“As far as we can
discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of
meaning in the darkness of mere being.” - C.G. Jung
The cherry of his Marlboro cigarette
glowed in the low light.
“So I used to steal wallets.” After
taking a long drag he ejected the soft smoke from his lungs. “Back
when I first discovered what I could do. I was somewhere around
fourteen, I think – we could start there. Imagine being that age
and learning that you were able to stop time—but only when you held
your breath. No one could move but you, but moving was hard. Imagine
trying to run underwater, it’s like that.” A chuckle, another
drag, exhalation. “Yeah, that was me. I knew I was sinning.”
Finger quotes when he said “sinning.” “Or whatever, so I tried
to reduce the harm that I did by putting their wallets back after I
took their cash. I had asthma back then too 'cause I was fat. It made
holding my breath for long periods pretty hard.”
“I see,” I said, noting how he said
‘used to’ and yet. See, I wouldn’t have believed anything this
guy was saying to me if he hadn’t just demonstrated his ability. I
mean, would you? My wallet was still in his lap and I leaned against
the brick alley wall with a bruise showing along my jaw.
“Yup,” Adrian uncrossed his legs
beneath him and stood up. I hadn’t seen him grab my wallet at any
point and truly expected it to fall to the ground but rather than
that, it was simply gone. “Can you walk and listen at the same
time? I’m going to buy us breakfast.”
“With my cash?” I nodded slowly and
followed him from the alley while he laughed.
“Yup. IHOP suits me. Couple of blocks
down.” He paused when I turned the wrong way. “This way. Don’t
be a dumb tourist.”
Drunken crowds mulled around while
Adrian and I walked in the gutter. He was silent for the first few
minutes of the walk and I found my eyes drawn to the neon signs all
around: “XXX,” “Cheap Drinks,” “SHOWGIRLS.” I’d planned
to get away from women, not to be reminded of them. It was my own
fault I suppose, it wasn’t as if I’d had a destination in mind
after what had happened. I’d just sort of driven off.
“Where was I?” He finally spoke
again just after we passed a particularly loud crowd outside of a
bar. I could smell the alcohol. Some girls were barely wearing any
clothing. I got distracted. Revenge would only cost a couple of
drinks in a place like this, if that.
“Um,” I hesitated. “You were
talking about being chubby.”
“Right, let me start at the beginning
I guess, since we’ve got all night.” It was dark but I could
still see how he turned his head back towards me a bit and gave a
crooked wink.
I only had the sounds of the night to
listen to until we reached IHOP and were seated by a young waitress
with a small gap in her front teeth. Marie, that’s what her name
tag said. I guess I was still looking a bit pallid; she offered me a
lemon slice with my water.
“It’ll help your stomach.” She,
like most of the people I’d encountered here besides Adrian, had an
endearing southern skew to her voice. The way her ‘a’ sounds were
deep and drawn out made me smile. I thanked her.
“First time was gym class,” Adrian
said. I hadn’t really been paying attention but I looked up to meet
his gaze. “Let’s see. Yeah, I was fourteen. Or fifteen. I’m not
certain. Time gets confusing when you are always fucking with it.”
“Girls too,” I interrupted him, but
he cackled and nodded wholeheartedly.
“So the ball is coming straight at
me. If I remember correctly, I was hugging the wall along with the
other shy kids, just trying to stay out of the way. It was a boy-only
gym class and all the athletic kids were on the other side of the
line. At least that's how it felt. You know those dicks with abs at
fifteen who have diamond studs in their ears and wear their gym
shorts around their thighs? Anyway, so the ball is coming straight at
me full speed, on steady course to fuck up my face. I held my breath
and just like that nothing was moving. Everything was frozen. It was
like everyone was stuck in an ice cube or playing freeze tag. Except
in freeze tag you get those people who inch ever so slowly. Well no
one was inching around. I remember the smell of rubber and the shiny
wooden floor. For a
moment I was in complete shock, then I gasped and
the ball hit my face.
