Chapter

 45

“That’s all I remember, Mathews. That’s when I lost something...everything. Next reality I remember was stumbling down the stairwell trying to swallow the bottle of pills and spilling them all over. I guess I ran out of there...a mad man. I rushed back to my hotel, packed, and caught the first flight I could.”

I opened my eyes. Mathews was leaning over me on his elbows. His casual, sincere and most importantly, his professional calm was a welcome sight. Even without the benefit of hypnosis, telling it all had relieved and relaxed me once again. I was very relaxed. “I really like this couch, you know...this frumpy couch.”

“You feel like talking anymore?” he asked.

“You know I do.” I got up and walked to the coffee table and poured myself some water. As I sipped it, I stepped up to the window and looked out over the palms and the ocean. “Is it crazy...I mean would they put me away for thinking that...a thing named Charlie Stevens is living inside me, but he’s not me. It’s like an alien brain...but it’s not a physical thing...it’s just in my mind...my head.”

“Why are you thinking that now?”

“The office, Mathews. That was the place Charlie must have done business when he was in Hong Kong. And how could I know that unless I’m walking around with... “

“You’re not walking around with an alien brain, for Christ’s sake, Charles. That’s science fiction bullshit.” Mathews got up and poured himself some water...and some scotch.

“Then you tell me doctor...” I caught myself getting excited again. “I’m okay...okay. Just tell me why you’re giving me those pills, if it’s not to keep IT down, buried? What do YOU call it? Tell me.” I looked at his glass. “I can have some of that, right?”

Mathews topped off my glass with some scotch.

He put down his drink and took me by the shoulders as he had on other occasions when I’d asked the same question. “We don’t know, Charles. We keep calling it Charlie. The name Charlie is fine for right now. You know you have a personality disorder... “

“A hell of lot more than a... “

“It’s a personality disorder, damn it. We’ve been chipping away at it for months and it might take months more, but don’t start calling it an alien anything. Get off the monster thoughts because that’s not reality and we’ve got to deal with this as a real...problem. Do you understand, Charles?”

I walked to the window. I was a little wobbly but keeping my thoughts in line with his. He was right, again. I had to listen to him...not Charlie. “I’m a mess again, aren’t I?”

Mathews downed his drink and stared at the top of his desk. “I don’t think you’re a mess. I think you’ve just flown half way around the world and back in 72 hours and you’re tired, no, exhausted. I’d rather discuss it again when you’re rested.”

I leaned back and started for the door. “Thanks Mathews. I know you mean well. It’s just I never thought I’d have to work so hard to hold onto myself...Charles.”

“Remember, Charles wants to stay,” said Mathews.

I turned around at the door. His voice remained strong and confident, the way I needed to hear it.

“He needs to stay. Just protect him and stop at the corner for another bottle of the pills. I know the recent experience has you reeling again. Take the pills. Don’t stop. Promise me.”

“Okay. I like Charles. I don’t want to lose him.”

“I like him too...and so does Sara. Have you called her since you returned?” I smiled. “Reading my mind now?”

“Get some sleep...too.”

I turned and left.

Outside the drugstore, I climbed back on my bike, swallowed a pill, and gave my eyes a rub and some Visine. My body said rest, but my brain told me sleep was my worst enemy right now. I felt like I knew too much about Charlie now. I didn’t want him to surprise me again...especially in my sleep.

I pulled out onto Ocean Boulevard and pointed myself toward Sara’s part of town.

She said she’d have the coffee pot on.

Over the phone, she had sounded excited to see me. She had even shared the verbal flirtations she so rarely allowed to surface when I asked if she would keep me awake. “Of course,” she had said. “As long as you let me undress, shower, shave and massage you.”

That certainly wasn’t the kind of invitation befitting the person at the door. She stood there with a flecked white complexion, a carpenter’s belt strapped to her waist and a dripping caulking trowel being carefully balanced as she asked me to give her a few minutes to finish up a little job she was in the middle of.

I ignored the obstacle, handed her the rose I’d plucked from down the block and wrapped my arms around her, holding her tight for a long time.

Strains of her opera music drifted up to greet us, as we walked down the stairs to the damp confines of her basement. I didn’t expect to find the calming effect in my life plastering the walls of her basement. She explained she was finishing the sound room she’d put up last year as she stuck the rose in a glass and placed it on her boom box.

