From SYMMETRY:
AURORAVILLE, CALIFORNIA. SEPTEMBER 27, 1989
The steady-handed purple of night gives way to the sensitive blue of morning. This changing of the world’s custodians is what we call dawn. I'm watching the transformation through the storm’s pulsating curtain. Standing on René’s front porch, my head’s thrown back as far as it can go. I don’t have to close my eyes. The droplets strike just shy of them, outlining my face as if they’re running down it, but…they’re not. I won’t question this magic because, after having lived without the luxury of a mirror for so long, I understand what the cleansing rain has always known—my face and my soul are hopeless.
So here I am, leaking filth all over the doorbell, leaving disgust dangling from the doorframe, letting despair rot inside the exaggerated pores of the thrift store welcome mat. René doesn’t even recognize me at first—time hasn’t been good to either of us—when he answers the door. He’s as surprised to see me a bum as I am to see that he still slings burgers.
“René! What’s up, man? René! It’s me! Perry! Perry Jones!”
He doesn’t answer. I get an unsteady stare in response, as if he’d been expecting someone else when he answered the door. Just what does he see as he looks me over? My beard, caked with dirt, blood and dried food? My hands, that used to be so…genteel, back in the days when we were Lit majors at ACC, promising young bouzingos, pens always uncapped? My hands, so
rough, so predatory? Is he looking at my filthy nails, where I’m hoarding all the eternal secrets? Or is he looking straight through me, staring at the rain, watching it fall everywhere but on me, like a vengeful, cartoonish Marking?
No smiles. No hand shakes. No hugs. I can somehow see a grainy cross-section of his potbelly, full of chewed up cheeseburgers, half digested french fries, and watery chicken nuggets. They bob and kick in a restless, pre-diarrhea stew underneath his grease and condiment stained work shirt. Look at him! His nametag still pinned on, with his stereotypical bohemian five o’clock shadow sculpted to unkempt perfection! His hair is so long, he can’t even feel Jazzy’s ketchup stained clown boot on his neck everywhere he goes, even though his ponytail leaves plenty of room! René! You really think you‘ve escaped illusion, don’t you?
“Well! I’m not a businessman, or a lawyer, or a supervisor, am I? I haven’t sold out my art!” I hear his mind play, rewind, and play these words again and again, as if he can read my thoughts. What an idiot!
But I should talk….
“Oh. Hey, Perry. Come on in…I guess….”
Finally! He abruptly turns away in the middle of motioning me to follow him up the stairs. As the door closes behind me, I hear the cries of unseen birds. The walls are grimy. All the scents of the world are jammed into that stairway—I have to compete with them for oxygen, fight my way for space. He unlocks a blank wooden door. The TV is on. The car chase. The big brawl. The shower scene. A vowel turning by white, manicured hands. A crew member beaming aboard. Then the screen goes blank. He sits down on the bed.
“So what’ve you been up to? I haven’t seen you for…what? About a year now? More?
Hmn.” he says, reaching for a crumpled pack of squares. “Want one?” I don‘t answer. He lights up. “I thought I’d seen you around a few times, but I was sure it wasn’t you. Just some homeless guy. Guess it was you after all. I’ll have to tell Sue about this when she gets here.”
“Sue?” I ask with my back to him as I pace around the cramped little room, picking up random objects. “You have a girlfriend? Maybe you have changed for the better. Does this mean you’re not a member of the Player’s Club anymore? Good job. How long have you been with her? Does she write?”
“I’ll get to all that,” he says, waving my questions away. The wastebasket next to his bookshelf wobbles for a moment, then becomes still. “What I want to know is: What happened to you, man? You just disappeared. I used to run into Tacey now and then. She asked about you a few times. I told her I didn’t know anything. I told her maybe you went on some spiritual quest or something. You know, find the center of your soul by riding Greyhounds or something Kerouacian like that. She said it sounded like something you’d do. Still, she didn’t think it was as absurd an idea as I did. Oh. You know she’s at SG State now, right? She still writes, but I guess she’s trying to get her MLS.”
