* * *
Ivan waved his goodbyes as enthusiastically as a little Russian kid who got vodka and tickets to a bear fight for Christmas. He was holding a small wad of cash in one hand, and his smile shone with the radiant intensity of the finest nickel cases soviet dentistry had to offer.
“‘Buy’ butt-sex! Jesus, what a horror. I thought he’d rape me and you’d just sit by and watch!”
“Would you have enjoyed that? It’s understandable to have a fear of penetration.”
“Steve.. Seriously. I don’t want to hear that kind of bullshit. For the last time, I’m not a homo.”
“Nobody is. Not the first time. You’re just experimenting. I can grok that.”
By that time I had mastered my instincts and even though a proper response would have been a punch in the face and a kick in the nuts, I was content to sigh and get on with the job at hand which seemed a lot more likely to test my limits than hearing Steve’s rants about me being gay.
“Just.. Just ring the bell.”
Steve shrugged and rang the bell. We were standing in the front porch of Eileen’s house, a three-story typical southern mansion that reeked of money. If I closed my eyes I could almost hear “Ol’ man river” and smell the corn. A moment or two passed. Nothing happened while we waited. I was looking at the old, thick wooden door idly. Steve rang the bell once more. Still, the buzz didn’t come. So we exchanged a couple of knowing looks; I looked under the door mat while Steve picked up a couple of plant pots and looked underneath. Nothing. No key. Steve said:
“Maybe she popped out for a while.”
“‘Crazy’ Eileen Novorski does not just ‘pop out’ for a while. Crazy people, at least Eileen-crazy people do not ‘pop out’.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s agoraphobic, among many other things.”
Steve’s face froze in a blank expression while he was trying to connect the dots. Failing miserably, he asked nonetheless:
“So she’s on a wheelchair?”
“What? No, no. She’s scared of crowds. I thought you went to college.”
“Business major. Minor in arts. Can barely spell my name, actually.”
“I see. Well, something must’ve happened to her.”
“Maybe she’s taking a dump.”
The intercom buzzed right about then and I heard Eileen positively - and quite literally so - mad with excitement:
“Papa-Bear! Is that you suggah?”
“Yeah, honey-bunny, it’s me. Will you open up now, please?”
“Always, my love! Always!”
The intercom spewed some static as she hang up. The door buzzed and I pushed it open. We got inside and a powerful smell assaulted me: the smell of a shitload of money. The large entrance hall was just as I remembered. Stately, sparkling clean, filled with incredibly expensive luxury items chosen solely because of their price tag. There was this wide staircase that led to the upper floors, all marble and carpet. Pretty standard stuff for a cotton mogul like Eileen’s father.
Steve was taking in the scenery, seemingly rather anxious all of the sudden and threw me a look I could only think of as very constipated:
“I’m having this weird feeling,” he said and started searching his pockets.
“You need to go to the bathroom?”
“No, no, that’s not it. There’s something about this place that just doesn’t fit.”
“What do you mean? I know the tiles look all wrong but it’s the tapestry that’s a bit off-”
“Not the decor. I actually think what it lacks in finesse, it makes up with a few warm personal touches here and there,” he said while putting on some kind of talisman that looked like a couple of badgers getting it on.
I couldn’t help but crack a smile.
“Really? I actually did some decorating work myself here back in the day. I think it might look better if the panels -”
“Where is everyone? You said her father’s filthy rich. There’s not a manservant, a helper, or a nurse around. A cat litter box right by the entrance, but no cat or hairballs to be seen. See that small table? The vase on it has been moved, but there’s the patina of stale water in it. No one has bothered to change the water. The ceiling? Take a closer look at that chandelier. Cobwebs. Spun by a genus of spider known as Zoropsis, mainly found in the Mediterranean. Not native.”
“I thought you were a business major, not a spider biologist.”
“Arachnologist. It’s a hobby of mine. Never mind that, we’re in danger. This house is tainted.”
His eyes had started to shine with a very unhealthy gleam.
“What the hell are you talking about? Listen, let’s just talk to Eileen and get this over with fast. The clock’s ticking, remember. Where the hell is she anyway?”
And that was when I caught Eileen with the corner of my eye, falling down on me from the floor above, wearing a free-fall jumpsuit, arms outstretched looking uncannily similar to a flying squirrel on drugs, ready to clench me into her death-love-grip. The inane sight made me freeze like an idiot, so I couldn’t dodge her in time. She simply fell right on top of me and we both fell on the floor. I was pretty certain I heard something crack, and while I tried to breathe again, I heard Steven’s voice carrying the unmistakable markings of someone on a cocktail of psychedelic drugs:
“Ninja assassins, man! They’re everywhere!”, he said and took a few steps backwards, his back always turned against the wall.
