I go ballistic trying to break free, screaming at them to stop, let me go. Restraints give only slightly then hold me spread and powerless. I grip the length of ripped sheets that bind my arms to the bedposts and they turn to snakes wrapped around my wrists and begin slithering up my forearms. Their scales are rough and grate but I cannot pull away or stop them from biting into my flesh with my resistance. Faces are in front of mine, laughing, taunting.
“He’s mine first,” I think Billy, the guy sitting on me says.
“I’m next then.”
“No way, Paul,” someone says. “I found him.”
They bicker about the order to rape me as Billy commands them to hold my knees further back and I scream again, my muscles tearing, I’m choking for breath while he moves between my legs and unzips his black slacks. His Cheshire grin is so wide it looks like bad CGI, and I stare, trying to decipher surreal from reality. Then searing, blinding pain shoots through my anus sending dizzying flashes to my eyes and brain as he shoves his dick up my ass. I scream, my skin tears as he drives his rock-hard cock into me, the pressure of him inside me feels as if he’s splitting me open.
My entire body quickens. I gag, stop walking, swallow back throwing up and stand in the hot sand bent over gasping for air but can’t catch my breath.
Run. Move. Stop thinking. Run.
Take off towards the shoreline, then ran full tilt along the water’s edge. Beach is deserted. I take off my shirt and drop it as I run. I’ll be back for it. Scars are red and ugly. Run faster. Look forward. Pump harder. Loosely ball my hands and set my limbs into a fast rhythm.
I’m a machine. Breathe. Don’t think. Just breathe.
I run out of beach a mile down where the cliff meets the sea, and instead of following the path up and over the hill, I double over, gasping for breath, drenched in sweat. Suddenly chunks of pepper and cheese are in my throat then my mouth. Can’t stop it. Smell as it comes out makes it keep coming, and coming until all that’s left is burning stomach acid. I swallow that, then lay back, choking for air, trying to shut down the screaming in my head. “WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING TO ME?!?” my voice echoes off the hills and comes back at me.
Stop it! Bring it back in…Hold it together…Take a deep breath…
I sit up, cover the vomit with sand, then look out at the sparkling sea. How far would I have to swim out before killing my option of making it back in? Sink into oblivion and shut all this down for good...
You are a coward, James Whren! Stop running. Get mad!
No! Don’t. What’s the point? Play it as it lays. Bury it in the past where it belongs.
That’s not right. It’s fucking with me now. I wanted to be with her. Want to feel her, touch her, taste her. But I couldn't. I can’t. What is going on!? “Why did you destroy my life, Edward!?”
Knock it off, James.
I stare out at the flat sea, turquoise blending to blue violet where it meets horizon. Just like the Santa Monica Bay looked from my living room window sometimes, when a storm was breaking up or coming in. Even on a really smoggy day, even then sometimes it was beautiful, the Pacific that phosphorescent green...Or when the westerlies were up, the waves cresting at twenty feet…surfing all morning at Leo Carrillo, then lazing on the deck, knocking back the heat with an ice cold beer...
Julia’s there. She’s naked, coming through the sliding glass door. Shield my eyes from the blinding sun watching her approach. She’s laughing at something I’d said, her long brown hair blowing wildly around her soft face. Then she mounts me, skin on skin all afternoon under the hot sun, and again that night beneath the stars. It’s weird with moments like those. I’d missed their significant until I was in that cell, searching my memory for something to save me.
I dig my hands into the warm sand and let it run through my fingers. The scars around my wrists from the restraints are no longer visible. The jagged red lines on my forearms are. Wish I had my shirt. I turn around and scan the beach behind me. Not a living soul. And I touch the black of Lonely, and with the void comes fear.
A sudden shudder passes through me. I stand and stare at the horizon—about twenty-six visible miles at sea level. How many could I make before going over the edge? Then I see Elisabeth’s face, the curve of her breasts in firelight. Picture her clear eyes, her casual smile; Cameron's grin of unfettered joy, beacons of light in the dark. And suddenly I’m grounded, the blackness gone, though disquiet still looms as I start walking back, looking for my shirt.
