Chapter Forty-eight: A scream at the sunrise
After two days of not sleeping, I take my guitar out and play it for the first time in what seems like months. My fingers are rustier than the iron nails in the antique garage. I have regressed to the point of losing two years. The guitar fits tight into the case and I decide to go for a drive.
The downtown is set in motion with hoards of soccer moms and kids in strollers so I turn on Newfield Road and pull into Veteran’s Park. The tennis court has no net.
The field is brown with withered grass and patches of dry dirt.
I admire the couple walking their black lab next to a No Dogs Allowed sign as a policeman sitting in his patrol car sips his coffee. The dog defecates in plain view but the woman in a pink picks it up with a blue plastic bag. The engine turns over as I crank the key and I smell nothing but low tide. As I pull in the garage, there are no signs of life in the house.
Having a smoke on the screened in porch, I observe crows flocking around the next door neighbor’s bird feeder posted over their shrubs. The cigarette is ground under heel and I go over to the fence and look. The crows are eating a squirrel on the ground. The image of the crow dive bombing the reporter comes to mind as I go inside. My parched lips smack so I walk over to the refrigerator to get a pitcher of chilled water. The light spills out along with the red dots. They spread across the floor like a puddle.
Paralysis strikes.
My eyes blink.
The atmosphere radiates heat around me and I sweat from my elbows and knees. I don’t want to be found flat on my face on my mother’s kitchen floor so I strain to sit against the cabinet.
Gravity increases and I roll to my side. I have no bones, or muscle-tone. I can’t take this. Die or talk to Elyssa?
With the thought, I can breathe again and decide to decide but not here. I must do it away from this house.
Sleep can’t be denied.
My eyes open to red lights. I pushed back against the wall. The fear breaks as I see it is only the red digital letters on my clock that read six o’clock. The darkness holds on but the sun will soon ascend. I put on a pair of jeans and a black baggy oxford. Gliding out, I grab my mother’s keys off the rack. I know she has to go to work soon but the sunrise calls to me.
I open the garage and put the car in neutral. With only the sound of the tire’s friction on the asphalt, I push it out to the road. The car is a willing accomplice and starts up. Two orange town sanitation trucks sit coughing out exhaust across the sand swept parking lot of Reef beach. They pull out as I pull right up to the sand’s edge next to the stone retaining wall.
Mid-tide scrawls below the horizon. Whitecaps trip and fall off-shore. The beach is clad in a white and gray uniform and the sun is just peaking out over the edge of inky sky. The dune grasses wave in the onshore breeze.
I can hear the wind whip against the car. It looks too cold to go out and sit in the sand and smoke. The choice is made. I connect the car CD player and took out the last thing I bought at school. A Fishbone CD titled Give a Monkey a Brain and He’ll Think He’s the Center of the Universe. I light a smoke and the song End the Reign plays with sounds of liquid rebellion.
The somnambulant sun crowns.
The day fights to be born.
An edge of sunlight penetrates the car. I look at my cigarette and the bluish smoke claws up to my eyes so toss the smoke out the window.
The light shines on my hand in slats The scars on my knuckle glow. My fingernails are bitten down to the irritated flesh and my skin is dry. I make a fist and it does not feel natural. They crack every time I flex. My hands are small and no longer paint or play the guitar well.
Nausea bubbles.
The pressure builds.
The sunrise breaks over the horizon and a concussion wave of white light blasts through the windshield and pins me back to the seat. On the dashboard a few red dots spin like a coin on its side. I laugh. The cymbals crash in the song. The power chord strums. The dynamic tension builds and the voice sings. The music enters my skin. I realized that whoever wrote this knows loneliness and rejection like me.
I am not alone.
The pressure blows away and my hair begins to tingle.
I am not numb anymore.
My eyes begin to water and cloud up. My facial muscles spasm and it is harder to exhale than to inhale. I force out choppy air and a sort of dizziness fills my head. As the song continues my emotions become stronger. I crack my neck and it sounds like a dry pine beam being twisted into splinters. The song has become my impetus and is a key to open up a fused lock.