“No, that’s Eileen, Steve. Steve, this is Eileen. Eileen, this is Steve,” I said catching my breath and made the introductions as best as I could considering I was being smothered in kisses, lying helplessly on my back.
“Papa-Bear! And uncle-bear, too! Do you remember, how we went sky-diving last time? I suited up, and jumped all the way down from the sky, just for you! Look, I even have a parachute!” she said and pulled the string, causing the parachute slot to pop open with a fizz before starting to slightly ooze out of its bag and on the floor, quite without reason.
“Well, good thing you opened it in time then, right?” I said trying to sound approving, even as I tried to squirm away from her. I took a look at Steve and it seemed like he was starting to develop some sort of real mental issue. He was hugging the walls, mumbling something inaudible and had the look of a wide-eyed deer frozen by a couple of approaching headlights.
I managed to stand back up after a while, while Eileen continuously expressed her endearment, handling me like a stuffed animal and calling me ‘booby-woompy’, ‘etch-a-sketchy’ and ‘orgasmatron two’, among other things. Before I could find a way to calm her down enough to try and tell her why we were there, Steve finally blew a fuse and lost his marbles as if Eileen’s condition was as catchy as the Ebola virus:
“It must burn! Quickly! There’s very little time! They’re coming!”
For a moment, I thought some real danger had him tripping balls, and peered outside a window.
“Falconi’s men?”
“No, the Ninjas!”
I was wrong. I think I sighed.
“Steve, seriously. Say, let’s have a drink. Something stiff. Maybe laced with sedatives?”
“There! Look!”
“What? Where?”
Steve pointed. I looked. He kept pointing, and I kept looking. I couldn’t see jack shit. There was nothing there to see other than rich folk stuff.
“Steve, there’s nothing there. I see nothing.”
“Of course! You can’t see Ninjas! That defeats their whole purpose! They’re invisible, didn’t you know?”
I was about to punch him again just as a stop-gap measure, when I saw Eileen had quickly acclimatized herself to the added craziness: she was doing her best ninja impression, with a length of the parachute wrapped around her face as a mask, wielding a three-pronged candle holder like some sort of dagger, dancing around, blinking wildly and generally looking very much like a deranged person rather than a ninja.
I realised I now had two instead of just one nutcases to handle, and they were helping each other turn me into one of them. I tried to fold Steve back into some kind of reality that might not involve invisible ninja assassins. I grabbed him by the shoulders and unglued him from the wall, trying to say something that might make him see sense:
“Maybe you ate something bad on the road? That sandwich? Maybe you put some mushrooms in that one; just for the taste, I’m sure. Or maybe peyote? That’s kind of the same, ain’t it? I’m not being judgmental, I’m sure you can handle your addiction.”
His face looked like splitting for just a moment. He then blurted:
“No chance! Peyote tastes like rabbit pee, that sandwich tasted like snake dung, I’d know the difference! Or is it the other way around?” he said and Eileen shove herself into view with an aerial kick that managed to overturn a small commode (that’s rich-folk lingo for a cabinet). It also cost me my meager grip on Steve who just snapped at exactly the wrong moment.
“They’re here, man! We got to torch this place! Let me go man!” he said, kicked me in the nuts and ran away while I collapsed in agony, seeing bright spots of many vivid colours and what might have been the faint image of a nun wearing a bikini and shorts. As I lay down on a Persian carpet feeling my balls secede and declare their independence, my gaze unwillingly locked out of focus at what must’ve been an original Trego, and had this had happened to someone else, I’d find the coincidence quite charming.
Eileen was all over me in the blink of an eye. Her eyes looked watery already and she shrieked right into my ear with the overtones of a caring nympho:
“Oh, Bobby! Bad uncle-bear kicked you in the naughty bits! I’ll kiss it better, Papa-Bear!”
While it might’ve been a welcome change in pace, I had to gather my wits, so I motioned a definite ‘no’ while I felt blood circulation slowly return to the aforementioned bits.
I still lay there panting though, unable to fathom how I’d put myself in a situation that involved a crazy woman and a recently acquainted bona fide shaman able to summon spirits in possession of a definitely disturbed mind. It really felt like a balls-to-the-wall moment.