I pick up the pace to a casual run, heading back to Elisabeth’s, though I'm lost for what to say when I get there. I flash on times I left Julia at airports, train stations, standing in studio doorways with the same confused, wounded look on her face I’d failed to acknowledge. I recall that same look on her face when I left Stephen’s, and even then I’d ignored her pain, so rapt in my own.
The air is thick, salty, heavy. Sea is almost flat, swells without crest hit the shoreline in quiet puffs. Still no one around. Just me. It’s always been just me.
I’ve lived an autonomous life. Self-serving. I hadn’t noticed. And it didn’t matter—until now, without music to absorb me.
Perhaps Edward was right.
Shut up.
I’d never meant to hurt, but as Julia said, my intentions are meaningless when my actions prove I didn’t truly care, since time and again I wasn’t really paying attention.
“The trick has always been getting your attention, James.” I hear Martin in my head, feel his piercing, puppy-dog eyes trying to drill awareness into my head.
“I’m paying attention, Martin. I just don’t care to engage,” I’d answered glibly then, only now I can see the joke is on me.
Martin’s right. I’ve distanced myself from humanity, haven’t let anyone touch me, not really, too afraid of having to endure their loss if I dared love them. Music was never my savior. I may have lost myself in it, but it didn’t really fill me up, which is why I played it obsessively, like an addict—asymptotically closing in on a buzz that never happens. My stomach tightens. I slow to a walk. Throat closes with choking regret.
I have to stop to breathe. Stare out at the sea, run my hands through my hair to pull it from my eyes, then hold it back with balled fists and dig my knuckles into my scalp, like the demented at Langside. Tears stream down my face and I don’t even try to stop them.
I'm suddenly consumed with self-loathing. What have I done? My entire life, my allegiance has been to an abstraction. I’ve never committed to anyone real.
Run, James.
I do, take off up the beach, run as hard, as fast as I can. My stomach churns. I deserve the incredible cramp building in my side.
Elisabeth’s right. I am the personification of her dead husband.
But I don’t have to be.
The idea strikes me in an explosion of awareness. It’s as if a wave sweeps me up and I’m riding it, its momentum moving me forward towards...infinite possibilities. “You can be whatever you want to be, James. Music doesn’t have to be all there is. You just made it that way.” Again I hear Martin in my head. I stop running. Laugh. Take a few measured paces and the cramping subsides, and I resume running.
Breathe. Streamline...Good. Loose, easy, become efficient. I am a machine.
I find my shirt where I left it, slide it on, cover my arms, hide the scars, from myself. I’m three minutes from Elisabeth place, but can’t go back there just yet. I know I need to talk to her, apologize for taking off as I did. A year and a half ago, I never would have recognized I hurt her. But if I go to her now, she’ll drill me for details. And I’ll have to get into it. And maybe she won’t want to know me anymore once she finds out what happened, what I’ve done, sees who I’ve been.
About the last thing Elisabeth needs is a repeat of Jack. A year and a half ago, I wouldn’t have noticed what she needed, and on the off-chance I did, I’d have figured I was her cross to bear in befriending me. Still, I cannot find the will to face her right now, without any inclinat
ion of what to say that won’t chase her away.
Probably close to one hundred degrees when I get back up to my house. Bathe and change into clean clothes, then walk into town. Maybe a few games of Tavli with the old men might give me the distance to formulate the right words to communicate my fulcrum, and satisfy, or at least pacify her justifiable concerns. Elisabeth is the daylight at the end of the curl; Cameron the sun—my lifeline. I may hide from the world forever without them, devolve to solitude, succumb to madness, become the crazy old man on the hill.
All the way down into town I work on the right words, phrasing and tenor for the apology I plan on delivering to Elisabeth, as soon as I come up with something worthy.
Chapter Seven
She finds him late that afternoon in town, over a Tavli table at the Pelekas Café. He’s playing an old man, a very old man with deeply wrinkled olive skin, crooked, yellowed teeth and amazing brown eyes that shine with the vibrancy of youth. The old man gives her a pleasant little smile, but James just stares at her as she approaches. Cameron is on her shoulders but squiggles down the instant they stop at the side of the table. He crawls into James’ lap and messes up their board, picking up the backgammon pieces and rolling them around. And Elisabeth lets him, too.
