beautiful and she’s sad, so very sad and I don’t know why. I tried to make her happy and I couldn’t. She deserves someone who can make her happy, someone who can help her and move her from her sad little apartment. That’s what she needs. She doesn’t need me. She doesn’t need me to help her. All I bring with me is Frank Black, nothing more. I don’t bring happiness and good cheer. I bring an unhealthy love of Spanish omelets and a lunatic that follows me around. That’s what I bring. She doesn’t need all that. What she needs is someone to love her and make her happy. She needs someone to help her with her plant and give it some sun and water. She needs someone who will pay attention to her during the day and hold her during the night. She doesn’t need me. She needs someone who’ll notice that she’s so very good at what she does and someone who’ll actually tell her that. She needs someone to look at her crooked little smile and smile one right back at her.

She’s Maggie. That’s all. She’s Maggie and she’s walking up the street right now. Look, there she is.

I looked out the window and I saw her. She was walking down the street, walking north to the diner from the far side of it, toward me. It was cold out today. I noticed my cheek was leaning against the window and I could feel the cool of the window against my skin. There she was, walking toward me. Her jacket was buttoned tightly against her and she had a scarf tied around her neck. You couldn’t even see the uniform that she wore beneath it. Her hair was covered with a wool hat. She walked along the far sidewalk, slowly, against the wind. The wind was blustery today and I could see scraps of paper and leaves being blown up into the air in mini twisters all around her. She just kept walking, slowly.

Behind her there was a man walking. He was a block or so back, but he was gaining on her pretty quickly. Why was he walking so fast? He’s not running. Certainly not exercising, he’s not dressed for it. He’s moving at an incredible pace. God, slow down, sir, you are going to run into her. Is he looking to run into her? Why would he want to do that? Maggie didn’t even know there was anyone behind her. She was still just walking, fending off the wind, slowly, slowly walking.

Frank Black. That was him. He was going to catch up to her and tell her more about me. He was going to get her to leave this time. He was moving in on her. He was going to attack her, do something to her. Look at that him move. He’s gaining on her and he’s going to catch up to her any second. Cam, do something. Don’t let this happen. Don’t let him catch up to her, send her away. He can’t do that to you. Go. Go do something.

I grabbed the letter opener off the table where I’d put it and I ran to the door. I climbed past the entertainment center and tried to move the table. It didn’t budge. It wouldn’t move. Move table. You got in there. You have to be able to get back. I used my shoulder and put my weight into the entertainment center and it moved back a little. I took that space and braced myself against the floor and pushed, pushed into the table. The table stood its ground. Good to know for Frank Black’s chances of getting into, though who knows what that guy is capable of. Very bad for Maggie, poor Maggie who was outside right now, with Frank Black taking two steps for each of hers, moving in on her right now. The table wouldn’t move an inch. I put everything I had into it and it wouldn’t slide out of its space against the recliner propped up against the door.

A saw. Is there a saw in the apartment? I could cut the table. That would get it out of there. Saw the table in half and then move the seat away from the door. That could help me. That would work. Do I have saw? I don’t think I have a saw. Go to the closet where you keep the tools. The toolbox is near the sports stuff, the tennis racquet and all that stuff. Go over there. I threw open the door to the closet and reached back to where my racquet was, where I’d found the letter opener this morning (yesterday?). There was no saw back there. I found the toolbox and yanked it out of the closet. A screwdriver wouldn’t do the trick. Pliers? No, they wouldn’t do anything. I took the hammer over to the table and lined up a shot to the wood. BAM! I made a dent in the table but nothing else. BAM! Another dent about two inches from the first one. BAM! Another dent, this time on the other side. You aren’t doing it right. Take the hammer and just wail away on the table. Just HAMMER away at the table. Go, quickly. I took the hammer back and down to the table. BAM! And I lifted it again and BAM! Again, BAM! Then, BAM! And, BAM! BAM! I kept going, BAM! And my hair fell into my eyes, BAM! And I blew it out of my face, BAM! One more, BAM! Then, BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

And I stopped, breathing heavily to look down. The table was chipped, a little, but it had held its own and all I had done was run out of breath. I needed to get out of here to help Maggie and I was in here. There was nothing I could do in here. Frank Black was out there and he was close, so close. I threw the hammer to the ground and started pounding on the table with my fist, hammering with my fist. The wood was hard and the cut on my forearm throbbed but the pain empowered me and I continued to pound, just pound away at the table. It wouldn’t break or crack, not even a little. I pounded away at the chip I’d made with the hammer and it didn’t work. Nothing worked. Was this table made of steel? I grabbed the far side of the table and I pulled at it. Pull. Pull the table out of there. My fingers slipped and I feel backward but I didn’t care. I got up and grabbed the table again and kept pulling, pulling. Maggie needed help. I need to help her, get Frank Black away from her.

I ran back to the window to see where they were, what was happening and they were gone. Both of them were gone. No Maggie. No Frank Black. Did she make it to the diner? Did she make it inside? Or did Frank Black catch up and make her keep walking, walking until she was gone? I needed to know. How could I find out? I couldn’t get out of here. I couldn’t go there and find out.

Call. Call the diner. You have the number on the menu in the menu drawer. Call the diner and ask to talk to her. If they put her on, you’ll know she’s still there. I opened the drawer and pulled out the menu. Where’s the phone? Living room. I ran into the living room and grabbed the phone. I called the diner. The phone rang in my ear and I wanted to hang up but I needed to know. What if she was gone? What if she wasn’t there? What was I going to do? What would I do for food?

“Four Star Diner.”

Thank god. I need to know if Maggie is there. You know Maggie the waitress? Black skirt, black vest, and white shirt. She’s there every day from six to six. Put her on the phone. Let me know that she’s there, still there. Let me know that she didn’t move on, didn’t keep walking when she got there this morning. I need to know that Frank Black didn’t chase her away for good this time. He could have told her anything about me, everything about me. Does she know about the letter opener?

“Is Maggie there please?”

Is Maggie there please? It came out weak, like a twelve year old asking for permission to go to the bathroom in church. It was good question nonetheless. Was she there? Or was she not? You need to answer me now. NOW! I need to know that she’s there and pouring coffee without spilling any. Can you just tell me that now and let me hang up the phone and get back to watching my door for Frank Black?

“She quit yesterday. Came to pick up her stuff and now she’s gone.”

Quit? Yesterday? Quit yesterday? Holy shit. She quit. She’s gone. Why would she go? I hung up the phone, no thank you or anything. I just put the phone down in utter disbelief. How could she be gone? I couldn’t believe it. Just like that. All you had to do was go in there when you went to check if she was there at lunch yesterday. All you had to do was sit at the counter and get something to eat. You didn’t have to go to the bar last night. You could have gone to the diner for dinner first and seen her as she walked out of there for the last time. What do you think she was thinking when she left? Was she thinking about starting a new life? Was she thinking about moving to another city? State? Country?

She would never know now. She would never know how much I wanted things to work out for her. She would never know all of the good that I wished for her and how much I appreciated that she got to know me and brought me my food She’ll never know how happy I was that she let me into her sad little apartment with the sad little plant, how she let me into her sad little life. She’ll never know how much I wanted to be there. She’ll never know that the one night that I spent there with her, holding her for that one lonely night was enough to make me happy for the whole week after. She’ll never know any of that. Why?

Frank Black.

My eyes narrowed. I walked over to the couch and replaced the cushions that I’d thrown off in a frenzied search for the once missing letter opener. I couldn’t sit still so I just paced. I paced back and forth in the living room, each step welling more and more anger in me. Maggie would never know anything about how I felt and it was all Frank Black’s fault. He drove her away, like he’d driven Pete away. Now I was alone. My friends were gone. One continuing a quest that had begun with the death of his wife and children nearly a decade ago and the other off to who knows where to do who knows what. Now I was alone.

Time to take a little yellow pill.

---

Ten o’clock in the morning. My energy level was sinking fast. I was lying face down on the couch with my arm hanging off the side, laying along the carpet, bandage dirty from all the rummaging around the apartment that I’d done over the last few hours. There was dirt hidden in all of the corners of the apartment and all of it had stuck to the gauze that protected the cut on my arm. My vision was blurry because my glasses had fallen off in the frenzy of trying to get myself out of the apartment and I was a little too blind and tired to go scouring the floor and/or the mess of furniture barricading the door to find them.

“Cam, you have to do something”

What?

I sat up (muscles, aching) and looked around the room. Did you hear that? Where’d that come from? The living room was lighter now, though still not totally filled in since the blinds in the living room were still down. I stood up and looked around the room that I had been in for the last 15 hours. There was no one in here. I went into the bedroom and came up with the same result. The kitchen (brighter than the other rooms because the blinds were still up) yielded the same findings. I know I heard a voice. Where did it come from? Whose voice was it? I couldn’t quite make the voice out, though it did sound familiar.

“Who is that?”

Who are you? Who is that talking to me right now? Your voice sounds so familiar now. It’s bouncing off of the inside of my head and it won’t stop and land on your name. Why won’t it come to me? Just tell me who you are and stop the bouncing inside my head. It’s right on the tip of my tongue. The voice is so familiar, so near, that I must be looking past it. Just tell me who you are. Where do I know you from? Will I know you if I see you? You have to be in here somewhere. The voice that I heard was so clear, so crisp. It was right near here somewhere.

Don’t let me keep thinking about this. Just tell me. Who are you? Why won’t you come out here and sit on the couch? Talk to me where I can see you so I know why the voice is so familiar. Come out here and sit on the couch. Come sit next to me and we’ll talk. No yelling. No screaming. Just talking. We’ll sit here and talk. Show yourself, dammit. Come out here right now. Don’t make me come and find you. I will search this house top to bottom. Where are you? In the bathroom? The bathtub? Are you in the closet with the jackets? Are you under the sink? The bed? Are you folded up in this couch that I am sitting on? WHERE ARE YOU?

“Who is this? Where are you?”

Come out come out wherever you are. This isn’t a game of hide and go seek. Come out here now and tell me what you mean, you fucker. What do I have to do? What is the something that I have to do? Cook dinner? Go shopping? Wash my car? Jump off of this building? What do I have to do? Tell me before I come and beat it out of you, you piece of shit. If you are in this apartment, I will find you. I will find you and you are going to wish that you weren’t fucking with me right now. Goddammit, why can’t I place your voice? Why can’t I figure out who you are? Why does your identity dance at the corner of my mind? Why? WHY?

My mind is racing, scanning through voices of people that I haven’t seen in years or that I’ve seen yesterday. So many voice, people. God, who are you? Why do you choose to talk to me now? What do you want from me? What do I need to do? What is my something that needs to get done? Either spit it out or shut the fuck up because I don’t have time for this. I have a stalker who’s going to get to my door any minute and god knows what’s going to happen after that. Maggie’s gone. No idea where she went. Pete hit the road too. I am not in the fucking mood, so either tell me what you are looking for or SHUT THE FUCK UP!

“Cam, you have to do something. It’s your turn.”

My turn? Is it my turn already? I don’t have anything. It can’t be my turn yet. I need someone else to go. Have someone else go first. What is the point of this exercise anyway? We’re all sitting in a circle. You keep getting us to try to close this “circle of trust,” except that she keeps getting up to go to the bathroom and he’s refilled his water glass so many times he’s challenging the camel that I rode in Israel for the bladder storage capacity. Let’s not even get into the guy sitting next to me. Why should I trust him? He’s got the attention span of a fruit fly, except when he’s staring at the wall (like he is now), which he seems to be able to do for hours. This “circle of trust” is barely a circle, let alone trustworthy, so why is it my turn? I respectfully decline to answer.

“Um, I don’t have one.”

I don’t have anything, so move on. Talk to Boo Radley over here, if you can tear his attention from the crack in the wall there. I have nothing to contribute here. I hate these group sessions. I hate that you come in here with that smile on your face. I hate that your teeth are so white and shiny that they blend in with the wall behind you. I hate that they make me go to these group sessions. I can’t stand sitting here. I need you to get off my back with this. I need for you to not pester me to participate today. Give me this one day off from participation and I promise you have my full, undivided attention for the rest of the time I’m here. Which is how long exactly? Do you have any idea? Because I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be able to take your white smile. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to take you walk, the way you swing your arms so vigorously when you walk like each step you take isn’t for pure locomotive purposes but to stay in perfect physical condition. How much longer is my stay? How many more descriptive adjectives am I going to have to conjure, beckon, summon, muster and call up for you before it’s enough?

“Come on, Cam, you can do it. ‘I think that Danny was wrong because …’”

I think that Danny was wrong because he’s a complete idiot. I think that Danny was wrong because there are ways to behave in mixed company and flinging shit at the wall isn’t one of them. I think Danny was wrong because I don’t appreciate him screaming all night long, while I’m trying to sleep. He howls at the moon as if were part wolf. Why does he do that? I just want to sleep and once the blue pill wears off all I can hear is him screaming. All that noise that he makes all night long and it’s not just one night, oh no. It’s every night. All night, every night, this nimrod is screaming until his vocal chords bleed. They come in and tie him down and medicate him but it doesn’t work. When the medication wears off, he starts screaming again. They need to move him, medicate him more with cat tranquilizers, horse tranquilizers, elephant tranquilizers. What do they use to put blue whales down? Something that will let him (and me) get a good night’s rest. I haven’t slept in days, weeks even. I’ve lost all track of time. My eyes hurt and my throat hurts. My muscles ache and my joints are swelling and each night that I take my pill I pray that it will put me under for the entire night, so I can finally end this chain of horrific sleepless nights. Is that good enough? Is that enough for you?

“Um, I think Danny is, uh, wrong because, uh. I can’t do this. Can I leave?”

Can I please leave? Please. I need to get out of this room. I can’t be in a room with these people any more. I loathe all of them. I can’t stand them. Bathroom girl, Boo Radley. All of them. I need all of these people to be out of my vision before I do something rash or stupid. I need to be gone from here. Why can’t you just let me go? You let her go to the bathroom every thirty-five seconds. I announce my intentions and you go ape shit on me? Just let me go. You’ll have no trouble closing your stupid “circle of trust” without me. Just have that jackass slide over a little bit and have Boo shuffle his ass over a little bit. That’s what you should do because I’m leaving.

“Cam? Cameron, sit down.”

I will not sit down. I will leave this room. I will not participate in this exercise. I will go up to my room and get some rest. Can you allow me this one indiscretion? I haven’t slept in days (weeks?) and I need some rest. I need some fucking sleep. My eyes are red and cracked. My glasses don’t help either. You won’t let me where my contact lenses because you think I’m going to jam my finger in my eye, like I couldn’t do that without feigning an attempt to put lenses in. So just shut the fuck up and let me be. All I want to do is sleep. I don’t want go throttle Danny Colluci, although he certainly deserves it. I don’t want to hide Boo Radley’s teddy bear. All I want to do is sleep. Just LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!!

“Cameron, this is your last warning. Come back to the circle of trust.”

