The Grey
Life, Chapter XIII
"What
the fuck are you doing here?" I spat the words partly as an
accusation, although I never intended them that way. As I stood
before her - this woman - swathed in torturous, stone power, I felt
as hopeless as if all my dreams had been felled under the blow of
that single, magnificent entrance. How could I have foreseen it?
And
it could not have come at a worse time. I knew it even then. O, how I
had longed countless times in the confines of my bed that this very
moment would come, and now that it had I felt not estatic joy but
rather pure and straight dread, like a double shot of bad vodka,
turning over in the bowels of my stomach and scorching my throat. I
found myself caught in a vast maelstrom of memories, of conflicting
emotion. The will or desire or even the knowledge of acting was riven
by the gyre. I simply stood there, my mouth and hands clenched shut
in a hurtful denial, dressed in obdurate granite, refusing to
believe.
Anne
only stared insolently back at me, met my gaze with a frank
dishonesty that I found alarming. She had changed. Although she
matched me in stillness, I saw a range of emotion pass swiftly behind
her eyes. Perhaps she had been expecting elation, but I do not know
if she felt it for me at that moment or ever after.
For
a very few, stretched, unrelenting seconds, we all stood in that room
and looked at each other, Anne and I in draughts of unrelated
disbelief, Shanai at me with a quiet, disconcerting question on her
brow, and Drusus at the woman who had just stepped by him with
important grace, as if he hadn't even mattered.
Fucking
bitch! Why did you have to come and find me? If I could -
Ah,
but it is for naught that we contemplate the conditionals of the
past, because they are the bane of the madman, and oftentimes equally
as vague as the conditionals of the future. How easy it would be -
believe me, I know - to get lost in that maddening maze of infinite
possibility. Things are as they are, are entirely defined by what has
been, and from them alone the future is determined. That is what
reality really is. The only definite path that exists for us in all
this possibility, and the frightening part is that we are such small
things that we can't see far enough to discern where it leads.
Do
you understand nothing of fate? Do you not know that our universe is
based entirely upon cause and effect relationships and that's it? The
only seeming element of randomness in all this is the minds of
animals and insects, and even that meager attempt at entropy is just
a delusion. Because we are entirely defined by our experiences, and
we are governed by a program whose behavior it is possible to model.
Everything depends upon everything else. Why else do you suppose a
sane man will go mad if deprived of his five senses?
Drusus
was the one who broke the stillness. He shook his head as if
awakening from a dream and closed the door. At the simple sound of
the lock snapping into place Anne looked away from me, turned to wash
the room with her airy vision. Shanai studied her briefly, then
turned to look back at me. But my eternal gaze held the features of
this extraordinary woman who was so unlike the youth I had known
those short years ago.
Drusus
carefully walked past the slender young Frenchwoman and came to a
stop somewhere between Shanai and I.
Anne
had come alone. Despair and elation ran through the pores of my body
at once. But what could it mean? I asked myself. Ah, but even in the
grip of that paralysis I knew it meant nothing.
Anne's
eyes flickered eagerly across the room, came to a rest upon Drusus'
handsome face. There they paused. He returned her gaze resolutely, as
if he were going to maintain his strength for me. I do not know what
she saw there. Desire? Nothing at all? She looked back over to me
once, waiting for me to say something. "Who are you?" she
asked, returning her attention to my friend.
"Drusus."
He hesitated, lips parted as if in the formation of words. Then he
asked, "What about you?" But he already knew.
Anne
found no need to answer. Her eyes had already strayed to Shanai. "Who
is this?" she asked perhaps a bit more harshly than she had
intended. Her voice grated between her teeth as if it hurt her,
stunned by her cold reception.
But
her question remained limply dormant in my brain. Everything within
screamed in frustration, wretched violently from the clammy hands of
despair, regret.
Drusus
assumed the power of my voice. "That's his girlfriend, Shanai."
He spoke bluntly.
"Humph."
It was almost a snort. "You?" She squinted at her rival,
drawing up plans for a winter offensive.
The
contempt and the brusque rudeness must have disturbed Shanai's tender
pride. "Yes, me. What did you expect? Somebody a little older?
Someone pasting the make up on a little too thick?"
