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  “Oh, Jimmy. Why won’t you just come home and let me take care of you? You’re all alone there.”

  “Home? To your new house in the buttfuck-middle-of-nowhere? With your uncle-of-the-month? That’s not home.”

  I can see her face in my mind, contorting at my nasty language. So deeply offended by her own terrible, broken son.

  “Why do you insist on talking to me like that? I didn’t raise you to . . .”

  “You barely raised me at all, Ma. You and your boyfriends.”

  I know it’s harsh, but my head hurts. My day has sucked. This is what she does. Cut me off, make me wait to get attention on her terms. Her schedule. She’s in control. I’m at fucking work. How many times have I told her not to call me at work?

  “James!”

  Here come the hollow tears, the improvised hysterics. Next would be the guilt trip. The poor-single-mother, making-ends-meet-any-way-I-could speech.

  “Ma. I’m sorry, Ma,” I offer, caving in to my ingrained Catholic/Baptist/Mormon/Whatever-the-fuck guilt. I’ve been brainwashed by the best. “I haven’t been sleeping. I’ve been having those dreams again.”

  Silence on the other end of the phone.

  “Ma?”

  “You’ve been dreaming about her again?” she asks, quiet and pointed. Always to the obvious. How dare I dream about some girl when poor mother has sacrificed her whole life for me?

  How could I not wonder? I don’t even know who she is. All I have is this nightmare. This nightmare, and her. My mother won’t tell me why she’s in my dreams, calling out some other kid’s name, won’t tell me who the girl is, why we’re running. What we’re running from.

  “The little girl, Ma. Emma.” Even saying the name feels strange, like it’s lighting some magic lantern deep in my belly, some tiny warm light way down deep inside. All the more motivation to rub it in my mother’s face. “Tell me about Emma.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, son,” she declares. Hard and fast. Shutting me down with that slight Irish brogue slipping into her voice the way it does on those rare occasions when her meagre instincts for mothering pop up, like some long forgotten quote. Like how to be a mother is something she remembers, but can’t place. Something she has no context, or use for, but sticks in there anyways. For a broken boy with no past, it sure adds a salty aftertaste of neglect.

  “Ma, don’t lie to me. I know that was her name. I know she was real. I feel it. I just can’t quite remember.” I’m forgetting I’m at work. I don’t even care anymore. I need to know something, anything. Athwart the gloom.

  “I really don’t know . . .” Rolling the r’s, dragging the o’s.

  “Ma!” I shout into the phone.

  “If there was a girl you knew in Bensonhall, I truly don’t remember it! Now stop this nonsense!”

  Bensonhall? What the hell is Bensonhall?

  I’d never heard that name. Had I?

  “Was that the town? Bensonhall? Is that where we’re from, Ma? Is that where we left him?”

  “I have to go, James.”

  “Ma? Tell me the truth. One fucking time!” I’m out of my chair, gripping the phone so tight that my hand aches. “MA?”

  “Goodbye, Jimmy.”

  “MA? What the fuck! MA!”

  She’s gone. The click followed by the subtle static of the line resetting. I slam the phone down into its cradle. Over and over, willing it to knock against my mother’s head with all the intent of my impotent fury.

  “FUCK!”

  Faces are lining the tops of the cubicles, peeking around the corners. All the little rat faces, looking for their crumbs. Benoit is standing frozen with one hand on the copy machine. All eyes on Jimmy Finn’s crazy ass. Jimmy’s having a nervous breakdown. Did you hear about Jimmy Finn in records?

  I can smell Chanel No.5 and mocha latte, and hear the soft steps of Margaret’s flats, plodding quickly down the hallway carpet.

  “Jimmy Finn! What in the hell is going on here?”

  Margaret, red-faced and eyes bulging. There’s a tiny vein popping at the corner of her forehead, just under a wisp of curly brown hair. It’s too bad. I kind of like Margaret. She was always decent. Never gave me a hard time, unless I wasn’t doing the job. I never heard Margaret gossiping around corners or fucking around in the supply closet. I never smelled secrets on Margaret. Now I was disappointing her. Just like Officer Friendly. I was the asshole here. Best to just walk away. I’m done.

  I know I’m done. She knows I’m done.