“Ohi! Ohi!” the old man yells at Cameron and tries to shoo him away.
Cameron clings to James, startled by the hostile response. James stands abruptly, cradles Cameron to him and speaks rather aggressively to the old man. “Irémise. Ennooúse kamía zimiá. Távli eínai gia to pérasma tou chrónou tis iméras, étsi den eínai?”
The old man nods then smiles. James strokes Cameron’s hair unconsciously while he stares at her silently. She glares back at him, and they’re both stuck in this void until the old man speaks to James.
“Oi gynaíkes eínai san tis skni’pes. Dio’htes makriá kai tha érthoun píso na se dankósoun.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me to take you for a walk.” James swings Cameron to his shoulders and takes her hand. “Let’s go.” He leads her through the maze of tables and they walk out onto the sand. His fingers are laced in hers, extending over the back of her hand almost to her wrist. It feels oddly familiar.
“I’m sorry for just leaving like that. I wasn’t prepared to get into my past right then. Even barring the last two years, I’ve been uncovering a long list of what’s wrong with me lately.” He gives her an awkward grin. “I tried to warn you—I’m really not the best person to be with right now. I probably never was.”
Her heart caves. He must have felt it because he stops, lets go of her hand and looks at her.
“Hi mommy.” Cameron smiles down at her.
“Hi Cam.”
James watches her. “I’m sorry, ‘Lisbeth. About the last thing I want to do is hurt you.”
She stares back at him. “James, you can run. From me. Yourself. Whatever. You can run the rest of your life, if that’s what you really want to do. But the truth is, you’ll never outrun yourself.”
He gives her a vague smile, then his eyes veil to some internal thought. “Really so very tired of running.” He says as if to himself.
“Then talk to me. Stay and deal with whatever’s going on.”
“I don’t know what’s going on. It’s like a tidal wave hits me. A flood of feelings comes to the fore and I’m drowning. I have to shut it down to breathe, except I’m not sure how to anymore.”
“You don’t have to anymore. Talk to me. I’m right here.”
He stays on her a moment longer then he turns away and starts walking again. She falls in step beside him. “I’m free-falling, Liz. Music gave me ground, a foundation with walls, a controllable space. Now I vacillate between anger and fear mostly.” He stares out at the turquoise sea. “Except when I’m with you. You and Cameron.”
“Fly ‘Ames. Fly! Fly! Fly!” Cameron directs James to play their now familiar game.
James wide, infectious smile returns as he holds Cameron over his head and twirls him around and around. Cam sticks his arms out, like he’s flying, and laughs hysterically.
“‘Gain! More! More!”
James twirls and Cameron laughs, then James starts laughing, and she does too. Finally, James stops, sticks out his tongue feigning nausea, flips Cameron over his head and sets him on the sand. They meander along the water’s edge. He watches Cameron explore the shoreline but is somewhere else in his head. She’s losing him. Again.
“I don’t know exactly how to help you with your fear. I’m scared of everything, all the time.” She confesses, to draw him in but she isn’t sure he’s listening. “But I do know if you balance your anger with your culpability it will help temper it.”
His eyes narrow and she feels him tense. “Even if I admit to setting this whole thing in motion, I’m still disgusted—just at myself, too.”
“But that’s manageable. Learn from who you were, and there’ll be no reason to be angry with the man you are.”
He stops and looks at her. Then he smiles, almost to himself.
“Look! Look! Wow!” Cameron digs after a tiny crab that’s scurried down into the soft, wet sand.
James kneels next to him and digs into the sand. A few scoops of his huge hand, and he finds the crab and shows it to Cameron. They both watch it crawl across James’ hand, then scuttle off and drop back into the wet sand. A small wave comes, covering their toes, and the tiny crab disappears. Cameron toddles out of the water, spying something up the beach. James stares after him a moment before they resume their slow pace.
“You’re great with him. Very natural. How do you come by that?”
