Chapter

65

It wasn’t the kind of ride home he expected. No, Dr. Mathews was anticipating some farewell charm from Dr. Pressman as they enjoyed a nightcap together in the limo Father Stevens had surreptitiously ordered to be at their disposal that evening. But charm wasn’t on either of their minds at this moment.

“Zeros,” said Dr. Pressman.

“What?”

“The street lamps. Yellow zeros around the lights... ‘mustard colored air surrounds the light with rings. ‘zeros’.”

“Something Stevens said?” Mathews queried.

“‘LA’s Dome of Sacrifice,’ he called it on the tapes. Too bad you didn’t kick in your mind tap all the time. You’d have already heard the tapes.”

Mathews shook his head. “It was tough enough without the recordings, right?”

Dr. Pressman offered to top up his drink, then refreshed his own glass. “In Between the Lines. That’s the book. Good title.”

“You have anything to do with that?”

“What, you getting the tapes? They were no longer state property after the acquittal,” Pressman said.

“No.  I know that. ‘Listen in between the lines’ is how Charles put it when he gave the tapes to me. You tell him that?”

“I suggested that if anyone could find a clue to his past, it was you.”

“In between the lines?”

“In between the lines,” nodded Dr. Pressman. “We all have our real lives buried under the surface. Fools like us play God sometimes, thinking we have some divine right to pry it loose. The priest in Father Stevens knows better. The man in us, doesn’t.”

“Trying to tell me something, Doctor?” asked Mathews.

Pressman turned to him, smiling, “Nothing I bet you’ve not already tapped into.”

Mathews let his own eyes wander from the glass of scotch in his hand to the heavy air outside. “You think he’s rushing back to the jungle too fast?”

“I don’t know. At least he’ll find people who know him.”

“You could have kept him here after the trial,” said Mathews.

“A flourish of the pen on the right form...I know.”

“So?”

“So... what would you have done, Dr. Mathews?”

“I’m not the eminent head of Milton.”

“My license to pry?” said Pressman.

“There’s still the question of the missing person,” Mathews reminded him.

“I know.” He gazed out the window. “But, the answer to what happened to Charlie Stevens is a law enforcement matter now. I’m mostly in agreement with Dr. Farnsworth at this time. Something traumatic put Father Stevens into an extended dissociative fugue that seems to have righted itself.  We may never know what trauma triggered it.  So… my work’s finished.”

“And my work is just starting?”

Dr. Pressman turned back from the window. “Yours and the police.”

“Hey… I’m just going away to listen to the tapes and write the Father Stevens book.”

“Not even a little curious?”

Mathews slowly turned. “About Charlie? You want me to say I’m still not sure?”

“Are you?”

Mathews sipped his scotch. “Tomorrow I see him off for Hawaii at noon. I’m on the one o’clock to Zurich. The Alps have a way of resting you better than anywhere else on earth.”

“Yeah.  You’re still living with some frustration.” chucked Dr. Pressman.

As the limousine carried them off into the night, they rode in silence, choosing not to say anything more about the questions that still remained unanswered. But even though Dr. Pressman had said his job was over, and Dr. Mathews was taking a vacation, both sensed in the other that the enigma surrounding the man of the cloth would continue to come in and out of their lives like the fog now beginning to obscure the street lamps.

They both found themselves silently counting the rapidly disappearing zeros.

“Yeowwweee,” yelled Julian as the Harley dug into the floor of the Pacific Coast Highway, cutting through the dense fog as if it were a sunny afternoon instead of the middle of the night.

For Father Stevens, the power beneath his seat and the reading of 85 mph off his speedometer raced through his mind like a child’s secret fantasy of doing something he knew was dangerous, wrong and punishable. But tonight would be his last chance to push the buttons of faith he’d discovered not with God, but with Julian, and nothing seemed to be a threat anymore. “What’s it all about?” he yelled back to Julian.

“What?” Julian bellowed over the wind that worked to break the grip his arms had around the Father’s waist.

“What’s the secret of life?”

“You be the craziest son-of-a...gun I ever know, Father,” hollered Julian. “How fast we movin’?”

“Feels like I left the sound barrier back in Santa Monica,” he yelled into the night… “Life! That’s the answer, Julian.”

“Keepin’ it, you mean!” Julian screamed as he tightened his hold.

“Giving it!” roared Father Stevens as his voice was instantly swallowed up into the dark swirl of mist blanketing the air flying by the chromed machine that hugged the center of the road...the center where two yellow lines began cutting away at the shallow protection between the driver’s wind-swept eyes and the buried secrets in his mind.

The headlamp bounced from dirt road to palm leaves to a hillside only obscured by a thin curtain of mist now, the fog hanging a few miles back.

For the first time since he had thrown his leg over the saddle, Julian loosened his strangle hold on the waist of Father Stevens, as the laughing Father pleaded for some room to breathe.

“Give me a break, Julian. A man needs air to live.”

