The Between

  “There’s no joy in fucking the dead,” a voice says from the darkness. His voice. He looks up and sees a Hilton figure facing him from the leather reclining chair. The figure is wearing Hilton’s silk pajamas, his hands folded in his lap.

  A second Hilton figure, this one dressed in Hilton’s pinstriped gray suit, is adjusting his kente-cloth tie in the bureau mirror. He looks over his shoulder to glance at Hilton, grinning unkindly. “Unless, of course, you like that sort of thing. Some people do.”

  “Fuck you,” Hilton says, feeling brave somehow. “All of you.” A third Hilton figure pokes his head from the bathroom, holding a dripping razor in his hand. His jaw is lathered with shaving cream, but the lather froths red from the runny, exposed flesh peeling from his face. One of his eyes is obscured by the flat crush of bone that was once his forehead, leaving him to gaze around him in a grotesque, exaggerated squint.

  “How many times, Hilton?” the squinting Hilton figure calls. “Twice? Three times? How many times do you think you can die?”

  “You can’t keep hiding,” says the Hilton figure at the bureau. “You don’t belong here. You remind me of a tree knocked over in a storm, its exposed roots gnarled and shriveled black—”

  “That keeps dropping seedlings,” sighs the Hilton figure in the chair, grim-faced, flipping through Dede’s legal pad.

  “What’s another name for a dead tree?” calls the horrid Hilton figure in the bathroom.

  “Firewood,” says Hilton at the bureau.

  “Kindling,” says the Hilton in the chair, his face filled with menace. “So how do you like that? A dead tree dropping seedlings. Everything is growing wild, no control. And your hiding is all for nothing, mind you, because those seedlings will choke soon enough. We’ve found someone to do some weeding.”

  “Who says it’s impossible to find good help?” chuckles the Hilton at the bureau. “Charles Ray’s dreams are like yours, easy to find. And he’s so willing.”

  “He’d have almost thought of it himself.”

  “And a poet, at that. Very nice touch, we thought,” says the Hilton in the chair, still glaring.

  Hilton draws the sheets up over his naked body in the bed, blinking back tears. “Leave us alone,” he says, begging by now. “Why can’t we just be left alone?”

  “No,” says the Hilton in the chair, pointing an accusing finger. “You leave us alone. Are we your puppets?”

  “You’re offensive,” says the Hilton figure in the bathroom, scraping at his torn flesh absently with the razor. A slice of skin the size of a bacon strip drops to the floor.

  “You’ve made us an abomination.”

  “Imagine the gall, the cowardice, to run the way you do,” says the Hilton in the chair. “To expect to keep dying forever. Opening doors that aren’t meant for you.”

  Hilton sees a flurry of movement behind the blinds pulled across the glass sliding door, and a small black boy wearing only cutoff shorts runs from his hiding place. He is Jamil’s age or a bit older, but he is not Jamil. He is so familiar. His skin is caked in glowing grains of sand.

  “There’s a pool outside!” the boy cries. “Can we go swim?”

  “That’s enough swimming for you,” says a woman’s voice. Hilton realizes that it is Nana, not Dede, who now lies beside him in the bed. Nana reaches over to stroke Hilton’s hand with a warm touch.

  “Just a little swim?” Hilton asks her for the boy, clasping Nana’s hand.

  “No more swimming,” Nana says kindly, her warmth drawing him closer and closer until he is wrapped in her arms, unafraid. The three Hilton figures have vanished. Only the boy remains, standing at the bedside with a smile and wondrous eyes gleaming with his innocence. Dried algae is tangled in the boy’s matted hair. Hilton is mesmerized by the sight of him. His eyes, his innocence, remind him of. . .he can’t remember. . .

  “Stop fighting, Hilton. It’s wrong to fight,” Nana’s voice says from all around him, a tunnel. “I was wrong, too. I thought it was all for you, but I left you a curse, not a blessing.”

  Those eyes. The boy’s eyes. The eyes of the unlived.

  “Jamil?” Hilton calls desperately, a near-scream. “Kaya?”

  In the darkness, no one answers. There is no one to answer. His words bounce against nothing and echo back to his ears.

