A Casual Boyfriend

At twenty-nine years old, she was too old for such exploits, or so it seemed now as she waited in the dark on a bleak stretch of Basin Street in one of New Orleans’ worst neighborhoods. The few passersby silently asked her what the hell she was doing there.

But with the terrible events going on in the world these days, any prank seemed a relief from all of those nuclear alerts and civil defense drills. The leaders of fundamentalist countries had developed the bad habit of making threats and watching Americans scrambling for shelters on television. John, who was especially foreboding about the possibility of war breaking out, finally appeared in his seedy black trench coat. “Hello Jennifer,” he said, “ready for the ceremony?”

“Ceremony? You didn’t say anything about a ceremony,” she said. “I thought we were going to climb the wall and make out in the cemetery. Why don’t we just get out of here? There’s jazz at the Easy Grinds Coffeehouse on Decatur Street tonight,” but he took her hand and led her down the narrow road along a brick cemetery wall to a secluded wrought-iron gate. The darkened portal lay in the shadow of an unlighted housing project building. Jennifer winced as a car turned onto a broken pavement and rumbled by. Pressed between potential robbers and the notoriously corrupt New Orleans police, neither of whom would be kind if they caught John pushing his body sideways through a gap in the gate and leading her in among the mausoleums, she followed him. The better maintained of these white-washed dwellings of the dead glowed apricot in the indirect light from streetlights out on Basin Street. ‘Greek revival,’ she muttered as she passed a tall, pedimented family town tomb. He pulled her along several rows of similar structures, which had tiny yards enclosed by short wrought-iron fences, and then dragged her behind a large marble structure into a narrow passage that smelled of disturbed soil.

“I love you Jennifer,” he said.

“Where’s this coming from? We’ve only been going out for two months,” Jennifer said, but he didn’t respond. Her elbows brushed moss-covered walls.

Once they had gone about twenty paces, she noticed a shimmering glow ahead. Unsettled, she lurched back. “What the hell is going on?”

“We’re meeting a few people.”

“You said we’d be alone,” she whispered.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “they’re my friends.”

Imagining some gory satanic marriage, she wanted to flee to normalcy, but somehow it seemed too late, and she didn’t let go of his hand.

In the remote exterior room just ahead, bounded by mausoleums on all sides, she saw eight adults, four men and four women, four black and four white, standing in a circle around a large piece of slate covered with candles placed in an irregular ring around some kind of crude alter. Unwilling to show her willingness to be a victim by screaming, she looked at John to ascertain if he had expected this, and to see if his face had turned maleficent. He smiled as usual, almost smugly, and took her through a gap in the circle and stood with her. They became part of the group. No one greeted them but just continued gazing at the wavering candles and a waxy stature of what appeared to be the Egyptian god Osiris, which gave her a sense of relief because she thought the whole thing might be some sort of joke until she noticed what looked like genuine human bones: femurs, hips, ribs, and shins, scattered around the idol. She started to shake.

Without speaking, the eight raised their hands in unison toward the sky and she realized that her and John’s arms were raised as well. A star burned in a gap in the peach clouds. She did not resist when she felt herself being nudged to the center of the gathering. Smoke from the candles, sweet spirals in the air, like incense but hotter, drew her out. The presence of many more people became clear, calling out to her with silent, desperate pleas from all directions: violence and dissention, enshrouded jealousy, imprisoned memories, the residual dreams of the dead drifting up into a swampy haze. Their faded presences peered out of black doorways and from ragged holes. Their desperate bliss encircled her without weight or thoughts or the need to take a breath. John embraced her waist, his knees on the wet ground, motionless in the dirt, distorted city lights on all sides.

His grip pulled her back to herself, toward Jennifer standing in the circle, but a cold sharpness cut into her stomach, a horrible steely violation. She gasped as hot blood spewed from her belly and onto John’s hands and the knife he held. He kneeled, still holding her sticky hand and then turned the knife on himself. Instinctively, she held her wound, broke free of his grasp and staggered out of the circle but soon tripped over a corpse laying in her path, a half-rotten monster that struggled to get up, but for all it tried, its jerking decomposing limbs with bones showing through, couldn’t stand or walk. It could only groan and gyrate with pieces falling off. She jogged down the passageway toward the gate but encountered another body, this time only a pile of bones, also trying to walk, but it fell to the ground among more body fragments and tatters of faded cloth all jittering. Their voices implored her to give them a hand over to life. They had waited so long to reenter the flow of time.