“And a blessing from God if he’s crazy as you.”

“You’ve never had such a good time. Admit it.”

“I’ll have a good time...damn watch the holes...when you come to your senses.”

“Just around the bend...watch it...” he said as he swerved to miss a rock that had fallen from the hillside.

Julian was back to his iron hug as Father Stevens navigated the rutted road. “‘Around the bend,’ you got that right Father. We in a dried-up river bed or am I losin’ it too?”

“Gets better just around the turn here. You got to pee as bad as me?”

Even Julian had to laugh at that comment. “You mean you’ve still got some left. I just need to wash myself.”

The last fifty yards had too much bouncing, even for the indomitable Father Stevens. He began pushing the bike, along with Julian, just to soften the blows to his bladder… finally bringing the hundreds of pounds to a stop by the palm tree Stevens knew so well.

“I could have enjoyed the sea air a lot easier on the beach about a thousand miles back,” said Julian, as he dropped his head and leaned over, getting his wind. “Damn. How much this thing weigh?”

No answer.

“Hello,” said Julian as he lifted his head, turning it side to side, listening.

From behind the tree, the faint sound of a narrow stream of water, arching ever so slowly onto the sand answered him back.

“Sounds like you’re in pain,” laughed Julian. “You...don’t...know...” sighed Stevens.

“Now you know what life’s all about,” laughed Julian.

The warmth was more than just inviting to the outstretched legs nestled close to the fire. The flames pushed embers into the now clear December air as the blind man and the priest shared more of what they understood about each other one last time.

As Father Stevens threw another piece of driftwood on the fire and laid back on the sand, staring up at the open sky, “...and you remember me running out of St. Patrick’s? All that stuff that I couldn’t understand...” He raised his voice to an almost shout. “Father Randall Stevens.” Turning to Julian, he said, “You have any idea what it’s like to know who you are, but that you’ve lived a life you can’t remember? It was a lot easier before, strange enough, when I just knew how I felt, how I reacted to everything, not knowing where any of it came from.”

“The child in us we seem to leave behind was right there for you,” said Julian. “You could imagine anything you wanted, and no one could challenge you. You didn’t have any ‘shoulds’ and ‘have tos’ that adulthood hammers into us.” As Julian pushed his palms toward the heat of the fire, “You were a lucky man. Hard to picture you normal, though… especially in a jungle.” He started laughing. “Takin’ the Harley?”

Father Stevens chuckled. “Max can have it in a few years, if that’s okay with his father.”

“He might live longer if we just made a planter out of it.”

“Oh...that hurt. Didn’t that hurt, Harley?” he shouted into the air. “Harley? H a r l e y?” He bellowed again. “You know, Julian, sound just evaporates down here.”  His eyes rose up.  “Those people living up on the hill never hear a thing coming from down here, I bet.”

“Well… could be. Ah…you got something important you bounced my derriere down here for. I’m not afraid to hear it anytime you’re ready to talk it.”

Father Stevens idly poked at the coals as he took a moment to study the fire-lit face of the man in dark glasses he’d brought to the cove, knowing it was a last chance for the enigmatic trio of identities still looking to be grounded. He thought about the prior visits of his memory. The close encounters as he thought of them. But, never the light, never the truth, never the full recall.

He stood up and walked around the fire to Julian, kneeling down next to him. He reached in his pocket and took out a tiny vial of clear substance. After unscrewing the lid, he touched the liquid and rubbed it between his fingers, reaching up to Julian. “Julian, tell me what you smell?”

“Ocean. Decaying barnacles over there by the pier. Must be some old boat in dry dock, eh?”

“Yeah. What else?”

“Smoke. Smoking Cyprus and some...Ponderosa? Threw some pine on there, did you?”

“You’ve got me. Just wood off the beach. I’ll take your word for it. What else?”

“Hate to tell you, but where ever you got that oil on your fingers from, it’s God awful rancid. Jungle stuff?”

The moment wasn’t particularly startling. The kind of moment that creeps up through a deep realization to the surface and waits to come out when you least expect it. For Julian, it was a curious question. For Father Stevens...a frightening hint of reality.

“Julian...I don’t know where this comes from. It’s just a vial of consecrated oil. I smelled something close to it in St. Patrick’s when we were there...just before I freaked. Stayed with me a bit, then I forgot it...I thought. Two days ago, I was taken to the rectory in Santa Monica by Father Riley.  He was told to take care of me when the Vatican finally identified me. I was given some garments, clothes to travel, you know, priest material.

He gave me this vial. Said I should always carry it with me, that I would need it for giving last rights, if ever I was asked.”

“I’m not asking for any last rites, crazy one,” said Julian with some nervous laughter. “Sorry...go on. That was rude. I’m sorry.” He patted Father Stevens on the leg.  “Go on.”

“Don’t apologize. I’d be nervous too, if I were blind, being asked to help a man see. Julian, this smell I remember. The minute Father Riley told me what it was for, I thought of here...a night...a fire...just fire...oil...smoke...dark...always dark.”

