closed the door.
I devoured the entire thing. So full was I that it hurt to take a deep breath. But it had tasted so divine that it was impossible to eat it sparingly; and besides, another pizza would be just a phone call away.
I was at my office desk, reading the drivel that passes for literature these days, and found myself re-reading sentences. I was preoccupied hating myself. Hating myself for squandering my earlier opportunity to see the man in black with the comfort of my niece at my side. Comfort is a strong word. But more comforting with her than without. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t engage me with Emmy at my side. I don’t know why I thought that, but I did. The thing wanted me, not her. Not anyone but me. Emmy was all that was righteous and pure in the world, and with her by my side perhaps it would repel him like kryptonite to Superman. It was a dumb thought, but it cycled in my mind.
I got out of my chair and looked through the blind slats with a sudden air of bravery. I was rewarded by seeing wonderful nothingness. Steve’s house, the road, the northern half of my yard, and a big leafy White Oak centering my yard. From my view I couldn’t see too southerly, but from what I could see there was no ominous presence, no robed man. It galvanized me to some degree, in that I should confront this thing head on. It wasn’t real, I knew that. It couldn’t be. If it was, others would have seen it.
Not being quite as brave as I made myself out to be, I took another drink of scotch before doing what I had long been debating: confronting this thing.
I took my cellphone off the desk and went to the front door, calling Emmy along the way. I didn’t know what I was going to say until I began speaking. I looked out the peep-hole as the phone rang. Through the fish-eye I saw light and nothing suspicious. I was gaining confidence.
“Yes?” Emmy said in a hushed tone.
“Sorry, did I catch you at a bad time?” I was still looking through the peep-hole. “Oh, you’re in class, aren’t you?”
“I am. Class doesn’t start for a few more minutes. What’s up?”
“I confess that I had my eyes shut earlier. I’m sorry.”
“I figured. Jeff, you really need to—”
“I know. I’m doing it now. I wanted you on the phone as I did it. I can’t do it without you.”
“Class is about to start, so make it quick. I can’t stay on the line once it begins.”
“Okay.” I unlocked the door. My heart hammered as I opened it. In my mind I had seen it standing before me, just as the pizza guy stood in that spot a short while ago, but nothing was there. “Okay, so far so good. I’m going outside now.”
“Nothing is there, I promise. Take a look around.”
I stepped outside. My eyes were not wanting to direct south. They preferred north. I was looking around a bush at my Ford Explorer.
“Well? Is it all clear or what?”
“I guess so,” I replied, and just then I glanced left, to the White Oak.
In the shade of the tree, just south of it, there he stood, facing me directly. I didn’t get a good look at it because I slammed shut my eyes, dropped the phone, dashed inside the house and closed the door, locked it.
“Fuck!”
I was hyperventilating. My heart beat in my eyes, ears and temples. It felt as though the walls were closing in on me. I paced around the house, flailing for ideas of what to do and for understanding. Glorious understanding. I contemplated calling a head-doctor, and once the idea landed it stuck; I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that someone else needed to be inside of my head. That’s what I needed, a therapist. One who makes house calls. I was too chickenshit to go outside for my cellphone so I used the home-phone and leafed through the Yellow Pages.
There were plenty of shrinks listed so I started at the top. Secretary after damn secretary I got the same bad news, that I’d have to make an appointment and nothing was available for today. It took half a dozen calls to find one who would take me this week, but even she wouldn’t come to my house. I gave up on the idea after it was abundantly clear that nobody would help me on my terms, which were right here right now.
I drank more scotch, and that did seem to help calm my nerves. It was the scotch’s sagely wisdom that reiterated that the man in black isn’t real. That if nobody could see him but me, he wasn’t real. And if he wasn’t real, he can’t harm me. And if he can’t harm me, I’m worrying for nothing. Third grade logic tastes a lot like comfort food at times.
Medicine is a wonderful thing—it was the scotch talking again—a pill a day keeps the crazies away. I’d get through this, even if it meant being on prescribed drugs.
For the hell of it, I went online and Googled any number of things, using combinations of words such as black apparition, black-robed man, man in black with mask, man in black stalking, man in black invisible to everyone but me, and so on. It was a waste of time. I spent a half hour on this endeavor and yielded no results pertaining to my crisis.
There was a sharp knock at the front door. Then again.
“Jeff? Uncle Jeff? Open the door!”
Never had a voice sounded so heavenly to my ears. My precious Emmy. I opened the door and she stormed in. I closed and locked the door behind her.
“What happened!”
I looked away from her as I admitted to seeing it on my lawn.
She folded her arms under her chest (my cell phone was in her hand) and looked quite disturbed. “You need help.”
“I know I do.”
“Will you call for a doctor? Or should I do it for you?”
“I already did. Nobody will see me today. And nobody makes house calls. None that I found, anyway.”
“Well make one for as soon as possible then!” I had never heard her angry before, but she was pretty pissed. “If they won’t come here, I’ll take you to them. Okay?”
I nodded, shamefaced.
“I should tell mom.”
“No, don’t tell her.”
“You’re scaring me, Uncle Jeff. How am I supposed to sit there in class and take a test after that?”
