The Marbury Lens

  “Lock the door behind you, numbnuts.”

  It was Conner.

  I just stood there, my back pressed to the door, my hand closed around the latch.

  Conner was on his bed, with Dana. He was lying on his back and Dana was straddling his hips, facing away from him, her hands gripping his knees as she rocked back and forth, up and down into him, or Conner into her. She smiled at me, her eyes half-closed.

  Neither of them had anything on. Their clothes were scattered everywhere; and Conner just watched me, grinning confidently, his arms folded behind his head like he was lounging in a hammock. He said, “Are you going to just stand there and watch, or do you want to hop in here and have some fun with us? Dana’s totally cool with that.”

  It was one of those situations when there really is no right answer.

  Dana kept sliding against Conner, moaning.

  They both had their eyes on me.

  “I’m sorry, Con. I…I was just looking for a place to…”

  I turned around and squeezed back out into the hallway. I locked the door before I shut it behind me; and I could hear Conner calling after me, “Jack! Hey! Come on, don’t be such a loser!”

  I rubbed my eyes and turned back to the door. And I thought, What’s wrong with me?

  I didn’t know what to do. Maybe I should have gone back in there, just to get all this crap over with and prove I was someone other than the person everyone thought they saw—so people like my best friend would just leave me alone about stuff. But I was relieved that I’d locked myself out, too; and as I turned and stumbled down the hall toward the stairway, I could hear Dana on the other side of the door, and Conner called my name one more time.

  And I practically fell down the stairs, thinking, I should have stayed in there with them.

  I wanted to leave.

  And I’d locked my keys and phone upstairs in Conner’s room.

  But that was probably a good thing.

  Downstairs, the music blared so loud I could feel it buzzing up through my legs. The drinking game had evolved into Tip the Cups, and I saw Lauren curled up in the corner of the couch, sleeping.

  “Jack! Jack!” someone called. “Come dance. No boys want to dance.”

  It was one of the girls Lauren came in with. I didn’t even know her name. I think it was Ellen or Eileen, or something.

  “I’ll be right back. I need to pee,” I said, and I headed away from the noise and out the front door.

  It was good to get out of the stuffiness of the party. There were a couple other guys peeing on the side of the house. No big deal. I knew I wouldn’t go back inside. The ground seemed to come up to my feet each time I took a step. I saw my truck parked on the street and wanted to go home, but it took me a few minutes to remember I’d left my keys up in Conner’s room with the clothes I’d brought over that morning. I tried to shake the image of Conner and Dana from my head.

  “Hey, Jack, want a beer?”

  The kid who was peeing next to me pulled a can of beer from his back pocket.

  “Sure.”

  I took the beer and walked across the lawn, drinking as I staggered down the sidewalk in the direction of my home, six miles from Conner’s place. The night was so warm, and I was sweating a little, even though I was only wearing a T-shirt and some baggy shorts.

  And I don’t know where that beer ended up, but I do know where I did. I didn’t even make it two miles. I fell to sleep on a bench in Steckel Park.

  Five

  “Hey, kid.”

  I felt a hand on my shoulder, shaking me.

  “Kid. Are you okay?”

  A face leaned in close to mine. I could feel the warmth of breath.

  “Do you need any help? Are you hurt or something?”

  “Huh?” I put my hand up to my eyes. My head hurt. The guy was looking right into my eyes, like he was trying to see if anyone was really home.

  “Did you take anything tonight, kid?”

  I wasn’t sure where I was, had to think, remember. The man in front of me smelled like cigarettes and coffee. He was dressed all in green, a doctor or something. I thought I must have been in the hospital, but it was too dark.

  “Where are we?”

  “Yeah,” he said. I heard him sniff at me. “How much did you drink?”

  “Huh?”

  “Can you sit up?”

  “I’m drunk.”

  The man pulled me up. His hands felt warm, careful. When I sat up, everything in front of me spun like a compass needle in a hallway of magnets.

  “Do you know where you are?”

  No.

  “I was at a party. I was trying to go home.”

  The man looked over both shoulders. I thought he was trying to see if there were any other kids there, that maybe they’d know what to do with me. I could hear music coming from somewhere. I remembered, the park was in front of Java and Jazz. I heard jazz.

  The man was still looking right into my eyes.

  “Are you going to throw up?”

  “No.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Glenbrook.”

  I tried standing, but it felt like there was no blood in my head. I fell back onto the bench.

  “I’m a doctor at Regional. I’m headed that way. I can take you home, if you want.”

  The man pulled me up from my armpit. “But you have to promise not to throw up in my car.”

  “No. I’ll be okay,” I said. “It’ll be okay for me to walk.”

  He let go of me. “Are you sure? It’s no problem.”

  “I’ll be okay,” I repeated.

  The man turned away. I fell down, caught myself on the pavement, and landed on my hands and knees.

  He turned back. “I think I’d better call someone.”

  He started to unclip a phone from the waist of his loose green pants.

  “No,” I said. “Do you think you could drop me off?”

  He smiled. He helped steady me on my feet. “Sure.”