Anne's
dark orbs flashed briefly. But then a delicate smirk fell across her
firm features. "You?" she repeated again, softly. Then, she
turned to look back at me. "Her?" Her deep eyes were asking
me questions I did not have the strength to answer. "What's the
matter with you, David?" she suddenly demanded, taking a step
towards me. But there she stopped, as if she could not come any
closer even if she wanted to. "Aren't you going to say
something?"
And
then I did say something. "No." It was not a word to answer
her questions, for I hardly heard those, much less attached meaning
to those disembodied fragments of an idea. It was rather a protest,
pitted deep in the very depths of my being, and I could not contain
it. "No, no, no, no - no!" I jerked myself around, suddenly
furious.
"What
do you mean, 'no'?" But I was not listening. Didn't she know
that? I was too caught up in the torrents of unleashed tears and
cries of rage. Perhaps at that moment I really did have some
understanding of what all this would mean.
Suddenly
there was a polite knock on the door. Drusus started at the sound,
but the rest of us ignored it. "Should I get -?" he started
to ask me, then turned his gaze to Shanai. But she was not looking
back at him. Her desperate eyes were pasted to Anne. Much the same
sort of questions, I'm sure, were running through her head then as
they were through mine.
"David,
aren't you happy to see me?" Her voice had assumed a much
gentler tone, much like the purring I so suddenly and vividly
remembered. It's funny the little things you forget about someone or
something that are instantly returned to mind, like echoes out of the
distant past.
"Yes,
yes. Of course." And I was, somewhere inside of me.
I
can remember almost feeling Shanai's hard eyes shift towards me, bore
into my body with the skill and precision of a drill. That was not
the answer she had wanted or been expecting. But she said nothing.
The
knock repeated itself. Drusus turned to answer, leaving the three of
us to stare furiously at each other.
The
door opened, presented a shape in the incandesence of the hallway.
"Hey, David?" It was a familliar voice. Nicholas. "David?"
I
barely had room in my brain to address him, but underneathe the more
conscious layer of my thoughts I had already determined that it was
necessary to get rid of him as quickly as possible. So I stood up,
infused with the false strength that comes with pride. Dreamily, I
met his gaze. He was staring past Drusus' shoulders at me, unsure
what exactly was wrong but certain that it was something. "You
alright?"
At
last, I found that I could say something other than the shattering
"No" that reverberated throughout the airy confines of my
thoughts. "Yes, Nick. It's just - now is not a good time."
"I
was just wondering if you were going to the clam chuck tonight at
Kai. You know, for rush? I thought maybe we could -"
"-
go together. Yes, that would be cool." The words filled my mouth
like bile, came out of their own accord. "I'll give you a call
later on tonight. Okay?"
"Sure."
Nicholas' voice was resplendid with uncertainty, but it had been made
clear to him that he was not welcome. "Alright. See you later."
And he was gone. Drusus closed the door and turned back to us.
But
Anne would not let me go. Her gorgeous, chocolate skin seemed to
glisten in the soft light, exactly the way I remembered, reflecting
off the glassy surface of her eyes, focusing tightly on the feral
doom that was breaking loose inside my head. "David -" The
word was like a plea.
I
knew I needed to say something, but it was difficult to force any
ordered sense from my lips, draw meaning from the chaotic rage that
was blowing everywhere, blowing everywhere. "You -" But I
did not know how to say it. The implications of what was happening
were enormous, and I couldn't get over it. I could sense both
Shanai's and Drusus' eyes like feelers, watching me, knew that what
was said here would have so much import on so many important things.
I made an awkward gesture with one of my hands. "You came
alone."
A
flicker of a smile danced across Anne's face. "Yes." Now
she turned to Shanai. "I'm sorry," she said to her quite
pleasantly, "this has all been most unnecessarily uncomfortable.
It must be true that you and Drusus - I'm sorry, what's your name
again?"
"Shanai."
The word was inflected neither with hatred nor with love - without
any emotion at all, in fact, as if it had been uttered by the sky, or
the earth.
"Yes,
Shanai." Anne sighed for effect. "Well, it must be true
that you both already know something about me. But I hope there will
be no ill feelings. We don't even know each other."
Drusus
shrugged and maintained her gaze. But after a moment he looked away,
daunted perhaps. But Shanai did not answer. She caught my eye. I
could see so many questions there, and already some pain. After all,
there was no denial plain on my face, except that for my own
preternatural destruction.