“There was so much blood, I mean I’ve
seen more since, but there was a lot. I felt sick, made worse by the
knowledge the blood was coming out of me. I dribbled and dripped so
much on the tile floor I thought for sure it would be impossible to
clean it all up. So the school called my parents and then my father
came to take me home. Somehow getting hit in the face with a ball
provoked a punishment from him, as if I had done something wrong. So
I was grounded over the weekend and I had a broken nose.”
Marie appeared to set down a pot of
coffee and take our order. For a moment afterward Adrian was quiet,
as if he’d lost his place.
“I met Allie the next Monday…
“Naturally I was pretty popular when
Monday rolled around, which was interesting and different. Everyone
wanted to talk to me and hear the story of how I had my nose
crunched. It hadn’t clicked that holding my breath would freeze
time yet, so I hadn’t experimented any more with that. I was too
focused on my nose, and how nervous I was to return to school.
“The lunch room was pretty large –
all of the students used to sit in their own little cliques. There
were a few tables outside that were often empty so I generally sat
there. I took my lunch out to one of the tables. I remember it was
raining a bit. I didn’t notice her at first. I kept quiet, just
eating and listening to the rain clink on the metal overhang.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hi.”
“I’m Allie,” she said. “Well,
my name is Allison but my parents call me Allie and so does everyone
else. But you can call me Allison if you want.”
“My name is Adrian.”
“What happened to your face?”
She was staring at me. No, she was staring at the bandages on my
face, under which my nose was buried, gasping for fresh air.
“I got thrown out of a window.
Face first.”
“Oh my god, really?” she gasped.
“No,” I laughed, “Mark Daley
hit me in the face with a ball during gym.”
“Is your nose broken? That looks
painful.” She came over and sat at my table now.
“Yeah, it’s broken. Not too
painful unless I touch it. Breathing is weird.”
“Cool.”
“I remember that conversation so
clearly. Later that day was when I figured out what I am capable of,
to a point. You might think I’m a dick for not being humble, but I
can do things. That kid over there in that booth? I could stop him
from falling in front of a car, just hold my breath and tug him back.
Or that waitress that was giving you the eyes. I could pull her phone
out of her pocket and read her texts to see if she has a boyfriend. I
could set your wallet on the table and make it disappear forever.”
Then Adrian did set my wallet on the
center of the table between our plates. My eyes dropped to it and I
briefly considered snatching it up then running out. Of course it
would be no good, Adrian could just breathe in and hold, then take it
back and set it in the middle of the table.
I didn’t feel too sick anymore but my
jaw was really hurting.
“I've never been hit in the face
before.”
Adrian laughed while Marie came over
from the kitchen with our food and put it on the table.
“Anything else?” she offered.
“No,” I said.
“I’ve already told you I first
started to practice by stealing wallets,” Adrian resumed once she
was gone. He chomped some bacon. “That isn’t completely true. I
first practiced with a rubber ball on the basketball court in my
backyard.
“I was standing around in the
backyard thinking about Allison and bouncing a ball on the blacktop.
I thought of the way she’d looked at my eyes after staring at my
nose for long enough. My breath caught in my chest while the ball was
in mid-air… and it froze. It dawned on me then that I’d done
that, and I’d frozen the ball in gym. Of course it seemed too good
to be true so I tested it over and over again. Every night for the
next week I was terrified the ability would go away. I tested it on
both of my parents as well. It worked on everything.”
“You had a basketball court in your
backyard?” I asked.
“Yeah but don’t get the wrong idea.
My dad is a dick and my mom is always working. Or she was last I saw
her. When they found my stolen cash stash, they thought I was dealing
drugs! They were going to send me to a reformatory school.”
He knocked over his own water while
waving his arms and swore loudly. Marie seemed to appear out of
nowhere with a rag and quickly cleaned up his mess before giving a
brief curtsy and walking away. With a sudden afterthought, she
whipped around and apologized profusely before retrieving his empty
plate from the table. We both watched to see if she would turn around
and come back to the table for something else but she didn’t.
“A reformatory school,” he said in
an angry whisper, leaning over the table towards me. “Hey, are you
going to eat that or what?”