A black silhouette charged at her. She rounded a corner only to encounter more figures with light shooting from their hands like solar flares. They had her now in their powerful arms, and she implored them to let her go, but they pushed her down and held her wrists as she collapsed. She succumbed with pain in her belly. “John, why, why did you?”

The door opened and a nurse entered the dark room.

“How you feeling?” She asked with apprehension. Jennifer stared at an unlit frosted-glass ceiling fixture. “I have no idea. Where am I?”

“The Hospital, babe. Now that you’re awake, I’ve got a few questions to ask. What drugs have you taken in the last twenty-four hours?”

“Cough medicine.”

“The drug tests came up with nothing, and that worries us. We think you need professional help.”

“Where are insane John and his psychotic friends?”

“Who?”

“The other people in the cemetery.”

“The cops didn’t find anybody in there but you.”

“That can’t be. They were there with the monsters.”

“Have you ever had experiences like this before?”

“Not until tonight.”

“What a strange case. Are you aware that tonight you broke into the dilapidated mausoleums at Saint Louis Number One cemetery tonight and threw human remains all over the ground?”

“Threw human remains around? They broke out by themselves.”

“Let me ask you this. Do you have health insurance, Jennifer?”

“I only work part time.”

“You’re a difficult case, a really troubling one. We’ll look in on you in the morning, but they will have to release you then. No insurance, tich tich. Good night Jennifer.”

“Bye.”

The lever on the bathroom door across the room glowed bright silver. She eyed an IV rack and followed its tube to her arm. The other bed was empty and covered with a vibrant red blanket. She studied a shaft of dusty light coming through the broken window blind, which had an intensity it shouldn’t have had. In the delirium that followed, John’s face appeared, and he kissed her cheek and then her lips and muttered, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Hours later, Jennifer awoke thirsty and groped around for the nurse button on the side of the bed, but no one came. She waited, rang the bell again and then waited for a long time. The hour must have been very late or very early, because the hospital was silent – no footsteps, no muffled loudspeaker voices, nothing except the light outside, perhaps dawn. Straps still held her arms and legs down, and still no one heeded her electronic pleas as her thirst grew stronger and stronger until she could no longer stand it. She pushed the nurse button over and over but nothing happened except the same old ringing sound. In desperation, she squirmed and tugged and jerked until her left arm finally broke free. Eyeing a large stainless steel bowl, she reached for it, grabbed its edge, took it by the rim between her thumb and forefinger, and heaved it at the door with all the strength she could muster. It fell, slid over the polished terrazzo floor and hit the door with a crashing, ringing sound.

Still no one came, so she struggled to get her other hand loose by painfully reaching and undoing a buckle. After freeing the second hand and her ankles, she slid off the bed, stood and dashed for the sink but found that when she reached it, her thirst was gone. To her surprise and horror, she could find no wound in her side. She opened the door, peered into the hall, and walked down the drab passageway where she found no nurses, no doctors, no orderlies, no patients. Seeing no reason to stay at the hospital, she found an exit to a stairwell and ran down its many turns to the ground floor to an emergency exit. When she pushed the metal door open, an alarm went off, but she walked away at a leisurely pace.

Surrounded by red and orange clouds, the sun was setting between two tall buildings, casting them in vibrant shades of gray and amber with silver reflecting in the windows. With no traffic on the wide boulevards and no pedestrians on the sidewalks, she proceeded away from the hospital through the alley-like side streets of the Central Business District. The Victorian buildings that lined Canal Street, which she had studied so many times, looked unusually clean, cutting hard lines and distinct shadows with their ornate facades. A brilliant red streetcar sat still and vacant at an intersection. In the distance, the housing project stood beside the cemetery, which she soon entered through its open gate and surveyed the white mausoleums well tended stoops and bouquets of fresh flowers that it contained. The marble nameplates had been removed and polished coffins could be seen inside.

Away she wandered, past the quiet police station and across Rampart Street, musing at red bricks, black pavement and the wonderful blue sky.

On Royal Street, she walked into a fancy jewelry store that had always caught her attention. The store was empty of people. She adorned herself with the gold necklaces, emerald rings, and diamond-studded bracelets that she had coveted on her way to and from work for months.

At the river, a giant oil tanker drifted aimlessly in the current, scraping its landward side along the wharfs, demolishing them as it went. She walked atop the levee and gazed at the brown-gray water’s choppy waves, electrified by the cool wind. Ahead, a small figure huddled in the distance by the water’s edge. When she ran up to it, the man looked up. “John?” she asked and threw herself on the grass in front of him.

