Chapter Twenty
There we stood a couple of slowly freezing, December scarecrows on the highway’s snow covered shoulder. Stomping our feet as all manner of vehicle passed, Emile and I encountered invisibility. Emile joked about this and that because he knew I was annoyed and he wanted to pick me up, to make me laugh it all off. He didn’t know I’d been without my anti-psychotic for far too long.
“This sucks,” I hollered and promptly realized that there was no need pointing out the obvious. All was quiet though I fancied the snow, which was beginning to swirl, was making all together too much noise.
Suddenly I was yelling again, “I remember,” I hollered.
Emile reacted by yelling, “Remember what!”
“I remember that the average I.Q. is between eighty-five and one hundred and fifteen. I remember that I.Q. stands for intelligence quotient. That’s one monkey off of my back, let me tell you.” My voice rang shrill in my ears and I wondered where that outburst came from and why.
“That’s great,” Emile replied, “now, speaking of our ancestors, quit monkeying around. Keep your eyes on the traffic, eh, make a happy face.”
“Do you really believe that our ancestors were monkeys?” I asked, jeering, trying to make him angry.
“Monkeys, apes, whatever.”
“Well maybe yours were monkeys, but not mine.”
“What? Do you think your ancestors are superior to everyone else’s?”
“Alright, okay, let’s drop it,” I suggested and he agreed.
Emile seemed different, but, truth be told, I was the one who was changing. I was starting to become ill again and, though, for a fleeting, bitter moment I knew it, I stubbornly refused to acknowledge it. I’d been having too much fun. My days of playing the wag though, with others who enjoyed doing the same, were just about exhausted. The medicine had been almost completely metabolized and expelled from my body.
Time passed, as did all types of potential rides, people who gave us the once over and thought that we looked a touch dangerous. We were an old man and a young man, dressed in Salvation Army clothes, yesterday’s fashions that refused to fit. I was surprised when, around mid-afternoon, a teenager in a pickup truck pulled off the highway and waited for us. I deduced that he hadn’t been on the road long because his back window still had frost on it. When we squeezed in the front I noticed that the cab was still cold and this backed up my observation. “From Winnipeg?” I queried and thus began a conversation. Overall, I thought the ride was uneventful. To hear Emile tell the story I was on the kid’s back right away.
When we were left off about ninety miles from Winnipeg, Emile started cursing me out. “What the hell were you thinking? You’re not supposed to ask personal questions unless they want you to.Don’t embarrass people. You knew damn well he wanted us to believe it was his truck, that he was a big man - you know how kids are. Now he’s dropped us in the middle of nowhere. What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m a nut,” I retorted and giggled a bit, but it wasn’t funny. What is wrong with me anyways, I wondered, why did I embarrass the young lad? Emile growled like an old pit bull.
“Nuts to you,” he said and it was my turn to be embarrassed.
It was growing colder. Dusk was beginning to steal the glimmer from the snow; the wind had picked up a little and was starting to bite.
“Emile,” I asked, sheepishly, “what do we do if it gets dark and we’re still standing here?”
“Well, Carmen, we’ll keep trying. If it gets too cold or looks otherwise hopeless, there’s a road about a quarter of a mile back. I think we can find some shelter there.”
We ended up backtracking a while later. “People rarely pick up one at night, let alone two,” I said. He agreed and we went looking for the country road. Eventually we found what would be a dirt road if it weren’t covered in so much snow. Everything, for that matter, was snow covered.
We walked down the tire tracks on that still country road, so quiet, so disturbing. There wasn’t much to see, nothing but darkness, deep and black and the white snow that was everywhere, absorbing it. We persisted though and we were rewarded.
“Carmen, I see a building, a big building, maybe a barn.”
“Emile, you’ve been here before,” I accused.
“Nah,” he said, “never. And I’ll never be back, that I promise you, my friend.” It seemed that he was no longer angry.
It was indeed a barn, a big empty barn and far off sat a farmhouse. We both looked at that dwelling with longing, a few of its lights winking in the night, a steady plume of smoke coming from the chimney. A dog barked.
“Jeez, Emile,” I whispered, “Do you think that dog sees us?”
“Do you honestly think that beast can see this far, in the dark?” He laughed scornfully.
“Emile, you never know with animals. We could be sleeping in that barn…”
“Which we will, man,” Emile said, interrupting me.
”Whatever,” I replied, indifferent for a second or two, “but that thing could come in and rip both our throats out. He’s obviously their watchdog, you know.”
“If you’re trying to scare me it ain’t working,” he said. I hadn’t been trying to scare him, I’d just felt compelled to finish what I had been saying.
Having had my say I fell silent, as did Emile who I thought was once again becoming hostile. I’d better just shut up, I thought, this guy could be some kind of psycho.
“People don’t like psychotics,” a voice out of nowhere said, and I shivered. “Welcome to Universe City. Universe City is everywhere, man. I said welcome.”
“Thank-you, thank-you truly,” I mumbled.
“He’s not a man, he’s a boy,” a voice said. It was the voice of the man who had fetched the police on me.
“I’m going in,” I said and ran into the barn.
Little animals scurried about, mice, I thought. The sound of their claws quickly sent matters from unsettling to hellish. I wanted to jump like a superhero, straight to the roof so I could hide in the rafters. I lay on the floor and shut my eyes tight. The mice kept scampering. “Here little mice, micey, mice,” I tried and gave up. What would I do if they came to me? Maybe if I keep my eyes closed they’ll think I’m sleeping, I thought.