I felt Eileen was doing something really awkward to my hair and then I saw she was tasting it, an all too well-known dominating her features. I knew then I needed to get up, knock some sense into Steve, preferably force-feeding him some of Eileen’s leftover meds that were bound to be found somewhere around the house. The developments though, outpaced me, when Steve came back into view shouting:
“Don’t just stand there! Make a run for it!”
He looked every bit as mad as a mad scientist of native American heritage would, complete with his feathery hat on and wildly unkempt hair. Eileen was still hunched right beside me, tracing the carpet with a finger, probably unable to understand why there were no puddles ripping outwards from the fluffy sea.
“Steve, for god’s sake, will you calm down?”
“No time! I turned on the gas! I’ll torch the fuckers, don’t you worry. All it needs is a sparkle, and this nest of evil will be burned down with a cleansing fire!”
Once more in my life, I felt I was on the forefront of modern psychiatric analysis and treatment. What made things a little different, a bit more urgent and a lot more dangerous than what mental illness professionals faced (more aptly, blabbermouths with a degree and an all-you-can-eat LSD buffet at work), was that gas is notoriously known for a tendency to make things explode in flames. I just used, plain, simple, hard logic to try and put things under control before it was too late. I simply told Steve what I thought of the whole situation:
“Steve, you are one stupid fuck. There are no ninjas, you’re just freaking out on ’shrooms.”
“I’m not freaking on ’shrooms, man. It’s real, you just can’t see them because you aren’t attuned. They’re really very devious. Don’t let that pink suit fool you, man.”
I tried to picture such a pink, fiendishly devious ninja for a moment, but thankfully I failed. I tried to make Steve see things my way:
“Okay, let’s just pretend this place needed some cleansing, and you went and turned on the gas in the kitchen. But you didn’t disconnect the safeties, did you?”
Steve held up a handful of nuts, bolts and valves that looked very out of place. I kept my cool and asked him without trembling, at least not visibly.
“What about that sparkle Steve? You’d have to light it up somehow, man. You wouldn’t be that crazy, say lighting up a match now, would you?”
And then I heard Eileen’s syrupy voice coming from the direction of the kitchen:
“Papa-bear? Why didn’t you say your tummy was empty? I could’ve cooked you your favorite, honey apple-pie with salmon and turkey eggs! And you forgot to put some real food along with that tin-foil in the microwave oven, silly Bobby!”
While I tried to make sense of that statement, Steve said the most sensible thing I had heard out of his mouth in quite some time:
“Just run!”
I had this awkward sensation tingling inside my gut. Time seemed to flow much more gently suddenly. And I think I started running like some kind of wild animal that sees the fires approaching, consuming everything, and flees. Only for some inexplicable reason, I wasn’t fleeing. I wasn’t running outside the house. I ran inside the kitchen, and saw Eileen happily glued in front of the microwave with the tin foil inside, waiting for the timer to reach zero. In the sparse few seconds that I envisaged I had yet to live, I grabbed her by the waist and carried her outside like a brat about to get a thorough beating.
I wasn’t paying thorough attention but I believe she was laughing her heart out, flapping her outstretched arms like we were head-showing a very cheap production of The Valkyrie.
As I passed through the open door, I could see Steve running in front of me, and realised his athletic scholarship wasn’t just some bullshit he’d made up. I saw the courtyard, and beyond that I could see the path leading to the road, and when I felt this giant hand push me up in the air with an urgency that belied its deadliness, I realised the bird’s-eye view is highly overrated and quite unpleasant if one does not possess the ability to land safely.
A fraction of a second later my ears were ravaged by the sound of the explosion that had propelled me and Eileen into the air. I had just enough time to think that it was a really shitty thing to die about a day earlier than you were supposed to, right before my face connected with the dirt horribly and everything went pitch black with a terrible thud.
III
When I came to, I opened my eyes tentatively, half-expecting John the ghost to greet me to my new fixed abode. Instead, I was cheerfully greeted by Steve who had conveniently propped me up against an apple tree which looked like it might have been as old as the one that had led to the discovery of gravity (a non-trivial force which I could vividly remember having challenged with little success).
“So, how are you feeling?”
The list of possible answers was easily narrowed to just one:
“Blown away?”
“That seems normal. You were in fact blown away. Still, you’re in one piece.”
I instinctively went about finding out whether that was indeed the case, and when all the body math checked out I happily concurred that indeed I was wholesome, at least physically. I actually felt great. I thought it must’ve been a miracle that I hadn’t even broken a single bone. It was a most welcome turn of events, surviving a gas explosion intact. So much in fact that I felt compelled to ask without worry:
“Where’s Eileen?”
