Lapse

Shaking, he awoke. Shaking in that special way he shook when he blamed himself for Mel’s death. Since she died he’d been empty. So empty that he’d forgotten what his feelings felt like, although he’d learned to identify their effects on his body. For instance, he knew shaking meant guilt, blinking meant fear, a rhythmic tensing of the stomach muscles that could easily be confused with giggling meant anger, salivating meant despair, and so on. That last he’d learned the hard way. Standing in front of everyone at Mel’s funeral slobbering grotesquely through the eulogy like a Xenomorph staring at Sigourney Weaver. It was frightening. Afterward he’d spent days blinking uncontrollably in pools of drool, pausing only to shake, stiffen, giggle, or be overtaken by one of his other expressions of grief. It was different now though. Now he understood.

            And now that he understood, it was time to move. He sat up in bed and removed from his lap the damp pillow he’d been clutching for comfort. Avoiding the pile of saliva-stained clothing that crowded his bedroom floor, he picked his way to the closet and selected his last untarnished suit. He donned it mechanically, staring wide-eyed past himself into the mirror. Past the deep-set blue eyes saddled with purple bags of insomnia and outlined dramatically in crows-feet, past the hard mouth set in an existential frown until all he could see was his suit. Fine grey wool of excellent taste. He was a big man, and once not long ago he’d taken pride in his size. Cursorily noting the fact that he was still large, he moved on to the kitchen. It wouldn’t be necessary to eat, but he always brewed a pot of coffee before driving to work. And so he did.

            Exactly thirty minutes later he pulled in to his designated parking space. He’d suffered a shaking fit on the expressway, but he’d avoided an accident by curling his torso over the steering wheel and using his ribs to clutch it to his spine, leaning from side to side as the curves in the road demanded. It wasn’t pretty, but he was proud of himself for making it; he knew he was proud this time because he itched all over. He strode briskly through the lobby, nodding perfunctorily at the guard he thought might be named Andre, and took the elevator to the top floor. When the doors opened Armando was standing there waiting for him. Armando who’d been his partner since the beginning, who’d been Mel’s godfather. “Jack,” said Armando in a surprised yet welcoming tone, “you’re back.” Jack could feel the glands brewing in his jaw. “I’m Jack,” he said wetly, “and I’m back.”

            Armando squired him quietly through the bullpen and into his spacious corner-office. “How are you?” Armando asked once they’d been seated. “I am,” said Jack plainly. Armando must have been expecting some expatiation because his curious expression became patient and then concerned as the silence grew like soft mold over Jack’s proclamation. Jack went on to explain his curious condition, but Armando only peered back at him with a caveman’s confusion. Didn’t he get it? This was good. He, Jack, could move now that he understood what his body was telling him.

            “What are you doing here?” Armando asked him. Now it was Jack’s turn to be confused. “I’ve come to work,” he stated matter-of-factly. “You’ve come to work?” Armando asked. “I’ve come to work,” Jack repeated.  Armando inhaled sharply, reclined into his leather arm chair, and squinted at the sun rising over the eastside. Armando was a good friend. Jack could see that in his resigned expression. But Armando didn’t understand. “So,” said Armando conclusively, “You’re coming.” “I’m coming,” said Jack.

            The courtroom echoed with the clamor of frenzied spectators and flash photography. Jack was seated next to Armando at the mahogany plaintiff’s table. A cacophonous moment passed, but when the judge called for silence it fell immediately. And then out he came, the man who’d sold Mel the tainted drugs, wearing heavy manacles and an orange jumpsuit with the numbers 417 printed in black ink across the shoulders. By the looks of him, ‘boy,’ would have been a more appropriate descriptor. The boy was black, skinny, with dirty teeth and sad, downcast eyes. He rose to be sentenced and as he did Jack could feel something else begin to rise. Jack hated him, and hatred, he knew, gave Jack an erection as stiff and unyielding as a flag pole. He wasn’t embarrassed, he mustn’t have been because he wasn’t vomiting, but he also knew what people would say. So, he made to conceal himself by scootching his lap under the safety of the prosecution’s desk, but just as he felt the hard wood against the head of his penis, something happened.

            A barrage of emotion hit Jack’s body all at once, causing it to react in ways he could never have imagined, let alone have anticipated. First, he stood. The scrape of his chair against the smooth marble floor as audible as his surprise, which manifested in what can only be described as a sensual moan, complimenting his erection horribly. This pairing did not go unnoticed. Neither did what came next. Jack fell to his knees and tore at what remained of his side-part, the confusion of the moment causing, ironically, luxurious hair to erupt all over his extremities, popping tempered leather shoes off feet that increasingly resembled something dredged from the bottom of the sea. He fell to the ground and squirmed unceremoniously, his erection prominent beneath pleated slacks, the hair sprouting from his hands and feet taking on a Rapunzel-like quality, until Armando collected him and squired him once again from the public eye.