I don’t want to be involved in this circle of trust. I have no trust, not for these people and not for you. You want me to trust you? I can’t trust you. I can’t trust any of you. Every time I do something you don’t like, every time I move, every time I do anything, you call the men. You call the men in and they take me away. Why should I trust you? I don’t want to be in your “circle of trust.” You suck. I hate you. I have no desire to trust you. I’m leaving this room. I’m leaving this place. I can’t stand it here. I can’t stand any of you. You sit here and you talk about FEELINGS and nonsense. You blather on about why people were wrong and what we need to do to fix it. LET IT GO! Just let it all go. I’m getting out of here.

“CAMERON! COME BACK HERE!”

I’m gone. Running now. I’m running as fast as I can. Through the halls. They all look the same. All of the halls look exactly the same. Where are the doors? I need the doors. Front, back, I don’t care. Find me some doors. Go left. No, right. Right. Look over there. It’s the back doors. To the courtyard. Go out the back doors. Keep running, just run, run. Run until you can’t run anymore. Keep going. Faster. They are going to catch you if you don’t run faster. Faster! FASTER! The grass is wet again. Be careful. Did it rain again? Who cares? Just keep running.

This is the longest courtyard ever. They’ll never get me. I’ll be gone. I’ll be free. I’ll be in the woods. I’ll get home. Home! My walls aren’t white. No. No more white, sterile, too clean walls. My walls are blue. They are light blue and they aren’t so clean. They are there and they are mine. I’ll be there, soon. If I can run, keep running. Just keep going. Don’t turn around. Don’t look back there. If you just keep looking ahead, they’ll never get you. Never. How much land do these people have? So much land, so long, this courtyard. No matter. Run. Keep going. Keep going forward.

NO! They’re coming for me. They are behind me. God, the men are so big. They are so big and strong and FAST! Holy shit they are fast. How did they get so fast? They are gaining on me. Look ahead, Cam, not back. Don’t look back at all. Just keep running. If you keep running, you’ll get away. You’ll get home. You’ll be in your room, not this hospital. No more hospital. Keep running. But they are so fast. They are so fast and they are gaining on me. Look at how close they are now. They are so close and so fast. Just keep running. Come on, legs. Why are you so slow, legs? MOVE! It’s not hard. One in front of the other. Quickly, now. You aren’t going fast enough, not nearly fast enough. Churn and move. Just go, go, GO!

OW!

A rock. Who put the rock there? Shit, get up. HURRY! Get up. They are almost here. Scrambling now, feet are slipping on the wet grass. Why is this grass wet? Dammit! Just go, forget the grass. Run. Just fucking run. You are still on the ground. Why can’t you get up? Look they are right there and they are closing in on you. Don’t you want to get away? Don’t you want to get out of here? Don’t you want to go home? The men are here now. Look they are over you, four of them. They have you by the hands and feet. Kick! Struggling but god they are so strong. I can’t wiggle free. I can’t get loose but I’m kicking and screaming. One puts his hand over my mouth to stop the screaming and I bite him. Don’t touch me! Don’t fucking put your hands on my face. I’ll bit you until you bleed. GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME!

“Calm down, Cam.”

That’s all I hear is calm down. I don’t want to fucking calm down. I want to run home. I want to get out of here. Why won’t you let me run home across this big wet field? All of this wet grass. Just let me go and I’ll run home. I won’t tell anyone you let me go. They’ll never know. Just say I got away. Say you didn’t catch me. Say something but just let me go, let me free, let me get out of here. I need to go home. Please. PLEASE! FUCK! LET ME GO! And I’m kicking again, kicking and screaming and fighting and wiggling and let me free! Let me go.

I’m fading again. Fading. Did you give me the shot while I was struggling? I didn’t feel the shot. When did you do it? You guys are quick and strong. The struggle is leaving me now, draining. It works so quickly. How does that happen? My body isn’t responding anymore. I want to kick you. I want to kick and scream and move but I can’t. My legs are limp and my arms won’t go. Just don’t put me in the room with the padded walls where I can’t scream. Anywhere but that room.

(gasp)

“AHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

That room. I remembered that room. Its walls were soft and non-confrontational. It was quiet, so quiet. How many times did I wake up in that room? Wanting to scream out loud but knowing that no one would hear me? I screamed out loud now. Did you hear me, Frank Black?

---

I hadn’t slept in days. I sat on the couch, which had to have an imprint of my ass by now, and my whole body shook. I went to my bedroom and got a blanket and wrapped myself in it to try to curb the shaking that was beginning to overtake my body. Was I cold? I didn’t even know. I was still fully clothed. I hadn’t taken these clothes off in days (weeks?). I pulled my knees up to my chest with the blanket around me and I started to rock back and forth slowly to try to shake the shivers. The letter opener was in my hand beneath the blanket. I was still prepared for the eventuality that lay somewhere in the not-too-distant future. Frank Black.

I sat in the corner of the couch, knees to chest, waiting. My eyes were fixed on the door, or what I could see of it without my glasses, which were still somewhere in the mess of furniture that lay propped against my one and only way out of my apartment. The windows were sealed tight. If Frank Black were going to get into this apartment, he’d need a battering ram and a couple of Vikings to barrel down the door.

“Do you really think so?”

Not again.

Whose voice now? Who’s talking to me now? Who is that? Leave me alone already. All I want to do is sit here and wait for Frank Black to come, wherever he is. He’s going to be here soon and all of these distractions are too much. I need to keep my eyes on the door. I can’t speak to you right now. Cameron no en casa so whoever is talking to me now needs to shut the hell up, so I can pay attention to what I need to pay attention to, i.e. the door.

Holy shit.

There’s someone in here. A man. In the corner. He was just standing there, looking at me. Looking pleased with what he’d said, as if he’d just disproved infinity or something. I scrambled off of the couch, with the blanket still draped over me and I ran to the door to find my glasses. How did a man get in here? How could anyone have gotten in here? Windows sealed, doors barricaded. I was mystified and I couldn’t really see. Where the hell were my glasses? I found it supremely ironic that I was pawing around the floor looking for the very thing that I needed to help me look for things. I’d put in my contacts but my hands were still shaking. It would be impossible for me to get them in.

Success.

I found them and put them over my eyes, which hurt so much from squinting to try to make out things around the room. I looked to the corner of the living room and there he was. His eyes were dark, black even, and that much darker surrounded by the white of his eyes that was so bright that it looked like it had been bleached. He was standing in the corner, not moving, with his gaze focus on me. It was sharp and it hurt. I wanted to move away from the stare that he had locked on me but his eyes just kept following me. No body movement. His eyes just shot around the room with my movement.

Who are you? How did you get in here? How did you get into my apartment? Who sent you here? What do you want from me? I have no money, nothing of value. All I have is a letter opener and I’m not afraid to use it. I’m not afraid to come at you with this. I was willing to come after Frank Black and I’m willing to come after you. Maybe you are Frank Black. You could be him. You appear out of nowhere in my apartment. You say nothing except to answer a question that I didn’t even say out loud. You just stand there and you watch me. You don’t move, not even an inch. Why won’t you move at all? Flinch, blink, scratch, wince, something. You have to be him. You need to be him. Please be him already. You have to be him.

“I’m not Frank Black.”

Well, then WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU? Get the fuck out of here. Go away and leave me alone. Can’t you see I have things to do? I have things to take care of. No one else matters now, only Frank Black. Not you, not anyone. I need for him to be here, not you. Come on Frank Black ring the doorbell. Knock on the door. Try to pick the lock. Kick the door down. Come with a chainsaw and cut through the fucking thing. Anything. Just get here now. Get here and take care of this guy before we can figure something out.

He took a step forward. The man in the corner just took a step forward. What now? You’re advancing in on me? Great, bring it on. Come on over here. I’ll be on the couch, knees to my chest trying to stay warm with a letter opener in my hand. That’s me on the couch right now. I’m the guy who looks like he hasn’t shaved in a week and a half. I’m the guy who hasn’t slept in three days. I’m the guy who’s wearing the same cargo pants and maroon v-neck that he’s been wearing since Wednesday. That’s me, right there, in all my glory. So come on over. Sit down. I’ll make some tea. We can sit here and chat away and you can tell me how the fuck you got into this apartment and why the fuck you came here and who the fuck sent you. You can tell me all of that. You want sugar with your tea?

“One lump, please.”

One lump, please? Is this a fucking joke? I’m asking you all of this shit and you are telling me that you take one lump of sugar? I might just throw the whole bag of sugar right in your stupid fucking face. Your face that doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink. It only moves when you talk. How could it only move when you talk? There are no tics, no spasms, no adjustments. How can you not blink? Everyone has to blink. I’m been looking at you for 5 fucking minutes and you haven’t blinked once. How can that be?

He took another step forward and I moved back further into the couch. He’s just moving toward you. No explanation. Only answers. They are answers that don’t mean anything. He’s not Frank Black. I know that much. At least he said that’s he’s not Frank Black, which probably doesn’t mean shit. We’re talking about a guy who appeared in my apartment, with seemingly no way to get it, and can hear what I’m thinking and answer the most banal question that I pose. Why should I be looking for explanation? Why should I be looking for anything at all? Why not just ask him what my favorite color is?

“Green”

And another step forward. He’s only about one step from the couch now and I was beginning to get a little frightened. How did he know that my favorite color is green? That’s absurd. How could he know that? Who the hell even talks about their favorite color past the age of ten? Why do you know that I like green? Did you call my parents and ask them? Did you dig through the records at my elementary school? Call my kindergarten teacher? I don’t get it. Why would you go out of your way to catalog this information? What would make you study the insignificant details of my life only to regurgitate them to me while I sit here virtually incapacitated from lack of sleep and food?

He was slight, this man, not intimidating in the least physically. His pants were black and his shoes were black and his shirt was also black. His hair was black and slicked back. All of this black, this darkness was staring at me, focused on me, as if to reveal something to me. What do you want to tell me? What are you here to say? Is there something I need to know? About Pete? About Maggie? What are you doing here? Will you answer a question of significance? Or will I just be told what kind of toothpaste I should buy?

“Crest. Whitening Formula”

Of course, I should have been smart enough not to pose a seemingly rhetorical question. I want some answers. I want some truth. You appeared from nowhere. You stand here answering the question that you shouldn’t know the answers to, so answer something important. Give me some knowledge. I’ve earned it. I’ve been patient. I’ve waited long enough. I’ve sat here waiting for Frank Black to come to me. He’s taken from me. He’s taken friends from me. He’s taken time from me. He’s taken life from me. I want something back. Give me some answers. Give me something that I can take away. GIVE ME SOMETHING!

Except another step forward. Please don’t take another step forward. Stay where you are. You are moving in on me, my personal space. You can have that whole piece of the apartment. Stay there, stay as long as you like. I’ll wash the dishes if you dry but please don’t get any closer to me than that. Please don’t move in any closer. Not even one more step. I’m comfortable with where you are but even one inch closer is too close. I can see it in your eyes. You want to move closer. Don’t do it. Resist that urge, man in black, because I don’t think you want to find out what’s going to happen to you if you take that step and sit down on this couch. I will end you. Do you understand me? I will fucking end you.

Another step forward. Why? Why would you do that? I know you heard me tell you not to. I know you heard me. You hear everything that I’m thinking. I don’t even have to fucking talk out loud. You can just listen and answer. Why would you do that? Why are you sitting down on my couch now? Don’t sit down on my couch. This is my couch. This is where I watch for Frank Black. He was opposite me, now the man in black, just staring at me with those black eyes. He was sitting on my couch, sitting here as if he owned the place. You don’t own this place. I own this place. This is my apartment. I have the crappy job, with the terrible deadlines and the stupid boss that pays the bills around here. I am the owner, the proprietor, as far as you are concerned buddy. Get the fuck up off my couch. And clear out of here.

“How will I get out?”

However the fuck you got in, that’s how you’re going to get out. I don’t care. What do you do, cross your arms and blink like Jeannie? Whatever it is, do it and get the fuck out of here. You’re the one who has all the answers, admittedly the trivial ones. Figure it out. Snap your fingers. Wiggle your nose. I don’t what works just that it does work. Get the fuck out of here. NOW! He didn’t move, didn’t flinch. He just sat there, still, unmoving. Expressionless and vague and just there. He was just there. It was creepy and all of the fear that I was suppressing in the form of anger welled up in me. I didn’t want him here. I didn’t need him here. He wasn’t doing anything for me, not a single thing. I already knew that I liked Crest Whitening Formula. I didn’t need him to tell me that. Just go. Please go. I don’t want you here. Can’t you see that? If you are here to help, just know that you aren’t. Not even a little bit.

I was sitting on the back of my couch now with my back leaning up against the wall and my feet on the cushions. I turned the letter opener over and over in my shaking hand. My whole body was still shaking and I pressed my back against the wall to get as far as I possibly could from the man that was at the other end of this couch. You have a letter opener, Cam. It’s in your hand. It’s sharp. Go at him. Go at him with the letter opener. He moves at the rate of one step a minute. He’ll never be able to avoid you. He won’t be able to get out of the way. Just go at him with the opener and stab him and he’ll scream. That’ll be great. He’ll scream out loud and you’ll get some answers. Who is he? What is he doing here? Who sent him? It’ll all be out in the open. He’ll tell you everything. Do it. Go for it.

“I wouldn’t do it if I were you.”

Why not? WHY THE FUCK NOT? If you hadn’t been sleeping or eating, if you were being stalked by a madman who was driving your only friends out of town, if all of that were happening to you, wouldn’t you want some answers? Wouldn’t you go to any length to get them? Wouldn’t be willing you jam a letter opener into the leg of the man who materialized and was sitting on the edge of the couch reading your mind in order to get some answers? Wouldn’t you in fact be willing to do all of that? You know all about him don’t you? You know all about Frank Black. What are you holding back from me? What won’t you tell me? Why shouldn’t I jump to the other end of the couch and jam this into your leg until I hit bone? Why? TELL ME WHY?

“All right. Go for it.”

Go for it? Go for it? I’ll fucking go for it. I jumped across the couch with the letter opener pointed down and when I got to the other side, I came down with all of the anger I could summon. This jab is for all of the instant messages and this one is for all of the e-mails. This one is for Pete and this one is for Maggie. This one is for Frank the old guy and this one is for the only woman that he ever loved. This one is for me and so is this one and this one and this one. All of those were from me. Go for it? Go for it? Fuck you, you fuck. You fucking fuck. Fuck you. I should kill you. I hate you. Why are you here? Who brought you? Tell me. Tell me, you piece of shit.

“Are you finished yet?”

I looked up and he was gone. I was laying stomach down on my couch, jabbing at the cushion like it was the thing I wanted to hurt. The interior of the cushion was beginning to show. White puffy stuff peeked out from each of the slashes (five) that I’d made in the cushion. Where did he go? Did he jump off of the couch before I lunged to him? How could he have been that quick? He didn’t move at all, didn’t flinch when he saw me jump. How could he have gotten away and where was he?

“Over here.”