  He said his name was Freddie Horvath. He even gave me his card, which, I guess, was supposed to prove something. I didn’t know what to do with a doctor’s business card. I slipped it into my wallet, which I dropped when I tried putting it back in my pocket. Freddie laughed and picked it up, handing it to me.

  “I remember what it was like, being a kid, too. You’ll be all right.”

  He was nice, and I trusted him. But I was drunk and stupid.

  I fell asleep again in Freddie’s Mercedes. I woke up when my head snapped forward. The car stopped somewhere. I couldn’t recognize the place, and had to think, again, about where I was, piece together the blurry sequence of disjointed events from the party: walking in on Conner and Dana, and ending up, somehow, asleep in this car that was now parked in front of a dark ranch-style house that I had never seen before.

  “Stupid,” Freddie said. “I left my ID badge at home. I’ll be right back.”

  He pushed his door open. I could have sworn he was wearing an ID badge when he found me on that park bench.

  “Where are we?”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re probably less than a mile from your house. I’ll be right back. Can I get you some water or something? You look like you could use it.”

  My head pounded. My mouth was paper.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He closed the driver door and walked around beside the car. I watched him as he came up and pulled my door open.

  “Want to come in?”

  I knew I was stupid, should have never accepted his help. But I rationalized that he was a doctor. Still, all I really wanted was to get home; and I wanted to speed him along, too.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll wait here.”

  Freddie smiled. “I’ll be right back, John.”

  John?

  I never told him my name. At least, I don’t think I did. I figured he must have looked at my driver’s license when I dropped my wallet in the park, because I’d never say my name
was John.

  I felt in my pocket. My wallet was still there.

  I nodded and said, “Thanks.”

  Freddie came back out in a minute, a plastic badge dangling from his breast pocket and a bottle of drinking water in his hand. He got in and started the car and passed the water to me.

  “Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

  I was so thirsty. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  I opened the bottle and drank.

  I was unconscious before we made it out of Freddie’s driveway.

  Six

  That’s how I ended up in that smoky room.

  Freddie smoked constantly.

  And it wasn’t until maybe a full twenty-four hours had dissolved invisibly past me—Sunday night—when I started to soberly realize that I was in a situation that seemed unreal, like something you’d only see on TV, something that would never happen to me.

  But it was real.

  Something hurts on my foot.

  That’s the first really clear thought I have: Something hurts.

  I sit up. There is a constricting tightness around my ankle, cutting into me if I pull against it too much. That’s what holds me there. I’m lying on a bed. There are no sheets on it. I can feel the swirling grooves stitched into the mattress.

  My hands are free. I sit up and rub my ankle. The binding feels like one of those heavy-duty zip ties, the kind cops use. That’s what it is. I feel the trap mouth where the toothed band has been fed through.

  I see a slit of light along the floor. A door.

  I run my hands over my body. Check everything. I don’t feel like I’ve been hurt. I don’t feel like he did anything to me. He didn’t. I am sure of that. But I’m lying there, stripped of everything I remember wearing, except for my boxer briefs, the same ones I put on when I got dressed for Conner’s party.

  How long ago was that?

  I try to think, feel around the bed to see if I might find my clothes, my wallet, something I can use to cut this goddamned strap off my leg.

  Nothing. I track my fingers along the edge of the bed as far as I can, my hands blindly squeeze between the mattress and the foundation, probe the cool bare floor underneath. It is clean, but I can reach pretty far. I push my hand up inside the box spring. Something metal is there. I slide my fingers behind it and begin pulling.

  Black shadow moves beneath the door.

  Someone is out there.

  I flip myself back up onto the bed. My ankle burns. Just that moment of exertion leaves me gasping for breath. I am sweating, my eyes wide; and I watch the light at the door’s edge.

  It opens.

  I shut my eyes.

  I heard him walk up to the edge of the bed. He put his hand flat on my chest.

  “I know you’re awake, John.”

  I opened my eyes.

  “How are you feeling?”

  And I thought, What an idiot. How do you think I feel? I wanted to scream, howl, but I kept my mouth shut. Mostly, I had questions. I kept hearing them over and over, but I didn’t want to say them.

  What the fuck are you trying to do to me?

  “I bet you’re thirsty,” Freddie said.

  I was.

  “Would you like a drink of water, John? Do they call you Johnny, or just John?”

  Jack, asshole.

  “I promise it’s only water this time.”

  He walked out the door, leaving it open. My eyes adjusted to the light. He was wearing those same doctor’s scrubs. I saw the name badge, too. He didn’t even try to lie about his name. That was bad, I thought. And he looked big, like I’d never be able to fight him, even if I was pretty strong.

  In a minute Freddie Horvath came back through the doorway, pushing one of those adjustable rolling desk chairs in front of him. There were some plastic bins on the seat that had things in them—I couldn’t tell what they were—and a bottle of water, the same brand he’d given me the night before.

  A cigarette pointed at me from his mouth. The smoke curled back through the uncombed hair that hung down over one eye. I tried to take in as many details about him as I could, but looked away every time his eyes landed on mine. I thought he was maybe about thirty. Maybe younger than that. His mouth and eyes looked dead, like he was bored.