And then I saw her lying flat on the ground, her hair curled up around her face, tangled like she had just washed her face. She looked insanely serene, no pun intended. She really looked peaceful. Like in a deep sleep or.. The thought just flashed across my mind like it was being stamped with the words by a really fierce customs officer, and my mouth moved of its own:
“Is she dead?”
>
And then I heard this really warm and sensuous voice coming out of nowhere with crystal clarity, as loud as a nagging thought:
“Right here, Bobby.”
I pride myself in thinking that I have extensive experience with using my eyes to look at things. Nevertheless, I was unable to see Eileen’s lips move, not even by a hair’s breadth.
“I’m in here with you, Bobby. Don’t be scared,” I heard her voice in my mind and I knew she was telling the truth.
Steve was putting together some twigs and sticks on a small pile, when he said as if on cue:
“Yeah, it worked. There was this slight side-effect though. It’ll wear off once we’re done.”
What the words implied instantly made my brain sent powerful signals across my body, urging me to go ballistic. Holding my head with one hand I could feel my pulse grow stronger and stronger, to the point where if someone pricked me with a needle I’d probably explode. I heard Eileen’s voice sweet and calming, as if everything was right as pie:
“Don’t worry, Bobby. It’s only temporary. I won’t be a bother, you’ll see.”
Somewhere along my mind there was a battle being fought between the impartial, calculating, cold forces of the logical parts of my brain and the mushy, animal-based subconscious mind that always believed it knew better. Beaten time and again, just this once it had won over and its uproar was translated into words coming out of my mouth:
“Damned if I’ll be, but I believe her.”
Steve looked up to me as if frogs were spewing forth from my mouth and he just blurted:
“I was not ogling your ass when you were unconscious; that’s just something troubled spirits might say when outside their usual host bodies, you know because they’re confused, can’t tell their ass from their elbow usually. I really wasn’t; Cross my heart and hope to die. Indian scout’s honor.”
“You weren’t doing what?” I asked, but I never really meant to know anything about what he might’ve been really doing, ever.
I could see the fire trucks and the sheriff’s office had done their part, and had extinguished the fire. The mansion had turned into a very big piece of charcoal, and we were safely and quite pertinently almost half a mile away, idly sitting under a tree, looking as innocent as any picnickers. The mansion was pretty much far off the road, so there weren’t really any bystanders or eye-witnesses, and that only meant it would merely be a matter of minutes until someone noticed us and thought about coming around and start asking questions. Steve was probably on the same train of thought when he said somewhat hesitantly:
“Shouldn’t we be, leaving? I mean, I don’t think you’re exactly on good terms with the boys over there.”
“Even though I should just tie you up on that tree alongside a five-gallon of gas and a blowtorch and write ‘I LOVE TO WATCH THEM BURN’ on your forehead, I won’t. And yeah, you could say I avoid law enforcers like the bubonic plague. Yeah, it’s time we made ourselves scarce.”
“What about me?!” I said, and knew it wasn’t me saying that. I covered my mouth with one hand in shocked surprise, while the other one was already on my waist adding to a very feminine body posture which must’ve looked very ridiculous and gay, perhaps much to the chagrin of Steve who paused and turned around looking at me like there was overwhelming evidence of something weird going on. He sighed and said:
“Eileen? While he was out, we had a talk. Don’t do that, it’s not polite.”
“You were going to just walk away!”
Steve was motioning slowly with his hands, as if that would calm her down. I was standing there very much like a statue, blinking erratically.
“No, we just now decided we should leave. No reason to get upset. We’re going to carry you to..”
He looked at me with a helpless expression. I focused on just one name and curiously enough I was able to say it as well:
“Mama Adele!”
“Mama Adele!” echoed Steve quite unconvincingly with a half-witted smile.
I suddenly could move again as if some invisible cords had just snapped. I flexed my muscles as if they had been brand new again, and then I dutifully proceeded to lift Eileen up and carry her on my shoulder. She was a lithe little thing and she wouldn’t be a bother until we could get down to the road and maybe hail a cab. Steve looked a bit worried though, so I asked him:
“What’s on your mind?”
“How are we going to walk around carrying her around like that?”
“Oh, that? Just pretend she’s my wife to be.”
“And does that make it okay for her to be unconscious?”
“Sure it does. It’s kind of a tradition around these parts. As the saying goes -”
A grin formed on my mouth and I cocked my head slightly sideways before I said in an exaggerated southern drawl:
“Knock’em down, bag’em up, knock’em up while sheriff’s outta town.”