Outside I heard Emile talking and thought that he was conversing with the voices. One of my worst fears was coming true - I’d met someone who could hear them as well as I could. I was trembling against my will.
Whatever it was that made me fall asleep I was grateful to. After the mice and Emile talking to the voices I remembered nothing. I woke to the thin light of dawn finding chinks in the barn’s walls and roof and covering Emile in golden light as he snored beside me. After dusting myself off soundly, I went outside.
“Smarten up.” “No you… hey there he is. Fools rise early.” The voices were active, in the mood to torment as usual.
“You were up before me,” I yelled, at the top of my voice. This was greeted with silence. In two ways I was mad.
I was unable to understand that the invisible beings who were talking to me, might have their roots inside me, that my problem with hearing voices was as much part of my physiology as breathing or having a pee. To me I was at the mercy of a powerful being or beings that hated me. I started to cry softly.
“Look at the big suck.”
“Yeah, what a suck.”
I started running around, pulling hard on the long weeds I found sticking out of the snow. It seemed be the only logical way to vent my anger. I found a big rock and hurled it as hard as I could at the barn.
“Hey, what the hell,” Emile yelled, but I wasn’t convinced it was him. Maybe my enemies were switching from whispers to ordinary speech. Maybe there was a man in the barn who could talk like Emile.
Emile ambled out of the old building looking for whoever had woken him. He didn’t see me and I took the opportunity to watch him. He stretched, “Good morning world,” he said, then farted and spit up some phlegm.
“Good morning, kind sir,” one voice said.
“Yes, good morning sir, all is well,” the other one added.
I was astounded. Why would they give him the royal treatment? Astonishment turned to revulsion. I thought the boot licking way the voices fawned over Emile was repulsive. I became fearful; Emile’s acceptance of their adulation, as though he were used to it and expected it, frightened me. He’d been around Universe City for quite awhile, that much I now realized. He’d been pulling my strings since I met him, the bastard.
“Hey,” I yelled, “over here. You don’t fool me anymore, Emile, you potato peel.” Hardly an expletive and definitely not expressive of what I felt.
“Ah, Carmen, my little friend, how did you sleep?” I was taken off guard. He was an important man from a place that held me in contempt.
Quietly, I replied, “With my eyes closed.”
“What,” he asked.
“With my eyes closed,” I said, louder, bolder, “you asked me how I slept and I told you, with my eyes closed.”He laughed and for the life of me I didn’t know why.
“I’m leaving,” I said loudly enough that he heard me.
“Wait,” he implored, “who am I going to travel with but you?”
“I’m going back to the city and I think you know which one I’m talking about.”
“Winnipeg?” he asked.
“You can call it what you will. I think while I’m there I might go to University , if you know what I mean.” Having unleashed some of my wrath I kicked the snow and laughed to myself. I’d fight the pricks all right; I’d fight and win.
“Carmen,” Emile spoke softly, “I think that it’s a good idea that you go back to the city. I’ve seen this before; it’s in my family. You don’t know what I mean right now, but you will. Come on, let’s go to the highway. You see,” he started to explain on the walk and he talked for quite a while. He wound up saying, “I’m sorry.”
I thought he’d been talking to the voices all the while and I hadn’t heard them answer. I thought about that and started snickering. He wasn’t that important after all. By the time I was where I wanted to be on the highway and had started thumbing, Emile had become a memory, walking on the other side of the asphalt ribbon that would convey him to his dream of a better life.
In due time a truck driver came to a stop. I climbed up and into the passenger seat. I wore a smile on my face. I had noticed that on his license plates there was an M, an E and a nine. Using my deductive reasoning this told me that that particular truck driver had little respect for Emile. Since he thought Emile was a small fish it followed that he might consider the voices to be no big deal either. My intuition told me that there were others like this man with the enviable job.
I decided to try a bold move. When he asked me where I was going I told him plainly that I was going to Universe City.
“Oh, what are studying?” he asked. I was stupefied. How could he miss my hint? Was he under strict orders not to share secret information? He must be new, I thought and I answered his question cryptically.
“Oh, some of this, some of that,” I replied with a wink.
I was inventing a language as I went along. Some, in my mind, became sum. I’m broke was what I had told him, in couched terms, when he’d inquired as to my field of study. And it worked. He let me off at a restaurant because he was going to be leaving the main highway. As I was getting ready for the cold he gave me a well-used ten-dollar bill.
“Thank-you, thank-you very much,” I said and bowed after fully vacating his truck. I had just completed a performance for a camera I had detected in his truck, hence the bowing. “Elvis might have died a few years ago but who says there can’t be a new king/” I asked my friend.
“I don’t know, man, I just don’t know,” he said and lumbered off down the highway.
I yelled, “All Hail King Jesus.”
A voice spoke up, “We told you there is no Jesus here.”
“DAMN YOU,” I screamed, “JESUS WILL BE HERE OR MY NAME”S NOT…” here I paused and lost my train of thought as I was suddenly compelled to look around me and then intently at the restaurant.
“Or your name’s not wiener,” one of my hallucinations said and laughed.We’ll see who’s who, I thought dimly, secretively, in case they were tuned into my thoughts, all will be spoken and then, by all that’s fair, we’ll see.