because she really is a good girl, but she had a little glass of scotch with me. I don’t blame her one bit: I was putting her nerves through hell. I kind of wished she didn’t keep a straight face when she swallowed it. I’d have preferred a whisky face. I hoped she wouldn’t become close friends with Johnny Walker like I had become. He was my best friend, though I’m inclined to say Emmy was right up there, making progress to soon surpass good ol’ Johnny at the head of my rankings.
Emmy told me about a guy she liked. Adam. He was in her Anthropology class. They had studied together a few times outside of school. She wanted to tell him she liked him but had been too cowardly to do so. I told her she’s insane, that he probably had a thing for her but was too shy to admit it. She wondered why I thought that, and I felt a little awkward admitting how pretty she was. True it’s a little tough to gauge the allure of a relative, but any guy should want to be her boyfriend I thought. Personality and beauty, what’s not to like? I told her that and she blushed. She thanked me. She said he was shy, and maybe I was right.
“I’m glad you brought this up to me, Emmers.” I tended to call her Emmers more than Emmy as scotch was consumed—I had been calling her Emmers a lot lately. “Allow me to give you advice. Wisdom comes with age, and even though I’m not a lot older than you, I’m old enough to have gone through what you’re talking about.” I turned the frame around on my desk so that she could see Anna. “Mine was Anna, yours is Adam. Heck, they even both start with the letter A.”
“She’s pretty. That’s the girl you were talking about earlier.”
“Yes. She was everything to me. My best friend of about four years. All through high school. I was secretly in love with her. I don’t know if she felt that way about me; she was equally as shy. I guess she didn’t or somehow maybe I’d have known. But what haunts me to this day”—well, the other thing that haunts me to this day—“is that I never told her how I felt about her. What might have happened if I did? Maybe she wouldn’t have gone to college in Louisiana but instead went to school out here. Or maybe I’d have moved down there with her. Maybe she’d be my wife and we’d have our own little Emmers and Adams capering about. It was a life lesson, I suppose. I regret it wholeheartedly, not confessing my love for her. I know what you and Adam have is new, and not love, but it’s something. If you think you like him more than a friend, promise me that you’ll open your heart to him, let him know how you feel.”
She nodded.
“No, that’s not a promise. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“I don’t want you going through what I went through.”
The doorbell rang. I stayed put as Emmy fetched him. A moment later he took the other chair before my desk, resting his leather doctor’s bag on his lap. He introduced himself as Ernest and offered his hand. I shook it over the table.
“Ernest. One doesn’t hear that name too often these days,” I said.
“No, one doesn’t,” he said with a charming smile. Awfully charming considering the middle-aged man soliciting it looked like a burnt out hippie straight out of a Make Love Not War protest rally.
“I’m a Hemingway fan,” I said.
“Hemingway? Never heard of him.” He chuckled.
“Whatcha got in the bag?”
“Precisely what it is that you need.”
“And what is that?”
“That is for me to figure out.”
“Are you a doctor of sorts?” I knew he wasn’t, but he had the air of one, if you discount his long hair tied into a ponytail, scruffy face, and faded Phish tee-shirt.
“No, thank God. The world has enough doctors. Holism, that’s my field.”
And selling pot and mushrooms to innocent kids, I thought.
“Tell me, Jeff, what seems to be plaguing your mind?”
I had difficulty uncorking it. I couldn’t stop looking over at precious Emmy. I didn’t like that she had a connection to Ernest. The guy peddled psychedelic drugs, for chrissake. But she was probably right in that I needed a sedative to see me through this until a real doctor could be procured.
“Emmy, would you mind leaving us alone for a while? It’s nothing personal, I just feel more comfortable talking to Ernest about this in private.”
“You already told me everything, but if it makes you more comfortable, I’ll leave.”
“I told you most everything, yes. I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
She smiled primly and left the office stating that she’d try to find me an appointment to see a shrink, closing the door on her way out. I snatched my cellphone off the desk and told Ernest one moment, and texted her: Sorry, Emmers. Don’t you be leaving me. This guy might roll me up and smoke me.
I set the phone down and told the guy everything, beginning at the small black smudge in the distance, up till the large black figure on my porch. It was the abridged version, but he got the gist of it. The guy surprised me by what he then said.
“I wish I’d have brought Anthony along. He’s an expert on demon affairs.”
“Demon affairs?” It felt silly saying.
“Yes. The occult. We aren’t alone, Jeff.”
“You think the thing is real?”
“Who could say? I believe you think it is real. It just might be. Like I said, Anthony would have more to say on the subject than I. It seems you are having hallucinations.”
Gee, did you come up with that all on your own?
“The problem originates in your mind, and from it radiates outward, affecting your body and thus eyes, so you see things that aren’t there. I’d judge that if you reached out to this man, you’d touch him, as well.”
“I don’t care to put that to the test.”
“How’s your medical history? Is your health sound, for the most part? Strokes, anything like that?”
“I’m thirty-four: no I haven’t had a stroke. Yes, I’m healthy.” I didn’t think it was pertinent to mention that I had high blood pressure and cholesterol.