  I fumble around for the bottle from underneath the desk, gather up my sopping wet sweatshirt and my bag.

  “What are you all looking at?” she shouts at the rat-faces. “Get back to work!”

  When she opens her mouth, the rich chocolate-coffee smell overtakes the sweetness of her perfume.

  I step past her into the hallway, holding my breath against both.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” she asks. Then her face twists as the strong peat-moss whiff of scotch finally wafts up to her nose. “Jesus, Jimmy!” She waves a hand in front of her face.

  “I’m sorry, Margaret. I am sorry. I’m sorry.” Guilt overtaking fury.

  I walk off down the hall, not even waiting for her to finish the thought. She doesn’t move. She takes a deep breath and sighs, her smells following me all the way down the hall, until I shut her behind me with the stairwell door.

  7

  “I RECEIVED A call from you mother, James. She’s quite concerned about you. After this latest incident, I can’t say as I blame her.”

  I’m sitting in my usual spot, tucked into an overstuffed armchair, facing good ol’ Doctor Rhodes. Rhodes with his bald head and his white beard. I just want my drugs. I have to sit through the bullshit and beg like a leper for alms, but I need him to up my prescription and do it in a hurry, before I get any worse. I’ve already been arrested, lost my job, started drinking again. This is how it always begins.

  I shuffle in my seat, adjusting, picking at a seam along the arm. How long have I been sitting here? An hour a week, at least? For, what? Twenty-eight years? Do that fucking math. That’s like four years’ worth of days. 1500 hours, give or take. That’s like me sitting here in this goddamn chair for two full months, night and day, staring at this asshole, listening to all the ways that I’m fucked up.

  “Do you just have a warehouse full of these fucking chairs?”

  “Excuse me?”

  I savour the shock in his voice. Just like Ma. Watch your language, James!

  “These chairs. I swear it’s the same damn chair I’ve sat in every week for my entire life. But it can’t possibly be the same chair, can it? It’s like brand new. So I’m thinking that you have a warehouse full of this shitty, uncomfortable chair, bought on clearance sometime around 1980.”

  “What are we avoiding, James?” Rhodes with his pandering tone, staring down over the shiny rim of his glasses. Always toying with them, shifting them. I could smell the nervous on him whenever I walked in the room . . . but of course that was all in my mind. Another delusion in my broken, sideways mind.

  “I’m avoiding your bullshit, Doc. You telling me all the ways I’m failing to be a proper human. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around, Doc? Aren’t you supposed to listen to me? About my problems?”

  Rhodes adjusts his glasses again. I can smell the salt in his sweat. I can taste it, mixing with his Old Spice.

  “As you say. Tell me about these problems, then. Tell me about the incident last night.”

  I sit. Quiet. Just for a minute, and stare at him. Fixing him with my eyes. He can never look me in the eyes.

  “What’s to tell? I got drunk. I fell asleep. I puked on a poor, brave officer of the law, and he ran me into the drunk tank. What was he supposed to do?”

  “When did you start drinking again, James?”

  I can feel the snarl forming on my face. “You really haven’t listened to me once, have you? Do you have any idea what it’s like?”
The anger is welling up in my chest, swelling like a balloon. I know it shows in my face. I can see it, reflected on his face. His fear, it’s like a pulsating light, leaking out of every hole in his head.

  “Do you know? What it’s like? Hearing things? Every thing? Smelling things so loud that it knocks me on my goddamn knees? I have to pinch my fucking nose shut when I fill up at the gas station. Do you know what that’s like? The looks I get, standing at the pump ready to puke, hand clamped over my face?”

  He’s twitching. A tiny involuntary muscle on the side of his forehead, in his temple. “If you’re drinking again, with your medication . . .”

  “Well, the pills don’t do anything for me! I can’t walk down the street without being assaulted by chaos! So yeah, Doc! I drink. I smoke weed.” Mocking him now, shrugging demurely, tenting fingers over my face. “I smoke . . . marijuana!”

  “We’ve talked about this, James. Without proper medication, your symptoms will take over and you will lose touch with reality.”

  “Jimmy. How hard is it to just call me Jimmy?”

  “These delusions of yours require medication. You don’t want to be institutionalized again.”

