Darker Shades of Fear

(Installment 15)

 

I'm not myself
But somehow I'm still being him
The secret's out
But it's too loud to think it

 

***

 

He had no idea what happened to him, but he honestly didn’t care.  Things had fallen back into place and thankfully, so had he.  What might have been a few weeks passed by, rather uneventfully, but passed just the same.  He couldn’t say that he minded the monotony.  He was quite capable of making his own fun.

Tonight, however, he found himself a bit bored by the scenery.  He contemplated leaving town.  It seemed like a promising idea, until he remembered the millionaire’s wife, what’s-her-name… Isabel.  That was it.   Finding nothing else offering entertainment, he decided to pay an unexpected visit.

 

It took a bit of convincing, but the servants finally let him in.  One of them had told him that Isabel wasn’t accepting visitors, but after running him in circles of logic, Kenny had managed to gain entry.  Satisfied, he made his way upstairs to the master bedroom that he knew quite well by now. 

The door was shut, and locked from the inside.  This confused him.  She’d never locked the door in the past, so why start now?  Something was wrong.  His gut instinct told him to leave, that this was a bad idea and he really didn’t care about her enough to stick around.  However, that other more submissive yet ever present inquisitive nagging that could not rest until everything had been sorted out resurfaced.  He stood idly for a few moments, inwardly evaluating the situation.  In the end, he decided to stay.  He needed something exciting after the sluggishness of the past few days or so.

With a paperclip he stole from her husband’s study, Kenny successfully picked the lock in under a minute.  He smiled to himself and tossed the metal now-deformed metal object over his shoulder and turned the knob.

He found her standing by the large bay window, gazing outside.  He could not see her face, but had the idea he’d come at an inopportune moment.  He grinned inwardly.  He loved annoying people.

“How did you get in?” She asked without inflection, fixed in place.

Kenny shut the door behind him.  “My secret.”

“Get out.”

“I just got here.” He said, making clear his intention to remain.

She sighed.  “What would you do if I jumped, Kenny?” She asked in all seriousness.

He acknowledged the rhetorical question, knowing full well that he would shrug his shoulders and leave without offering so much as a glance in her direction.

She seemed to laugh in a dejected sigh, “That is what I thought.  Absolutely nothing.” She looked down, and then out the window.  “Whether I live or die has no effect on anybody.  I will be just another name in the newspaper.”

Kenny sighed, bored by her self-pity.  “You’re not going to kill yourself.”

After a beat of silence, she slowly turned to face him, “What makes you think that?”

“You would have done it already.” He replied, matter-of-factly.  A strange familiarity arose as he said these words, but he ignored it.

She looked at him, confused and then frightened.

“I think the real problem here, is that you’re afraid.” In his mind he heard these words echo in a voice that was not his own.

She bit her lip, but began to cry anyway.  “I don’t know what to do.”

Kenny could not help but feel compassionate for her, for some odd reason.  Though it annoyed him to do so, he approached her and allowed her to hug him.  It was an infinitely pointless gesture, but it helped calm her and he was grateful for that.  He was trying to suppress the familiarity of this whole situation, but somehow he empathized with her condition.

She finally let him go and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand before sitting at the foot of the bed.  Kenny sat beside her, waiting for the silence to break.  When he realized that she would not do the honors, he obliged.

“What’s this all about?” He asked, not really caring but knew it was what she wanted to hear.

“You would not understand.”

He sighed in annoyance, but managed to keep himself controlled.  “Try me.”

“Have you ever loved anyone, Kenny?”

“No!” He replied, all too quickly.  He looked at the floor and tried not to think about the question, immediately regretting that he’d persisted.

“Anyone at all?”

I love you, Kenny.       

I’m not worth it…

You’re perfect.

Kenny squeezed his eyes shut, wondering what the hell that had been.

I’m sorry, Kenny.  I just can’t stop…I tried, I really did but I can’t.

That’s bullshit!  You lied to me!

…I knew you’d stop loving me if I told you.

I never stopped loving you.

“…I don’t remember.” He confessed.

“What would you have done to help them?”