“Jennifer!”

“What the hell is going on? Where did everyone go? How did you get here? ”

He smiled at the sight of her. “When the cops showed up we had to get out.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“We couldn’t find you. We looked all over.”

“John! Tell me! Am I dreaming? Where is everybody?”

“I’m sorry about this.”

“Please, please, I can’t stand it!” She jumped up and embraced him with tears flowing down her checks and touching her lips.

“After that fiasco, there was nothing to do but go drinking. That was an amazing ceremony, too bad it ended in such disarray.”

“You gave me drugs, didn’t you? Drugs that made me crazy. That’s why I believe you stabbed me but now I don’t have a wound, look, see? I don’t have a wound!”

“That’s not how it went down.”

“What then?”

“Before anything else happens, please let me say this – I love you, I love you so much – I’m so madly in love with you that I don’t even care if you love me or not.”

“What?”

“You’re dead, I’m sure of it.”

“Dead?”

“Rescued from the war.”

“Rescued from what war? What about you?”

“I always was.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Things don’t really work like they do in newspapers or test tubes. There’s infinity and parallel situations. A war was coming so I killed you, and you’re loose now, free, like I am.”

“Here,” she said, “here’s a ring I picked up at my favorite jewelry store on Royal Street. I just walked in and came out wearing thousands of dollars in jewelry. You can have it. It’s too big for me, see?” He took the ring and placed it on his finger. “They restrained me in the Hospital. Maybe I’m still there staring into a corner mumbling these words, well medicated.”

“You’re all over the place. One day I read about myself being killed by a bus in the Times Picayune newspaper and then everything went nuts. I grew up in this stinking town, but that was just one churn of the great, eternal wheel called life.”

“Who were those people in the cemetery?”

“Friends who are in the same predicament as I, as we, are in. This doesn’t make any sense to you? When did it ever make sense?”

“Never. I just studied and eventually got a doctorate in architectural history and went to sleep wondering why I existed.”

“You don’t, Jennifer, not in the way you thought. You’re a character in my dreams. I’m a character in yours”

“Dreams or insanity.”

“I’ve been dreaming a long time,” he said and took her hand. “Now I’ll be sure to see you again. Now our fates are linked. I’ll see you again.”

Jennifer squeezed his hand and embraced his shoulders, kissed his neck and cried in his arms as a ship came steaming by. A screaming alarm went off, and John’s face faded in a flash of light as a sudden percussion popped the world into nothingness.

Illuminated by a faint, shimmering light, the spiny creature looked desirable to pull in, but it resisted until a sensitive tentacle seized it and brought satisfaction but then a painful ripping . . .

Shells landed in a body-strewn field. She aimed her rifle at the ridge from where the enemy had just fired, but the piece jammed. Several shells landed nearby, making the ground shake, and causing a chunk of hot metal to strike her side. Believing herself uninjured, she charged forward but fell on her side and bled to death.

Tremendous crowds milled all over the campus. They had just walked out of their classes and began running around looking for their friends, for anyone they could share their shock and horror with. It was war. She watched a squadron of bombers taking off from the air force base across the valley: black lines behind tiny points raising into the sky until a bright path of light blinded her.

She walked on a paved path carrying a steel lunch pail next to a young boy who hung close to her side. When she looked at his face, he smiled. “Jennifer! It’s John,” he said in a high, prepubescent voice, and the life of a fourth grade girl became apparent.

“Jennifer? Who’s that? I’m Stacy.”

“Stacy, Jenniferr! The same dreamy eyes,” he said pushing her. “I’m John.”

“Oh yeah, Johnny!”

“Don’t forget Jennifer, don’t forget about that twenty-nine year old with a doctorate in architectural history. It’s real easy to lose yourself, but we’re safe here, for a few years, anyway. I just hope they’re no death or wars so we can be friends. Don’t forget. You are, aren’t you?”

“You’re a weird kid,” she paused, “something about a strange city with lots of spicy food and revived buildings and a big river.”

“Revival! Greek revival! Don’t worry, you’re going to be my buddy, and I’ll teach you how to remember everything.”

“Okay, let’s be friends,” little Stacy said with a smile.

“Okay,” Johnny said, grabbing her tiny hand. “I might have to kill you again sometime,” he said with the frown of a little boy, “but only because I love you.”

“You’re a weird kid. Want to come over after school? My mom can take you home after.”

“Sure Jennifer. We’ll play!”

“But I’m Stacy!”

“Okay, right, Stacy!”