  He took the things from the chair and put them down on the floor beside the bed. He took a drag from the cigarette and pulled it away from his lips, exhaling streams of gray from his nostrils.

  “I know.” He smiled. “A doctor who smokes.”

  He held the water bottle in front of him and sat down.

  I could reach your fucking throat.

  “Thirsty?”

  I put my hand out, but Freddie jerked the bottle away.

  “First lesson, John.” He drew another hit from his cigarette and said, through the smoke, “You have to ask me.”

  I looked at him, his name badge, the water.

  He sat back in the chair.

  “Ask me for it.”

  “Can I please have some water?” My voice sounded sick, far away from my body.

  “That’s nice,” he said. “That’s how you do it.”

  He handed the bottle to me.

  “See?” Freddie said. “It’s sealed. No tricks.”

  I drank, and spilled some of the water down my neck onto the mattress.

  “What did you do to me?” I said.

  “I didn’t do anything. You did it to yourself.”

  I capped the bottle.

  If that’s what you think, asshole.

  “This thing really hurts my ankle.” I thought about what he’d do. I wanted to be careful. “Will you take it off, please?”

  Freddie leaned over the bed. He put one hand beneath my heel and the other on top of my foot. The way he turned my foot in his hands and looked at me told me he really was a doctor.

  “Stop pulling against it,” he said. “I can put something on it so you don’t get an infection. Tomorrow, maybe I can switch it to the other side if you want.”

  I wondered if he was going to make me ask for that, too. He reached down to the floor. I heard him moving things around, the sound of a plastic lid being pulled open. He took the cigarette from his lips and tilted it toward me.

  “Smoke?”

  I looked away.

  “Didn’t think so. You sure can drink, though.”

  He put the cigarette down somewhere. I couldn’t see. He squeezed clear, greasy cream from a silver tube onto the tips of his fingers and wiped them around the burning cut on my ankle. Gently. I looked at the window, wondered what was out there.

  “Does that feel better?”

  I didn’t say anything. I took another drink and recapped the bottle.

  “You need to pee? I bet you need to pee, John.”

  I needed to piss so bad, it felt like I was going to burst.

  “My name’s Jack.”

  I looked right at him, trying to see if he’d have any reaction to that. I couldn’t tell anything from his eyes. He scared me. I knew I’d have to play along with him so he wouldn’t hurt me, but I wanted to lash out and hit him as hard as I could. The only way he’d think my name was John was if he’d looked through my wallet. I wondered what he did with it, with my clothes. How he got me into this room. I knew what I’d done to myself to get here, and I realized nobody would even miss me yet.

  Conner probably thought I was mad at him or something.

  I should have stayed in there with him and Dana when he asked me to.

  I felt sick.

  “Will you let me up so I can take a piss?”

  Freddie bent forward and picked something from the floor. He held up a milky white plastic container with a wide angled mouth on it and red rubber stopper held on by a band that looped around its handle. He pried the cap off, and I could see his cigarette butt curled up inside the bottle.

  “Male urinal,” he said. “From the hospital. I’m sure you can figure it out.” He stuck his finger into the mouth and tipped it downward. “Like th
is. Use it.”

  My stomach turned. He handed the urinal out and teasingly pulled his hand back when I reached for it.

  “Ask me.”

  I started thinking about him hurting me. How bad it would feel. I wondered if he was going to kill me. When.

  “Can I please use that?” I said.

  “Nice.”

  He gave me the bottle. I really didn’t want to use it there in front of him, but there was nothing I could do. I knew that this had to be some weird game of his to make me act like some kind of fucking animal in a trap, but just thinking about it made me feel like I was about to piss myself, and I really didn’t want to do that in front of him, either.

  I tried not to look at him watching me as I lay there on my back, peeing into that plastic thing. I tried to make myself go away, even if I couldn’t.

  Freddie lit another cigarette, watching me as I filled that bottle.

  “Are your parents hippies or something, Jack?”

  I was so nervous, I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t know what he was getting at.

  He nodded his cigarette at my hands. “You know. You weren’t circumcised.”

  I stopped, pulled my underwear back over me. I swallowed. “I was born on the floor. I’ve never been in a hospital in my life.”

  I didn’t finish right. There was a fist-size circle of piss on the front of my boxer briefs. I tried to cover it with one of my hands. I was afraid he’d get mad at me. I started to shake. I’d never done that before from being scared. It was like I was studying myself: I’d heard that people could shake uncontrollably when they were scared, but I didn’t really believe it. Until now.

  Freddie took the bottle from me. He replaced the cap and held it up, swirling it, more than half-filled. I could see the black curl of his cigarette butt floating inside. He scanned me like he was measuring me for a box or something. “Now you’ll need to take a bath in the morning. And I’ll wash your shorts out for you, too. If you behave yourself. And if you ask me to.”

  He pushed the chair back from the edge of the bed and stood up. He put the sloshing urinal on the seat and picked up the plastic box he’d placed on the floor. Then he set another clean urinal, a full water bottle, and a plastic bedpan down on the bed next to me.