Holy shit, dude, what the fuck happened?!

You have to help me…

“What are you getting at?” He asked, pushing these unwanted thoughts and disembodied mental conversations aside.

She sighed.  “I loved someone once, Kenny.  We came here from Spain a long time ago, but we were not legal in this country.  We planned to marry for citizenship, and then divorce so we could legally marry.  I married George, but before I could ask for a divorce he had called Immigration on my lover.”

“So why does this matter now?” Kenny asked, feigning interest as the scene began to resemble a bad daytime soap opera.

“I received a letter from him.  He… he wants me to return to Spain with him.”

“So go.  What’s stopping you?”

“My husband.”

“What about him?”

She said nothing for a while, the cloth covering the bed clenched tightly in her fists.  “I want to see him suffer.”

Kenny knew what this was about.  “You want him dead.”

“I never said that.”

“You meant it.”

She looked down, unable to deny it.

He sighed, “Here’s what you have to do.” He said, “He has sleeping pills, right?”

She nodded.

“Crush half the bottle, put it in his food.  An hour later, give him two caplets.  After that, he’ll be out.  To be safe, wait an hour and give him another while he’s unconscious.” He explained, standing.

“Wait… where are you going?”

“Out.” He said, starting toward the door.

“You mean I have to do this alone?!”

“Sorry sweetie, this is your mess.  I make it a point to avoid cleaning shit that’s not mine.”

“But… how do I know it will work?”

Kenny paused silently for a moment, the light from the doorway causing him to appear as a silhouette.  “I’ve done it before.” He said enigmatically before disappearing through the doorway.

 

He collapsed, falling into sweet unconsciousness with a blissful expression on his face.  His head smacked the floor with a hard thud, but he was numb to the pain.

 

The door opened and the first thing he noticed was how quiet it was.  His stomach dropped as he entered the room, scanning quickly for his friend.  Terror gripped his senses as his eyes finally came upon the lifeless-looking form of his friend.

“Oh fuck…” he shouted, rushing to the boy’s side.  He tried to remember what the proper steps in a crisis situation were, but his mind failed him.  Without thinking, he rolled Kenny to his back and checked for a pulse.

It was barely there.

His heart raced, wondering what the fuck had happened and what he should do about it.  “Kenny?!” he screamed, “Kenny, can you hear me?!” He asked uselessly.  After frantically glancing around the room for anything incriminating, he sprang up and dialed 9-1-1, the phone shaking in his unsteady hand.

 

Before long, the paramedics arrived.  He watched as they strapped Kenny to a stretcher and gave him an oxygen mask, carrying him out to the ambulance.  He had no idea what the hell he was going to do when they asked for personal information, but decided to worry about that later.  He jumped into the ambulance and took hold of his friend’s hand, the only anchor to sanity among the chaos of the vehicle.  Beeps and shouts overpowered the atmosphere and suddenly he felt like a small boy again, standing idly in the corner with his teddy bear while the EMS workers loaded his mother into the ambulance and the police forced his father outside, leaving him alone in silence.

He shook the memory from himself and focused on Kenny.  He watched the heart monitor with intense dedication, thanking God for every time the lifeline spiked and a beep sounded.

 

Once they reached the hospital, he attempted to follow the doctors into Kenny’s room, but he was denied access.  He’d thrown a few punches at the staff before he conceded angrily and sat against the wall next to Kenny’s room, burying his face in his hands.  Luckily his struggle with the staff had prevented them from asking for personal information, which was good because his response would have been “fuck off” anyway.

He waited for what felt like forever before the doctors emerged from the room.  He leapt to his feet immediately, asking a hundred questions in one fragmented sentence.

“What – is he – happened – okay – did he do – I – help – tried to –”

The older, gray haired doctor silenced him by holding his hand up, palm out to the anxious boy.  “Your friend will be fine.”

He sighed in relief.  “What happened?”

“It seems your friend overdosed on sleeping pills.”

“But… we don’t have sleeping pills.”

“Well, he did.  We pumped his stomach and did what we could.  I’m curious, though, does your friend have a history of suicidal behavior?”