I jumped. He was back in the corner. How did you get back to the corner? Did you jump up and run? How did you do that so quickly? Did you just materialize there? Again? Tell me how you did that. Tell me what you know. I didn’t want to hurt you. That’s not why I went at you. I just want some answers. I want know who Frank Black is. Is that wrong of me? Should I not wonder who he is? Should I not care? How could I do that? How can I just let it all go?

All I was to do it let it all go away. When does it end for me? How does it end for Cam Gordon? Are there flashes of light and fanfare? Or is it quiet and subdued? Is there a manic burst of activity and then just a huge reaction? What is it for me? Where do I go from here? Is that what you are here for? Did you come for me? I need some resolution here. I need something to hang my hat on because there’s nothing. Just Frank Black. He’s it. He’s all right now. Should I forget about him? Because I can’t. He’s tipped my life over, like the rock in the desert that balances on the point. Frank Black was the stiff breeze that tipped my life.

Are you here to let me learn? Are you here to let me know that is what life is? Is life the rock in the desert that one stiff breeze can knock off its perch? Do I need to balance like that rock has for all those millennia? Where is my balance? Where is my life going? How do I get there? You have all the answers. I can see it in your eyes but you just stare at me. You don’t say a word. Why don’t you give me anything? A hint, something? You are a guest in my home. You inhabit my corner. I need something in exchange. I need payment for services rendered. What will you give me? What? Advice? A lesson? Tapioca pudding? What are you here to give me? Why won’t you tell me?

The man just kept looking at me, his gaze intent on something, on me. His arms were behind his back, one hand holding the other wrist. He stood up straight, feet together. The looking at me was what bothered me most. He looked at me, with a straight face. His look wasn’t stern or authoritative and it wasn’t kindly and welcoming. It just was. That’s what threw me most. Why don’t you express something to me? Why doesn’t your face convey attitude or necessity or absolution or grief? You don’t tell me anything, not even with you face. How can that be? How can you not show anything? You must be fucking amazing at poker. A busted inside straight or four of a kind? Which one is it because no one at this fucking table knows? We’re all experienced poker players here and we’re out of ideas. What’s your tell?

All of the sudden, I felt small. He had nothing more to say. I knew it. I could see it in his face. He had nothing more to contribute. His work here was done. I got up off of the couch and walked over to the man on the corner. I stood there, inches from him and nothing came to me. I was a blank. I stuck out my hand as a force of habit but he didn’t even look at it, just kept his eyes fixed on mine. I broke first. He wasn’t just looking at me. He was looking into me. I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t want to share this with him. I don’t want to share this with you. You can’t just take it from me, my essence, my soul. You can’t have it. Don’t look at it. Don’t take any. You don’t deserve it. You come here and give me nothing and you take what you want. You help yourself to me, as if I were seconds on dessert. I’m not an apple pie. You can’t just take a fucking slice of me.

If you have nothing more to say, then just go. I’m tired and I’m hungry. I have no more strength to deal with you. So, just go. Get out of here. I don’t need you here. I turned away from him and walked back to the couch, blanket draped over me and trailing me like some sort of bizarre wedding dress. I sat down and put my hands to my face, then ran them through my hair. And I’ll tell you another thing.

Gone.

He was gone.

I paced around the living room. I was furious. FURIOUS!! Where the fuck did he go? He was just here. No he’s gone. He had to go somewhere. I paced across the floor then ran from room to room. He has to be here somewhere. I went to the corner and stood there, I just stood and stared and tried to see what he saw. What did he see? Why did he look at me like that? Get the hand mirror from the bathroom. Look into that. Maybe you have the answer you are looking for. I got the mirror from the bathroom and stared into that, stared at myself, my unshaven face and my messy hair. There was nothing there. I looked into my eyes and saw nothing but fury at the man who had disappeared from my apartment, from this life. I threw the mirror against the wall and it shattered to pieces.

What could I do? How could I get him to come back? What did I need to do to bring him back here? He’s behind the wall. Where are your scissors? The letter opener? Something. Go get one of them and cut into the wall. I had the opener in my pocket and I took it out. The light glinted off of it and I dug into the wall. I jabbed at it. The dry wall was soft and it came apart easily. WHERE ARE YOU? Keep dodging these jabs into the wall because I want to make sure that you are alive when I get back there so I can kill you myself. I’ll hang you out the window for Frank Black to see. He wanted to fuck with me? He wanted to come after me? He’ll stay way the fuck away from my door after he sees what I’ve done to you, his minion, the weird dude that he sent to appear and reappear in my apartment.

I put my hand against the wall to brace myself and kept jabbing, jabbing, jabbing.

OW!

Fuck, my hand. The opener is in my hand. Not in it, through it. The opener is through my hand. Fuck this hurts. Try to take it out. OW! Fuck. Fuck. Are you happy now, Frank Black? Are you happy, you son of a bitch? Look what you made me do. My hand. Oh, god, my hand hurts. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t. My voice was trapped again and I didn’t know how to let it out.

I stumbled to the door and my head started getting light. My hand was losing blood quickly and I needed to get help. The darkness was rich now and it was inviting. I tried to move but everything was in slow motion. I slammed the door with all the force I had in me, but the sound was muffled and far away. Just lie down on the carpet, Cam. Lie down and wait. Just wait.

---

“Cam, it’s time to wake up.”

I opened my eyes and the white walls greeted me. The sun coming through the windows reflected harshly off of the walls and I squinted to shield my eyes a little bit. Was it time to wake up already? The past weeks have flown by so quickly. Should the time go by that quickly? Was it the surge to mental well being that made everything go by so fast? I didn’t know.

The nurse closed the door behind her and I rolled out of bed and put my robe on. It was cold this morning, a cold January morning that left a sheet of ice on my window from the freezing rain that had fallen overnight. I wiggled my fingers at the top of my cast. The bones were beginning to heal now, after a little reconstruction. My hand would be almost as good as new. There was a little nerve damage that wouldn’t heal completely. I looked out the window briefly, enjoying the layer of white snow on the ground and then went off to the bathroom to get myself cleaned up for the day.

The institution was all about clean. A clean body and a clean mind make a clean life. That’s what they say. So I did that as best I could. I made my bed every morning. I showered and shaved every morning. I attended sessions with a group and counselor during the day. I don’t want to end up like I was a few weeks ago, when neighbors heard me screaming from my apartment, when my parents had to call the super because I wasn’t answering my phone, when he tried to key into the door but couldn’t open it because I’d barricaded it, when my parents had to bust through the door of my apartment, breaking all the furniture stacked there, when they had to lift me up off of the floor with a letter opener through my hand and carry me out. I didn’t want to be like that anymore.

I’m being taught that there’s no subtext to the actions that I witness in my day-to-day life. There’s no conspiracy against me and no one is following me, least of all Frank Black. My new one-on-one therapist tells me to be in the moment and take things as they come. He says that I need to recognize that events that happen in the world are not necessarily connected. Life is not easy, but I make it more difficult then it has to be by grouping things that happen together. If I learn to separate them, he says, then I will be much better equipped to deal with them. He knows that is not easy for me, but he always remembers to tell me that I’m doing a good job trying.

All I needed to do was my best. As long as I was living the best way that I knew how, then I was succeeding. That’s what I needed to remember. I had it written down now and I carried it around with me in my wallet. If I ever forgot, I pulled out the sheet of paper and I read it to myself. Sometimes, I read it twice.

My parents had my room waiting for me, for when I was released from the institution. They were going to help me, when I was released. They were very understanding of the whole episode and were extremely worried. Another thing that they told us here was that part of living is recognizing that you live with other people and making amends to them when you have wronged them. I have made amends to my parents for all that I have put them through. My father was appreciative and my mother just cried. I think that they have accepted me for all of my difficulties and want to help me with everything.

I felt healthier and I felt that I was improving each day. I followed a routine after breakfast and I had chores around the hospital that I was responsible for. They only gave chores to the people that they feel may soon be ready to leave, so I guess they felt that I was improving each day also. That made me happy. It made me happy to know that other people were feeling the same way I was. It had been a long time since someone else had the same thoughts that I had.

I missed Pete still. I missed Maggie also. My therapist is helping me deal with those personal losses as well. They hadn’t died or anything, but they were a big part of my life. My therapist says that sometimes the best way to achieve closure is to confront the issue head on. I asked him how and he said that maybe I should write each of them a letter. That sounded like a good idea to me and I did it. I had nowhere to mail them. I sent Maggie’s to her old address, which I got from the phone book. I took Pete’s into the courtyard with me and I tore it up and scattered the pieces in the wind. Maybe he’d get some of them somewhere, wherever he was.

Frank Black didn’t send Pete away. He didn’t send Maggie away either. They made personal decisions to do something based on the best course of action for them. They didn’t do it based on some threat from an imagined source. They needed to do something to affect change in their life and they are my friends. So I wished them well in whatever it is they do. Maybe if I’m back in the city soon, I’ll swing by Maggie’s apartment and see how she is doing, if she’s still there.

I finished my breakfast and went upstairs to clean my room and prepare myself for the day. I had a journal that I liked to make an entry in each morning before I leave to start my day. The writing refreshed me a little bit and allowed me to keep track of my mood and monitor myself. Everyone has bad days, my therapist says, try not to let them control you. I made my bed and swept the floor, making sure to replace the broom and dustpan where they belonged in the closet. The room looked clean, so I went to get my notebook from the drawer in the night table next to me.

“Cam?”

I looked up and saw one of the nurses standing in the doorway with another person, who had a bag slung over his shoulder and was carrying the institution issued linens for the empty bed in my room. He looked tired, like he hadn’t slept in days. He had a beard, eight or nine days of unshaven growth. He moved slowly over to the bed and put the linens down, sitting next to them with a plop.

“Cam, this is your new roommate.”

The nurse turned and left us to get to know each other. I eyed him for a minute and thought about what to say. It didn’t really look like he wanted to talk. His eyes were red and cracked and they darted around the room suspiciously before landing on me. It was almost like looking back in time, looking at this sad creature, terrified of his surroundings and unable to focus on everything. It was exactly how I’d come here a few weeks ago. I hope he was as ready to learn as I had been. This place had helped me so much.

“What’s your name?”

He jumped a bit when I said it, startled that I had spoken. He looked at me for a minute and then closed his eyes, rubbing them a bit, maybe to make sure that I was really there, really speaking to him. When he opened them and looked at me again, certain that he and I were still there, his voice cracked a bit when he said it.

“My name? Frank. Frank Black.”

THE END

(Note: I can't post this to the bottom. I've exceeded the single post memory limit. I'm going to post here and keep going down, for those reading at home.)

6:00 AM.

I was sitting at my desk, trying to write my logbook but my thumb kept finding the clicker on the end of the pen and pushing it in and out. Over and over again, just clickety, clickety, clickety. I want to write. My mind wants to spill out the details of all of the times that I’ve spoken to and heard from Frank Black but my hands wouldn’t let it. They were in control of the pen and all that my thumb wanted to do was click the pen, just clickety, clickety, clickety.

I took the pen and threw it against the wall and hit with a thump and fell to the floor. How could they name you Dr. Click? You aren’t helping me. You aren’t fixing me. Doctors are supposed to help, not drive people up the wall with their repetitive, relentless clicking noises. You didn’t even help my hands. Look at my goddamn hands. They won’t stop shaking. My god, why won’t they stop shaking?

I looked closely at my hands. I looked at my left hand and, with a shaking right index finger, traced the scar along my left ring finger. I was opening a can of soup in college. Beef Barley soup. When I took the lid off of the can, it sliced my finger open from the base of the nail to the first knuckle. It took four stitches to close that cut.

I held up my right hand and watched it and it had another tremor. The tremor started small and then built up a little, gradually, until I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t hold anything. I picked up the coffee cup that held my pens and pencils and my hand shook violently and the pens and pencils spilled to the floor, scattered across the wood floor with the small intersecting tiles. The pens and pencils rolled along the floor and I watched them, I watched the pens and pencils move until they all just stopped in place. I went to bend down to pick them up but my hands wouldn’t stop jerking and I dropped the coffee cup, which shattered into a million pieces when it struck the floor.

Why won’t you stop shaking? Why do you keep shaking? You broke my coffee cup. Look at the floor. My coffee cup is shattered into little white pieces of snow on the floor. How am I going to clean all of this up when you shake like this? All of this shaking. I won’t be able to hold a broom or dustpan or anything that’s going to help me get all of this up. If you weren’t shaking like this, maybe I could pick them up by hand. Why are you shaking? STOP FUCKING SHAKING! JUST STOP IT! STOP IT!

Are you cold? Is that it? Maybe my hands are cold. I had a pair of gloves somewhere. Where were my gloves? Check the closet. Not that closet. The hall closet, check the hall closet. The one where you keep your jacket. Check the pockets of your winter coat. Nothing there. God there’s nothing there. Where are my gloves? I need my gloves. My hands are shaking and I think they are cold and I need my gloves. Where did you put your gloves? Check the shelf up in the back corner. Check the back corner. There they are.

I put the gloves on and went back to my desk. Maybe this would help them out. My hands were still shaking, still shaking violently and there was the occasional jerk, where my hands would wrench so forcefully, and I’d nearly fall off of my chair. When would they stop? Just stop shaking already. I have things to do. I need to get things done. I need to work and walk and go places and finish this logbook and how was I going to write if I couldn’t get my hands to stop shaking. And Dr. Click was all the way across the room where I’d thrown it before.

Hot, so hot. My hands were sweating now. Get the gloves off. Get them off. So hot. They were so hot. My hands were so hot. I took off the gloves and threw them to the floor and beads of sweat flew from my shaking hands. Look at your hands. Look at them. What is happening to them? WHY WON”T THEY STOP SHAKING?

I need you to stop shaking now. I need for my hands to be still. I have to go to work in an hour and a half. I need to be able to get up and go out of the street and not have people look at me. Do you understand that? If I’m walking down the street with shaking hands, I’m going to be looked at. People will look at me. They will look at my shaking hands and they are going to think things. They are going think things about me. I don’t want to be looked at. I can’t handle being stared at. I’m already being watched. Right now, Frank Black is out there and he’s watching and he’s probably laughing at the idiot who can’t even hold a coffee cup full of pens and pencils. That’s why I need you to stop shaking, hands. I need you to stop it now. Just please stop.

I sat down again and waited for my hands to stop shaking. The sun was beginning to peek through the blinds. The early morning sun that hits you after you’ve been awake for nearly twenty-four hours hurts the most. I looked toward the blinds and I squinted when the sun caught my eyes. My eyes were so dry. There was no moisture left in them. It had been sucked out of them during a night of smoke-filled bars, beer, walking in the cold night and logbook writing. I was desperately tired and dying to go to sleep but it was morning now and this was not the time to sleep. This was almost the time to go to work and through my haggard, cluttered mind try to put together a project for a rapidly approaching deadline. I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. The twitch in my hands told me so.

