CHAPTER 14
Month after month passed. I could see how the summer was trickling away in the sickly appearance of the sparse foliage in the exercise yard. I could smell it in the moldy air from the walls. Every time I noticed the dying tree with the glass picture of the Virgin in its bark, I automatically saw LaPonder’s face. It was always with me, his Buddha’s face with its smooth skin and enigmatic smile.
One November morning towards ten o’clock the guard opened the door and ordered me to follow him to the examining judge. I felt so weak that I staggered rather than walked. Any hope I had of ever leaving this awful place had long since died within me. I prepared myself for the usual icy questions followed by the usual disinterest from behind the desk, before I was sent back into the darkness. There was no one in the room but an old, hunchbacked, spider-fingered clerk. I just stood there, dully waiting to see what would come next. Then I noticed that the guard had stayed in the room and was winking at me.
“The investigation into the case of Carl Zottmann has led to this conclusion,” the clerk began, coughed, clambered from his chair and rummaged around in the papers before he found the one he wanted.”
I hoped this could be the result of Jerome’s reporting he had found the watch in Louis’ bed. But it wasn’t. Jerome had been declared an “unreliable character” and his statement did not matter. However, Carl Zottmann had kept a journal and the police had just found it. He had noted death threats from Louis. Zottermann was a regular client of Rosina’s and apparently, tended to be abusive toward her. Louis hated Zottermann.
The official continued, “The testimony of the entries in the deceased’s notebook casts strong suspicion on Louis Nits, at present a fugitive from justice. In consideration of the new material evidence detailed above, the detention order against Charles Bobuck, gem engraver with no previous convictions, is therefore to be revoked and the proceedings against him withdrawn. You are free to go.”
The ground seemed to give way under my feet, and for a few minutes I lost consciousness. When I came to, I was sitting on a chair and the guard was giving me a friendly pat on the shoulder. The clerk remained utterly impassive, blew his nose and then he continued reading:
“In addition, Charles Bobuck, gem engraver, is to be apprised of the fact that, by the terms of the last will and testament of Seven Coleman, medical student of this city, who died in May of this year, he, Charles Bobuck, is declared heir to one third of the total estate of the said Seven Coleman.”
As he read the last word, the clerk clicked his pen and began scrawling across the paper.
The guard leaned over and whispered to me, “Dr. Coleman came to visit you just before he died and was wanting to speak to you. I told him it was impossible. He asked that I send you a message. He said that he loved you more than you could understand.”
I choked on those words, spraying water from my mouth and eyes as I realized I loved him too.
The guard continued, “Of course I couldn’t tell you then, against the rules. He came to a terrible end, I’m sorry to say. They found him lying on the grave of Frankie Wasser. He dug two deep holes in the grave, cut open the arteries in his wrists and stuck his arms into the holes. He lost a lot of blood.”
I quivered as I tried to hold back more tears.
The clerk pushed his chair back noisily and handed me the pen to sign. Then he stood up, full of self-importance, and said, “Guard, take this man out."
I was handed a bag of belongings. My wallet, a long dead iPhone, and $23 in cash. With that, I was in the street. I should have been happy but instead I was a jumble of emotions. I kept seeing Seven’s dark eyes.
Like a dull brass plate, the full moon was floating wanly behind a veil of clouds. The streets were wet. In the mist the waiting taxi looked like a prehistoric monster. I was so unused to walking that my legs almost gave way, and I staggered towards it, the soles of my feet completely numb as if I were suffering from inflammation of the sacrum.
“Take me home,” is all I could think of to say to the driver.
We had only driven a few yards when the cab stopped. “I can’t take you to this address.”
“Why not?”
“That area has all been cleared. A new convention center is being built there.”
“Take me as far as you can.”
The cab stopped beside a chain-link fence. Everywhere the road was barricaded by heaps of rubble with flashing yellow signs in front of them. An army of workers were lit from the light of welding torches.
I walked into the construction. I could not orient myself, nothing but ruins all around. I climbed to the top of a mound of earth; far below, what had been the street had become a gigantic hole with black walls.
My apartment, gone. I suddenly had an empty feeling in my heart. Angelina! That was all so far, so immeasurably far behind me now.
I turned round. Wasser’s shop, gone. Seven's bleak basement. Everything, everything.
I asked one of the workmen whether he knew where the people who had left these houses now lived. He did not, nor did any of the others he asked.
I headed for i-Bar. It was still there but closed for renovations. Apparently it had been sold and was being converted into a fancy restaurant. The Old Toll House must be open, I thought. Also closed.