“I know...where she is,” I say, flipping through some books René has lying around. “Speaking of writing,” he says. “I’ve been writing myself. Nothing major. A lot of poems, and a few short stories. Same style. That urban realism you hate. I chronicle the real deal, big boy, with a capital ‘R,’ capital ‘D.’ What’d you used to say? Oh yeah! ‘Fear, neuroses, and just plain spiritual destitution.’ But this is big, Perry. I’ve got an idea for a novel. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I really want to do it, but I don’t think I have what it takes. You
know me—I’ve always had issues with commitment."
I nod absently at his laughter, half-listening. I can feel the nervous pulse of the walls slithering underneath my nails, coiling around my fingertips, entering me through my fingerprints. I shiver. René jumps, and tenses, as if his body thinks I’m going to attack him, then slowly settles down when I sit in the chair at his desk. He’s finally silent. An unfinished draft of an untitled manuscript catches my attention. I steal glances at some of the pages:
“…intangible beasts of burden for syllables…”
“A tall, bold exclamation point came after ‘humor.’”
“We…will do it!”
They seem to be two unrelated sections with two distinct voices, but certain words and phrases repeat themselves. Unwanted sections are crossed out, going only halfway through them, as if he he's given up on the idea of giving up on them. René’s over-protective grimace lets me know the work is not fully formed yet; I’m not supposed to be looking at it. I put it down, but can’t help wondering what inspired him to take on a novel, and why some of my own work is with his manuscript. Even more importantly, why is most of it missing? Only a few oddly numbered pages remain, like clues to a murder. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a few torn pieces of twenty pound bond paper, gashed with dark type, moving away into the darkness behind the walls, into the closet—any dimly lit place where someone might go blind, then mad—and vanishing among a heap of what looks like the cut-up remains of all his clothes. I can’t be sure. I make as if to move for a closer look, and behind me, I feel René tense, move suddenly in my direction.
“So you want to know about Sue, huh? O.K. Here’s the story,” he begins with an anxious
edge in his voice, cutting off my thoughts. “Well, I’ve been writing to this chick out at Immaculate Chassis. You know, right? The prison. I saw an ad for correspondence in a magazine somebody left down at the coffee shop across from the library. She seems...I don’t know...special...I guess. Something about her.”
The room suddenly feels different to me. It’s as if all this time it’s been going through a subtle transformation, and now, it’s become what it really is. It surrounds us, and is closing in. Pulsating. Its pores gape open, and I can see walls of movement inside the walls.
“She’s doing time for robbing the Grab N Go back in eighty-five,” he continues. “She was outside, and the people who robbed the place—a couple—were coming out. When the police arrived, she was still there. She couldn’t tell them who the guy was, since she didn’t do it, so they took her in. You know how it is. When she’s paroled, she’s going to come here, and we’ll get a place together. I hope it’s during the winter, ’cause I don’t want to have to pay for heat.”
Sounds fly around me on chopped up fly wings. I can’t make them out. Imploding on contact, all that remain are snapped syllables, crushed clauses, splattered sentences, all over me, the floor, the walls, running in rivers, the disembodied hum in the air, eternally restless.
“Oh, I’m back out at good ol' ACC. Taking a writing class. ‘Creative Writing: Short Stories, Plays.’ I don't plan on writing a play. That's not why I signed up. Besides, you know me! C'mon!" he shouts, sitting up straight on the bed, throwing his arms wide. "I'm a fucking writer! Right?”
"Yes. I've known you...for a long time," I say half-heartedly, wondering at my surprise over the fact that René, after all these years, hasn't changed. I close my eyes, and for a second,
imagine him in an open silk shirt with a hairy chest, maybe a thick, gold necklace, and jeans too tight, deliberately accenting the bulge of his crotch beyond even the point of bathos. Maybe even a thick leather belt, with a huge silver or gold ‘R.’ No. ‘S’ maybe. René would prefer the surname. I close my eyes harder, and see him in a football captain's jacket, with a cheerleader on his arm looking up at him in awe and stupefaction as they stroll to his Mustang after Homecoming. I open my eyes. A giant spider sits across from me on the bed, where René’s supposed to be, slobbering blood all over itself, the sheets, the floor, its eight arms scrambling to reach for me, shooting out webbing in epileptic spasms of flatulence! How? Am I screaming? No, I’m not screaming. The face behind my face is screaming, and my face, the one René can see, is tense, lips tight, trying to keep it from getting out.