---

I snapped my head up off of my chest and my apartment was full of light. I stood up and heard a crunch under my shoe. When I looked down, I realized I had stepped on some of the porcelain shards that were on the floor. The floor was a mess. Pens and pencils were scattered under the desk. I leaned over to pick them up and when I went to stand, I hit my head on the bottom of the desk. The pain shot through my head and blinded me for a quick second and I dropped the writing utensils that I had in my hand. I stood up and rubbed the back of my head, leaving the chore of picking up pens and pencils and coffee cup pieces until later.

The clock read seven twenty-two, which seemed weird. It felt like it would be much later. I thought it was midday already. I considered changing clothes but decided there was no real point. I had showered last night and put them back on, so why change out of them now? These clothes had become a part of me and my adventures over the last few days. Why should they be deprived of the thrilling conclusion?

I took my contact lenses out, which I should have done hours ago, and put on my glasses. I put some drops in each eye because my eyes felt like someone had pried them open with toothpicks and run a blow dryer over them for 15 to 20 days. The drops satisfied my eyes in the way that a glass of water would satisfy a marathon runner. My eyes had crossed the finish line. I was probably going to have to soak those lenses for the day. They had been in my eyes forever.

There was no point in sitting around the house until I absolutely had to leave for work, which under ordinary circumstances, I would have done without a second thought. It seemed to me getting out of this apartment would be a good idea. I felt like I’d been trapped here for days or weeks even and my head started pounding at the thought of spending another minute trapped in these walls and this room. They were starting to make me sick. The confines of this apartment, this space was beginning to gain on me. Were the walls closing in on me? I looked around and decided that they very well could be. They probably were. Why wouldn’t they be? Why wouldn’t they be moving in on me, leaving me less and less space with which to move and to breathe and to live? Why wouldn’t all of that be true?

I decided to head over to the diner for that Spanish omelet I promised myself last night (or was that a couple of nights ago?) and about a gallon of coffee. I needed caffeine badly at this point. My lids were heavy but wouldn’t close. It was either walk around like Droopy Dog for the rest of the day or get some jolt juice and wake myself up a little bit.

I realized that “Giornale Di Franco Nero” had not been finished last night. That I’d left off at day one, at Tuesday, so I picked it up off my desk and stuffed it my workbag. Later on in the day, if I had a couple of minutes, I’d come back to it. I picked Dr. Click up off the floor, where he’d been sitting since I threw him there a few hours ago. I walked over to the door, banged my knee on the table and walked outside.

The air was cool and I immediately regretted not wearing a jacket outside. How hard was it to just grab the jacket off of the hanger? The closet was right there as you walked out. It’s on your right as you walked out the door. All you had to do was reach in and take the jacket. Now, you are walking down the street, cold and you look like an idiot. I’m sure everyone who walks by is thinking to themselves that you are a total moron, everyone turning to look at the moron who left his jacket at home. Look, they’re all looking at you. Like that guy, he’s looking right at you. That woman, too, her stare is practically burning a hole in you. Just hurry up get to the diner, get there now.

I started running. The thought of all of those eyes focused on me, looking at me, questioning me. I can hear their stupid questions now. Why no jacket son? Didn’t you know it was cold out? It’s the middle of November, who forgets to wear a jacket in the middle of November? Look at him without the coat on. Why wouldn’t he be wearing a coat? Is he all right? Didn’t he think before he left the house? Hey, don’t you watch the weather, kid? What’s the matter with you?

All of the questions were making me dizzy. I needed to get to the diner. Just keep running until you get to the diner. Just run and don’t stop until you are there. Can’t you hear all of the questions they’re going to ask? All of the weird stares. All of the people trying not to stare, not quite looking at you but not quite looking away. Look at them all in their jackets, on their way to work, unfettered, no worries, off the hook for any kind of action against a man who’s following their every move. He was out there. He had a jacket. I’m sure Frank Black was wearing a jacket, keeping an eye on you and keeping an eye on your actions, on you running down the street to avoid the uncomfortable stares of the conscientious strangers walking down the street. All of the stares of the people who were smart and attentive and able to remember to bring their jackets on days that are cold. Yes, Frank Black had to be wearing a jacket. And I wasn’t.

The diner was up ahead on the right and I cut the straight line that I had been moving in and made a beeline for the door of the diner. I pushed open the door, leaving myself just enough room to squeeze in and I shut the door quickly. I leaned up against the door and struggled to catch my breath, sucking in air as quickly as I rid it from my lungs. After a couple of minutes, looking through the glass to make sure the people on the street were no longer paying attention to me, I went into the restaurant and sat down at the counter. I still had twenty minutes to enjoy a tasty Spanish omelet and some coffee.

“Coffee, Cam?”

And there she was, behind the counter as always. And she had the two coffee pots in her hand. I tried to summon the strength to speak even the words, “yes please,” but I couldn’t do that. I was out of breath, ragged and unclean and my voice, for the moment was gone. So, I just pointed. I pointed at the pot with the red top, so I’d get the caffeine juice and not the weak ass decaf. She poured me a cup and dropped a couple of those little half-and-half containers on the counter, then she smiled that slightly crooked smile and walked around the counter to fill the cups of the other patrons waiting.

“I’ll take your order in a sec, Cam.”

I swiveled around on the stool and she was bent over a table of four, jotting down their order. I tried to read their lips to see what they were ordering but my vision was trammeled, partly from staying awake all night and party from the loss of peripheral vision that comes with wearing my glasses. Maggie came back around to the counter and dropped the order slip on little wheel that spun around to the kitchen and headed back toward me. She walked with an odd determination, her gait slow but steady and a little forceful almost. Her black vest sort of flapped in the breeze that she made while walking to and from the folks in the diner.

“Spanish omelet or do you want something else today?”

She knew my order. She always knew my order. If I was here at dinnertime she’d probably say “Turkey burger, Cam, or do you want something else today?” I just nodded on account of my newly lost voice and she crinkled her nose as she wrote down my order, then flashed that smile again and was off to take care of some other person. Some other person who probably wouldn’t recognize that she was this unbelievable, complex person who lived a sad life in a small studio apartment. But I knew. I knew.

I just watched her go about her business while I waited for my food to come out. There was something amazing about how she got things done, about how she could balance a plate on her forearm and hold one in her hand at the same time. There was something amazing about how she always kept her balance and never spilled a drop of anything, not food, not water, not coffee, nothing. And I was amazed that I had never noticed it before. In all the times that she’d brought me a Spanish omelet or a turkey burger, I’d never noticed it. The time that I went to her sad little studio apartment, I’d never noticed it. In all the times we’d come across each other, I’d never noticed it.

But I noticed it now.

And that made me smile, if only briefly and if only slightly, I did. For one brief moment, it didn’t matter that I forgot my jacket or that I had a deadline hanging over me, looming in the next 9 hours. It didn’t matter that there was a shattered coffee cup all over my living room floor, pens and pencils scattered everywhere. Most of all, it didn’t matter that an aging early 90s rock star was documenting my every action. All of that faded to the slightly out of reach quarter of my mind.

“Here it is, Cam. You want some more coffee?”

She placed the omelet in front of me and I cleared my throat. It was the first sound I’d made since I walked through the door of the diner, not counting the wheezing. Why don’t you say something, jerk? Open your mouth and have the air vibrate against your vocal chords producing sound. It’s not that hard. You have no trouble doing it on any other occasion. Open your mouth. Good. Now breathe in. Good. Go on, you can do it. Say something, schmuck.

“Yes, Maggie. Thanks.”

She refilled my cup and I finally breathed out, after what seemed like an eternity. She scribbled something on that check pad she carried and ripped the page off, placing it down in front of me. I looked down at the paper she’d put face down in front of me and she’d written, “Thanks, Cam! Maggie” in script across the back. There was a circle over the “i” instead of a dot. Look at what she wrote here. I had the urge to pocket the check right there, to just pick up this note she’d written me and save it. I could tack it to the wall right above my desk at home. Go ahead, just put it your pocket. You’re going to pay. Bring it up to the register and ask them if you can keep it. You’ll pay them.

I ate in silence, occasionally glancing to see if anyone had sat next to me. The counter was full, except for the seats directly to my left and right. No one was sitting next to me. Why wasn’t anyone sitting there? Were my eating habits poor? Did I chew with my mouth open? What’s happening here? Why won’t anyone sit next to me? What is it about me? Is it the beard? Is that driving everyone away? What do you people want? What do you want from me? WHY WON”T YOU SIT NEXT TO ME?

I finished my coffee and left some money on the counter. Forget the note. She probably writes that to everyone. Well, not “Thanks, Cam,” but probably like “Thanks, Bill,” or “Thanks, (insert name here).’ You get the picture. I slung my workbag over my shoulder and headed for the door.

“Bye, Cam”

I turned my head over my shoulder and I saw Maggie standing in the aisle, smiling that crooked smile. I smiled back. Someone tried to walk by but bumped her shoulder as he came through. Her arm lurched forward and the coffee sloshed around the pot and up toward the top. She balanced her arm and lifted the pot slightly to catch the liquid moving upward. The man apologized profusely and walked back to his table but I noticed something that he probably didn’t.

She didn’t spill a drop.

---

I got to my office building, a tall, ugly, gray structure that consumed the entirely of one block along the avenue. I walked through the revolving door. I covered my hand to push the door because 17,000 other sets of hands must have touched those handles by the time I got there. 17,000 people who rode the subway or the bus or who the hell knows what other form of transportation to get to this place in the morning, touching all of those different seats and metal handrails that thousands upon thousands of other people touched. I could see them in my head, coughing and sneezing, wiping their noses. It was enough to make me gag, which I actually did for a few disgusted onlookers making their way into the building.

My office was on the forty-fourth floor. I was relieved to see that I was going to be my elevator lone, until someone threw their briefcase between the closing doors and joined me on the elevator. There is nothing that I hate more than that. This building has 3 elevator banks. Each bank has 8 elevators that take people to where they need to go. These elevators come to the ground floor and move faster back and forth than Superman him-fucking-self. This guy is attempting to tell me that he is in such a hurry that he couldn’t possibly wait for the next elevator, sure to come to the ground floor within seconds. Actually, (ding!) there it is right now but he had to risk the fine Corinthian leather of his briefcase to stop this one from going to the destination to which I had routed it, in order to ostensibly get to his desk 25 seconds sooner because his workday is so jam packed that he couldn’t possibly stand to allow this elevator to go and catch the next one. I didn’t realize that I was in the elevator with royalty. Please, sir, allow me, a worthless peon of this multinational corporation to push your floor button for you. I wouldn’t want you waste precious seconds of your vitally important day, not for something as pedestrian as say, selecting the floor that you need to go to. Please, allow me, I insist that I be allowed to assume the burden of this wasteful and inefficient task, so that your mind can be freed to calculate the Gross Domestic Product of Argentina or whatever other imperative task you have to execute before brunch with Warren Buffet, lunch with Ted Turner, drinks with Colin Powell and dinner with the Pope. Please, ALLOW ME!

Holy shit, it’s you, isn’t it? You are Frank Black. You, the man preventing me from getting to my desk right now. You are the one stopping me from getting upstairs right now by stopping this elevator and letting yourself on. I’m in the elevator with Frank Black. Frank Black is standing in the other corner right now. And he didn’t push another button for the floor. He’s going to my floor. He’s got 44 floors to do something. What the hell is he going to do to me? These elevators are so fucking small. They are so fucking small. Look at how close he is to me. He’s so damn close. He could do anything to me. What does he have in that briefcase? A knife? A gun? A whip? Chains? A small mechanical device to systematically torture me in the 15-20 seconds it take to get up to my floor? What the fuck do you have in there? What are you carrying? And now this elevator seems so slow. This ride is taking forever come on, hurry up, just get to forty-four already, so I can get out of this elevator, just get the hell out of the elevator so I don’t have to be next to this psycho. Does he see me inching closer to the door? The elevator is only at twenty-three. Does he notice me moving closer to the elevator doors, even though it’s still so far from my floor, from our destination?

“Frank Black”

I said it, a whisper. It was barely audible. I said it and then I looked in his direction and he seemed to have not heard me. He didn’t make a move, didn’t flinch at all. He must’ve not heard me. He would have done something. He would have come at me or something. What would Frank Black do if he realized that I knew who he was? Would do something to me? Would he take the little robot out of his briefcase and sic him on me? Would he just say, “Hello, Cam” and get off the elevator and disappear? What the hell would he do? I didn’t know. This guy didn’t seem to be doing anything, if he even heard me.

The elevator made it’s little ding noise and I got off as quickly as I could. I went left off of the elevator and took another quick left and then hid behind the wall and watched him get off of the elevator. He went over to the receptionist and began talking to her. I tried to read his lips but came up empty again. Stupid corrective lenses. The receptionist picked up the phone and spoke briefly to someone before directing my friend from the elevator to sit down on one of the couches. He wasn’t Frank Black, unless Frank Black was here for his 9:30 with Satan. I think he works somewhere on this floor.

”Cam, you need something?”

The receptionist’s voice. I turned to her and she was looking at me with a furrowed brow, indicating confusion at me hiding behind the wall. I looked at her and grinned sheepishly, shrugging my shoulders and walking back around the corner, past my friend on the couch and toward my desk. I should have turned right off the elevator. Why would you even think to turn left moron? Your desk is right. Right off the elevator. Never left. Always right.

My desk was a mess. I didn’t remember even having been here at all, but the fact was that I’d been here less than ten hours prior. I looked my computer with disdain and a little bit of caution. Turning it on wasn’t the problem. It was logging on my e-mail and my instant messenger that was the problem. What if I got another IM? I didn’t want another IM. I didn’t want more contact. I wanted this to be over.

My e-mail popped up. 7 new messages for my viewing pleasure had arrived in my inbox. No, no, no, no, no, no, here it is. Frank Black responded. I barely even remember what I wrote him. It feels like it’s been days. Help. I asked him for help. I wonder if there’s help in this e-mail maybe he wrote me and is going to give me help.

-----Original Message------
From: Frank Black [frankblack@frankblack.com]
Sent: Friday, November 8, 2002 12:32 AM
To: CommieBstard@aol.com
Subject: Re: HELP

Mr. Gordon,

As an unbiased observer, I’m going to offer you an answer to your question and a little bit of advice. I just hope that you can take the both of them to heart and move on.

First, I do not keep the information that you requested on file anywhere. I do not have anyone stalking me in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area or anywhere for that matter. Even if I did, such information would likely be of the variety unwise to share with someone that I know only from the slightly deranged e-mails that he sends to me.

Second, I’d like to ask you to take yourself to a doctor and get some help. I can recommend the name of a good therapist in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area and he would be willing to take you on as a client as a favor to me. You seem unwell, Mr. Gordon. Get help.

Frank Black

Get help? Get help he says? You don’t think I’ve gotten help? Oh I’ve gotten help. I’ve gotten more help than you know. I’ve been away to hospitals, with people in clean white coats. I’ve stayed in rooms with people who scream at the top of their lungs that they want to leave, that they don’t belong. I’ve gotten shots that have knocked me out quicker than I could count backwards from 10. I’ve gotten help, Frank Black. I’ve gotten help.