“Seriously?”
“Yup. Besides, I’ve done this before.”
“With whom?”
I sighed and tried to look as bland and blank as possible with little success when I said:
“Eileen.”
“Oh, I see. So there’s quite some past between the two of you.”
“Yeah, you could say that. By the way, what was that shit inside the mansion? What the fuck where you tripping on?”
“Oh, that was just part of the ritual.”
I think I frowned really hard when I heard that, almost trying to connect one eyebrow with the other. I was inclined to ask Steve about his thoughts on the strategy of preemptive strikes in general, colloquially known as ‘shoot first, ask questions later’, and in this particular instance ‘punch first, then punch again’. But somehow I felt it would be a very counterproductive thing to do, at least until this situation with Eileen had been resolved. I’m pretty sure my teeth made a grinding noise when I said:
“You did this on purpose?”
Steve cleared his throat and settled into a calm, even voice. It was what could have passed as the voice of a narrator in a boring documentary about the use of poultry in ballistic forensics. Speaking from experience though, it was just Steve, indirectly admitting he was a rather huge asshole:
“Part of the ritual involves letting the spirits run wild, and free. Best way to do that, is make you act like yourself, speak from the heart if you will. Normally, we would have spend weeks together in the wild, hunting, bonding, perhaps bathing naked in ice cold streams, with nothing but the cloudy sky for a roof and our knives for shelter. The light of the stars would have shone in our souls, and our spirits would mingle with the Father Wind, the changer of all things not set in stone. And you would learn to feel the currents of Mother Earth flow within you, all living things as one force, separate but not divided, unique but not alone. And your spirit would be ready then. But because we had to do this real quick, I improvised and nearly killed us all. It worked better than I expected.”
“You’re an asshole, Steve.”
We soon reached the side of the road, and I saw a sign right across the other side advertising cheap food, strong coffee and liquor, and I quote: ‘fit for pharmaceutical use’. I was genuinely surprised then to see Steve wet his lips with his tongue, and look at me with an expression that verged on what I believe mental health professionals (yeah, the overpaid quacks) call bipolar disorder. The left part of his face was contorted in a jarred grimace, the kind of mess that happens to your face when you realise you’ve put yourself into a situation that can only result in abject, petrifying horror or death-of-the-soul (kinda like visiting the in-laws or watching the eight o’clock news).
The other half, his right half, shone with the intensity and brilliance of a miniscule sun, as if the skin was made from the same stuff as the stars (which - technically speaking - is of course true), the same kind of face that an alcoholic makes at the first whiff of anything ending - or beginning - with ‘ethyl’.
He sta
rted then to put his one foot in front of the other, when he stopped and looked at me once more.
“I’m.. I am, a bit thirsty. Parched, actually. Don’t you think we deserve a drink? Just a refreshment.” he said with a fake hoary voice.
Even though I was carrying Eileen on one shoulder, I managed to kick him in the nuts right about when he was about to cross the street anyhow. I looked at him and saw the universally recognisable, painful expression of a man feeling a little smaller.
“That was for earlier. You can get a drink when I’m alive, the job is done, and Eileen is back where she belongs.”
And then I think my left hand slapped me in the face, probably because I ended that sentence in my mind with “back in her crazy ass”; Eileen was left handed.
“See? You need a drink too, you just won’t admit it. Like the fact that you are actually attracted to members of the same -”
“You’re getting us a ride to Mama Adele’s, and if you try and finish that sentence the way I think you intend to, I’m gonna make sure you’re viscerally reminded of that dead horse of yours.”
I think he tried to laugh while on his knees, trying to stand back up, still in pain. He asked:
“You’re just pissed off, I get that. But you need me, and besides; you wouldn’t do that kind of thing.”
“No, not before I made sure you experience some non-consensual animal sex first-hand.”
He blinked, vacantly staring at me, not being able to connect the dots.
“’Gonna horse-rape you.”
“Okay..,” he said and started looking up and down the road, while I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face because I wasn’t sure it was me or Eileen who had actually said ‘horse-rape’.
I was getting the impression that Eileen’s spirit was somehow different, yet the same, from the ‘Crazy’ Eileen I’d known. It felt like her, but without the craziness. It somehow felt right, kinda made me feel a little bad too. But all in all, I was quite optimistic even though I had less than twenty hours to live, the spirit of my ex-wife was trapped in my body, and I was resting my hopes on a ghost and a shaman with a drinking problem. Who wouldn’t think to themselves: “How on Earth could ever, things be any worse?”