Music is the last magic.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
The sun is up. I wipe the tears away but they are replaced. I am crying. The song sings the last chorus. The task is done and I have little life left in my larynx. This new day challenges yesterday and so I whisper to the past, “You no longer hold sway.”
What was the question? The answer is to be.
The pain in my tooth returns and I know what I must do.
Freedom feels like it sounds.
Pain is progress and numbness is not.
I wipe the tears from the sides of my nose and lips. Up in the rearview mirror staring back at me is a smile, Tim’s smile. He sits in the back seat. He nods his head once and dissolves into light. The darkness stood no chance.
I pull out of the lot and drive home to let my mom get her car before she freaks out. She’s in the breakfast nook drinking orange juice. I wave and pull her keys out of my pocket.
“So where did you go?”
“Just to see the sunrise.”
“That’s nice. Are you all right?”
“Thing is mom, I don’t know. I think I’m having mood swings for no reason and I can’t control it. Feel like I’m losing it sometimes.”
“You know your aunt was Manic-Depressive. I’ll set up an appointment for a psychiatrist. Will you go?”
“Yeah, I will. I don’t think I can handle it on my own. But I’m really hungry right now.”
“We’ll take care of this. You’ll be all right. Don’t worry therapy isn’t a bad thing.”
“I know.”
“Let me fix you some breakfast.”
"Thanks but that’s okay. Go to work. I’ll tell you about the sunrise later. There’s much to discuss and do. There’s a book I’ve been meaning to read and there’s a couple things I have to deal with today. I’ll see you later,” I say.
Down at the table, I sit in a heap and pour a glass of OJ. She stands and hugs me.
I hug her back.
She leaves with a growing grin. The pain in my tooth pierces my gums. I’ll call the dentist later but first another issue needs to be addressed.
On Saturday morning the scent of the beach is strong and I pack my guitar in the trunk of my mom’s car. Maybe I can revisit the opportunity I squandered in the first semester and sing to Elyssa? It’s time to open the letter too. Over the border I drive and pull into the Westport Stop and Shop grocery store parking lot.
The vast rectangular lot provides solitude. Rows of cars are barriers to prying eyes. I dig the piece of paper with Elyssa’s address out of my pocket and Erin’s letter. As her address unfolds, red dots come pouring out over my lap. I roll down the windows so I can breathe. The dots aren’t going to stop me this time.
The envelope is then straightened flat on my knee.
It’s like the glue on the seal gave up and back of the envelope just pops open with a gentle tug on the edge. A sky blue piece of paper rests between the paper walls and slips out while holding onto the creases.
Here it goes.
The letter is written in scrawling cursive letters and takes me a bit to adjust to reading.
“Dear Joaquin Theodore Shepherd Chandler. Find real love. Good bye. Erin.”
Tears merge with the ink on the paper in a cloudy black smear. I compose myself and put the letter back in the envelope. It gets wedged between the seats.
> Through the woody hills of the Westport, pine scented air swirls through the driver’s side window as I find her black mailbox at the end of a private road. I pull past half-way onto the soft shoulder of the two lane road where a drainage gulley sits with stagnant rain water.
Cars honk as they pass by.
“I follow and the red dots follow me.”
There is no where to turn around so I head north to find a street but end up in the town of Weston. The car idles at crossroads as a box truck sputters and honks behind me. I yank the wheel and head back down towards the shore. The folded piece of paper flutters around like a paper crane inside the car. It gets sucked out the passenger window and the red dots follow.
I know what I must do to make them go away.
***
Down the driveway I seek, the car comes to halt. I pop the trunk and sling the guitar around my back. Up the snaking sidewalk, tiny stones are kicked under foot. and I stab the doorbell with my finger and tap on the glass with my guitar string ring. The door lurks open to reveal a stunned face wearing granny glasses.
“So, you want to jam?” I ask.
The beginning is the end.
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