I’ve gotten the kind of help where everyone talks softly to you. No one wants to talk too loud and everyone walks on glass around you. They smile at you when they walk by but you can tell that the pace of their walk is a little fast than normal. And they’re always looking at you, even when they have to crane their neck one hundred and eighty degrees like a fucking owl to do it. And all with that smile, that smile that they want to use to put you at ease, but all it does is make you wonder why they are so happy to see you. Why are they so happy to walk by you at a pace so abnormal and clearly not their own?

I’ve gotten help and stayed over nights in a place where the walls are white, so white and clean. The beds are metal and they are bolted to the ground, so you can’t lift them, can’t pick them up and use them to break a window and jump out to try to run. So you can’t run as far and as fast as you can to try to get away from the clean white of the walls and the clean white of the floors. How could it always be so white? How do they keep it so white? It hurts my eyes to look at it all so white and so clean.

I’ve sat one on one with men with beards and pipes and they made me talk with them and tell them how I’m doing. How are you doing today, Cam? Are you better today, Cam? Cameron, are you OK inside or is something bothering you? Don’t be afraid to tell us, Cam. We’re here to help you. We’re here to help you figure it out, to make sure things make sense to you. We don’t want you to be angry or hurt. We don’t want you to be upset or afraid. We’re here to help you deal with those feelings? Are we helping you, Cam?

You want to know if you are helping me? Is it helping me to stay here for days while you pick and pick away at my hopes and my fears and my anger and head? Is it helping me to sleep in an uncomfortable bed that’s bolted to the ground while the person sitting in the bed next to me tosses and turns and talks in their sleep about whatever’s in their head while I sit and stare at the ceiling the white ceiling that almost glows in the dark because it’s so white and clean? Is it helping me?

Frank Black, I’ve gotten help. I’ve gotten plenty of help, from men and women, from doctors and social workers, from pills. I’ve gotten all kinds of help. I’ve learned tricks to help me control my anger. I’ve learned things to help me keep myself calm and happy. And it does help, for a little while. I go home with a new pill, sometimes yellow, sometimes blue, but always in that burnt orange bottle. “Take with food” will be there on a sticker alongside the prescription bottle.

All I wanted from you was a little help, Frank Black. Just a little help. Help me out with some people you may know who’ve been weird around you before. Maybe someone has been known to use your name as a pseudonym. You could’ve told me who that person was. Maybe there’s someone who got arrested at one of your shows for trying to attack you. Maybe you could’ve helped me out with his or her name. But you didn’t. You didn’t help me. You told me to get help, but you yourself wouldn’t help me. You wouldn’t help me at all.

All you do is snipe from a distance. Who are you to judge me, Frank Black? Who the fuck are you? You are no one. You don’t know me. You don’t know what’s going on here. You call my e-mails deranged? You don’t know me. You don’t know anything. You know guitar chords and how to rhyme, you talentless Chiba monkey. That’s all you know. You don’t know anything about me. And you sit there, in your house in Los Angeles and you judge me. You judge my e-mails and you judge my life. You have no right. You have no right at all. Who the fuck do you think you are, Frank Black? What makes you think you can analyze me like that? Who blessed you with the supernatural talent to read people from across the internet? I need help? No fucking way. What an insightful mastermind you are! Let me run right out and get some. That hadn’t occurred to me before. I’m so glad you mentioned it.

Help? That’s all I wanted. The subject of my fucking e-mail was “Help.” And you tell me to get help? You are a piece of work, Frank Black, a true genius. I can’t believe you settled for music when the world of psychoanalysis, fortune telling, even astrophysics awaits you and your mind-boggling smarts. Your talents are being wasted, Frank Black. You should be curing diseases, not writing semi-popular songs like “Los Angeles.”

Fuck Frank Black. I’d had enough of him. This e-mail discussion was over.

---

I was at my desk and working, working. No more distractions. I couldn’t afford any more distractions. My computer was my focus now and the words on the pages were my goal. Frank Black had taken the worst thing he could have taken from me. Frank Black had taken my time away from me. I needed to take it back. Fuck Frank Black. Fuck him and his advice. Fuck him and his self-important e-mails. Fuck him and his everything. Fuck him.

Every second was now vital. Every minute was an eternity of time to drive and move and accomplish. My focus was tight and singular. No more bullshit. No more falling asleep at my desk. No more worrying about Instant Messages and e-mails. The deadline was there. The finish line was in sight. I was going to make a mad dash for it. Whether I made it or not, NO! There was no “not”. There was only success. There was only making it. There was no fail.

And now my fingers pounded the keys, I felt strong and insurgent. I was the ruler of this domain. I was the person who made the decisions and the choices were all mine. Each finger strike was like lightning and the noise echoed in my head. BANG! Like lightning. Each movement was ferocious and screaming. BANG! And I struck each key as if it had wronged me, as if this were payback for the keys of my computer. BANG! I moved with purpose across the letters and words that formed with my command, with my power. BANG! Do you get it? Do you? All of my force channeled through my fingertips clobbering down vengefully on the weak keyboard. BANG! Do you like that? Huh? Do you see? You are weak and I am strong. It is me who has the power. I strike at you with vindictive might and I make the decision to move. BANG! What? Are you frightened? Do you feel the terror of my fingers manipulating and working the keys?

Is there an understanding? Do we have an understanding? This is my realm. This is my space. The keys are my subjects and I am their fiercely protective leader. And I am writing, writing, hammering away, word-by-word, inch-by-inch, along the whiteness of the computer screen. I am decorating it with my work, my words. The keys my loyal subjects, providing the tools with which I can make this happen, providing the ammunition for my verbal assault.

Do you see, Frank Black? I wield power too. I can be the intimidator. I am ferocious and I am unforgiving. My fingers work the keys. They rule the keys. The keys are the subjects. I am their guardian. Do you get it, Frank Black? Do you? I’m not afraid of you, you no-talent beach musician. I am the master of this lair. I am the guardian of this realm. And nothing, not your pompous e-mails, not your cryptic Instant Messages, not your methodical and constant monitoring of my every action and misdoing can take that from me. Do you understand me? I will defend my kingdom ferociously and mercilessly against anyone who dare trespass it or transgress against it.

“DO YOU HEAR ME?”

I screamed it out loud and my concentration broke. I stood up and my desk to see a dozen sets of completely confused eyes. I felt my face get flush and I smiled awkwardly and offered a silent apology in the form of a shrug and a nod. The heads began to lower below cube wall level one by one and I found myself gazing over an uninterrupted maze of cubes. The zigzag of the walls was untrammeled by heads and I wondered if I could walk along the tops of the walls to the other side. I thought you could. I mean, just hop on your desk and stand on top of the solid cube wall and hop from piece to piece. Brilliant! Like Frogger, hopping from log to lilly pad. Quickly, top to top. Just moving, moving quickly and a leap and done, all the way across. I could probably even wave to the receptionist along the way. Maybe even step on Missy’s head. I wonder how Tim would feel about that. He’d probably embrace his newfound freedom, if he were smart enough to recognize that he was free.

I got up from my desk and stretched, looking around again to see if anyone else were doing anything around the office. I heard the incessant patter of the airhead that sits two cubes over from me. Her voice was shrill and the worst part was that she was trying to modulate it. When her concentration broke and she let go of her voice, it could shatter glass, as it probably did upon the announcement of her best friend’s engagement about three weeks ago. She was discussing the merits of her new nail polish color, which she got at the nail place that she goes to all the time. You just have to go to this nail place. I’m telling you, once you go you’ll never go any place else. Never. They have the best staff and they are all so wonderful. And you should see this color. I think they call is Crimson Glow, no, no wait. Not Crimson Glow, that’s what I got last time. Isn’t that funny? Isn’t that weird when that happens? When you mean to say one thing and you say something else? God, that’s so funny.

And I eavesdropped on this conversation. I was immediately ashamed of myself for wasting my time and my attention listening to this incredibly vapid conversation. You have six hours to get your assignment done. Six hours to complete the biggest project of your life and what are you doing? What the fuck are you doing, asshole? You are listening to Barbie or whatever her name is prattle on and on about the benefits of Crimson Glow versus Autumn Harbor. Crimson Glow versus Autumn Harbor. The debate rages on. And you, Cam Gordon with a front seat to the action. Don’t count you blessings just yet because the conversation may end and you may never find out the answer. You may never know the truth. So please, ignore the stack of work that has been building up on your desk for nearly a week because of all the other distractions and focus on this conversation. Focus on which slightly different shade of red is better for fingernails. Go on. One of the world’s great mysteries about to be solved before your very eyes. Cameron Gordon, you are one lucky fellow. You are about to gain insight into a deep and highly intense mystery. You will find out the answer.

I rubbed my temples, sat back down and leaned back in my chair. That noise. Behind my screensaver, I heard that infernal noise.

FrankBlack: hey there
FrankBlack: you there?
FrankBlack: i know you are there.
CommieBstard: you don’t know anything
FrankBlack: there he is
CommieBstard: i’m done with this frank.
FrankBlack: no you aren’t. you still have work to do
CommieBstard: what the fuck is the matter with you?
FrankBlack: nothing that a little coffee from the diner wouldn’t cure
CommieBstard: what does that even mean?
FrankBlack: we both like coffee, you had some this morning
CommieBstard: listen, you sick fuck, enough of this. show yourself so i con kick the ever loving shit out of you. so help me god, you are going to scream for mercy when i get through with you.
FrankBlack: temper, temper
FrankBlack signed off at 11:34:35 AM

All I saw was red. There was just red. Maybe this was Frank Black and maybe it wasn’t but I couldn’t take it anymore. I need to find this jerkoff. I need to find him and finish him. If I end him, it will end this. This whole thing will be over when I find hi. I know you are here somewhere, Frank Black. I know that you are somewhere near me. All you need to do is stumble once. Laugh out loud at something I say and I’ll be on you so fast your head will spin. Sneeze and I’ll be there to wipe your fucking nose, you degenerate piece of filth. I swear to god, I’m looking now. I’m looking for the details. And I know you are looking at me. Make eye contact a little too long and I’ll gauge your fucking eyes out. It’ll happen. Just you fucking wait. I know you are here and I know you are watching and when you fall, I’ll be there to catch you. Then I’ll put you down and beat the ever-loving snot out of you.

He was out there. He was out there watching me. He saw he this morning. He saw me eating my Spanish omelet. He saw me drinking my industrial strength coffee. He saw me at the counter. He saw me …

You don’t think he saw me staring at Maggie? Do you think he saw me staring at Maggie? What if he did? Oh my god. He’s going to tell her. He’s going to tell her everything. He’ll tell her how I was staring. I swear, I was only admiring how she handles all those plates at once. That’s all. That’s all it was. What if he tells her that I think she’s great? She might freak out. What if she quits and gets a new job at another diner? What if she stops serving my coffee in the morning? I don’t know if I could handle that. God, he’s going to tell her everything that I was thinking. He’s going to tell her all about how I notice the little things about her. He’s going to tell her how I saw that she doesn’t spill anything. He’s going to tell her and she’s going to go nuts. She’s going to move out of her sad little apartment and take her sad little plant. And she’s going to find a new place with different light and I’m never going to see her again. What if I never see her again? What if she just moves away, somewhere else, and I never see her again?

She’s going to go away. I can’t have her leave. I’ll never get to see her apartment again. I’ll never get to share my meal with her without actually sharing it with her. The new person they get won’t know my order. She won’t know that I like Spanish omelet in the morning and turkey burger at night. She won’t know that I like the regular coffee with the red top, not the decaffeinated kind with the green top. How will she know all of that? And Maggie won’t tell her. Maggie will be too freaked out by everything that Frank Black tells her. She’s going to want to get out of there as soon as she can. How many more ways is Frank Black going to ruin my life? How many other ways can he figure out to torture me methodically? And now he’s going to take Maggie out of my life? He can’t do that. I can’t let him do that. I need her to do all of those things for me. I need her to bring my coffee and to bring my food. I need to watch her perform her job with fluidity and beauty, with delicacy and timeliness. I need all of that. I need for her to be kind to me and smile her crooked smile at me. I need her to call me Cam and I need for her to invite me up to her sad little apartment again, so that I can try to make it a little happier.

He saw all of it. He saw everything and he’s going to tell her it all. She’s going to think I’m weird and creepy and she’s going to run away. She’s going to vanish and she’ll make another diner patron somewhere else happy. And I’ll be stuck here. She’ll be gone and I’ll be here. She’ll never know that it wasn’t weirdness or creepiness that made me watch and stare. It was respect and admiration. It was one human being watching and appreciating the positive attributes, however small, of another human. That’s all it was. I didn’t mean for it to happen this way. I didn’t mean for her to leave. Frank Black is going to make it happen. He’s going to make her leave and take it all away from me.

It’s almost lunchtime now. I wonder if she’s left already. He must have told her everything. He was there. He saw me watching her. He thought I was leering at her. He’s told her all about me. I can hear him now. He’s saying that Cam Gordon is a creep or a perv. He sits and ogles you while you serve people their food. He’s lying to her right now. He’s telling her that I’m a disgusting person, when he’s the ingrate. He’s the piece of shit. He’s the one she shouldn’t believe. Frank Black is the one who’s lying, not me. I’m not any of those things. I’m just a guy who knows that Maggie is a good person and that she does her job well. That’s all I am, someone who knows all of that. I’m not a weirdo. I AM NOT A CREEP!

I’m Cam Gordon and I’m about to lose her. She’s about to go because of Frank Black. It’s almost lunchtime. I should go over there now and tell her. I should run over there and tell her not to believe Frank Black. Don’t believe anything that Frank Black says. I’m not leering at you. No, I sit here and eat my Spanish omelet and please don’t move away. Please don’t change jobs. Don’t leave here. Don’t go away. We need you, the patrons of the diner need you. I need you.

Frank Black.

He’s taking everything from me. He’s taking it all. Why are you taking everything from me? Why do you want to destroy me? I need to find you. I need to seek you out like an animal. I need to hunt you down and show you what you’ve done to me. How you’ve taken my deadline and made it undoable. How you’ve taken my sleep and it unreachable. How you’ve taken my mind and made it unstoppable. How you’ve taken everything and made it unknowable. And every time I think that I’m there, you put the destination just off my fingertips.

Go. Go to the diner and see if she’s there.

So I did. I ran to the elevator and pushed the button forty-five times to make the elevator come faster and when it got there, I hit door close like forty-five times to make the door close faster. And when the elevator got to the lobby, I hit door open like forty-five times to make sure that the door opened as quickly as it possibly could. When the doors open, I ran off the elevator and I slammed the shoulder of some guy who dropped his briefcase and papers scattered everywhere and there was that white again, so white against the beige floor. And I screamed, I’m sorry but didn’t turn around just kept running and running. I ran out the revolving door and I didn’t cover my hands and the handles were greasy. They were greasy and my hand slipped a little as I pushed the door that didn’t seem to want to go anywhere until I pushed with everything I had in me. The door flew around the glass enclosure and I spilled out onto the street. It was cold out, I was cold, but I turned the corner and ran. And I ran, as fast as I could, between people, sometimes into people, blurting out apologies along the way. I’m sorry. Excuse me. Pardon. And there were so many people on the street, what are you all doing on the street? Shouldn’t you be at work? At school? Somewhere else other than on the street, in front of me craning your head to see when the stupid department store Christmas display is going to go up?

