“Jesus, sorry, Nick. I didn’t wanna startle you. Good to see you’ve moved. When’s the housewarming party?”
He turned to look at me, and, man, chills up and down my spine. On the bandage strips, where his mouth shoulda been, he’d Sharpied a smiley mouth. A black, half-moon curve, crossed at the edges for round cupid cheeks. Coulda been innocuous, but wasn’t. Cuz his head was moving and the smiley wasn’t, giving his face the grisliness of a puppet come to life.
But the top half was real, and that was Nick. He made a muffled sound, looked happy to see me.
Smile!
he typed on his iPad.
This way you’ll always know it’s me and never mistake me for someone else. When I smile, you don’t have to be scared of me, okay?
I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. I smiled to be on the safe side and said, “I’m not scared of you.”
But I was.
I nodded at the studio couch and asked, “Have you been sleeping here the last coupla days?” Asked, “Why’d you wanna do that?”
Nick shrugged and looked away at the map, which was all covered in black scrawls. Ramses hopped lithely into his lap and nuzzled up against him with abandon. Squirming that lean feline body of his to try to get to those bandages and rub his snout against them. That was neither cute nor funny. It was creepy. Ramses usually hates smells.
“Pretty big score,” I said, nodding at the pile of empty beer bottles. Nodding at empty La Chouffe crates. “Is that a good idea, with all the meds you’re taking?”
More shrugs, more looking away. The white knuckles of his folded hands. The taut tendons in his neck.
Last thing you want is to sound like his mom, but the last thing Nick could use was a habit. The brewskis filtering through the hospital stench. Nick may like to bend the elbow at parties, but this wasn’t exactly Sugarfactory, no Club AIR or any other night on the town.
That smiley mouth on the puppet face. Kept grinning at me, but Nick’s eyes didn’t join the party.
“Listen, I was wondering maybe you wanna come upstairs. Watch a movie or something.” I hesitated, then added, “Maybe have a beer together.”
And me sweating bullets while he typed, so bad my hands were doing the jitterbug.
He handed me the iPad.
You go watch a movie. I still have to get some stuff done here.
“Right,” I said, after staring at his text for about as long as the movie would take. “Stuff. You need to get done. All more important than me.”
Nick’s head turned to me vehemently, and it looked like everything under those bandages was moving, everything beneath that mask was turning inside out, as if something that’d been in hiding was now creeping out.
New optical illusion: this time, that the floor under me had disappeared. Windmilling my arms, teetering IRL. This time, I felt like I was falling. Everything in the cellar, the shadows and highlights, the surfaces and empty spaces, twisted proportions. I reached for the edge of the desk, missed, grabbed again, got it. Took a few secs to get what happened, but the desk looked like it was far away. Like it was way deep in a void or something.
Suddenly, there’s Nick, real close, clamping my wrists like some kinda stony vise, peering into my eyes. You okay?
“Kinda dizzy,” I heard myself say. “Don’t know what’s up; been feeling woozy all day. Tipsy. Topsy-turvy. Whatever.”
The sound of my voice crystal clear, reverberating like an echo against hidden mountain faces, but Nick’s encased face seemed to be twirling away from my bulging eyes. Fine by me, cuz I couldn’t bear to look at that smiley mask any longer.
“Dude, you’re hurting me. I’m okay now.”
Nick’s grasp loosened and he let go. As he took the iPad again and slumped behind his desk, I tried to focus on fixed points in reality till the giddiness went away.
Sam, go upstairs. Go to sleep. Leave me alone.
And all of a sudden, I was sick of it.
“No,” I said, and felt him tense up. “No, Nick. I’m sick and tired of avoiding you, and I’m sick and tired of you avoiding me. At some point you’re gonna have to go out there. At some point you’re gonna have to face it. It isn’t going to go away if you shut yourself up, and definitely not if you shut yourself off from me.” I took a breath, knew I had to push on. “I want you to tell me what happened. What really happened. Dude, did you even read your own story? Got any idea what it says? Like that mountain is some kind of—”
Slamming the table, he jerked upright. The desk chair clattered to the floor, hitting a pile of soup cans that rolled over the cellar floor. Ramses let out a serious screech—at me, no less. Curved back, puffed tail, bared teeth, then slunk off into the darkness. But not Nick. Nick towered over me in the gloom like a bare willow in November, and his presence forced all the air out of my lungs. I hadda keep myself from stepping back. If I did, he’d slash at me with those bare branches.
I kept talking, as composed as possible. Meanwhile, Nick snatched the iPad off the desk and started tapping so fast I could barely see his fingers. I said, “Listen, you’ve had an awful experience. I want you to know I’m there for you. Whatever happened. I’m with you. You’re scared of that mountain, I get it. You went through hell up there. Fuck, maybe you were even hallucinating because of blood loss, or from shock or something. But that doesn’t make that place the Twilight Zone. You’re confused. Come on, where’s the Nick I know, the one who laughs at ghost stories?”
He’d stopped tapping but didn’t look like he was planning on passing me the iPad. Just stood there. Staring at me. Left eyelid quivering. I yanked the iPad from his limp fingers and read what he’d written.
Stop yapping and shut up! Your mouth just keeps going on and on and on. How would you feel if it couldn’t do anything but spout a black river of blood that melts right through the snow and ice because your life is still hot when it flows away from you?
The silence lasted an eternity. Then I said, “No need to bitch about it. Yeah, I left, but I also came back.”
And did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t want you to be back? That I don’t want you to see me like this? Did that ever cross your mind? I’m a freak, Sam, and I disgust you. Please go away, go back to New York or whatever, just GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!
I hadda swallow before I found my voice again, but then said, very collectedly, staring at the screen, “No, you don’t disgust me. But if you don’t let me see it, I’ll never get the chance to get used to it, get it?”
When I looked up, I saw him slowly swing his right arm and put his hand on his Sharpied smiley mouth.
’Course the temperature didn’t really drop by fifteen degrees in the cellar. It just felt like it did.
And Nick didn’t really get bigger. But the shadow, when it slid over me, was no willow but a landslide, and if I questioned whether Nick—not my Nick, but this unknowable Nick—was capable of murder, that shadow removed all doubt.
“Nick.”
He didn’t pull his hand back.
“Nick, talk to me.”