“No.”
“Hah,” he grinned and slid my
plate to his side of the table. “So a reformatory school, I wasn’t
going to have that. They were wrong, by the way. I wasn’t dealing
drugs.”
“No, you were just emptying people’s
wallets.”
“Do you want to hear my story or
would you rather spend time judging me?”
“Sorry,” I offered. He said
nothing. “But it is true. Stealing wallets is just as bad as
dealing drugs if you’re talking about morality. Regardless, what
happened? Did you go to the reformatory school?”
“No,” he said. “My dad took away
my stash and was planning on getting me shipped out to
Kalama-fuckin’-zoo post haste so I needed some cash quick, to make
a getaway cause I was done with his bullshit…
“At this point Allie was my
girlfriend. I was about seventeen, so I’d had a few years to work
on my ability and build a relationship with this girl.
“I told Allie what had happened
because I never kept a secret from her. Back when I first told her
what I could do she didn’t believe me, just like you. But I proved
it then too. Before you ask, no I did not stop time just to stare at
her chest. Okay, yes I did.
“When I told her that my dad had
found all the cash I’d been saving up, she didn’t react in a
strong way like I expected. I remember her looking me square in the
face and this slow grin spread across her face. It took her long
enough to talk that I thought she was glad my Pops was going to send
me away.
“Just rob a bank.” Her smile
widened.
“I was stunned silent. Here was
Allie, this sweet girl with her big green eyes, telling me I should
rob a bank. Then I started to think she might’ve been pulling a
fast one. Just kidding around. Nope, she just held her smile and
cocked her head to the side. She was a grade ahead of me, and just as
tall. I admired her so much.”
“Are you serious?” I asked her.
“Dead,” she replied.
“How? Which bank?”
“We’re constantly walking by
Smith Avenue, right? Why not hit the one right there?”
“I can’t hold my breath that
long.”
“Just wait until they have the
vault open or something. You know they do it as like a publicity
thing.
To show people where their cash deposits go.”
“I’m not sure it is that simple,
and besides, I’ve never been in the bank. Never seen the vault
before. How would I transport the cash? Everything gets heavier,
remember?”
“Bus tickets to anywhere are only
like a hundred fifty each. You could easily lift that in a day; I’ve
seen you pull a grand. Remember the business conference? We walked
behind that crowd of guys for like half an hour, you were so out of
breath.” She laughed at the memory. “We could just go. Just go
and rent an apartment somewhere, or something.”
“You want that?” I was
surprised. “With me? Just run away?”
“Allie didn’t say anything. She
leaned in really close and kissed me. It was like she meant it to be
just a peck at first, but it was more than that. Pretty much all the
affirmation a confused seventeen year old boy needs to run away with
an eighteen year old girl is a kiss. Boy was it a kiss, too. So she
left to pack her things and I rode my bicycle downtown to start
lifting some money. We agreed to meet at the bus station at ten that
night.
“I was on fire, hitting wallets left
and right. Maybe it was national carry-lots-of-twenties day or I was
just picking the right people. I walked away with just shy of a
thousand dollars. You have to understand: it might seem simple but
everything is tougher and I’ve got to be holding my breath that
whole time. I took a lot of breaks but after a few hours I was good
to go. We met at the bus station and bought tickets. We were
originally going to head west, but every kid heads west when they run
away, don’t they? So we did the opposite.”
My plate was clean now too. Marie
appeared right on cue to take it away. She looked a bit confused that
he’d been eating my food but took the plate without comment. A few
moments later she was back again with the bill, setting it gently in
the center of the table.
“No, no, I insist.” He wryly slid
my wallet and the bill over to his side of the table. After working
out a nice tip and placing the cash in the center of the table, he
leaned back. I chose to ignore his games about my wallet. It
wasn’t as if I could just take it back. He’d steal it again. By
now he was too intriguing, I was caught, I wanted to hear more of his
story.
“Did you say goodbye to your parents?
Leave a note or anything?”