Some books are lying on the floor by the bed. It’s impossible to make them out. The hum keeps moving back and forth, blocking my view. The smells are banging on the door, hungry. The rain is trying to force the lock on the windows….
A thud, like a large animal, or maybe a bird against the window clutches my head, turns it roughly in another direction. On the small desk I see a beer, a partially eaten baguette, a kitchen knife, some slices of cheese, and a torn library book.
“Here’s some advice, mister savant, mister auteur maudit,” he goes on, mockingly stressing the French accent, blowing smoke rings in my face. “You’ve always been out of touch. That’s why you were always so depressed, like those writers you like....”
The corner of page three curls over, motions to me (“Draw near! Draw near! No Symmetry here!”), makes the universally accepted sign for slitting throats.
“Do you want a beer? You must work up a thirst out there on the streets. At least you have plenty of time for the Word now. Every cloud has a silver lining, right?”
Then I’m behind him, beating him to the ground, turning him face-up by his collar, strangling him! He chokes, spits blood in my eye! I bite his eyelid...and tear! Gripping his stupid, lye-encrusted hair in my hands, I drag him across the room! He tries to claw at my wrist, but it is TOO LATE to struggle now! I’m smashing his head against the desk! Again! Again! Again! A fan of blood opens up all over his work in progress! I make him bite the edge of the desk...smash his face into it! Blood and juice leak and spurt all over his shirt! No one will ever be able to read his nametag now! A book flutters, closes itself dispassionately! His body collapses like a dummy with its soul ripped out! I throw him on the floor, grab the knife, wiggle it in his face a little bit, grinning, then stab him in the stomach! His filling gushes up at me, warm and ticklish! I twist, pull out, stab deep! Again! Again! A—GGGGAIN!
René’s blood and juices fly out of him up at me, race over my body, across the floor, inch up the walls, fan out over the ceiling. Red rain, hail of skin, tissue. Thunder of ghosts of screams. No peace! The patter, crash outside echoes the storm here, in the room. Patter. Patter! Crash. Crash! Patter. Patter! Crash. Crash! One, two, pause. One, two, pause. One. One. One, two, pause. One, two, pause. One. One. His baritone wound keeps whispering:
“Amyas…Amyas…Amyas…”
Why won’t his body shut up? Please! SHUT…UP! Revelation demands close attention,
silence.
Who is scrawling the dead child’s name over and over on the walls in blood? There’s no one here but us two. Do I see roaches, staining their legs as they climb the walls, only to rain down on us?
* * *
His skin has turned bright purple around the wound. It’s a mouth, and works like his true one, speaking to me in mute words. I can tell it is trying to say something, but I don’t want any interruptions. I put my palm against it, shush those bruised and tender lips, tell my old friend not to worry. I’ve given him a great gift. Our skin color matches exactly. A sign, like the name in blood seeping down the walls, that I am right in coming here, doing what I’ve done. We share the same terrible secret. Although, signs, once we’ve learned to read them, only corroborate a higher truth: everything has a purpose, a direction, is touched by unseen hands, watched by unseen eyes, spoken to by unseen mouths, heard with unseen ears, sniffed out by unseen nostrils. Chance is the only superstition.
He groans when I turn him on his side, rummage through his pockets. A ten, some change, a set of keys. To get at the wallet, I roll him on his stomach. An expired CAID, a few ones, a handful of personal business cards reading: René Smith. Naturalist of Inner Landscapes. 42 Masonic Avenue, Auroraville, CA, 93613. Inquiries Not Discouraged. These I throw on the floor. Enough for some food and some beer. His half-closed eyes are on me as I try on his purple jacket and gloves. For some reason, washing my hands or changing clothes seem impossible to me.
* * *
The guy with the mullet has his eye on me the whole time. Do I look suspicious? Who cares? I’m not any better at stealing than I am at dancing, or playing basketball. This town is just small enough to still have a section in the paper called Religion and Ethics, without irony. This is a town in need of two things: an encounter group, and the Apocalypse. The beer isn’t even the kind I like. It’s René’s favorite—cheap ass piss water. As I’m leaving:
“Hey! Smith! You forgot your change!”