I found an internet cafe and started typing names into Facebook. Joshua Rokop got a hit. He now owned a cafe, EBF. I chuckled. I suddenly missed my old friend. Owning a cafe was a sure sign that Seven had given Joshua money too. I wondered how many of us were now rich thanks to Seven.
I eventually found EBF. It was on the third floor and consisted of one small room which scarcely had space for the tables placed against the walls, though it had a spacious patio. The style was very Rokop, a kind of thrift store chic. Finally the waiter asked me what I wanted. The insolent look with which he scanned me made me realize how terrible I must look. I ordered black coffee then went to the men’s room. I stood in front of the mirror and was horrified to see an unfamiliar face staring back, pale and anemic, wrinkled, grey as putty, with a scrubby beard and long, tangled hair. I washed my face and hands.
As I ordered another coffee, I asked the waiter whether Joshua was there. He said Joshua was on tour with his band. His band. More changes.
Then I noticed a familiar face, a much older looking Jerome, the deaf mute, sat nearby. He was so changed that at first I did not recognize him. His eyes were dull, he had lost his front teeth, his hair was thinning and there were deep hollows behind his ears. I was so overjoyed to see a familiar face after all this time, that I jumped up, went over to him and shook his hand. He appeared extraordinarily apprehensive and kept glancing towards the door. I used every bit of signing I could remember to show him that I was glad to see him.
I asked about Dr. Hill. “Where is he living now?” After reading my lips he took a match, seemed to throw it up in the air, and made it disappear like a magician.
“He’s just saying the person has gone away, but no one knows where,” explained a guy at the next table, who looked very familiar but showed no sign of recognizing me.
“And Mary?”
Jerome looked at me in a confused manner. I added, “Dr. Hill’s daughter.” Turning to the man at the other table, Jerome made a series of hand movements and turned back to me. The man relayed the message that Dr. Hill had no children. He lived alone.
How many things that I once possessed have been lost? The Book of Ibbur, Seven, even my old friends, Zac and Rokop. Now I feel I am also losing my mind.
I was filled with a solemn feeling. I felt a hand on my shoulder, I turned around. Before me was me, my double, my TAR, dressed in white linen, a crown on his head.
He stood there for only a moment, then flames burst through the wooden door behind him and a suffocating cloud of hot smoke poured into the room. Fire! The cafe was on fire! Fire!
I ran to the patio and climbed onto the neighboring roof. Already I could hear the piercing siren of the fire-engine approaching. The tinkle of glass, red tongues of fire shooting out of all the windows, people jumping. I felt a wild, jubilant ecstasy coursing through my veins.
I made a jump for the roof across the alley. My leg entangled in a rope and I fell short. For a moment I was hanging between heaven and earth, head downwards, legs forming a cross. Opposite me, the sign for the cafe was blinking off and on in the night. EBF, EBF. Only it appeared upside down to me. The rope stretched as it took my weight. I grabbed for the window-ledge, but my hand slipped off. The stone was too smooth. Smooth, like a piece of liver.
I was falling. And the stone, loosened by my hand was falling too. We fell together and the stone, near my face, was the only thing in focus. Somehow it made sense that the world would be a blur other than the stone, the stone that looked like a piece of liver.
----
Charlie Bobuck slowly opened his eyes. He knew where he was, some bland hospital. Roman held one of his hands and had a concerned look on his face. Peter the priest held the other and for a moment it seemed like we formed a kind of Holy trinity.
It was Peter who broke the silence. “Look who’s awake again.”
Charlie managed a smile and said, “No, I am not a wake, I have fallen back to sleep again and you are my dream. Such a wonderful dream."
He paused, then said, "This will not make any sense to you, but my dream will end because I am, at this very moment, falling from a cafe that is on fire. I have no idea how long this fall will last as a fall experienced within this dream: minutes, hours, maybe decades. But I will eventually hit the ground and this dream will end. Everyone and everything in this dream will cease to be. You, this hospital, the river that I so love, gone. My life in The Residents, the many albums, the fans. Gone. Because we are just so much dust and always have been.”
Roman looked concerned and buzzed for a nurse.
“What counts right now, is right now. Let’s make the most of the time we have before Charles Bobuck inevitably smashes his head into the concrete below the EBF. Let’s get out of this hospital that doesn't even exist.”
And they did. The three went back to the house in the trees by the river. They toasted to life, though Charlie Bobuck knew that none of it was real.
=========================
I woke. Moonlight was shining on the foot of my bed. The stone responsible for ending my life was laying in the moonlight.
THIS. Finally, the stone that was not a piece of liver.
The stone was not a piece of liver, it never had been. The words of the Buddha spread through my body with full comprehension, warming the parts which were waking.