I got there in what seemed like an eternity, though perhaps only minutes and I put my face to the glass, breathing fogging up the glass in my line of vision. I was breathing so heavily, wheezing and panting. I needed to catch my breath. Why don’t you exercise? You are so out of shape. I had no time to catch my breath. Look in there. Look in there and see if she’s waiting tables. See if she’s bringing people their meals and beverages in a timely and precise manner, just like she always does. I couldn’t see to well, through the condensation that my heaving breaths were producing on the window, so stood on my toes to see if I could get a better look inside. I was beginning to catch my breath. Wait, no that’s someone coming back from the bathroom, jerk. She’s wearing black. You were here this morning. She wears the same thing all the time.

And there she was. Her hair up, just like always and she was bringing a glass of soda to a table off four. She stopped at the table for a moment to listen to something they had to say and she laughed for a second and smiled that crooked smile. She took out her pad and scribbled something down, left the check on the table and started to walk toward the front of the restaurant where I was looking in the window. Shit. She’s going to see me. Hide.

I looked both ways on the street. The diner was on the corner, so I just ducked around the corner and leaned back on a waist high windowsill and let myself relax for a second. She was still there. Frank hadn’t gotten to her yet. He hadn’t told her anything. I decided not to say anything to her about Frank. I’d already told Pete about Frank and he thought I was crazy. I wasn’t crazy.

Not about this.

---

I walked briskly back to the office and pushed the button for the elevator to take me to the forty-fourth floor. There were still a couple of papers scattered about the floor down here in the lobby. I guess that guy didn’t get them all. I picked one up and started reading about price fixtures but I got bored after the opening sentence that I crumpled it up and put it into my pocket. The sharp corners of the ball of paper started to poke through my pocket, so I took it out and started throwing it up and down in the air. Then, DING!, the elevator was here and I got on and pushed the button. I kept tossing the balled up paper in the air and catching it and it became a game. The ride up to forty-four is a lonely one.

“Having fun?”

I looked around the elevator. No one was in there with me. I was alone. Who was that talking to me? Where was that voice coming from? Is there an implant in my head? He did it while I passed out last night. He put a little radio device in my ear or my glasses or my head somewhere and now he’s tormenting me vocally also. I wish there were someone else in this elevator, so I’d know if I’m hearing things. It figures. This was the first time in the history of these elevator banks that anyone is riding up alone. Usually, anytime of the day, I’m fighting for space. I’m fighting so that some jerkoff in a suit from Sales and Marketing on the thirty-fifth floor can have six less inches to read his Wall Street fucking Journal. This morning, I go up with the dude meeting some other corporate criminal. Right now, there’s no one in the elevator. Not a soul. It totally fucking figures. Right now, at a little past twelve noon on a Friday afternoon, in the clothes I’ve been wearing for three days, I’m hearing voices. There’s no one here to let me know if it’s in my head. Wonderful.

Why would you do that? It’s not enough? Sending me e-mails and instant messages and following me around? All of that wasn’t enough? You needed verbal communication too? You needed to have your odd voice bouncing around the walls of my head also? It wasn’t enough for you to make me think that you were going to turn Maggie against me and have her run away to somewhere else? None of that was enough for you. Now you need to have your nasal voice sting my brain and cover my ears. Why? Why did you need to do that? You already haunt what’s left of my sleep. I carry your image along with me. You needed you voice their also? You needed to have that in my head as well? Needed to penetrate every facet of what’s left of my consciousness. Is that what you needed, you sick fuck? IS THAT WHAT YOU NEEDED?

“Um, yes? Who is this?”

I don’t even know why I answered. Someone, somewhere is laughing their ass off. Someone thinks that this is the funniest fucking thing in the world. Meanwhile, the voices in my head or the radio-transmitted voice of Frank Black is asking me if I’m having fun tossing a ball of paper up and down. And I’m answering seriously. I’m answering as if someone is standing next to me asking me if I have another piece of gum. Am I having fun? Well, I wasn’t not having fun, that is, until you rang my head up and started talking to me.

“It’s Ben, from the concierge desk.”

Of course, Ben. From the concierge’s desk. The first person that I’d think would be speaking to me in the elevator while not in the elevator. How could I have missed that? Naturally, Ben would be watching me in the camera at the concierge’s desk and be inclined to ask me if I’m enjoying myself. I don’t know how I missed it. Yes, Ben, I’m having a wonderful time. Thank you for using the emergency radio from the desk to ask me also. You know, because ordinarily such a thing would be reserved for when someone was trapped in the elevator or if there was a fire or something, but you felt the need to ask me if I was having a good time while tossing a crumpled ball of paper in the air. Sure, it makes total sense, Ben. Sure, I thought that there were voices in my head or that an ancient guitarist from the late 80’s industrial rock revival or some deranged lunatic posing as said guitarist had planted a small radio device in my head. But, you, Ben, to the delight of all present (i.e. me) decided that it would be fun to contact me via emergency radio from downstairs. Brilliant.

DING!

“Hi Ben. I’ll see you later.”

And I walked off the elevator.

---

It was nearly 12:30 now and I was losing steam fast. A night of no sleep and powerful mental focus on the subversive activities surrounding me by a certain musical group frontman that shall go nameless were beginning to take their toll on me. My lids were heavy and when I caught a glimpse of myself in the huge window that overlooks the avenue, I could see the huge bags under my eyes. I didn’t just look tired. I looked consumed by something. And watching the half reflection of myself in the glass, it was as if I was fading and I was taken aback by the half-finishedness of myself. I wasn’t whole or complete in that reflection. And I didn’t feel whole or complete to myself.

Was I fading? It hadn’t felt that way until I just looked at that reflection of myself through weighed down lids and fuzzy vision. My head ached and my body ached and my eyes just wanted to close they so desperately wanted to close but they couldn’t. There were things to be done. Go back to your desk and do things. Get things done. There’s work to be done. You need this time to work. You have less than 5 hours now, less than 5 hours to take care of everything that needed to be done since you got this assignment. What are you avoiding, Cam? What are you trying to stay away from? Why can’t you sit down at your desk?

I ‘m trying. Don’t you see that I’m trying? I’m trying to get everything done that I can. I’m trying to do all of the work in front of me. I’ve been trying for days but he won’t let me. He won’t let me. Every time I sit down, there’s something from him. Every time I stop moving, he reminds me why I started moving in the first place. When I go to type, he’s writing me. When I go to eat lunch, he’s sitting behind me. When I want to go to sleep, he’s floating over me, staring into my eyes and into my soul, whatever is left of it. That’s why I can’t do anything. He won’t let me. Goddammit, he won’t let me do shit. I can’t get any work done. I can barely keep my fucking eyes open, much less stare at a white sheet on a computer screen and type meaningless fucking words about god knows what. It’s hard enough just making it thirty-five seconds without thinking about that cruel fuck and what he’s doing. Thinking about where he is and what he’s thinking and what he’s got planned for tomorrow. What does he have planned for tomorrow? What the fuck does this asshole have planned for tomorrow? Is he going to sit behind me at the movies and throw unpopped kernels of popcorn at the back of my head and then duck behind the seats? Is he going to stand in front of me at the grocery store and pay for three dollars and sixty-two cents worth of merchandise with a fucking check from the Bank of Transylvania? What else does he have planned? Tell me now, so I can plan ahead. Please just fucking let me know, so I can mark it down in my fucking planner. Tell me, Frank Black, what’s next? WHAT THE FUCK IS NEXT?

I want to get things done. Can’t you see that? Can’t you see that I want to keep working? Can’t you see that I want nothing more than to sit down at my desk for an active day of work, go home, have dinner watch TV and then go to sleep for an ENTIRE night? I think that’s pretty fucking obvious. What’s not pretty fucking obvious is why I have someone preventing me from doing that? Why? Why are you preventing me from leading my life? Why are you preventing me from getting my work done and from enjoying a meal without the though of having someone eating a hamburger deluxe with a chocolate milkshake and a side of fries in the corner booth checking me out? Watching me consume the very meal that I had come to enjoy. Why is that? Why can I not enjoy everything like everyone else? Why can’t I drain a few beers without the threat of your goddamn music coming on the jukebox? Why can’t I sit at home and enjoy the mindless pleasure of television without seeing you across the street with binoculars? And why, for fuck’s sake, why can’t I get into bed and sleep the night away without you and your ugly mug haunting my subconscious?

And now I have this work, all this work, and it sits there. It just sits there, waiting be done. I can hear it talking to me.

“Finish me.”

What’s that? Finish you? I’d love to. But there’s the small matter of a psychopath named Frank Black and his meticulous tracking of my every move that won’t allow me to get any shred of you finished. The top scrap of paper on your pile will not get touched until I have the answer, until I know the answer to every question that I’ve posed. All I want is answers. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. All I want is answers. Just give me the fucking information that I want and everything that you want will get taken care of. Every single piece of paper in all of the stacks that you have will get done. Not so talkative now are you, you miserable stack of boredom? I don’t hear anymore finish me from you now. You don’t have the fucking information that I want and until I get it, I’m sorry, you’ll just have to be a little fucking patient. You’ll just have to wait, just like the rest of us, to get what you want. Understand? What right do you have to ask me to take care of you when I can’t even take care of me? You have no right. You want to get done? So do I. I want to get done too. And the way I’m going to get done is by hearing what I want to hear. And until that happens, my paper stacked friend, you are shit out of luck.

“Finish me.”

I CAN’T! How much more of an explanation do you need. I can’t finish you. The circumstances surrounding my whole fucking life right now do not permit me to do so. I need answers. How much clearer do you need it? How much more do you want to hear? Do you want me to sing it to you? Write you a note? Play the fucking “Nutcracker Suite” with the words “I can’t” substituted in? It’s about as plain as can be. You aren’t going to get finished. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not until Frank Black makes himself a known party. If that happens in the next 30 minutes, hey great, we’ll sit down together just you and me and we’ll get some work done. We’ll take care of business but somehow I’m not so sure that’s going to happen. So just shut the fuck up.

“Finish me”

AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!! I threw the papers to the floor and I started stepping on them. Just stepping all over them, no mercy. You want to get finished? How about now? You finished now? You won’t be asking many more questions with footprints all over your back and tears all over your body. How are you enjoying this? Is this fun for you? Are you finished now? Huh? I don’t hear you talking now. What about now? Anything more to say? Anything else to share? I didn’t think so. I didn’t think you’d have anything more to say. And I kept stomping on the pages until I ran out of breath and my hair was all messed up and in my eyes, but I didn’t care. I just kept stepping until I finally backed off into my cube and sat down on the floor against the solid wall and buried my head into my hands rested against my knees.

My work was all over the floor. Everything that needed to get done was all over the floor. It wasn’t organized now and there was no way that I’d get it done in time. I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. I started to gather the papers together on the floor, attempting to organize them as I went but most of them weren’t dated, some of them were second and third pages of e-mails and still others had tears along the front that obscured pertinent organizational words, leaving me no real clue as to where anything belonged.

I didn’t know where to start.

---

“Hey Cam.”

I was still on the ground, only now my legs were extended flat against the floor. There were papers all over the place, all over me, all over the floor. Everywhere. Look at all of this paper. How many trees were needed to produce the paper that was splayed across my floor and held the information that I needed to complete my project? I mean, you have to be able to get at least one who package of paper out of one tree. Think about how big trees are. They’re huge. Even small trees are big.

My boss was standing in the entryway of my cubicle, looking down at me sitting on the floor. I had no explanation. Well, I had one. I just didn’t have a really viable explanation. Well, I had a viable explanation but I didn’t really have a viable explanation that I could share with the general public without being sent far, far away. So, really, I had no explanation for sitting on the floor of my office with all of my papers surrounding me in the middle of the work day, when I should be at my desk putting the finishing touches on a groundbreaking project.

“Hey boss.”

I stood up and the papers fell from my legs to the ground joining rest of their friends. I could barely even look at him. I know, boss, I know. I should be sitting at my desk working away. I should be calling you with last minute questions about the presentation style that you want this work in. I should be just polishing off the last piece of all of this before passing it off to you. I know all of that. Are you here to tell me all of that? Are you here to give me a condescending lecture about how disappointed you are? If you are here to do that, turn around and walk away because I don’t need this right now. I don’t need the extra aggravation right now. If that’s it, turn around, go back to your office and look in on Tommy and Tammy having sex across the street or whatever it is that you do with your spare time.

“I have some good news, Cam”

You have good news? What kind of good news? What do you know? Do you know something? Did you figure it out? Holy shit! Do you know who Frank Black is? Do you know? Are you going to tell me? I knew I liked you, you balding, stupid son of a bitch. I knew I liked you for a reason. You know who he is. Don’t keep me in suspense. Tell me. Tell me who it is. Is it the cleaning lady? That chick knows everything. It’s her, right? It’s the cleaning lady. It has to be. Oh my god, what should I do first? Thank you or brain her? Tell me already. Who? Who is it?

“Oh yeah? What kind of news?”

A minute ago, I was virtually comatose and now I felt like I was about to bust at the seams. Good news. God, I needed some good news. Any good news would suffice, especially good news about a certain musician who shall remain nameless that has a fixation with me. Good news would entail either his whereabouts or his identity would be the best news but clues as to either of them would constitute good news.

“I got a call from the client. The deadline has been pushed back two weeks, so we’re off the hook for today.”

What? Why? What do they know? Why are they pushing this deadline back? Is it me? What do they know about me? They know everything don’t they? They must have been here and seen me. They know about Frank Black. They know everything about he and I. That’s why they are doing this, isn’t it? Isn’t that it? That was one of them in the elevator with me this morning right? The guy who was here with the appointment? The one who stopped the elevator? He saw me. He knows. He knows all about Frank Black and he told the client all about him, didn’t he? Why would he do that?

They know about Frank Blank. What did they tell you about him? What did they tell you about me? They know everything and they must have told you when the extended the deadline. They must have told you all about this whole thing and they wanted to give you time to find someone else to do the job, don’t they? Isn’t that it? That has to be it. They want someone else. They don’t want me. They don’t want someone who thinks a rock musician is stalking him. They want someone else, someone smarter, brighter, happier, looser, nicer, sweeter, prettier, what? Isn’t that what they want? Why are they doing this to me? Don’t do this to me. I can do it. I swear I can. If it weren’t for Frank Black, all of this would have been done already. Goddammit, Frank Black. Why won’t you go the fuck away? Now they are extending the deadline and they are going to get someone else and I’m going to lose my job. Now I’m going to lose my job because of you, you miserable fuck. What am I going to do now? What the hell am I going to do? They extend the deadline, boss gets someone else, goodbye Cam. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

OK, don’t extend it. I can do it. I swear I can do it. Just give me the chance to. I can get it to you by five. I don’t need these papers. Fuck them. I can do it all. I know this stuff. Just give me a chance to do this. Give me a chance to get all of this done. I still have almost four hours to get it done. Don’t get rid of me. Don’t kick me out of here. I can do everything you need me to do, just leave me for four frenzied hours. All I need are these four hours. That’s it. Go away and come back and you’ll see. It’ll all be done. Everything that you need. Don’t let me go. Don’t kick me out of here. I can do it all. Everything and more.