“No.” His jaw was like iron. “They
thought I was dealing drugs. They didn’t even bother to ask me
where the money had come from. Hell, it wasn’t even a stash, I had
it sitting neatly in a pile on my dresser.”
“How much money was it?”
“Four grand or so.”
“That is kind of suspicious for a
seventeen year old kid to have, especially without his parents
knowing.”
“Yeah, well, they didn’t know shit
about me anyway. You ready to flip this joint?” He spread his arms
on the back of the seat and gazed out the window.
I knew I’d asked the wrong question.
He was defensive now, completely different from the Adrian who’d
been telling me his story. I don’t know how I knew, but something
told me if we left the IHOP at that moment, I would never hear the
rest of his story, never see him again.
“No, I want pie. Let’s get pie.”
“She already brought the bill.”
Adrian frowned at me.
“Never asked if we wanted dessert,
did she?”
“Fine.”
I didn’t want Marie to get
embarrassed, and I tried to be as nice as possible when I asked for
two slices of chocolate cream pie, but she still walked away
blushing.
“What happened next?” I ventured.
“Huh?”
“What did you do when you got to
wherever you went? How’d you get here?” I was curious about where
Allie was too, but I knew better than to ask about her. Every time
I’d pressed thus far about more specifics, he’d become defensive.
The way he spoke of her in the past tense unsettled me, but I figured
it would probably be better to just wait and see if he would go on.
“Well we bummed around for a year or
so. I fell for her pretty hard, she pretty much just told me when and
what to steal, anything for her. That’s not to say she was
malicious in any way or didn’t feel the same way. She was amazing—I
remember one morning in particular.” Adrian was smiling. I hadn’t
seen a genuine smile on his face until now. I could see why she’d
fallen for him. “The way her dark hair looked against the beige
sheets. It was winter and the hotel room wasn’t the nicest we’d
stayed in. All the covers were bundled up around her.” He laughed.
“She slept stomach down all the time with her head turned to the
side. Her hair was over her face, thick and long loose curls, I
couldn’t see any of her skin at all. She was just a bundle of hair
sticking out of the blankets. It was really cute.”
Marie set down the pieces of pie and
once again apologized. Adrian was silent, probably lost in a memory,
so I assured her it was nothing and offered a smile. She returned it
before disappearing to attend to other tables or something, though
the IHOP was pretty much empty. The late-night stoner crowd had come
and gone by now. They’d now be passed out on couches, or idling
their cars on the top of parking garages just listening to music. For
a few minutes I was just imagining them, I don’t know why. Then
Adrian spoke again.
“I thought you wanted pie.”
“Oh, right.” I took a bite and
looked at him. “After bumming around for a year?”
“We took a cruise. She’d always
wanted to, it was one of the things on her bucket list, I guess. She
actually wrote one of those out. It was long, too. We paid for two
really expensive getaway tickets and then packed up. I don’t want
it to sound like we only did it because she wanted to, I was pretty
stoked too…”
“What do you want to be when you
grow up?” She was lying on the floor, one with the soft rocking of
the ship.
“What?” I stopped spinning in
the desk chair to look at her.
“When you get older, what do you
want to spend your life doing?”
“I haven’t really thought about
it too much. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. It just seems
like it might start to weigh on you, always having to steal.” She
sat up.
“Hey. You’re the one who
suggested I rob a bank, remember? We’re on this cruise because I
stole from people.”
“Keep your voice down, I know
that. I didn’t mean it like that, anyway.” There was beer in our
room, I’d stolen it at her request, but I hadn’t tried one yet.
Allie took a sip of one, grimaced, and then took another sip. “I
just meant, deep down, don’t you want to earn something? I don’t
see anything wrong with living off the wealth of the rich—god knows
they have enough. I guess I can’t do what you do, so maybe I have a
different perspective.” I didn’t say anything to that, so she
pressed on. “I just feel sort of empty. I’ve had it ever since we
ran away together. At first I thought I just missed my family, or
felt empty with my time because school wasn’t there to fill it, but
I don’t think it is either of those. Then I thought it was just
what love felt like. Like I needed another person to fill that
emptiness and it was you. I don’t think it’s that either. I want
to do something, you know? I don’t do anything except just exist.”