  Hilton woke up to the sound of his own cries, finding himself curled in a ball on the floor of the study, his boxer shorts cleaved to him in a bath of icy perspiration. He’d rolled off of the pallet Dede fixed for him, knocking over his makeshift plastic-crate nightstand and the clock. The room seemed to be trembling, but Hilton realized it was only his own fierce heartbeat. His chest felt so tight, so tight. Jesus, had he been breathing? One of these days, if he weren’t careful, he might die in his sleep.

  He didn’t remember leaving Dede’s room. He didn’t remember allowing himself to sleep. Gasping, he sat straight up and reached for the shotgun he always kept beside him, feeling certain that they were still watching him, mocking. They were . . .

  Who? Who was watching him?

  Hilton tried to catch his breath, but it grew to a sob in his chest as he buried his face in the carpet of the empty room. No one. No one was watching. Only he was in here, with what little was left of his sanity.

  “God, don’t leave me like this . . .” Hilton sobbed, finally acknowledging that in the loss of all hope he, like all men, was seeking refuge in a power he’d never dared allow himself to believe in. “Please, God, please . . . oh Jesus, help me . . .”

  What had he done? Whom had he harmed, to deserve this? He’d tried to live a good life, that was all. He’d tried to be a good father, a good husband. He’d tried.

  you don’t belong

  come, hilton

  Hilton sobbed harder, feeling the gun’s cold metal barrel in his slippery palm. He could end it all now, he could plant the gun in his mouth. That would be so much simpler, if only it weren’t for Dede and the children. He couldn’t leave them. Not now.

  “Please, Jesus, show me the way . . .” Hilton begged, the muscles in his arms unsteady. “Show me the way . . . This life is worse than death . . . It’s worse . . . Is this hell I’m in? Why, God? Why?”

  An answer came to Hilton in a word: Danitra. Suddenly, a small sense of hope crept inside of him. He couldn’t undo it, but he could try. He could begin his penance.

  Hilton turned on the light and tore through his desk to find his message pad, where he’d taken at least one message from her months before, the day they made plans to move her to The Terraces. Yes, here it was. He continued dialing even as he glanced at his clock, which was lying on its side, and noted it was three o’clock in the morning.

  The phone rang four times. He heard muttered profanity and a baby’s cries. He didn’t recognize the woman’s voice, which was distorted from sleep. “—dammit. . . Hel-lo?”

  “Danitra?”

  “Yes,” she said, clearly annoyed. “Who the hell is this?”

  “It’s Hilton James.”

  There was a long pause. “Mr. James?” she asked, confused. “What. . . I. . . What’s wrong? What time is it?”

  His heart was pounding still. “I’m sorry to call this late. I didn’t mean to wake up Terrance. I needed to talk to you.”

  “. . . Talk to me?” she muttered. “I don’t . . .”

  “I had to apologize to you about today. It shouldn’t have happened, and it can’t happen again. I can’t sleep.”

  Danitra sounded alarmed. “What you mean, Mr. James?”

  “I had no business over there today. Can you understand?”

  Now Danitra exhaled with an exasperated sound. She didn’t speak, so Hilton went on: “I left my jacket by there, too. Can you leave it on your doorknob for me when you go to school? I just want to grab it, and then that’s that. I’m sorry to be like this, I know you’ll think I’m a dog, but I made a mistake. A big mistake.”

  This time when Danitra spoke her voice sounded more clear, more lik
e herself. “You’re drunk, ain’t you?”

  “I know what you must think, me calling like this. But—”

  “I think you better just get off this phone and sleep it off or something, Mr. James. You ain’t making no kind of sense.”

  “I just need my jacket.”

  “I ain’t got no goddamned jacket,” Danitra snapped.

  “Did you look for it? I think it’s—”

  “Look,” Danitra said, her voice slicing through his words, “I don’t have no jacket, and I haven’t seen your ass today or any day since I got out. You got me confused with someone else. This is Danitra, remember? Danitra Peebles.”

  Hilton was dumbstruck by the resolve and levelheadedness in Danitra’s voice. He could feel his pulse pounding in his fingertips as he held the telephone receiver.