“Great, boss. That’s great.”

I said it and I was sick to my stomach. The words barely even came out as words. In my head they were more like inaudible grunts, like a fat horse would make if you tried to ride him. Great. Just great, boss. Any more great news? Want to kick me in the stomach while you are here? Go ahead. Free shot. Well, no more frenetic dash to the finish line. No more only four hours left. The deadline is gone. Fourteen days left. I now had fourteen days left to take care of my project, that I s, until the brought someone else in to do it for me and relegated me to filing and phone duty until finally, mercifully, they let me go and I leave the building for the last time to whispers behind my back about my impropriety in the office and snickers about my poor attitude and behavior. That was my future here now. In the meantime, I was going to sit here for the rest of the day and play computer games. I might as well. I have fourteen days until my project is due.

---

Tired. So tired. I didn’t even know what to do I was so tired. I walked over to my boss’s office to see what his story was but his office was dark. That fucker had gone home for the day, no, for the weekend. I had forgotten it was Friday after all of that. If he was gone, I was going home also because I needed to get the hell out of this office. I went back to my cubicle and packed my workbag up and finished picking the papers up off of the floor from earlier in the day. I didn’t even know what time it was, didn’t know how long those papers had been sitting on the floor, didn’t know how many people had stepped on or over them during the intervening hours (minutes?).

I needed out of the office fast, so I just zipped up my bag and hightailed it to the elevator. I waited impatiently in front of the receptionist’s desk while she chatted me up about her weekend. Apparently, she and some girlfriends were having “girl’s night out” because they were all so sick of men and the dating scene and wasn’t it awful how there were all these expectations about girls need to have a guy. So we do this every once in a while to remind ourselves that we don’t need any guys. We like to have fun with each other. Isn’t that great, Cam?

I’m sure the men of the world are taking in a collective breath at the thought of you and your horrible friends taking yourselves off of the market for one night. I know that as I stand before you, I am not only disappointed but utterly terrified at the prospect of you and your stupid, giggly, hypnotically hair-curling friends being away from the scene for as long as four hours. What will we, the male community at large, do with ourselves while you, bubbly, talkative and wholly repellent you are not out there allowing us to view and savor every breath of your luminous and erotic personality? How can I survive? How will I go on? Please, I beseech you. Do not do this. The men of this city will not be able to function in any kind of meaningful way armed with the knowledge that you and your nauseatingly happy group of friends are not out there for them to have contact with. Please don’t do this to us. I implore you to look deep within yourselves and find the resolve to carry on. Please.

“Have a good weekend, Cam.”

I tried to work a smile onto my face, but it had to have come out looking a little like I was stifling a burp. The doors closed and took me down in a long, closing time journey, at which we stopped at every possible floor on the way down. As I said, I’m on forty-four, but this particular elevator skipped floors two through thirty, letting off passengers at thirty-one and higher. At forty-three, a portly gentleman wearing a Stetson hat and carrying an overcoat over his right arm got on the elevator and hit the door close button three times. At forty-two, a lady in a red dress that would make Nancy Reagan jealous got on the elevator and was humming some sort of showtune. Maybe Oklahoma? I couldn’t tell. At forty-one, a cleaning woman got on and hit the button for the fortieth floor which provoked the guy in the hat to look at his watch.

At forty, the cleaning woman got off the elevator and then a skinny guy about sixteen feet tall got on the elevator and stood right in front of me. At thirty-nine, I peeked around the tall guy and saw and other fat lady get on. At thirty-eight, a very pretty blonde got on which drew the attention of the tall guy in the form of him staring down her blouse. At thirty-seven, someone who looked too much like my Aunt Polly for me to be comfortable in the same elevator as her got on. At thirty-six, we all shuffled our feet a little closer to the wall to make room for a short, bald guy with a plaid jacket. I thought he looked a little like Joe Franklin to be honest. At thirty-five, a delivery guy got on the elevator. At thirty-four, I thought of the joke “How do you get twenty-five popes in a Volkswagen?” as a guy with a big puffy coat got on the elevator. At thirty-four, I started tapping my foot on the floor and getting claustrophobic and I missed the person who got on. At thirty-three, I prayed that this elevator ride would end soon because I was beginning to get pissed off. Oh and no one got on the elevator. The doors just opened. At thirty-two, the last person who could possibly occupy the remaining two square inches of space stuffed herself in, back to the elevator doors. At thirty-one, the last person who could possible occupy the remaining angstrom of space in the elevator stuffed himself in, cheek pressed against the elevator doors. And finally, there we were, over the weight limit for the elevator and careening toward the lobby.

We all spilled out of the elevator like popes in a Volkswagen when we hit the lobby and everyone scattered in different directions to go to their respective homes. I, no longer prepared to sleep, teeth and jaws clenched from my experience in the elevator, smashed uncomfortably against the backside of a guy who was nearly twice my size. I couldn’t go home now. I’d probably get cabin fever sitting in the apartment. Besides, I couldn’t sleep now. I wasn’t really hungry yet. That left just one option. Time to hit the bar. I needed a cold glass of beer and a metaphorical slap across the face from Pete.

I walked slowly this time, walking an entire block out of the way to avoid walking in front of the diner. I didn’t feel comfortable walking in front of the diner right now. I mean, what if she saw me peering into the glass earlier today? What would I say when I went in there? That I was looking for my jacket? I wasn’t wearing a stupid jacket, which I was coarsely reminded of as a jet of freezing cold air gusted up during the walk. I had nothing to say, just that I was afraid that she was going to leave me and I knew I couldn’t say that for a number of reasons. My teeth were chattering now and slamming into each other with such force it felt as if they were going to shatter. It was dark and it was cold and I wanted to get to the warming atmosphere of my friendly watering hole, so I could begin to warm the cockles of my heart with alcohol.

I opened the door to the bar and shuddered from the abrupt change in temperature. The bells above the door rang, alerting the half full bar that I had arrived and was ready to drink. Dozens of sets of eyes shot a look to the front of the bar at the jacketless guy who came into the bar alone. Yes, folks, that’s right. I’m not wearing a jacket AND I’m alone. Let’s all whisper to each other what a shame it is for him to be alone and who’s not smart enough to wear a jacket out in this freezing cold weather. Yes, I get it. I’m not as smart as you are, the general population of jacket wearing people. Can we move on please? I walked up to the bar and grabbed my usual stool, setting my workbag against the bar beneath my feet. I rubbed my forearms to generate a little bit of heat.

“Pete, a shot of Jack and a beer.”

I looked up. Wait a minute. Who the hell are you? You aren’t supposed to be behind the bar. Where’s Pete? What did you do with Pete? Pete serves me beer. You don’t serve me beer. Who the fuck are you? What are you doing here? What happened to Pete? Is he hurt? In the hospital? Did a car hit him? Oh my god. Did Frank Black come here? Holy shit. Frank Black was here. What did Frank Black do to Pete? Did he torture him for information? Did he kill him? It’s all my fault. Jesus, Pete, it’s all my fault. If he hadn’t been following me, he would have never done this to you. He would have never come to this bar and done whatever it is that he did. He would have just gotten to me. And now he got to you. Oh, Pete, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. He should have never been here. It’s my fault. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I didn’t know. I swear to god, I didn’t know. Pete, you have to believe me. You have to. This should never have happened. It would never have happened if it weren’t for me.

When did Frank come here? What did he look like? You have to tell me. Tell me. Because I will find him. I will hunt him down. I will not let him get away with this. He’s going to pay for what he did to Pete, whatever he did to Pete. Tell me what he did to Pete and tell me what he looked like, so I can go get him. I’ll bring him back here and we’ll all take turns pounding on him. We’ll all take turns making things right, making things even. Pete shouldn’t have had to suffer. Pete should have had to have this happen to him because of me. It’s all my fault. I feel awful. What can I do to make up for this? What will make all of this all right? What will help? Will anything help? Pete had so much to deal with. With his wife and his kids and they all died and now something has happened to him. What can I do to make things straight with the universe for Pete’s sake? How can I fix this? We need to find him. We need to find that motherfucker and make him pay. He needs to pay for what he’s done. We cannot let him get away with this. We just cannot. We need to make Frank Black pay.

“Pete’s gone. I’m Sam. Here are your drinks. Seven bucks, kid.”

Pete’s gone. I knew it. I knew it. He’s gone. Frank Black got him. Frank fucking Black got him. Who’s next? Am I next? Holy shit. I’m next. It’s coming down to it. First Maggie, all of that shit with Maggie. Now Pete. Now he’s done something too Pete. Who knows what? Obviously something so terrible and so gruesome that the new guy, Sam or whatever, isn’t even saying what it is. And it’s all my fault. This guy is hitting all of the people close to me. I bet I’m next. I have to be next. He’s going to come for me next. I have to be prepared. I have to be ready for him. Think Cam. What can you do to make yourself ready for this bastard? What can you do to prepare yourself? Don’t fucking forget about this because he’s going to come when you least expect it. You know that. You have to stay ready. No sleep, no nothing. Just vigilance.

“Pete’s gone? He was just here yesterday. Where is he?”

Is he ice fishing? Did he go skiing, tobogganing? Did he go to visit a distant and dying relative? Let me cut to the chase. Will he be back? Or is he gone? Has a short, balding former rock star taken him away? Which one is it? Is it gone or is it “gone”? Please let me know because I getting sick to my stomach. I’m getting a bad feeling right now and it’s beginning to get to me. If he’s “gone”, then I might be gone. I don’t know what I’d do. I’d never be able to forgive myself. Never. I would be completely and wholly responsible. I led Frank Black here. I drove him to action. I was the one who made Frank Black do what he did. It’s all my fault. Why? Why the fuck did this have to happen to Pete?

“He’s just gone. Do you want to read the note he left?”

Note? He left a note? What kind of note would Pete leave? Is the note for me? What would Pete have put in a note? I was confused. I guess the fact that there’s a note at all means that Frank Black didn’t get to him. Did Frank Black make him write a note? Or maybe it was a suicide note? Why would Pete kill himself? That’s so stupid. He wouldn’t ever do that. He’d kill one of the people that came in here and ordered a fucking Cosmopolitan before he’d kill himself. That much I knew but that was about it, it seemed. A note. Very odd.

“Um, could I? Thanks.”

Sam (Steve? No, Sam was right) walked to the register and ca-chinged it open. It was one of those big old gold things that had actual bells inside that ca-chinged when you hit the little keys that needed to be pushed down forcefully to register anything. The numbers in the glass were little pieces of metal that had a point at the top and popped up with the each strong pressing of the keys. Sam opened the drawer and reached under the bill tray. He fished around for a bit, looking away from the register toward the ceiling, with his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth. He found something and withdrew a piece of lined paper from beneath the tray.

“Here you go.”

I took the paper from him and opened it slightly apprehensively. I had no idea what the contents of this letter were going to provide. Was it insight? Would he tell me what happened to him? Was there anything in there specifically for me? If I knew Pete, and I think I did, it would be something good.


Jimmy –

Time to move on. I took a quick stock before I left. We need white wine up front. There should be some in the back fridge. Sam is going to cover for me at night until you find someone to replace me. I counted the money out and left him a full drawer. That’s about it. It’s been fun.

Pete

P.S. Sam, the guy in the corner, Cam? Cut him a break on a couple of beers. He’s a good kid.


And that was it. Time to move on, says Pete. Time to move on. Why? No reason. It was just time. I didn’t like it but I had to respect it. He’d done it before. I knew that from all of the stories he told me, about all of the places he’d been, from Seattle to Saskatchewan. He’d tended bar in more cities than I had even wanted to go to. He knew it. He felt it. It was time to move on. And I understood. It didn’t make it any easier to deal with. It still kind of hurt a little bit.

All of these people in this bar know probably don’t even know. They look behind the bar and they see a new face, but they probably go to a different bar every night. They don’t know Pete. Well, they know Pete. They’ve probably seen him behind the bar. They just don’t know Pete. They don’t know that he went to a rodeo in Calgary and got to ride a real bronco, not one of those stupid mechanical ones that they have in bars, and almost got gored to death by the thing. They don’t know that. They know that he can pour 5 shots in 5 seconds, that’s what they know.

I wonder where he went now. How far was he going to go? Was he just going to go a few miles in some direction? Or did he hitch a ride in a tractor-trailer to Maine or Florida? Or had he saved a little and gotten on a plane to Europe? Maybe he decided it was time to help people and see another continent by foot and thumb. Wherever he went, there were some lucky folks. They get to hang with him now and listen to all of his stories, like the time he entered the potato-eating contest in Idaho and threw up on the judges’ table.

You don’t think … you don’t think Frank Black drove him away do you? I mean, why not? Frank Black was going to try to drive Maggie away. He was going to try to make her go somewhere else and help other people, people other than me. Why wouldn’t he try the same with Pete? Maybe he told him that I was thinking about smashing the jukebox? Do you think he told him that and Pete left because he didn’t want to hang around to see it? Frank Black drove Pete out of here. Why wouldn’t Pete mention that in the letter? Do you think Frank Black threatened him? Pete was tough. He could handle it. Maybe he threatened something to me and told Pete if he didn’t leave something was going to happen. That could be. What was Frank Black going to do to me? He was going to do something to me anyway. I couldn’t trust Frank Black, not after everything he’s done. Not after all of the shit that he’s pulled. I couldn’t trust him at all. Shit. I had to do something.

I folded the letter and handed it back to Sam, who smiled and took it from me. He put it back in the drawer with a ca-ching and then went off to serve a couple on the other side of the bar. What could I do? I needed to protect myself now. This was getting serious. Frank Black was driving the people closest to me away. He was penetrating the very essence of my life, the people that I surrounded myself with. I needed to find a way to fend him off, to stop him from getting to me. What could I do? How would I accomplish this? I needed a plan.

“Are you Cam?”

I looked up and saw Sam standing in front of me. He walked quietly and quickly. I was going to have to get used to that I suppose. I pushed back the shot of Jack and took a quick sip of the beer. I nodded affirmatively. I was indeed Cam. Cam Gordon, to be exact. I’m Cam and you are Sam. We’re going to get to know each other pretty well over the next bit of time that you are here, Sam. So tell me. What’s your story? What is there to Sam? Tell me something, Sam that not too many people know about Sam the man. Say something to me that me that will make me know what Sam the bartender is all about because Pete was a fucking cool guy. Pete was a wise man. Say something, Sam that will put me at ease. Something that says Sam is a fucking cool guy.