            Jack awoke at home sometime later, shivering and shaking as usual. His eyes opened to see Armando snoozing on a kitchen chair he’d evidently dragged into the bedroom. He could feel the bile of embarrassment rising slowly up his esophagus, gaseous shame creeping steadily through his digestive system. He realized that he was broken. He knew it to be true, and yet he knew it for reasons he could not physically identify. This realization must have been frightening because he was blinking so rapidly and consistently that he could hear the sounds his eyelids made as they slapped together over and over and over. An open laptop on the floor next to Armando declared the boy’s case a mistrial. On its own, the prosecution’s failure to recuse Jack may have been enough to accomplish this, but Jack’s complete lack of self-control certainly was. The defense attorney simply raised a skeptical eyebrow and directed the court’s attention to Jack’s incompetence like Vanna White presenting a 2018 Hyundai Elantra, and the trial was over. Careful not to wake Armando, Jack gingerly left his bed and lifted Armando’s keys from his jacket pocket. The boys address was in a file somewhere in Armando’s office, and Jack was determined to find it. He could tell he was determined because of the way his neck stiffened, disallowing him from turning his head. He went barefoot because the hair on his feet wouldn’t fit into any of his shoes.

Two hours later, a manila folder languishing suspiciously on the passenger seat, Jack came to a slow stop in front of the boy’s house. It was late, but the boy must have been accustomed to visitors calling at all hours because he answered before Jack could apply his third knock to the screen door. The boy didn’t seem surprised to see him, which disarmed Jack immediately—he knew because his hands dropped to his side as if he were in a straight jacket. “It’s you,” the boy said. “It’s me,” said Jack.

            He followed the boy into his living room and sat on the thread-bare couch he was directed towards. The boy sat in a wicker chair facing him gravely. “What do you want?” asked the boy. Jack looked at him for a moment, deciding. What did he want? His daughter back, to murder this boy where he sat so calm and unconcerned, to die himself, to feel anything at all? “I’d like to purchase some heroin,” said Jack. The boy frowned and shook his head “What do you want?” he repeated. “Please,” said Jack, “I’d like to purchase some heroin.” The boy looked at him like a doctor might look at a terminal patient, all pity and burdened knowledge. They stared at each other for a long moment. The boy’s composure, his very comprehension of the situation dislodged something inside of Jack. He felt a tightness and a weight slide from his chest and into his throat and then exit his mouth in the form of a deep and unsettling sigh. Like a child’s death-rattle. He dissociated for a moment. It was as if some other person were breathing through Jack’s lungs, sobbing through his chest, clutching through his unwieldy fingers made clumsy by the thick locks that had so recently sprouted from them. Jack was confused. He didn’t know how he knew this—there weren’t any physical signs to draw from—but he knew. And then Jack felt something else, something completely other. The boy had left his wicker chair, approached Jack on his hands and knees, and laid his head in Jack’s lap. “I’m sorry,” said the boy. The boy’s voice was flat and emotionless, but somehow Jack knew that he meant what he said. Jack’s initial reaction was one of anger and disgust—he could tell because of the way he began to giggle and gag simultaneously—but he rejected these reactions.

            Jack felt the boy’s head resting vulnerably in his lap. He could give into his rage if he wanted to. He could lift the boy’s head by its ears and skull-fuck him to death if he chose to, this skinny child at his feet could not resist him, but something inside him, something that was him, withstood this urge. Finally, Jack allowed himself—grief and all—to return. The coup was swift and silent, but its effect was immediate. Jack grasped the boy’s head as if to rend it from his minuscule frame, but cradled it instead, stroking his unruly hair in the same way he’d once stroked Mel’s. The hollow that had once gaped expectantly within Jack’s body was now full with grief, rage, helplessness, shame, horror, hope, and a myriad of other emotions that he wouldn’t be able to identify even if he’d experienced them before. He let them grow inside of him, informing him, guiding him, but not controlling him. This boy hadn’t killed Mel, Mel had killed Mel, and punishing the boy would serve only to feed Jack’s pride and indignation. A man once said (some pit and pendulum puritan, no doubt) that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But if that were true, thought Jack, then God would only judge the result of one’s actions and salvation would be separate from character and, ipso facto, nothing would matter. Jack didn’t believe that.

            Jack took the boy’s head in his hands, raised it, and looked into his eyes. Tears were streaming down his face. “I’m sorry,” said Jack. “I’m sorry,” said the boy, and they held each other and sobbed until the moment resolved itself around them naturally. They had connected. They understood each other—Jack understood himself. He lifted the boy’s head from his lap a third time and laid it gently upon the thread-bare couch as he stood up and left the boy alone.

            Jack drove home slowly through the giant night, feeling the feelings that had lain dormant inside him since Mel’s death. Everywhere he looked reality appeared the same as it always had, yet an intangible element had been reinjected and growth once again seemed possible. He parked across the street from his house and entered quietly to let Armando sleep—he was just where Jack had left him. Armando was tranquil, but stress was nevertheless apparent on his sleeping face. Jack watched him for a moment and then dropped to his knees in front of him, laying his head upon Armando’s lap.