"And,
David," she continued, approaching. As she closed the distance
between us, I caught the faint, familliar scent of her skin, so
incredibly poignant, like the forest floor after it's rained. Part of
me just wanted to throw my arms around her neck. The other wanted to
hit her over and over again, pulverize her face until it resembled
nothing more than fresh meat, and then hit her a little more. "I
hope things won't be much different than they were. They don't have
to be, you know." She stood not a foot away. Her sumptuous face
was dangerously close to mine.
I
didn't know how to react to that eager temptation. What she was
offering was at once so sweet and so revolting that I didn't know how
to put the situation into perspective. The past is a wonderful thing
in memory, but in fact there is often so much that we conveniently
forget. And, besides, what hope is there for the future if we are
always looking longingly into the past? So I asked her the first
thing that came to mind. "How did you learn to speak English so
well?"
Annoyance
flickered behind those eyes, but feigned understanding washed it away
as if it had never been. The sweet smell of her skin suddenly became
cloying in my nostrils. Then, as if in answer, she put her arms
around my neck and kissed me.
And
I kissed her back. For a moment the world had gone away, and it was
just Anne and I like it used to be, in the woods in Maine when we had
been much more youthful in our desires. And much less tainted by
distrust.
I
did not hear Shanai flee the room or hear her mad sobs, but the first
thing I did notice when Anne pulled away was the dim satisfaction
splayed across her features. At that moment, I think I really did
feel the world fade grimly away.
If
the brothers at Kai had intended for pledging to be an arduous
experience, their intentions were entirely wasted upon myself.
Nothing in my life could have been more difficult or more
uncomfortable than what Anne had introduced when she arrived at my
room that fateful day. Pledging involved a lot of drinking and
wastedness, punishment that I grimly embraced that semester. I was
always too eager for the drink, because those times when I was with
my pledge brothers were the only times I had to escape the horror
back at the dorms and back in Antonius' apartment. No wonder I recall
the time spent with them with such extremity. And no wonder they
thought such strange things of me. The only thing they really ever
got to know about me was how frantic I could become. I never could
stop to explain to them why. It was not something that I could put
into words, or desired to. Of course, these were the only times I was
ever without Anne at my side. In those days there was a lot of acid
involved in the everyday numbness of that sort of existence, but it
had reached a point where I could no longer tell when I was tripping
and when I was stuck in reality, what had actually happened and what
had only transpired in some prolonged delusion.
Anne
didn't let me go after Shanai. I had to send Drusus after her. And as
soon as he left she tried to fuck me. Strangely, her advances only
repulsed me, and I pushed the soft flesh of her body away from me. I
remember the way her lips tightened, the way her fingers hardened.
Almost I choked on the festering bile of her glare. "That bitch
has really got you, eh?" she had muttered in French as she drew
away.
Later
on that day I was forced to go out. I couldn't remain alone with her
in my room, scrutinizing, prying. At the time, I didn't know what she
was after, or why she had come back, but it hardly mattered, and in
the state of semi-hysteria that had engulfed me I did not care. The
fact remained simply that she was there. And Shanai had fled. So we
went out to the beach. It was a fairly warm day for the end of
January, almost shorts weather. There was quite a number of people
already there, I remember.
Yearning
for the solace of friendly faces, I threw myself upon my friends. But
they did not possess the sort of strength that could have saved me
then. My echoing needs were left mostly unanswered. They received
Anne well. When she wanted to, my first love could be the most
charming person on the face of the planet. But she could also be the
most sublimely vicious. A smile thirsty for warmth dressed her face
that afternoon as I introduced her with some formality to those who
were to be my companions as I traveled down that last trail towards
devastation and madness. She chatted with them in an offhand manner,
managing to stay near to me wherever I went.
At
one point, I saw Angst and Lee approaching. Their walk was more like
a stagger, and I could see that they were both quite drunk. Lee came
at me in a tumble of swift lurches and arcing gestures of arms, quiet
and veiled, and Angst as if his life had already begun to rot. With
the hard impact of boulders they landed on the turf next to me, near
where Anne sat speaking hurriedly with Nicholas. Their faces were
locked in hard masks of seriousness. Fierce echoes sifted through the
air. "I heard what happened," Lee muttered. His eyes
flittered about without movement from his head, searching for the
little devil herself but without desire for the unseemly fact of her
cognition. Angst seemed not to be paying attention to what transpired
around him.