  “You there, Mr. James?” Danitra said, and he couldn’t make a sound to answer. Danitra sighed again, and her voice changed. “Wait a minute . . . Is this J.T.? Nigger, if it is, I’m gonna—”

  Hilton slammed down the receiver, breathing hard. He clutched his throat with his hand and glanced wild-eyed around the room. It was happening again, just like with Stu yesterday. What was happening to him?

  Hilton shuffled through the hallway to the open door of Dede’s bedroom. He stood a moment to allow his eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness and then made out Dede’s sleeping face in the light from the patio. He stared at the leather reclining chair facing him, where her pad was abandoned in the seat. He glanced at his reflection in the bureau mirror. He walked to the bathroom and could see the white glow of his disposable Bic razor on the sink.

  He shuddered, then remembered he must be cold because he was nearly nude and dripping with perspiration.

  He walked to the closet and slowly pulled the door open, triggering the dim light inside. He searched for the robe to match his silk pajamas. Then he paused and turned instead to the section reserved for his suits, which hung neatly in a row. He buried his hand behind his navy suit and felt the smooth fabric of an unseen jacket. He pulled it into the light.

  His gray pinstriped suit. Jacket and slacks, on a hanger.

  Hilton heard a faint snore from Dede and jumped, then he sank against the wall and closed his eyes, sobs tugging at his throat again. He sealed his mouth shut with his palm. He didn’t dare look at the suit again. He had seen it. It was there.

  The floor seemed to move beneath his feet. His brain began to play fragments of that Eliot poem he’d been forced to learn in high school. This is the way the world ends, he thought. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang.

  A whimper.

  CHAPTER 17

  By the time Hilton reached the corner of Northeast Second Avenue and found the nondescript Cafeteria Borinquén with its faded facade and chipped paint, he was ravenous. Raul had apparently been waiting some time; he was already working on a plate of rice with pigeon peas and pinchos, pork roasted in small chunks on wooden sticks. He shrugged, seeing Hilton, and tapped his watch. “Sorry. If you had said one, I would have arrived at one. The food smelled too good,” Raul said.

  Hilton pulled out the wooden folding chair at Raul’s table in the center of the busy cafe, beneath the whirring ceiling fan. The decor was jovial, with posters of Puerto Rico and cartoon images of the islands trademark frog, the coquí, blanketing the wood-paneled walls. The spastic cowbells from a salsa song danced from hidden speakers. “I got my east and west mixed up. What the hell is a Puerto Rican restaurant doing in Little Haiti?” Hilton asked.

  “The great melting pot, no?” Raul said, absorbed in eating. He glanced up at him, stripping pork from its stick with his teeth and chewing quickly. “You look like hell.”

  “I love you, too,” Hilton said, darting his eyes away. His stomach growled loudly. “Are there any fucking waiters in here, or do I have to go back there myself?”

  Raul continued to gaze at him thoughtfully, then he raised his hand toward a lanky, dark-skinned man standing near the back. “Oye, Pedro. Ven aqui, por favor, compadre.”

  “Damn, the music’s loud in here.”

  “Silence, you,” Raul said, patting Hilton’s hand as the man neared their table with a water glass, which he set down near Hilton. “Tell me what you like, and I’ll translate for you.”

  “I don’t know what food they have. He can’t speak English? Jesus Christ.”

  Raul spoke rapid Spanish to the man, who nodded and replied.

  “How about what I’m having? The arroz con gandules?”

  “Yeah, whatever. Why aren’t you drinking beer? They don’t have beer?” Hilton asked.

  “You know I don’t drink during the workday. You don’t either. Let’s have coffee. Dos cafes, Pedro.”

  Hilton didn’t answer, emptying his water glass in a series of long swallows. The ice clanked against the glass as he set it back down. He stared at the red-and-white checkerboard pattern on the tacky plastic tablecloth, drumming his fingers on the table.

  “You’re in a real mood today,” Raul said.

  Again, Hilton was silent. He wanted to launch right into everything, explaining that he was losing his mind somehow, but he’d lost his nerve after seeing his friend in person. He couldn’t remember the words he’d chosen. The whole story sounded ridiculous, even to him. And what was the story, really?

  The waiter brought a basket of warm flat bread, moist with melted butter, and Hilton dove into it hungrily while he felt Raul’s eyes watching him. Raul reminded him of Dede sometimes, the way he probed without words and simply waited. Well, it would be a long wait today. Hilton didn’t feel like talking.