“Physically, yes. Because I am here suggests to me that you are less than healthy spiritually. Emmy was hoping I could provide you with a sedative. Something to keep your mind at peace until you see a counselor. Is that your wish as well?”
“Yes. I do need something other than scotch to get me through this.”
My phone chimed. Emmy text: He’s probably worried you’ll put him a scotch glass and drink him. I humored and set the phone down.
“Alright, Jeff. I think I know just the thing for you.” He unzipped his black leather bag and sorted through the clutter. He removed a corded metal teapot looking thing and set in on my desk, then put a couple small Ziploc baggies stuffed with herbs beside it. “Do you have an outlet nearby that I could use?”
“Right over there,” I said and pointed.
He removed a bottle of mineral water and poured it into the teapot, then plugged it in on the other side of the room. When he flipped the light switch off, I had a problem with it.
“Turn it back on, please.”
“Trust me, Jeff. I’ve been doing this a long time.”
The room was dark, but I could still see. The meager light around the blinds was all that kept me from being in utter darkness. He removed something else from his bag, pushed a button and I almost laughed out loud when I heard one of those nature tapes being played. We were at the ocean now, waves sighing and crashing, gulls cawing. What a quack. I wondered what he was going to charge me for this. I wished he’d just hand over a few valium and be on his way.
“While the water boils, I want you to close your eyes and clear your mind, as much as you can. Imagine being on a tiny raft in the middle of the ocean during sunset. A red sun low over the Pacific horizon. Smell the tangy saltwater. Hear the flapping of a seagull’s wings as it flies over you. The water rolls mildly, like a baby in a crib you are being lulled toward sleep in your one-man raft.”
I had humored him by closing my eyes. I actually did imagine what he asked, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Maybe it was his na
ture tape.
“The sun is low, low, and dips into the ocean. Now it is gone. Nothing but the serenity of vast open ocean in every direction. Not a soul for hundreds of miles. Lean back in that raft, stare up at the lavender sky. There is but one star, and it is tiny, but you can see it. Focus on that solitary star, as you listen to the water lap up at your raft. Do you see it? Can you smell the tangy ocean? Do you feel the raft listing up and down with the undulating waves?”
“Mhmm.”
I really did. I was at peace.
“The star is becoming brighter and brighter. Slowly you are drifting up into space toward it.” His voice was on the other side of the room now, though I was hardly aware of it. He was putting herbs in the teapot. “You’re floating into space, reaching for that star that is growing, growing. You are all who exists in the universe now. You and only you. Peaceful, sublime, serene, vast openness.”
He didn’t speak again for some unknown amount of time.
“Here, Jeff. Drink this.”
I squinted open my eyes enough to see the little coffee cup being handed to me. I sipped it. It was delicious, actually. A little too hot to drink all at once, so I drank it in installments. After finishing, I put the cup on the table and leaned back in my chair, closed my eyes. I heard more rustling in his leather bag, more water being poured into the teapot.
“Feel free to linger in space as long as you wish. Enjoy yourself. Let the tonic untangle your nerves. The next one will be even better. The last one was for the nerves, this one will be for the mind.”
“Great,” I said. Actually, nothing came out, but that’s what I meant to say. I was feeling much better already. God bless you, Emmy, for all you’ve done for me, Ernest included.
My extremities tingled as though they were falling asleep, but less annoying than that sensation. This was a welcomed one. I allowed myself to float up in that raft, and together it and I were gliding up into space, toward that big beautiful blue-white star. Even the raft was comforting. It was yellow and inflatable, and I squeezed at it with either hand, and felt my tension dissipate with each squeeze.
I’m not sure how long it was before Ernest spoke next. Maybe a minute, maybe fifteen.
“Here you go,” he said. “Drink up.”
I didn’t open my eyes this time. I felt for the cup, didn’t test the liquid but instead drank it in a few big gulps. It wasn’t as hot as the last time. Either he cooled it by pouring water in the cup or it didn’t seem as hot because the previous tonic was dampening things, senses.
Upward I floated. The swells below me rolled on, and I heard them through Ernest’s tape. The seagull cawing was miles below me.
“I have one last tonic, and it is mostly an antioxidant. It will be ready shortly.”
“Mhmm.”
My stomach tickled a little. It was a new sensation, from the new tonic. The star directly above me was growing ever nearer. It wasn’t blue-white anymore, but simply white. Bone white and lustrous, like the moon. I could see dark spots on it that didn’t seem appropriate for a star. A couple of them. Maybe two side by side, with a little blemish below them. My stomach tickled a lot. The star grew and grew as I floated up and up. I closed my eyes and smiled in my space raft. A severe cramp struck me in the stomach at all once. I opened my eyes, but not in the office. I was in the raft, and the star was bigger yet. I could clearly see the dark blemishes on the star. And what they were, were the eye-sockets of skull, along with the bony grin of a skull.
I screamed and bolted upright in my office chair. My stomach was wrenching, hurt like a bastard. Pain emanated from my stomach outward to my extremities. Strangely even my arms hurt. My heart was galloping like a fucking race horse.
“Whoa, whoa, calm down, Jeff. Return to you seat. You were having a bad dream is all.”
I groaned. “What was that stuff? Oh my God… my stomach.”
“Are you