"Yeah."
I nodded in her direction. She was not in Lee's scope of vision, so
he turned around and looked. Somehow, I stifled a groan.
Anne
caught his eye in mid-sentence and stopped what she was saying. Lee
faced her squarely. "Hello," she intoned coldly, her mouth
severe. "And you are -?"
Lee
left the question hanging and addressed Nicholas. "What's up,
man?"
"Nothing
much. Have a good time at Kappa Psi?"
"Yeah,"
Angst reponded gruffly. He nearly fell onto his side then, as if to
accent his assertion. "You could say so." They he really
did fall over.
"Are
you always so rude?" Anne's voice slashed through the comedy. I
glanced at her and saw the storm behind her brow. I remembered how
much I had once been attracted to those eyes intense, that grandiose
stare. But the gyre of clouds that now reigned somewhere not too far
behind had been absent then. She had always been the tiger, but she
had never taken the role of angry goddess.
"Yes."
Lee rolled his eyes at me.
"You
always such a fucking bitch?" Angst managed to slur from where
he lay, his right cheek buried in the rich grass, skin flushed, eyes
shut.
Anne's
body quivered with asperity as she glared down at Angst's hard back,
but he did not give her the pleasure of his awareness. After a
moment, she turned back to her conversation with Nicholas, but not
before she cut me a curt glance.
"Your
old girlfriend, right?" Lee asked me, attempting to stop himself
from swaying. "What's her problem?"
I
managed a smile. "I don't know." My eyes wandered to the
dead turf in front of me. "I think she wants something from me.
And I think she thinks she can fuck me to get it. But she was
surprised by Shanai. She hates her."
"Fuck
the bitch," Angst muttered under his breath. Thank heaven the
words never caught Anne's bitter ear, or there would have been a
scene.
"I
saw Drusus on my way over here. He told me to tell you that Shanai's
with Sarah over at Lauren's place."
"Great."
My hands lay at my feet palms up as if in gentle supplication. I
could not contain the word, the eternal fiat of damnation that it
was. "What am I going to do?" I ran a tense hand through my
lengthening hair. "She saw Anne kiss me."
Angst's
eyes pried themselves open. They peered at me, obfuscated by a deep,
living, red haze. "Sounds to me like you're fucked."
"Hey,
what a sketchy crew!" I could not look up to meet Antonius'
hail. That did not stop him from setting himself next to me on the
dead turf, though. He jabbed me in the shoulder. "What's up?"
How
could I have answered? So I laughed.
Antonius
looked at Lee. "Hey, man." It was as much of a greeting for
the lean giant as anyone was likely to obtain. Deftly, he presented
my friend a hash and kind bud joint. "It's such a nice day, I
think we should get stoned."
"Even
if it wasn't such a nice day," Lee answered with a sly wink of
an eye. "And I think Dave over there could really use it."
But
Antonius did not catch the bare hint of truth in those words, did not
perceive the depth of the silence that over the last few months had
descended over me. Or had it always been there? I was never able to
tell. To love. As if caught in an ephemeral loss of conciousness, of
will, I suddenly found myself yearning for non-existence. Anything
was better than the waves of panic that lay buried within the fragile
peace I had managed thus far in my life. Futile lines in the sand we
are, dusty attempts at meaning in an abstract painting. The most
important battle I ever fought was too early in my life. I wear the
scars like medals on my chest.
"Is
that a joint for smoking?" Someone suddenly asked from above me.
Looking up, I saw a short stock of red hair jabbing unneccessarily at
the air above my head. How different he looked from the private
school brat with whom I had hung out when school began. And much
older. His eyes dropped to mine. "David," he acknowledged
gravely. "Quite a girlfriend you got there."
"Had."
But Charlie was no longer listening.
"Of
course it's for smoking!" Antonius laughed, and he lit the
thing.
"Couldn't
think of anything else I'd rather do with it," Lee agreed.
Charlie
dropped to the ground between Antonius and me.
"David,"
floated the voice of the devil gently towards me across the space
that separated our minds. "Que fous-tu la?"