  “You might consider plastic surgery for the bags under your eyes,” Raul said. “But I’m not certain it would help.”

  Hilton glared up at him. “That’s not funny.”

  “It was no joke.”

  “Look, just lay off of me. I don’t even know why I’m bothering with this.”

  “Bothering with what?”

  “Trying to deal with you like a human being.”

  “Oh, I don’t know . . .” Raul said gently, sipping from his half-empty water glass. “Sometimes that actually works. Que pasa, eh? What’s so important it couldn’t wait until your party?”

  Hilton set his jaw, staring at the bread basket while the waiter returned with tiny cups of Cuban-style coffee. Sullenly, Hilton bit into a second slice of bread. Raul reached into his linen jackets front pocket and pulled out a business card, which he slid into Hilton’s eyesight. Hilton read “Psychiatric Services” before he looked away.

  “Get that away from me,” he said.

  “She’s good. An M.D. I send her all of my former clients.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “Dede’s been talking to me.”

  Hilton paused in midchew, glancing back up at Raul. The same probing eyes were there, trying to slip inside of him. “And?”

  Raul shrugged. “And she’s worried about you. She says you’ve been acting strangely. I, of course, said, ‘How can you tell?’”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  Raul rested his chin on his palm, his gaze more serious. “She said something interesting: If she were still prone to jealousy, from the way you behave, she’d think you were having an affair.” Hilton sighed, running his hand across the top of his head. The frenzied beats of the drums and blares from the salsa trumpets were making him feel fevered.

  “So . . . are you?” Raul asked, not blinking.

  Instead of turning away from his gaze, Hilton decided to face Raul. He leaned toward him. “You can’t discuss this, Raul.”

  Raul nodded. “So you are, then. You’re a prick if you are, I’ll tell you that right now. As if you couldn’t learn from me and my ex . . . You see how miserable I am, with no one.”

  “I’m not having an affair. But I did . . . ”—he swallowed,with considerable effort—“I did sleep with someone. A former client. At least, I think I did.”

  “Are you in denial, or do you hav
e amnesia?”

  “I know, I know. It sounds crazy. But I slept with this woman, and then she said she didn’t remember. I mean, like it never happened. I don’t think it did. And the jacket I left at her house was in my closet. It was like you and that Mets cap that time, remember? At Miami Arena?”

  “You’re making no fucking sense, Hilton. As usual.”

  “Some fucking doctor,” Hilton shot back, stung.

  “Your premise is wrong. I’m not your doctor.”

  “That’s for damn sure. Just shut up and listen a minute. I think all of this has something to do with my dreams. I mean, things are happening to me and then I find out they never really happened. More than once. Like your Mets cap, and now this woman . . . I think maybe I just dreamed it. I never slept with her, I just thought I did. But Raul, it was so realistic. I was there. I can remember every detail, down to how she tasted.”

  “Do you mind? I’m eating.”

  Unexpectedly, Hilton slapped his palm down hard on the table, making his silverware jump up against his glass. Raul hesitated with his fork halfway to his mouth, surprised.

  “Don’t you get it?” Hilton said, his teeth gritted and his arms trembling at the elbows from anger and hunger combined.

  Raul glanced around briefly to see if they were drawing stares, then rested his fork on his plate. He sighed. “No, Hilton . . . I don’t get it. Explain it to me.”

  “There’s something going on in my dreams I need to know about, because I don’t think I’m really awake sometimes. Okay? It’s like I could call you later and say, ‘Thanks for lunch today’ and you would say ‘What lunch?’ I don’t know what’s real anymore. I’m afraid to sleep, man. I feel like I can’t ever go back to exactly where I left, like I never know what I’ll find.”

  For a long few seconds, Raul ate and didn’t answer. The waiter brought a steaming plate of rice and beans to Hilton and set it in front of him with a smile and nod. Hilton didn’t move to touch his food, waiting for Raul’s assessment. He hated to feel so dependent on his friend, but Raul was all he had now. What you’ve described is very common, he might say. Nothing to worry about. A quick dose of hypnosis and you’ll be fine, just like before.