“I’m sorry.” I felt like I was the child and she was the parent.
“You know that a man isn’t there, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Maybe I didn’t sound convincing enough.
“Leave your damned glasses there, and come outside with me. Now.”
“No, I don’t—”
She inhaled sharply, cutting me off. She wasn’t going to have it any other way. So I relented with a nod.
She handed me the phone and grabbed me by the wrist this time (I preferred the hand) and pulled me along to the front door. She unlocked the door, opened it.
It was as though something reached inside my chest, clutched my heart, and squeezed the holy hell out of it. The blood drained out of my head and down I went, unconscious. It was standing in the doorway.
I awoke on the couch. Emmy was sitting in a chair facing me. She was on the phone.
“He just woke up,” she said. “Okay, I will. I love you too, Mom. Bye.”
I sat up, rubbed my eyes.
“Don’t be mad that I called my mom. I was scared. I almost called nine-one-one, but called her first. I told her everything. She didn’t think you need to go to a hospital, but to a shrink. How do you feel?”
“All right, I guess.” I recalled what had happened to cause me to faint. “How long have I been out?”
“Five minutes, maybe a little longer.”
“I saw it in on the porch.”
“Yeah, I figured. Listen, Uncle Jeff, you really need to see a psychiatrist, and I know you know that now, but I think you need something for right now. Like Valium. Do you have any? Or Xanax?”
“I don’t have any drugs, no.”
She considered for a moment before saying, “I might be able to help you. I swear if you tell Mom of this, I’ll never speak to you again.”
“You can trust me.”
“I know a guy. Well, I don’t really know him, but a guy I dated does. I met him a couple times
. He’s a little creepy, a little weird, but he might be what we need right now. He’s into that spiritualistic holistic stuff. Smokes a lot of pot. He used to sell it to the guy I dated. Don’t judge me.”
“I’m not judging.”
“I’m sure he could give me something like Valium. Maybe it would be more natural, like herbs or something, I don’t know. He was selling peyote and mushrooms, too. He doesn’t live far. I don’t know his number but I know where he lives. Maybe I should pay him a visit and see if he has anything to sedate you. And I’ll work on getting you an appointment for a real doctor as soon as possible. Okay?”
“I’m not sure that I’m comfortable with you leaving right now.”
“I can’t stay here forever. I have to leave sometime.”
“I know.”
“Why don’t you go lie down in bed. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Please don’t go.”
She stared at me silently. “I guess I can call Jason, as much as I hate the idea. He’ll know that guy’s number. Maybe he’ll come over here.”
“That would be great, thank you.”
“Go lie down in bed.”
“I’d rather go sit in my office.” In my office is where I felt most control. It was in there that I turned good stories into masterful stories, where I turned duds into best sellers. My office is where I felt at my best.
I left her to make phone calls. sat in my plush leather chair, stared at Anna Macintyre in her frame.
In the here-and-now, the girl at my side gasped. “Anna Macintyre!”
“What about her?”
“That’s who I am! I’m Anna Macintyre!”
I was about to tell her that she isn’t Anna, but then considered there was more than one Anna Macintyre in the world. Highly doubtful she was one of them. And only moments ago she thought she was Emmy. She seemed to want to be anyone I mentioned. But she shocked the hell out of me by what she said next.
“Wait…” She stopped and stared vacantly at the ground before her. “I’m not Anna. I’m… Julie Macintyre. That’s who I am.”
“Oh my God.” It had to be a coincidence still. “Do you have a sister named Anna?” I knew Anna had a sister named Julie, and I had met her before, though she was only eleven or twelve at the time and looked nothing like the woman beside me; although it was reasonable to estimate that an eleven-year-old could have grown up to look just like her.
“I think so,” she said noncommittally. “Damnit, not remembering is vexing.”
As is being stuck in the middle of nowhere left to die, but I didn’t say that.
Funny how memory works. Just then I recalled being at Anna’s all those years ago, sitting on the bench outside her parents’ house beside the girl I was secretly in love with, chatting about God-knows-what, and a little girl comes riding up on a pink bicycle with one of those banana seats, wide handlebars with billowing white and red streamers. That was Julie. When she rode past us she squeezed the little clown-horn attached to the bars making a wha-ooga wha-ooga sound. Was she wearing a white dress? I don’t believe she was.
“That bike you crashed, giving you that cut knee and blood on your dress… do you recall the bike?”
“Uh… no.”
“Was it pink? Banana seat? Streamers? A horn that when you squeezed it went—”
She mimicked the exact tone it made with wide eyes. “How do you know?” She asked.
“Because I’ve met you. You are indeed Julie Macintyre. I was close friends with your sister.”
“Anna,” she mused.
“Yes, Anna. Small world, I guess.”
“Really small at the moment. It seems as if we’re the only two people on earth.”
Or in hell, I thought.
“It feels good to remember something. Really good.”
“More will come to you, you’ll see. I’d ask you how Anna has been these ten or so years, but I don’t think I’d get much of an answer.” I grinned at her.
“Yeah, sorry. Go on with your story. What happened with the hippie guy?”
Emmy was in the office with me, swiveling back and forth in the chair before my desk. Don’t think any less of her,