A small gong sounded three times.
I quietly slipped out of bed.
I studied my stone on the bed for a moment, then re-formed it to be a sleeping cat. The cat was bright red and looked at me when I said, “Rosina.” I opened the window as I always do, instead of Wasser’s junk shop, I saw a courtyard covered with white blossoms. The air was full of the sweet scent of lilac.
At my feet in the distance lay the village in the first light of morning. No sounds, just fragrance and warm light.
I stepped nude into a small waterfall and washed the night from my skin. Without drying, I walked through the double doors that opened onto the courtyard. The curtains gently moved in the morning breeze.
The courtyard connected at the end of the dirt road with a magnificent set of elegantly bowed gilt railings. The gate in the wall was flanked by two yew trees that towered above the blossoming shrubs. Each was decorated with glass balls that sparkled in the morning sun.
Outside the gate a man was waving trying to get my attention. I believed that I knew him but I could not remember how.
The garden wall was covered by mosaics made of seashells set with strange, golden stones depicting how Adam the TAR, and Lilith the brazen woman, chose to abandon the life of the ascetic in favor of greater knowledge.
On the double gate was the image of God, the hermaphrodite, with one aspect on each side, the right-hand female, the left-hand male. Sculpted in bas-relief, the figure was seated on an ornate throne made of mother-of-pearl. Its golden head was that of a rabbit with the ears close together. In front of the gate stood the handsome Roman guard, Argol, his green eyes clearly visible even from this distance. In his arms he cradled the Book of Ibbur as though it were a baby. There was a scent of dew, and the fragrance of hyacinths. Crows scratched for worms.
I stepped onto a marble slab leading down to the garden. For a long time I stood there like a statue, marveling at its perfection. I could faintly hear the man at the gate shouting, “Hey.”
To my right was my wife, Angelina, a brazen woman, throbbing, powerful as an earthquake. My love for her was fierce and intense. She came to me at midnight and taught me the ways of the Kama Sutra.
To my left was my husband, the hermaphrodites Mary Hill and Andrew LaPond. My love for them was deep and pure. They came to me in the late morning. I studied their beauty as I once admired antique jewelry. I held them tightly when they merged. The feeling was indescribable.
Behind me was my Seven, the innocent angel. I could never see him, but I knew he was there holding his arms in the air, blood running down his alabaster skin. My love for him was like an ocean, dark and mysterious. He was with me always.
In front of me was myself, my double, the TAR. I had placed a seal in his mouth. I dressed him in finest white linen. On his head, a wooden crown with a red square at the front into which a worm had eaten a mysterious design. It has taken time, but I have come to love him too.
Again the man on the other side of the gate shouted, “Hello?” Why was he shouting at me? Curious, I approached him, telling him immediately that I was trying to have a poetic moment and he was ruining it with his yelling.
At that, he smiled at me through the gate and said, “Yeah, I can see you have quite a show going on up there. I only want to get my phone back.”
“Phone?” I slowly asked.
"Yes, my iPhone that you stole at Starbuck's."
“Oh yes, the phone. I remember now. You must be the be actual person, "Charles Bobuck." I am so sorry that I did not get your phone back to you sooner. I meant to, really. I’m sorry I took your identity. I tried to be respectful to the name.”
"I had to track you down through your police record. So much for being respectful."
I paused, embarrassed that the real Charles Bobuck had now confronted me. I stared at his face. I knew it so well, but I still couldn't remember why. My casual morning nudity became a feeling that I was inappropriately naked, like a dream of going to school in my underwear.
“Give me a moment to find the phone.”
I returned to the pavilion and put on a shirt the color of yogurt. I had mixed feelings about giving up the phone. I have always known it was not mine to keep, but it was the last remaining contact I had with... there, I paused. I wasn't certain I believed any of my the past.
Returning to him I said, “I’m afraid the battery is dead. I haven't known anyone to call in a long time.”
Pushing the small box through the gate where the male and the female join, I again apologized. But he said nothing. He took the phone and started to walk away.
I called out to him. "Who am I if not you?"
He turned back to me, pulled a business card from his pocket and wrote something on the back. He sealed it in a creme colored envelope and slid it through the gate. Then, without a word, walked away. I wished that I had kissed him and felt that last breath of Charles Bobuck on my face.
I returned to my pavilion, envelope in hand. I stretched out on the bed and stared at the ceiling. There was no need to tear open the envelope, I already knew what he had written. I recognized the handwriting. I could taste the glue as he sealed the envelope with his tongue.
A small gong sounded three times.
A hand passed over my eyes and I fell asleep.
--------End