“Cameron is easy to please. Nothing complicated. No hidden agendas.” He raises an eyebrow at her, and she blushes. “And no, I don’t have any kids. None that I know of anyway.” And he gets sucked through a wormhole and is lost somewhere inside his head.
Don’t scream.
He’s totally consumed, miles away.
Don’t be mad. Don’t get mad at him. You always got mad at Jack and it never did any good. Back off, Liz. Maybe if she gives him distance he’ll eventually come to her.
James takes off like a shot, runs full force towards Cameron as he toddles into the sea while chasing a group of gulls. Just as a small wave sends her son tumbling into the water, James scoops his little body out. Soaking wet and screaming, Cameron clings to him. Elisabeth has to pry him loose, then he clings to her, body to body, his arms and legs wrapped around her, and she holds on for dear, sweet life.
“It’s okay, baby.” She smooshes her face into his neck. “You’re fine, Cam. Calm down. You’re okay.” She rubs his back, rocks him gently. Cameron stops crying and loosens his grip around her neck. She looks at James and tries to hide her shame with a smile. “Thank you.”
“No problem.”
She holds Cameron tight. “I’m afraid of losing him. I think about it all the time. He was twelve feet away and I know he wasn’t in mortal danger. But my heart is still stuck in my throat.” She rubs her cheek to her son’s, and he giggles and snuggles into her. He’s soft and warm and wet. “I’ve never felt anything like I do for him. The feeling is more powerful, intimate, connected, than anything I’ve ever experienced. And now that I know this kind of love, I can’t ever live without it again.” It comes out more dramatic than she’d intended. She looks away. Cameron’s wriggling, so she sets him down. “He’s already off on a new adventure, and my heart hasn’t established an even rhythm yet.” Elisabeth looks at James. He smiles and keeps his eyes on hers until Cameron takes off up the beach again.
They join him in front of a complex sandcastle collapsing with the incoming tide. Walled courtyard, four turrets with carved narrow windows and fluted tops, surround the interior castle.
“Wow! Wut dat?”
“A sandcastle. Like the ones we build sometimes. Only ours aren’t as good.”
James laughs. “You’re not kidding. This is exquisite.” A small wave from the incoming tide takes a piec
e of the sand wall away, and his lingering smile turns into a classic pout. Elisabeth almost laughs.
“Aww! Fix boo boo, Mama.” Cameron’s lower lip comes out and his expression takes on the exact same pout. Cameron kneels in the sand and starts pushing the wet sand of the castle wall back in place, only to watch it slide down again, taking more of the wall with it. “Fix, Mama! Fix!”
“Can’t, Cam. The waves are just going to keep knocking it down. We can’t fix it, baby.”
Cameron looks at James. “Fix ‘Ames. Peeeze!”
“Your mama’s right, little man. We can’t fix this one. But we can build another one, a stronger one.” James winks at her. “Come on, Cam, help me out. Let’s create a masterpiece.”
Cameron’s eyes light up with his beautiful smile. And she could have kissed James right then. He kneels and opens his arms to her son. Cameron runs to him. James picks him up, swings Cameron onto his shoulders and goes several yards from the water’s edge. He plops down onto his knees, bows as if praying, and Cameron slides over his head and onto the warm, dry sand, still smiling.
They spend the afternoon building sandcastles, playing in the surf and on the sand, hunting for shells, making sand sculptures, burying their bodies. Their focus gravitates to keeping Cameron engaged. They head back to Elisabeth’s house, sandy and sun-drenched around sunset. The masterpiece they created is the memory of the day.
James puts Cameron in his high chair. Cam immediately grabs fists of spaghetti off the plateful in front of him and shoves cut up strands into his mouth. Olive oil smears his face, his hands, up his little arms. James retrieves the dishtowel and wipes him clean, then sits in his usual place as her son gathers spaghetti and shoves it in his mouth again. James laughs. So does Cameron, because James is. Elisabeth sighs, exasperated, puts platefuls of shrimp and pasta down for both of them, retrieves the dishtowel and cleans Cam again. She sits in her usual place, then picks up rubber-handled mini fork on her son’s tray, loads it with pasta and feeds him the bite. “Civilized is part of what moved us past warring tribes and monkeys.”