“Isn’t that enough? What do you
want to do?” She’d often get in these deep conversations with me
but this time I knew something was different. It was the way that she
stared at the ground instead of at my eyes, the way she persisted
with the beer even though she obviously found it disgusting.
“I don’t know. I mean we’re
both over eighteen, but we ran away. We don’t have our birth
certificates, or proof of addresses, or anything. We don’t exist.
It’s like this whole trip has been a lovely fantasy, only we’ve
gone and gotten trapped in it. The only way out is backwards and I
just can’t go that way.”
“We could get birth certificates.
We are over eighteen, like you said. I could steal enough for a few
months’ rent someplace and we could both get jobs. We could… go
to college or something.” I got up and gave her a hug. She returned
it, then sat on the edge of the bed and drank more of the beer.
“You’re right. But what about
you? What if someone found out about you? You still haven’t told me
what you want. This whole thing,” she made a wide gesture that
almost caused the alcohol in the bottle to fly free, “has been
about me. I love you, Adrian, but it can’t just be what I want.
What do you want? Don’t you want more than just this?”
There I was on a luxury cruise with
a beautiful girl with whom I was in love, and she was asking me what
I wanted. I didn’t want anything – I was happy.
“I don’t know. Here I can do
this thing with time, with my breath, and I don’t even know how or
why. Did God make me like this? You know I’ve never believed in
that kind of stuff. If not Him then who? If I’m random, then why? I
can’t answer these questions. No one can.”
“Well, don’t you... aspire to do
anything?”
“Well, I guess, yeah. But you’d
think I’m naïve. Especially with this past year that we’ve just
lived.”
“Tell me.” Now she put the beer
in my hands. I took a drink. It was hard to swallow it, and it kind
of burned after. I didn’t like it.
“I was thinking maybe I could help
people.”
“Help them how?” She said,
pushing the beer to my lips again.
“As time has gone on, I’ve
gotten stronger, and I can move stuff a bit easier when I’m
suspended now.”
She nodded.
“Well I could, well, save people.
From stuff.”
“Save people? You’d have to be
in the perfect place at the perfect time,” she said.
“Couldn’t it all be worth it,
even if I only helped one person? Just one person.”
“That isn’t how the world works.
You’re too selfless, you can’t just think only about other
people. You are always asking me what I want, what I think, what I
want you to steal for me.”
“Now I’m telling you what I
want!” I shouted at her.
“I’d never shouted at her before,
not once in all the time we’d known each other. That was the end of
our deep,” more finger quotes, “discussion. Seems to me she just
wanted to talk in circles; I’ve never been able to do that. Maybe
my perspective and brain are different from hers after all. She
started to cry. I felt so bad. I tried to hug her again but she just
told me to go away. So I went for a walk.
“It was late, so not too many people
were out. I made my way out to the deck and just watched the water
for a bit. There were night staff around, probably making sure no one
jumped off or anything like that. When I finally turned away from the
water, there was this old couple in the center of the deck. There was
no music, yet they were dancing. They moved slowly and I watched as
they twirled past the dimmed tiki-torch lamps. They were both wearing
white pajama suits, but the old woman had pink slippers on, whereas
her husband was barefoot. After a couple of minutes, I think the old
woman saw me, because she said something to her husband and they
stopped dancing. I would’ve apologized for staring. Hell I should
have gone and apologized, but I wanted to dance with Allie like that.
I wanted to show her how many stars you could see from the deck.
“When I got back to the room, there
were three empty beer bottles on the bed. The covers were all messed
up. Allie had this thing where when she was stressed she’d just
completely cocoon herself in the blankets, even pulling up the sheets
sometimes too. I heard her in the bathroom. She was puking.”
“Allie.”
“Hey.” She wiped her mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
“She hugged me this time and then
swiftly returned to the toilet to puke again. I sat next to her and
rubbed her back but she didn’t feel better all night so neither of
us slept.”