“Loving opera can grate on a roommate’s nerves if she prefers R and R. Figured I’d build myself a padded room down here and stereo myself to death anytime I wanted.” She gave me a look that I’d only seen under her sheets. “It’s a beautiful rose, even if Hilda gives me hell.” She grinned.  “I take them too.  So damn convenient hanging over the sidewalk, right? I’ll finish this one seam, then we can start working on... “

“Sara,” I said with the caution of a druggie about to detox, “I wasn’t kidding when I asked you to keep me up...awake. I’m in trouble.”

She smiled and stroked my cheek. “I know that.”

I gently brushed her hand aside. “No! Real trouble.”

She put her tools down and stood there.

“A few months ago, I was just a guy wandering around without a memory. But now...it’s getting...it’s different.”

She looked a bit frightened at my ominous tone. “...You’re slowly finding your memory. That’s all, Charles.”

“No,” I quickly responded. “I’m functioning like two people, Sara. In my head, I’m two people battling it out to take this body and I’m beginning to wonder which one rightfully owns it.”

She sat down on an old milk crate and finished spackling the seam. “What does Dr. Mathews think?”

“Does he think I’m schizo? Hell no. He’s going to make me normal. What good is a doctor who can’t make his patient normal?”

“Why the anger?”

“Not anger. Just...” I moved across the room and changed my focus. “I’m proud of you. Look at all this work. You never told me you were a builder too.”

She welcomed the mood swing. “Glad you like it. It’ll come in handy someday when... “

I turned. “When?” “Just thinking.” “About.”

“About all the things we both want to do.”

I knelt down and picked up the sanding block. “This seam dry?” She nodded.

“If I ever get whole again, I’m going to have you teach me all you know.”

“What? Building?”

“Yeah.”

“There are other things more important.”

I glanced up from my sanding just long enough to see her eyes undressing me. “Did you say you had some coffee brewing?”

She put down her putty knife. “I’ll get it. You don’t need to do that, you know.” “I like it. Can’t fall asleep sanding.”

She sauntered up the stairs, reminding me how her body could move walking or lying.

I continued the sanding, enjoying the arias and giving an occasional glance at “Hilda’s” rose. She deserves better than a stolen rose, I thought.

It was during a soft passage when I heard it first. It was faint, but...

I walked over and turned down the stereo. I was right. She was on the phone. I paused for a moment, then thinking I was being oversensitive, turned the volume back up and continued on the seam. After another minute, though, my curiosity got the better of me.

As I reached the top of the stairs, the words were clearer.

“...it’s not a matter of panic. He’s just different and...if you’re sure it’s okay...I mean, I feel funny asking, but...you’re sure. Thanks doctor. I just want...I don’t want to screw him up anymore, you know? Thanks.”

I crept back down the stairs and continued my sanding.

She wasn’t long returning with a tray of coffee and muffins. “Sorry it took so long.

Thought I’d warm up some muffins.”

As she placed them down, “Hey...want a job. Faster than me, for sure.” “For sure,” I said.

“What’s the matter,” she asked.

“Oh...just the music. Pavarotti knows how to get your attention.” “We can change it if... “

“No. It’s fine.” I took a breath. I knew I really didn’t want a confrontation. I pushed the sanding block harder.

I was just oversensitive and like Mathews had said, tired and exhausted. That’s probably what he had just said to her, so why start anything, I thought. My hand movements quickened, the dust flying everywhere. Harder I pushed. Harder.

I started singing along with the aria like a fifty-cent wino. She wasn’t being snoopy, mother-henish or smothering...

The sandpaper was suddenly ripped from the block of wood. My hand slipped from the block, catching on the nail head I’d exposed with my craziness. That was all I needed to think back at Mathews’ words, “It’s a personality disorder.” And yet, I the choice didn’t seem to be mine.  I lost control of my thoughts, sending me into a growling purge of thoughts... him...Charlie.  “She was just being a horny bitch in heat.”

“What?” she blurted out in shock. I whipped around.

The pain of my ripped hand, the language I’d just regurgitated, and Sara’s terror-filled eyes temporarily stunned me. My jaw clamped shut, caging the wretched monster that was trying to control me...trying to destroy not only me, but us. Us.

We both stood motionless, as if at the edge of the abyss deciding whether to attempt a cross over to the other side.

The aria filled the room with the sound of Faust’s passion, Pavarotti’s voice soaring with the mixed emotions of another complex man.

It was several minutes later when the scratching needle told us the record was over. All was at rest, at least for the moment, and the time had come to address the nightmare that was no longer contained...no longer my own. I had unknowingly dragged her into my…. God.  What was this personality thing doing to me?  All I could think was we needed to get away from whatever this Charlie thing was pulling into.  We had to…