“No!” He replied, completely shocked that the doctor would even suggest such a thing.  This was Kenny, not some self-hating freak of nature.

“I’m sorry, but from a medical perspective, it fits his condition.”

“What do you mean?”

“He already had a significant amount in his bloodstream, and we pumped about half a bottle out of him.”

His face paled considerably at this.  “Can I – uh, can I go see him now?”

“I’m going to need personal information.”

“Please?”

The look in the boy’s eyes was too much for the doctor to bear.  He conceded, aware that they would both be here until the medicine worked itself out of his patient’s blood.

He sighed in relief and entered the room slowly.  His stomach churned as he took in the sight of his friend.  Tubes in his nose, an oxygen mask on his face, an IV needle sticking in his arm, and an assortment of wires and hoses whose function he had no knowledge of.  He was so pale, and his lips were a particularly disturbing shade of blue.

Silently, awkwardly, he took a seat in the chair beside the bed and watched the breathing apparatus rise and fall in time with Kenny’s shallow breaths.  He touched his friend’s hand, and recoiled at the temperature of his skin.  He was so cold.  Even though they had a heating blanket on him, his skin felt terribly cold.

He had no idea what to do next, so he waited.

 

He was still waiting hours later when his friend’s eyes finally opened.  He bolted upright in the uncomfortable chair and waited for him to regain consciousness.

“Kenny?!”

He made a small groaning sound in his throat.

He got to his feet and stood so Kenny could see his face.  “Are you okay?”

He squinted, as if searching for familiarity.  “Clark?”

“No shit.” He replied, “How do you feel?”

“Am I dead?” He asked.

“No.”

“Oh.” He said with a sort of disappointment.  “Where am I then?”

“The hospital.”

“What the fuck did you bring me here for?” He asked, shifting uncomfortably in the bed.

“Um, maybe because I found you unconscious on the floor!”

“Why couldn’t you just have left me there?!” He asked angrily.

“Kenny, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Nothing you would understand.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” He asked, both disturbed and appalled by his friend’s sudden change.

He offered a hollow laugh, “Well, you of all people should know.”

“What are you talking about?” He questioned, exasperated.

“…We killed people.”

Clark’s expression read, ‘and…?’

“Doesn’t that bother you?”

“…Oh shit, Kenny, please tell me you didn’t do this on purpose…”

He was silent.  “They didn’t deserve to die.  …I did.”

Clark’s head spun.  This was completely unfathomable.  Kenny had just attempted suicide.  He had purposely, intentionally, done this to himself.  He had no words to articulate how angry his friend’s actions had made him, how much he blamed himself for them, how happy he was that Kenny was alive, and how scared he was that this could happen again.

“Clark?”

“You’re so fucking selfish.” He choked.

“What?”

“I said that you’re a selfish bastard!”

Kenny had no idea how he should react.  Part of him was hurt, part of him was resentful, part of him was angry, and part of him was just plain confused.

“You kill yourself and that’s great for you, but what about me?! What the fuck do I do?!  You’re all I’ve got, Kenny!  What the hell am I supposed to do without you?!  We agreed that we were in this together – and you’re a fucking coward for trying to back out on me!”  He said, expressing a range of emotions in one tirade.

Kenny couldn’t help but acknowledge the truth to his friend’s response.  He hadn’t even considered how his actions would affect his friend.  Clark was right.  He was selfish.  He didn’t deserve to die; he deserved to be punished.

“…I… I…” Clark had a desperate look in his eyes, one that meant he wanted to say something important – but it faded after he closed his eyes.  “You’re the only thing I have.” He reiterated.  “Promise me you’ll never do this again.  I want you to promise me.  And I want you to mean it.”

Until now, he’d never cried in front of anyone.  It felt cowardly and childish to do so, especially in front of his best friend, but he was cowardly and childish so the circumstances were slanted in his favor.

“Please, Kenny, promise me.”

“…I promise.”

Kenny would later find loopholes in that promise, but for all practical purposes, he kept it.                                      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© Danielle Lovallo, 2004

Lyrics © Matthew Good Band, “Truffle Pigs”