I was grinning. Adrian had long
finished his slice of pie and now began to eat the meager amount of
mine that remained.
“What are you smiling about?” he
asked.
“I just think that’s cute.”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess so. She was
definitely cute. More than that.” He set his fork down, pie
relinquished.
“You keep saying was.”
“Well, we capsized.”
“What?” My eyebrows were up, my jaw
was down. He said it so nonchalantly.
“What? What? The boat sunk. Stop
staring at me.”
“How? What happened?” I asked.
“You didn’t read the papers? Watch
the news?” He spoke dryly now.
“I did. I want you to tell me
though.”
He looked me in the eye. It was quiet
for a minute and we just stared at one another. I don’t know why.
I could see that he wasn’t lying about what he was saying.
Everything he’d said was true. His poor heart beat for that girl,
but where was she now? Did he even know?
“It was a few nights after our fight.
Both of us were asleep but I fell off the bed. The boat was tipping.
Literally tipping. I was jarred awake, my knee hit something hard but
I’m not sure what. I’d gotten used to the waves at this point but
this sort of tipping was different. I could feel something was
wrong. Like a pit of despair in my gut. I can’t explain how I knew,
but I did. I woke Allie up and we went out to the deck. It was
raining, and the wind was blowing really hard.
“There were a lot of people on the
deck. The loudspeaker blared on and they told us we had to get off
the boat onto these life boats that they were presently lowering into
the water. Staff was going around to people’s rooms now to wake
them up. Everyone would be fine, but we’d have to move quickly.
Something was broken in the ship. The wind was loud; Allie was
holding onto me so tight. She spoke into my ear but I didn’t hear
what she had said. The old man from before, the one who’d been
dancing with his wife, caught my eye.
“He was up against the rail, holding
on tight. Then the wind gusted. I know it didn’t gust strong enough
to blow him over the rail. Wind doesn’t blow that hard right? He
must’ve jumped. He went straight over, I saw him and his white suit
jacket plummet to the waves. Allie didn’t see him; at least I don’t
think she did. Right then I remembered what she said about not being
able to save very many people. I thought of his wife and the way
they’d danced and held one another.
“Right after the gust of wind hit
there was this huge wave. I’ve never seen a wave so big, hell I’ve
seen more things in my life that are smaller than that wave than I
have seen things larger. It hit the ship and there was a lot of
screaming. Allie let go of me and hung onto the rail. I was free. I
just ran and jumped. She screamed, I’d never heard her voice scream
before and I doubt I’ll ever forget it.
“One thing about being a fat kid,
Peter: You float. You get used to being buoyant. I’d lost weight in
my time with Allie. I hit the water. Somehow I thought it would be
like a swimming pool. It wasn’t. I was being pulled this way and
that, and a wave hit me right away.
“I hate rain. Played with it a bit
after discovering my ability, but besides that I'd often stay in on
rainy days. Why go out at all if you're going to get wet? When that
wave hit me and I was pushed under the water, I held my breath.
Everything froze. Remember how I told you everything gets heavier
when I go into suspension? Well, so does water. I couldn’t move. I
was trapped. I flailed but nothing happened, nothing moved.
“You know I’d gone swimming in the
lake when I was younger, I was on the swim team in middle school. But
it occurred to me in that moment that I’d never been swimming since
that day in gym with the ball and Mark Daley. I don’t know why I am
the way I am or how I suddenly became this way on that day. I do know
that if I am a superhero, water is one of my weaknesses.
“When the exhale finally came I was
free. I breathed out slow and for as long as I possibly could. My
head popped above water and I sucked in air like a baby taking its
first damned breath. There was rain in my eyes and I couldn’t see
his suit jacket anymore. I heard screaming from the boat far above
but it was a general cacophony. If Allie’s voice was among the
noise I couldn’t make it out. I got shoved under again and played
the waiting game. The water was cold, even blinking took effort.
“I was facing the ship when I came up
again, and as though it hadn’t hit me before, the terror of the
situation got to me. The ship was tipped so awkwardly in the water.