  He uses that word like a scalpel. Like a real doctor, for once. Slicing right through my skin and poking at my bones. Cold and sharp and purposeful. Regaining his control. Better doctoring through intimidation.

  I feel the muscles knotting in my neck, between my shoulders. The knife is still there, wedged between bones, ready for him to twist and separate. I crack knuckles and push back against it, wondering if I’ll actually hear something clatter to the floor. The scent of strawberries and Brazilian dark roast distracts me. The nurse back from her break, strawberry tart wrapped in cellophane, next to her little cup of coffee—double sweet, double cream. I breathe deep and play my hand.

  “You want to hear about my delusions, Doc? Is that the idea? You naughty boy.” I know what to tell him. He wants to hear the juicy stuff. In my experience there’s two types of shrinks. The ones fascinated by human behaviour, who might actually want to help somebody . . . and sick fucks like Rhodes, who just want a contact crazy high.

  “The other day, I was outside on my balcony, just sitting there, having coffee. About the only place I’m not totally overwhelmed by noise and lights and chaos . . .”

  “James, we need to discuss the medication, especially if your drinking problem has . . .”

  I let the smile come, wide and devilish. I’m staring through him with my eyes, owning him like an x-ray. He’s no more human than a coat rack.

  “I’m sitting up there, minding my own business. Looking out across the city. This woman—a girl, really—maybe nineteen or twenty . . . she comes into view in her kitchen, across the street, and I can smell her. Two-hundred feet away. Thirty stories up. Her window is open, but she’s inside. I’m sniffing her out. I’m opening my nostrils at the scent of her, breathing her in. Because she’s bleeding. Between her legs, Doc. I can smell it. I can taste it in the back of my throat, sweet and salty. I’m swallowing it, drinking it up. I get hot all over, sweating, even though it’s cold outside. The rest of my senses peak with it. It’s rising in my chest, in my stomach, in my balls. I’m hard as a rock, and I’m watching now. I’m seeing her like I’m looking through binoculars. Every little movement, every twitch of her muscles. Her long legs are folded at the knee, her t-shirt barely covering her to mid-thigh. I realize I’m fucking growling. Growling. Like an animal. And all of a sudden I’m starving, my stomach is cramping, I’m so hungry. I have this urge to jump off of the balcony, like I could just bounce, and bound, and run across the nothingness between us in a few powerful leaps, like I could fly through the air and catch her and tear those legs right off of the bones and swallow them whole . . .”

  I’m keeping my voice low, feeling the tension build in Rhodes’ joints, feeling him squirm and twitch. More than that, I’m back on the balcony, tasting her again on the back of my tongue. Licking my lips, feeling my eyes roll back in my head. Knowing that Rhodes is dying inside. Wanting to chain me, to diagnose me, to stick me with some Latinate medical name—slap it on the label on my jar and watch me bang and clatter against the glass—but he can’t. He doesn’t know if it’s real, or if I’m fucking with him. He doesn’t know if I’m going to laugh, or bite his fucking face off.

  Rhodes tugs at his collar and clears his throat.

  “Well. Yes.” He stammers, “About the drinking though.”

  I’ve got him now. I know it. He knows it. I can smell the lust overtaking the fear.

  “You want to know what I did then, Doc?”

  Rhodes sits rigid, holding his breath. He’s a deer in the headlights.

  I let a wide grin peel the lips from my teeth, let Rhodes see those long dog-teeth and wonder what I’m going to do. What I’m going to say. Let him shudder at his own deviance for once.

  “What I did then, Doc? I went inside, and I opened the fridge, Doc. I pulled out a fresh new rib-eye I was planning on grilling up that night. I tore open the plastic and I jammed that fucking meat into my mouth, and I tore it apart. I tore her apart. I ripped and bit and gnawed at that slab of raw meat until I had devoured every last bit of it, blood and fat and gristle, and then I licked that package clean, man.”

  I flick my tongue at him, let him want the feel of it, bursting in his mouth, blood running down his throat. He smiles. A terrible, tooth-filled smile. I had him.

  “Next time I’ll warm it up first. Leave it out in the sun while I look at her there, across the street, out on her balcony, safe and unaware on the thirtieth floor.”