"Me
tutoyez pas," I snapped in return, wondering distantly over how
much she had changed. She never used to use such language. "And
please don't speak French in front of my friends. It's annoying."
"Mais
-"
"Well
that's wonderful and all, but we're in the United States now and
people here speak English." I was unusually firm. It had nothing
to do with consideration for my friends, of course. I just didn't
want to be reminded of how things used to be. After all, it's quite
easy to foget where you are, to become dislodged.
"Jees,
David," Nicholas said as he pulled himself closer, his eyes
following the joint as Antonius passed it to Charlie. "You don't
have to be such a fucking asshole."
"An
asshole?" But Anne was just looking at me, expressionless.
Charlie
was coughing. Awkwardly, he thrust the joint in my direction, tried
to stifle his hacking. "Quite a hit," someone said, but I
really wasn't paying attention. Now the joint was in my hand. And as
I drew from it the slow comfort of the high came over me. I drew even
more of the stuff into my lungs. Things seemed to settle down. When
finally I passed the joint to Nicholas, my heart had slowed its
frantic beat and I felt some strength return.
"David,
are you smoking marijuana?" Anne's voice was sharp and foreign.
It came from outside the veil of peace with which I had cloaked
myself. Antonius found her words amusing. It was a gentle, honest
sound, and it steadied me further. Even Lee found some humor in the
question.
"Yes."
I even managed a smile. "You really ought to try it. God knows
you could use it."
"It
mellows you out," Lee told her.
"Mellow?"
she repeated, puzzled. Nicholas offered her the joint, but she
declined. When he insisted that she take it, she absently passed it
along to Lee. "What is this 'mellow'?"
I
shook my head. "Never mind."
"No,
really. What does it mean?"
"Chilled
out." Lee's answer was precise, and accompanied from his mouth
by a dull cloud of smoke. Deliberately, he nudged Angst. But my old
friend was asleep on the grass. He shrugged, and handed the joint to
Antonius. "Looks like he's out."
But
Antonius was not to be daunted. He leaned over Angst, laying stranded
and still on his side, and gave him a hard shove in the kidneys.
"Hey!" Angst pushed the word through his disobedient maw as
if it were a gallstone. Weakly, his eyes fluttered, confused, trying
to bring Antonius' entirely massive - yet not altogether present -
form into blithe focus.
Antonius'
command was simple enough. "Open your mouth."
Angst
did not hesitate. He was too wasted to contemplate disobeying.
Antonius placed the joint cherry-first into his mouth and leaned
closer to Angst's face. Soon he was blowing a thick stream of smoke
from the tip of the joint into his mouth. When he finished, Angst
passed out again, but this time with a vague smile on his face.
Antonius
was studying the joint, as if contemplating its serious decline.
Anne
was staring at me still. I tried to ignore her, but somehow my eyes
found hers, were trapped there. We beheld each other for what seemed
an eternity, perhaps only spanned moments. Then another voice caught
my ear. I glanced that way, saw that it was Tom. He stood over
Antonius in tall exuberance. As always, I was amazed by how much of
him was present. In one of his hands he loosely held a clear bottle
of apple juice. "Just got back from St. Louis," he told us
with differential amusement. Absently, he took a swig of the juice.
"Here,"
Antonius answered, and presented to him the remains of the joint.
"Maybe you'll catch a buzz."
And
he did.
"You
know," Tom told us when he was seated. "I drove about a
thousand miles in the last couple of days."
"Anything
interesting happen?"
Tom
thought for a moment. "No," he appeared to answer. He
looked off toward the sun. "But I drove through two rainbows."
We
all smiled in our own way, even Anne. "Tom," I said, "this
is my friend Anne. She's from France."
Tom
looked at her. "Hi," he intoned happily. "I don't know
any French or else I'd try and say something to you. Don't know
exactly why people do that. Maybe to make you feel more at home? But
if you wanted to be home I guess you'd probably be there and not
here, huh."
"That's
alright," Anne replied, frowning. I'm not sure if she understood
everything he said, because Tom tended to speak quickly. "I
don't think you could do that."
Tom
spread his legs on the rought turf in front of him, smoothly shifted
the weight between his hands. "What?" he asked her,
genuinely puzzled. "Speak French or make you feel at home?"