The screaming was still happening and I couldn’t see any of the
lifeboats in the dark. The next wave pushed me down again but this
time I opened my eyes under water.
“There he was. No more than five
meters from me, suspended in my still world like a paused television
screen. There were tiki-torch lamps too, like fireflies, or
streetlamps on an empty street. They stretched on quite a ways back.
I had no idea there had been so many. They illuminated the sinking
mass of ship some meters away. I couldn’t close my eyes. His were
closed. His face was so relaxed. It was like he felt free, both of
his arms and both of his legs outstretched loosely just floating
there. He had a slipper in one of his hands. It was pink. I was sure
he hadn’t been holding it before. Then I knew why he had jumped.
His wife, who’d he’d been dancing on deck with earlier in the
night, had been wearing pink slippers. Had she fallen overboard? Why
had I jumped? What made me think I could save him in this storm? What
made him think he could save his wife? Why had I just left Allie like
that? I felt like I’d been in the right place at the right time…”
I could see Adrian’s eyes getting all
moist. Hell, mine were too. I swallowed and then took a drink of my
water. Adrian was collecting his thoughts, obviously. He’d been
getting a bit emotional with those questions that neither he nor I
could answer.
“I had to exhale...
“I had no choice. I couldn’t hold
it in forever. When I did, I was unfrozen. He still looked like a
drifting angel last I saw him, but I had to swim up. My head broke
the surface again. I could see the life boats now. Someone aboard one
was holding a tiki-torch lamp. I could see many heads but from the
distance I recognized none of them. Then something smashed into me
and I blacked out.
“It must have hit my head. Probably
one of those lamps or something I’d bet. I woke up in a hospital
bed. Some people on a lifeboat dragged me aboard I guess. Reporters
came and wanted to take my picture but I wouldn’t let them. They
asked me some questions but I had no answers. I know nothing about
boats. They wanted to know why it had sunk, what my experience was. I
told them to fuck off.”
Adrian slowly traced his finger around
the rim of his cup. He was staring at the ice cubes and the small
amount of liquid that was left at the bottom. I didn’t know what to
say. Was he done? Was that it? What about Allie? Had she been
rescued?
“Was Allie rescued?”
“I don’t know,” He looked at me.
“How am I supposed to know?”
“Wouldn’t they have like a manifest
or something? Couldn’t you just ask the police? ‘Hey, my
girlfriend was on the cruise with me, is she alive?’ I mean don’t
you want to know?” I asked, leaning forward over the table a bit.
He just stared at me.
“I mean come on, man, you are in love
with her, right? There is a good chance she survived! She’s
probably alive, and wondering about you.”
“What if she’s not?”
He was scared. Scared to death. Adrian
would rather live not knowing for certain. He’d rather hold that
tiny flame of hope than accept despair.
“You’re scared. What if she is
too?”
“She could read about me in the
paper… find me.”
“How?”
Adrian was silent again, just staring
at me. The gears in his head were working. Behind his tear-reddened
eyes, he was calculating. I tipped the final domino.
“You owe it to her. If she is alive,
I bet she wants to know where you are. It doesn’t matter if you’re
scared. If she’s not alive then you’ll just have to live with
that. Can you live with not knowing? Can you live with the chance
that she is alive, saw the headlines, and knows you never came to
find her? Can you let her last mem-“
Then he was gone. My wallet was sitting
on a plate in front of me, beneath it a napkin. I glanced around and
heard the bell over the door ring. He was gone. I lifted my wallet
and stood, but something on the napkin caught my eye. I moved the
plate over.
“Thanks, Peter. I’m going to find
Allie. Go home.”
I pocketed my wallet, then fiddled with
the wedding ring on my finger. Had Adrian seen it? I hadn’t told
him about my wife, the fight we’d had before I left, or anything.
Yet he was telling me to go home. Grinning despite the pain in my
jaw, I exited the IHOP. I’ll never understand why Adrian didn’t
just steal my wallet and be off. Instead he’d followed me down the
alley and mugged me like a normal person. Maybe he’d just wanted
someone to talk to. Someone to tell him what to do.