  Rhodes finally takes a breath, shuddering slightly as he draws a lungful through his nose.

  “How’s that, Doc?” I ask him. “Is that what you’re looking for? You old pervert.”

  “James!”

  “Just give me the script so I can go home.” I sink back into that chair. That goddamn overstuffed, miserable chair.

  Rhodes is still twisting and shuffling in his chair, trying to cover up his erection with the clipboard.

  “We’ve, uh, covered this many, many times, James.”

  He’s back into his spiel. Shifty, shifty Doctor Rhodes.

  “You create these neuroses for yourself, and project these deviant desires onto others . . . onto me . . . in order to absolve yourself of your true feelings. Your feelings of abandonment, of loneliness. To escape the memories of your childhood abuse.”

  “You want to know how I feel?” I hold up one finger of each hand. “That’s how I feel.”

  “You have to harness your anger and face these issues, James.”

  My fingers are digging into the arms of the chair. I want to tear that thing to fucking shreds. I want to tear him to fucking shreds.

  “What issues? That I’m fucking crazy? That you and my mother have twisted me up into some kind of human pretzel for your own amusement?”

  I’ve got a thread loose. One little thread from the arm of that goddamn chair.

  “About your mother, James.”

  “What about her? The only thing she’s ever given me is grief. And this fucking poem I can’t get out of my head.”

  “What poem, James? Can you tell me the poem? Surely, that shows a connection with your mother. She is very worried about your well-being.”

  “Fuck her,” I say, still picking at the thread. “Fuck you.”

  The thread pops. Unravelling, spinning out of control, springing out in an endless loop under my fingers.

  “There’s no need for that language. As you have pointed out yourself, James. We have been friends for a very long time, have we not?”

  I’m spinning it around my finger, pulling the life out of that chair, stealing the thing that holds it together, twisting it into my hand.

  “Certainly not, Doctor Rhodes. Not friends. I don’t have friends. As you have pointed out yourself.”

  He’s staring at my finger, twisting and twisting, pulling that thread. What does he care, anyways? H
e has a warehouse full of these fucking chairs.

  “I’m broken and wrong, and at your mercy. Unless I want to have you send me to the nuthouse. Right? Isn’t that how this works? I kiss your ass and tell you these little delusions of mine, and you give me pills to keep me safe for public consumption?”

  The string is tight. Turning my finger purple, but I can’t stop. Not now. He’s finally coming apart. Fucker.

  “That’s very hurtful, James. I believe we have a very important relationship. I’m only here to help you.”

  “Well, you’re a lousy fucking doctor if you haven’t figured out how to do that after nearly thirty years.”

  Rhodes stands up, steps in toward me, and plucks the end of the thread, snapping it from the seam just as the stuffing begins to burst. He extends a stiff hand, hesitant and awkward. Making the gesture without having the balls to back it up. Letting me know that my time is up. Another week, another hundred bucks. There’s the door.

  “You really are a lousy fucking shrink.” I slap the hand away. Then, it all caves in. I hesitate. He fucking beats me again. I give in to decades of conditioning.

  “Script?”

  Rhodes, tall and proud once again, pulls a scrap of paper from his pocket—always well-prepared—and holds it out toward me, just out of reach. Twisting my leash like so much thread from an armchair.

  “You should really try to be more open with your mother, James. She is quite worried about you.”

  I’m heeled, and broken.

  “I bet she is.”

  I slam the door behind me, but we both know it means nothing now. A futile expression of over-baked angst.

  I throw a glare at the fat receptionist. She has strawberry on her face.

  I think about jumping across the desk and licking it off.

  But it’s too late. I just want to go home.

  8

  I’VE SPENT FOUR hours walking in circles in my apartment. Turning and turning. Pacing like a dog in stir.

  Every so often, I sit in front of my laptop screen for an uncomfortable minute or two, trying to focus on Facebook, or YouTube, or some other forced facsimile of modern normalcy. I have no friends in either reality. My Facebook page is a depository for pat motivational bullshit, old Bloom County comics, and movie trailers for movies that I’m never going to actually watch. All of it feels so false and manufactured and pointless. I type the poem out. It doesn’t make any goddamn sense either.