Father Stevens settled into the sand, taking a few deep breaths, almost as if taunting the dreaded ice waves to show themselves again. He closed his eyes and raised his fingers to his face. “I think there was fire, smoke, and this oil here that night...It’s all there in the dark. Not the kind nighttime brings on...a different kind of darkness, Julian.”

“In your head, Father?”

Father Stevens looked up. “Yes...in my head.”

“Like with your eyes closed?”

“I think so. It’s so strange. Remembering the feel of the flames. I don’t really remember seeing them. I smelled the smoke, smelled the oil, but I wasn’t seeing any of it. Help me, Julian. You’re the only one I can relate this to. When I met you in New York...I had no idea why I was so drawn...so interested in your way of seeing things. But, something inside pushed me. I was embarrassed to ask so much...embarrassed on the roof to be encroaching on your surroundings…embarrassed urging you to tell all you saw through your blindness. You saw, felt, understood so much from inside. It just felt like it was something I either understood or needed to understand. Something...I couldn’t put my finger on. I didn’t know why...You understand? Am I sounding like a total lunatic now?”

“You’re reaching way down inside that crazy body of yours and pulling out something only people who’ve lost something very dear and very precious know.”

“You do understand, don’t you?  Help me remember, Julian.”

“Look, Father, I only know me. You’re asking a lot if you want me to tell you about you. Now you know that, right?”

“Of course. I’m sorry Julian.”

“ ‘Cause the only time I saw through the darkness, like now, was with Peyote, Mescaline. Hear what I’m sayin’?”

Father Stevens didn’t know why those words, words he’d not remembered hearing before, made him uncomfortable. Suddenly, Father Stevens, Charles, and Charlie were all there. He again closed his eyes and let the oily smell from his fingers filter through the fragmented images of fire, smoke, and dark. The oil had now become like a drug to his senses. He started to breathe irregularly. He hadn’t felt like this since before Mathews had put him on the pills. He moved down to one knee.

Julian reached out. “You all right, Father?”

“I think so...just a minute...Julian?”

“Yes.”

“I have no idea what’s going to happen. I need you to just keep close by me. I’m really wanting to see that night again, Julian. I might...I don’t know...Will you just stick close?”

Suddenly, the Charles in him remembered the quietness of Mathews as Julian said, “Bit hard for me to wander off, Father. Just tell me what to do.”

Father Stevens smiled, and wiped the beaded perspiration from his forehead. “Listen...and trust yourself. Okay?”

“I’m here.”

Father Stevens was feeling more insecure than he had ever felt. He also felt close...very close to the truth. He laid down in a fetal position and faced the fire. He closed his eyes.

The smell of the oil was mixed with the damp air as he pictured the bike six feet away and felt the fire in front of him - just where he had remembered the cold mound of ashes that morning when it all started.

He held the vial tightly in his left hand, as he started the deep breathing pattern Dr. Mathews had shown him for calming himself. Merged with the ohmming Sara had taught him, he prayed the vibrations would ease him through the barriers and take him to that place in his mind where all was clear.

Ohmming continued for… he wasn’t sure how much time passed. He knew the fire’s movement had taken the underside of his eyelids from an undulating kaleidoscope to a luminescent galaxy of crystals. Crystals that were familiar. From his dreams, or of his nightmares, he wasn’t sure. But as the containment of his ohmming became more difficult and his breathing continued to accelerate, the crystals began to merge.

The merging became more compressed like the condensation on a giant window. First from the edges, then moving ever inward, the army of glittering swords, crossed, merged and thrust forward toward the center as if to surround and crush the conspiracy that would have them melt and disappear back into the fire…the fire that seemed so distant from him now.

The ohmming succumbed.

The breathing retreated and became but a single, narrow passage of air merging into the quiet, cold, and shrill cries of the past...cries that came rushing through the refracting edges of crystalline that had become the frozen spears, the iceberg shards of that night of all nights...November of last year.

He knew he was in now... like the eye of a hurricane. He had a sense of finally being beyond the barrier that had kept his mind locked away from the past.

What was this, he thought? What was this sense of time and space so alien to his reality? His inner vision saw only small speckles of light darting in and out of the swirl of grayness against the pitch black. Stars? Stars he thought were profound, having just traveled through an abstraction of frozen hell. The oil from his vial hung heavy about him.

Then it became obvious. He was there...that night.

His head lowered from its gaze of the sky, beyond the fog and low clouds, down through the gray as a plane he was passenger on dropping through the mist to land.

Stripes came up at him. A runway?

No.

The landing of a Learjet was behind him now. He was remembering.

He had landed.

He had arrived in Los Angeles that afternoon.

The yellow stripes were the yellow lines of the highway. He was on the backside of the Harley.

Familiar yellow lines.

He could only think one thing. Who was the he, the man behind the eyes that saw all this? And who was the man he had his arms around...driving the Harley?