"Well,
both, I guess." They laughed together then.
But
Antonius was looking at me. "Anne?" he breathed, as if he
dared not speak her name aloud.
"Yes."
The hard fact of the word hit me as if in the face. Every time I
thought I had gotten used to it I was struck harder. But the effect
was beneficial. Somehow, I had slipped back into myself, if not
completely than almost unnoticably so. "Anne, I'm sorry if I
haven't introduced you to Antonius. He's a good friend of mine."
My
first love smiled warmly. But I could see that she was faking it. I
remember asking myself once again how it was that she had become
acquainted with the absolute need to hide herself. Back in those
days, I didn't understand such things. "Such nice looking
friends you have," was all she said.
"Well,
listen," Tom said, probably quite unaware of the complex and
shifting tides of unspoken communication that were sifting between
us. But I would be lying if I tried to pretend that I have never
longed for that brand of ignorance. "I was thinking about going
up to Liberty reservoir tonight. It's supposed to be warm, and I hear
that the place is kind of pretty at night. We could build a campfire
and cook hotdogs and kick around a ball, and," he added with a
slight nod in Antonius' direction, "perhaps we could convince
Antonius to bring his stash along. Oregon kind, right?"
"No,
not Oregon kind. But just as good." It always was if you were
selling it.
"Sounds
great!" He clambered to his feet, took another swig of juice.
"Yeah,
definitely," Lee agreed. "But I don't think Angst will make
it."
"What
is a reservoir?" Anne asked then, somewhat awkwardly.
"A
place where they get drinking water from," I answered her
absently. My attention was not for her. Tom was leaving, and his
departure provided me with the excuse I had been waiting for. I, too,
stood up. Suddenly, all my friends seemed so much smaller. Smaller
and older.
"I've
got to go, too," I told no one in particular. "But I'll be
back." Anne seemed ready to follow, but I stopped her with a
shake of my head. "I'll be back," I repeated.
"Where
are you going?" Lee asked me.
"To
find Shanai."
Shanai
sat between Lauren in all her hairy judgement and Sarah in her meek
denial as if she were the one on trial. I sat before them crosslegged
on the floor of Lauren's dorm room. The floor was cold and sent chill
fingers reaching through my spine, feeling for whatever life was left
inside. I remember little of what was said in that room that day,
just the way Shanai looked at me. I remember that she was very
distant, as if taken aback. Her words to me were few and ill formed.
Lauren acted as her voice, and not a very kind one at that. She spat
a diatribe of carelessly worded accusations and reproaches.
But
I did not listen, just sat there before the three of them and noticed
the way Sarah uncomfortably avoided my eyes, the way Shanai sat in
mute agony and did nothing but stare at me. I tried to tell her that
I loved her, loved no one but her, that I could never love Anne again
even if she had wanted me to. But Shanai did not know her the way I
did, could only judge according to her own past. And there was little
room for forgiveness in that scorched heart.
She
finally did find the strength for speech. Her words to me lacked
luster. I almost cried out to her not to recede. Isn't that what she
had done to Antonius?
In
the end we embraced. Lauren apologized for being so harsh, but I
waved the matter away at once. I asked Shanai to come with me that
night to Liberty reservoir. We needed an evening of healing, it
seemed.
She
responded with a single question. "Will Anne be there?" But
I think she knew the answer before she saw the shards of pain
pressing through the skin of my face.
"Shanai!"
I cried out, but she placed a single finger against my lips to
silence me.
Her
voice when it came was little more than a whisper. "I will not
go."
Sarah
looked up at me, as if whispers were the only thing she could hear.
I
begged her some more, pleaded with her, asked her to try and
understand what was happening in my world. "You have absolutely
no idea," I spat angrily into her face, rage taking the place of
the pain, "what I'm going through!"
She
simply shrugged. "Do what you must. So will I."
"What
does that mean?"
But
she had no sufficient answer. And still, she would not come. Thoughts
of doom were high in my thoughts when I left that cool chamber, too
shocked for anything but anger. Giddy with the drink of betrayal, I
could only begin to see into the true nature of what was to come. If
then I thought I knew my friend the demon for anything he was like, I
could not have been more wrong. After all, what sort of solace is
there in madness except the keen flow of the final release?
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Adam Wasserman.
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