“This one’s on the house, Cam.”

Sam is a fucking cool guy.

---

I took off my glasses and rubbed my almost entirely red eyes. I took some eye drops out of my bag and tried to get them into my eyes. But I was drunk, so every time I tried, I hit just under my eye or my forehead. The drops were cool against my skin and I let them run along my face with my head tilted back. One went in my ear and that tickled so I sat up quickly and wiped my face off. I hated that I had to wear glasses or contacts and couldn’t really see without them. I picked my glasses up off the bar and put them on and things began to come back into focus, although not fully because my head and sight were foggy from the booze.

It was time to go. Time to move on, as Pete would say. Although Pete was moving miles and miles on and I was only going to be moving on about 3 blocks north of here, I still felt the pull out the door. It was indeed time to go. My body was saturated and warm with alcohol and I needed to go home and get myself together. I had to formulate a plan to make sure that Frank Black stayed away. There was going to be a time when I was going to have to fend off Frank Black. Somewhere in the near future, it was going to happen. I was going to have a face-to-face confrontation with Frank Black and I was going to have to be prepared. It had happened to Maggie. It had happened to Pete. I was next. I had to be next on the list.

I asked Sam to watch my workbag and I walked to the bathroom. It was all the way at the back of the bar and I had to fight through a crowd that had swelled considerably since I’d last sat down. On the way over, I noticed Frank the old guy at the other side of the bar and I waved over to him. He tipped his hat slightly and examined his shot in the dim light behind the bar. I navigated the tables and chairs that filled the open space alongside the bar and finally managed to get to the bathroom, only spilling three or four people’s drinks along the way. I thought about signaling Sam to refill the drinks but thought better of it. How many drinks had I sacrificed to the wayward elbows and hands of drunken folks over the years? Dozens. And so would these bar patrons have to curse the gods for the loss of that which they were to imbibe.

The bathroom was empty and my footsteps echoed off of the yellow linoleum that lined the walls and floor. I walked over to the sink and splashed some water on my face, avoiding taking a glance into the mirror. I didn’t want to see me. I had no desire to see me as I looked right now. I couldn’t even look into my own eyes. They didn’t tell me the story that I wanted to hear. I walked over to the urinal and unzipped. This was the best feeling that I’d had in days. This release after hours of alcohol consumption was the best I’d felt in days. This cleansing brought me relief. And relief was a word that had eluded my grasp for what seemed like an eternity.

The door opened and another man joined me at the urinal. He took the one directly next to me. Why would he do that? Why would he stand right next to me? The third urinal, not directly next to me was open. Why wouldn’t he take that one? Everyone knows the rules of the male bathroom. If it’s at all possible to not stand next to another guy in the bathroom, you do it. You revert to the stall if necessary. And here this guy was standing right next to me.

What should I do? Should I glance in his direction? Give him the evil eye and maybe he’ll apologize. Should I turn and spray all over him, so he knows that he violated one of the most sacred packs among men? Should I just start violently coughing all over him so he’ll freak out and get the hell out of this bathroom? This bathroom that was so peaceful with its non-threatening yellow walls and the sense of relaxation that it brought to me while I was alone. What? What will drive this man away from my personal space? Should I try to take a peek at his package? That would probably work the best. That’s rule two of the male code. Don’t sneak a look at another guy’s package. However, this character seems to be wholly unacquainted with the male code.

Why are you here? Did you know that I was having the single moment of serenity that I’ve had in my life over the last week right now and you sought to destroy it? Is that it? Did someone send you here to disrupt the one single moment of peace that I’ve had in a long time? Who sent you? Who sent you here to disturb my reverie? Who sent you to take this one single moment away from me? Was it him? Was it Frank Black? Did he send you here? Did he make you come in here to take my piss away from me? Did he?

Or are you him? Are you him, you son of a bitch? Did you come here to finally get to me? After you took Maggie aside and told her all about me? After you threatened Pete and made him leave town? After all of that, is it finally my turn? I should rip your face off you asshole. I should take you apart piece by piece right here, right now and make you wish that you had never even heard the name Cam Gordon. That’s what I should do. Are you ready for that? In fact, while you are taking a piss, I’ll start with your dick and work my way out to your extremities. How would you like that, you sick fuck? Would you like that, you jackass? I will end you. I WILL FUCKING END YOU RIGHT NOW!!

And the guy flushed and went to the sink to wash his hands. He took a little bit of soap out of the dispenser, washed his hands and dried them and then left. I was left alone in the bathroom again. I was left to my peaceful moment of excretion, which had ended somewhere in the middle of my accusing this guy of being Frank Black. The moment was gone and I was left to wonder just who it was that was stalking me and how I could begin to prepare myself against the eventual. How could I prepare myself for the moment that he confronted me? That’s what I was left to decide.

I went back to the bar and settled my tab with Sam. I slung my bag over my shoulder and started to walk to the door. I stopped and turned back to the jukebox, which was dark. I fished a dollar out of my pocket and started to walk over toward the corner, where the jukebox was. It had a hundred CDs in there. One hundred discs to choose from. Normally, I didn’t put the music on because I liked to hear the sound of myself thinking and the jukebox was loud enough to shake the pictures on the wall. I was going to leave after the first few lines of the song anyway, so it didn’t really matter. The effort of putting on the song was largely symbolic.

I took the dollar, which was crumpled from being stuffed into the pocket of my pants and smoothed it out along the side of the metal jukebox, which was bolted into the wall. I put the dollar into the slot, but it came back out at me. Not smooth enough. I repeated the smoothing procedure and tried again. Still not smooth enough. How smooth do you need the dollar bill? Does it have to be straight from the mint or can it be slightly used? I smoothed the bill out again, this time laying it flat along the top of the jukebox and smoothing it on one side. Then I flipped it over and smoothed again. This time the dollar was accepted and I was granted three (Three? Shouldn’t I get like ten songs for a dollar?) songs to select. I needed only one. I typed in “forty-six, ten” and left the other two songs for someone else.

I turned and walked toward the door. Behind me the jukebox came to life and clicked and whirred. The guitar kicked in and the song began:

“We needed something to move and fill up the space.
We needed something. This always is just the case.
Jefrey with one f Jefrey took up his place.
Sat on a carpet with tablas in hand, took up the chase.
Jefrey with one f Jefrey.
Now it occurred to me as he drove away.
d = r x t”

You hear that, Frank Black? You hear that music? I’m going to be ready. I’m going to be ready when you come for me. This is your song, friend. These are your words. “d = r x t.” Distance equals rate times time. Where are you, Frank Black? Are you near or are you far? Are you in this bar right now? Are you waiting for me outside? Did you see Pete off as he started his new journey? Wherever you are, I’ll figure it out. It’s pretty easy. You gave me the tools. Distance equals rate times time. You hear me? Do I need to scream it for you?

Without looking, I held up my hand and waved.

“Goodnight, Sam”

---

It was after eleven now, the sky dark and the star muted by the bright lights of the city below. The sky was clear though, so clear. Who cleaned all the smog off of the lens of the sky to make it like this tonight? It was clear here tonight for the first time that I could remember since I’d moved here. I’d never seen the sky like this. My building had a roof that you were allowed to walk out onto, so I ran home and went up there to get a better look above some of the shorter buildings that surrounded my block.

“Cam, it’s time. You need to come back inside now.”

It’s time? No. Not now. Not yet. The stars just came out. I want to sit with them for a little while. Can’t I sit here with the stars for just a little while? Look at them. Can’t you just look up at the sky for one second and see them. They are so bright. And they twinkle. It’s like they are winking at me. They are winking at me, Cam Gordon, right here on Earth. Isn’t that good? Doesn’t that mean something? It does to me. The stars are winking at me. We share a secret. Don’t you understand? Let me stay out here just a little while longer. I only need a little while longer to sit here and look at them. They help me. Can’t you see that they help me? Look up at the sky. Do you see them all? There are so many. Look at how many there are. There are a zillion of them. Who put them all there? How did they get there?

“In a minute, Nurse.”

Just one minute. Can I have one more minute to look up at the sky? It’s so clear tonight. It’s so clear out here in the middle of nowhere, with only trees leaves to block the sky. There are no buildings except the hospital. You have all the space you want to look up and see everything that you possibly can. And on a night like tonight, it would be impossible to see everything. Look at it all. Look at the moon. The moon is so bright that I have to squint to look right at it. It’s lighting up the whole field back here. It’s a milky white glow. Can’t you see the glow that it casts all over? Look at the trees and the leaves and the grass. Look at all of it. It’s all sort of hazy and white. And bright! My god, it’s bright enough to see out here without any help at all.

“Cameron, come inside now.”

Don’t make me go back in there, Nurse. Don’t make me go back inside right now. I can’t. I need to stay out here and watch the sky. I need to look at the stars. I need all the help I can get and the stars, they help me. Look at how beautiful they are. Look at the patterns they make. Forget the stupid constellations. Make your own patterns. Connect the dots. Anything you want is up there, anything at all. Just connect the dots and make it so. Don’t you see that? It’s all possibility. It’s all right there in front of you. Make it what you want it to be. Do what you need to do, but just let me stay out here. Let me keep making things happen in the sky. Don’t make me go inside. Not now. There’s so much out here. Leave me here. Just one more minute, five more, ten more, something. I need to stay out here.

“Please, Nurse, just another minute.”

Just one more minute. Don’t take me inside, not yet. Please leave me out here with the stars. I don’t want to go back inside. God, I’m only 16, why are you doing this to me? Why won’t you let me have this, these 2 more minutes with the stars and the moon and the trees and their glow? That’s all I want. Don’t make me go back in there. Don’t make me go inside, into the hospital. Not yet. I can’t go back in there yet. Don’t make me go back in there. I can’t. I need to be out here. Forget the sky. Look at the grass. The air is cooling and condensation is forming all over the grass. Little beads of water are forming on the blades of grass beneath my feet. Look at the grass. It’s so green. Even in the milky white of the moon, it’s green, bright bright green. Did you paint this grass? Is it fake? It has to be fake. This grass can’t be real. It can’t be real and so I pick it. I pull it from the ground and roll it in my hands and it’s real. I can pull it apart and here the little ripping sounds that it makes and it’s torn in too. It’s real. The grass is real and so green. And so much, it stretches out in the back here forever. There’s so much grass. Can I roll in it? Can I get on the ground and roll in it? Forget the sky. This is what I need. I need to get down in the grass and roll around in it. Let me roll in the grass. I know it’s wet but it’s grass and it’s green and here it is. I’ll run in it instead. Can I take my shoes off and run in the grass? That’s what I want to do. Let me run in the grass. The cool water on my feet will feel good and I can run for a mile or something. Can I do that?

“Cameron, I’m going to get the men now.”

NO! Wait. Don’t get the men. I just need another minute and then I’ll come in, I swear. I swear I’ll come in, just one minute. I only need one more minute in the grass here with the stars and the moon and the glow and the haze. That’s all I need. Please don’t call the men. Don’t call the men. I’ll be right there. Don’t call the men. I’m just a kid. Don’t call them on me. I just need to be outside for another minute. Is that so bad? Is that a sin? It can’t be. Not wanting another minute with the outside. That can’t be bad. It can’t be. Please don’t call the men. I’m on my knees, here in the grass, the wet grass. I’m on my knees and all I want is another minute. That’s all I want here. Can’t you do that for me? Can’t you give me my minute to stay out here? Why are you doing this to me? Why must you begrudge me this one moment out here? Why? You are supposed to be helping me here. You and your friends with the white coats. You are supposed to be helping me here at the hospital. This is helping me, out here. In there isn’t. In there isn’t helping me. I need to be here, for just one more minute. That’s all I need. WHY CAN’T YOU GIVE THAT TO ME?

What? Who is that? No, please. Stop it. I’ll come in. Just stop that please. You got the men. I can’t believe you got the men. All I wanted was one minute. God, stop it. Please stop it. I’ll come inside. Just let me go. Let go of me. LET GO OF ME! I’m going to kick you. I’m going to kick. Did that one get you? Put me down. I’ll go inside. Please just let me go. God, what are you doing to me? What is that? NO! Stop it, please, stop it. I’ll be good. I swear, I’ll be good. I’ll come inside. I’ll come inside right now. Not the jacket. Please not the jacket. I can’t take the jacket. I just wanted to be with the stars here and the grass. That’s all I wanted. Stars. Grass. Please, just put me down. I’ll go inside. I’ll go quietly. I’ll go to bed. I’ll lay there still, you won’t even hear me at all. Please, put me down now. Put me down, put me down. PLEASE! I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything you want. Just put me down. Please. Get my arms out of here. I can’t move my arms in here. I just want to look up at the sky. Why did you put me in this thing? Why? I only want one minute, just one minute to look up. Let me out of this. I’ll do anything you want. I’ll do it all. Look, I’m walking. I’m walking inside. Please. Let me go. I’ll go right to my room, right to bed. Let me go please let me go. LET ME GO! LET ME GO! GOD, LET ME GO!

“Stop squirming, Cameron. We’ll let you out upstairs.”

I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you. You aren’t going to let me out. You are going to keep me in this thing all night. You are going to bring me somewhere else. You are going to bring me to some other room, not my room, some other one. The one with the padding? Are you going to bring me to the room with the padding? The room where I can’t even hear myself scream and I can’t even move? I just have to sit in the corner and hope and pray, pray, pray that you’ll let me out soon. Don’t take me there. Please not there. Just take me up to my room. I’ll go to my room. I’ll go to bed. Right now, I’ll go to bed and sleep. If I can’t sleep, I’ll lay there. I’ll lie there still and quietly and you won’t even hear me. You won’t hear a thing. Where are we going? Please just tell me where we’re going? Is this my room? Is this it? Is this my room? Oh my god, it’s my room. My room! Let me out of this thing. Please, I’ll just get right into bed. I’ll stay there all night. Please, let me out of this thing. Please. My arms. I can move my arms. Oh god, I can move my arms. Thank you. Thank you for letting out of this. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.

“Take you pill and go to sleep, Cam.”

Yes, my pill. Of course, my pill. I’ll take it. Where is it? Just give it to me and I’ll get right into bed and go to sleep. I’ll get right under the covers. Under the white bed sheet and the blue blanket. The coarse blue blanket that seems so bright against these white walls. I’ll get right into bed. The pill is blue also. The blanket is blue and the pill is blue. They are both blue. My steps are slower. My steps are a little slower. Why are my steps slower? I can make it to the bed. It seems so far away. Can you help me? You, in the white jacket right there. Take my arm. Help me over to the bed. It’s so far away. I can’t make it that far. Pull the covers back. Pull them back. I’m heavy. Why am I so heavy? I need to sit, no lie down. I need to lie down. Close you eyes. Close them. Easy to close. So hard to keep open. It’s dark now. So dark. Go to the darkness, Cameron. Go to the darkness. It’s warm. Go to it. Don’t pull back. Darkness. Dark.

(gasp)