I turn.
“I’m not René. I’m his friend. He sent me to the store for him ’cause he’s sick.”
“That’s funny,” he says. “You walk the same way he does. And you look just like him. Same build, same face, everything. You sure you guys ain’t twins or somethin’? Huh! Maybe ’cause you’re wearing a jacket like his.”
It’s true; I have a gut, and move with an easy swagger unfamiliar enough to make my legs hurt.
Back in René’s room, I tear off the jacket and gloves. Nothing’s different, but I can’t help but think about how, when I was opening up the cooler door to grab the sixer, René was reflected in the glass, reaching, in his purple jacket, gloves.
* * *
We have never been who we think we appear to be.
* * *
I crack open a Cold One, cook up some eggs on his little hot plate while I wait for the right Moment to begin. Sunny side up. The brilliant yellow is camouflaged between my teeth as I chew. So much has happened here, but nothing has been started yet. I shake a few roaches off the
left over baguette and tear off a piece with my teeth, wipe my yoke stained lips with it, then sit down next to him, in the pool of blood.
“Poor René! Stupid of me to think you’d have achieved Symmetry by the time I got here, wasn’t it? To believe you might’ve been saved without me? It had to come to this. If I never really liked you before, René, it’s truer than ever now. I’ve unlocked your body, let out your soul. I had to. The ugliness of your soul is not beautiful ugliness. You could never’ve achieved Symmetry. I could cry for your body, if it wasn’t for the fact I’ve saved your soul.”
* * *
He looks at me sadly. And I, sadly, look at him.
“You know you’re going to die, don’t you, René? I am going to die here, too,” I tell him. “After this, there is no fear of death. Morality is fear’s mother, and death’s.”
René! René! The Spider and the Ladybug took away my morality, my fear. Without morality, we’re allowed to see that here, in this spinning penitentiary, all things are guilty. No good, no evil, just a hierarchy of different guilts.
He isn’t consoled, begins to cry. It is…the Moment.
I pull out my diary, a little notebook, college ruled, with a blue cover, faded, falling off, and begin to read. I read stories about the freedom of not ever losing sleep over not making rent or losing a job. I tell him about the exalted security of knowing there are no lower levels of society to sink to.
“Who tries to change the values, lifestyle of a bum?” I ask him, leaning close, breathing heavily into his face, my spittle drooling down, going plink! plink! onto his teeth, drizzling down his throat. “It’s impossible to sell out, to trade in your ideals! The secret is to rob yourself of
every opportunity, so that, even in moments of weakness or doubt or envy, you are so far out of the running, you’re not even in the position to reject anything, or stand aside. You’re so far gone, you can’t even relate to it anymore!”
I stroke his forehead, play with his mouth with my finger while I brag about being invincible. I show him my notebook, my little notes and jottings, my illustrations in the margins, speaking gently to him, as if to a sick child.
“See? Here’s where Perry got fired. And look! There’s René, taking out the trash at work. Those thing-ees coming out of your head are lightning bolts, ’cause you are mad. It was your day off, and you had to work, ’cause one of the kids didn’t show up or call in. Yes, that’s René. See? Oooooo.”
Whenever he tries to move away from me, I pull him close, cradle him, lay my journal in his lap and read that way.
* * *
A frenzied knocking at the windows! The rain!
* * *
I think I hear birds approaching.
* * *
Some roaches come out from under a hill of balled-up paper, slip around on my plate, walk on, eat, the leftovers. Their antennas wave excitedly. One of them says it approves of my cooking, that it was the best it’s had here. Another remarks that the eggs are too runny, that the bread is hard (It wasn’t my fault! The bread was here already!), though the cheese, slightly moldy, sprinkled with blood, leaves a subtle salty taste on the palette which lingers perfectly
afterwards. A brief argument. Name calling. Profanities. A scuffle. They part. Another roach, quiet, impressionable, morose, climbs atop René’s forehead, turns to me. Our eyes meet. I put my face close to its face. Its antennas tickle my forehead. An almost sibling understanding passes between us.