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Introductory Text

A Double-Take
The Author's Narrative Part 12 83rd Post Posted 12 June 2016 at 08:52:04 UTC Link to original

So there I was on the front porch with Shawn, both of us sitting in rickety old chairs, slapping away the mosquitoes, when he mentioned quietly that he had once seen a room where the walls were covered with human bone. Right away my heart started thumping in my chest.

He must have seen my reddit posts. This was something I had been worrying about, even dreading. My posts were none too flattering of him, and he was a very private person, very defensive of his boundaries. He would see it as an intrusion and a betrayal. I had taken great pains to obscure the details of his identity, giving him a new name and a different sort of Afrocentric religion. Nobody would recognize him from my posts. But some of the stuff in my writing had been had been taken verbatim from our conversations. If he saw them, he would surely recognize himself.

Shawn was not a guy I wanted to piss off. When he first came to the house, he told us that his main character defect was his temper, and he wasn't kidding. On more than one occasion I had watched anger build up inside of him until he ended up chewing somebody out. It was the sort of scene that left me tip-toeing back into my bedroom, giddily thankful I wasn't taking the brunt of his outrage. All those years as a recluse had left me with no appetite for confrontation.

Shawn had been sincerely working on his temper. He was the only black dude in the house, and he was worried about being seen as the angry black guy. He often said to me, "You get up in somebody's face and they'll be like, 'Say, fellas, let's work this thing out.' But if I cross the line, they'll be like, "Call the police! This nigga gone crazy!'" I assured him that this was not the case, while not being entirely sure that this wasn't the case.

As a result of his fears, he had become very indirect about how he expressed his anger. If he felt somebody was disrespecting him, he would give them the silent treatment for a while, then come down hard on them for something small, all the while being very careful to not raise his voice or make any threatening gestures, which somehow made him more intimidating. As much as he didn't want to play out the angry black guy stereotype, I didn't want to play out the meek, affronted white guy stereotype, but I was sometimes intimidated by him.

So now when he told me about the walls covered with bone, I figured he must have been feeling me out, seeing if I would come clean about what I had written. But it was such a strange way to do it. I didn't know what to say. I looked him in the eye, trying to make my face completely neutral. He gazed back at me, his face half in shadow, half colored by the yellow porch light, his expression dead serious. He went on, speaking softly: "Skulls... teeth... arms and hands... melted together... on the walls... up on the ceiling."

So there I was on the front porch with Shawn, both of us sitting in rickety old chairs, slapping away the mosquitoes, when he mentioned quietly that he had once seen a room where the walls were covered with human bone. Right away my heart started thumping in my chest.

He had seen in real life what I had only seen in my mind. He was about to tell me that the flesh interfaces and Mother and all the other nightmares were true. I had, on some level, known this was coming. It was the culmination of the strange feelings I had had all week.

It started when I was sitting in that AA meeting, looking at the sad face of the old man with the Stolid Haircut. I had entered a strange and sudden reverie, carried away by the sheer damn poignancy of this man's haircut and how it symbolized the sort of strong, upright man he had tried and failed to be. I saw him in a great shifting vision, different versions of him emerging and overlapping. Here he was a young boy learning how to use a comb. Here he was a young man, the wind ruffling his sturdy locks as he experienced that a rush of confidence that comes with drink. Here he was in front of the mirror, running the comb through his wet hair with a shaky hand, dropping it into the sink. Here he was with stitches just below the hairline after another accidental fall. Here he is finally face down at the bottom of his stairs, his hair ever so slightly mussed, just a few strands out of place... almost perfect.

The next day, my roommate Donnie (the ex-Marine) and I went out to the river to swim. It was a perfect sunny day, and there were a lot of people out swimming and floating along in inner tubes. As I lay back in the cool waters, feeling the warm forest air alive on my wet skin, I saw for a moment that vanished primeval world peopled by the forest children. These children lived along the river, not working or toiling, but simply taking what the river offered, living and dying by the good mother's generosity. Sure, they wouldn't know the benefits of writing or agriculture, and they would drop like flies to horrible diseases and predators, but in doing so they would accept their humble place in the universe, rather than striving to overcome it through science or religion. They would know themselves to be fragile things which lived for a brief moment and died, like glimmers on the river's water.

For the second time in as many days, I found myself with tears in my eyes over some trivial moment, and I was forced to turn away from Donnie as he related a story about Marine buddy who had been given a humorous nickname by the platoon due to his uncanny knack for finding and acquiring venereal disease.

In AA, they talk about not struggling or trying to manage everything, but rather letting God manage it. Not believing in an interventionist God, I had to interpret this as simply trying to "accept the things I cannot change." I saw a vision of my life where I was able to accept life's vicissitudes with humility and grace, and where life opened itself to me as a result. With it came a wave of nostalgia. The last time I had felt like this, I had been in college and taking a lot of acid.

How long had I shut myself away from life? In that goddamn apartment with that goddamn bottle! I had been unable to accept any discomfort or unhappiness, so I had avoided everything except liquor. I had tried to control my feelings, and as a result, I had found discomfort and unhappiness like I never imagined. But now I could accept life, embrace life, welcome all the awkwardness and frustration and pain and indignities. How many opportunities were right at my fingertips? I could talk to one of these girls wearing the smart bathing suits and be married in a few months! Or just find a friend. Or be hired as staff writer as some kind of pastry magazine. Anything was possible! I saw now the glowing door open before me! I saw all doors open, all doors open and aligned, one after another, and behind them all there was--

There was what? I couldn't say... The insight slipped away without revealing itself, but the fading reverie left a warm glow, and I dipped my head back into the cool water and looked up into the sky crowded with bright weightless clouds. I could see now that so many things were coming together in my life. I was getting sober. I was learning to talk to people. Even the dream of being a novelist -- the dream -- was coming true!

So now when Shawn told me about the walls covered with bone, it seemed like yet another thing falling into place. But this time it was something sinister, something so awful I thought it couldn't be real. Now it seemed that whatever force was bringing my dreams to life was also acting on my nightmares.

I looked Shawn in the eye, trying to make my face completely neutral. He gazed back at me, his face half in shadow, half colored by the yellow porch light, his expression dead serious. He went on, speaking softly: "Skulls... teeth... arms and hands... melted together... on the walls... up on the ceiling."

I asked him very carefully, "Is this something you read about on the internet?"

He shook his head and said, "No, man," and looked down into his lap.

I needed to find out exactly what was going on, even if it meant giving myself away. I asked him, "Have you been reading my reddit posts?"

He squinted at me and asked, "Reddit? What is that?"

So it was real after all...