Hair of the Dog (Part II)

Hair of the Dog (Part II)

by Brett Van Valkenburg

Phil gasped and sat up.  He was on the couch in his apartment on South 3rd Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  He fell back onto a throw pillow and breathed deeply.  Crazy dreams, he thought—three nightmares in a row. 
After a few minutes, Phil got up to shower and dress for work.  As he brushed his teeth, he stared at his face, as if trying to catch it doing something it shouldn’t.  Before leaving the apartment Phil crouched on the floor and peered beneath the threshold of his roommate’s door.  The light was on, but he couldn’t hear her moving around.   He shook his head and left the apartment.
Phil smoked a cigarette on his way to the subway.  He passed two girls skipping in the hot summer sun.  A delivery man opened the barrel hatch beneath the Alligator Lounge.  The man handed cases of beer, at which Phil licked his lips, to a Mexican bar-back standing in the cellar.  As he neared the subway station Phil could hear the train screeching to a halt beneath his feet.  He and his fellow suits rushed down the stairs to the platform, eager to arrive at their three and a half walled prisons on time. 
As he rode the subway he revisited the first dream.  Phil hadn’t thought about Robert in years.  As soon as his mother had introduced him, Phil had hated him fiercely.  In his adolescent mind, he saw Robert as his mother’s attempt to supplant the memory of his father, and to punish them both Phil had treated them like garbage.  At least Robert was finally able to escape Phil’s wrath.  The marriage hadn’t lasted more than a year before he threw in the towel.  He left her citing a lack of common interests, but she suspected it was because of Phil.  Robert really was a good man—too good to tell his mother the truth about why he couldn’t stick it out.
Phil shook his head.  Poor mom, he thought.

The workload was light that day.  Only a handful of people called customer service to inquire about their credit cards, and Phil answered each question as efficiently as he could.  When the workday ended none of his coworkers wanted to go for a drink.  His colleagues had spouses to meet—children to attend to.  Everyone had to get home leaving him to do the same by default.
On the way to his apartment he grabbed a turkey sandwich and a six pack of PBR from El Morro Deli across the street.  When he returned home, he found that Haley’s bedroom door was still closed, but now he could hear the television. 
Phil leaned his head against the door.  “Haley?” he spoke softly.
No answer. 
He sighed and gave up.  Haley’s temperament was fickle, he knew, and if she was in one of her moods, it was better to just leave her alone. 
Phil plopped down on the couch.  He fired up an episode of the Simpsons on the DVD player and watched as he ate.  After a few episodes and a few more beers he shuffled off to bed.
The next day unfolded the same as the day before, as did the next and the next—a routine he was very used to.  Work was unstimulating. Haley was still locked in her room.  The only things that changed were the television shows as he ate his turkey sandwich and drank PBR. 
But the days didn’t just feel repetitive.  They felt familiar.  Lived in.  It was as if the events of each day were preceded by the memory of having experienced them before, like a protracted case of déjà vu.  That’s why they call it a routine, thought Phil, trying to dismiss his apprehensions. 
As he headed home on day five Phil stopped into the Tin Lounge, desperate to break up the monotony of the week.  He pulled up a stool at the bar and ordered a gin and tonic.  As he waited for the bartender he thought about his Disney dream, as he had many times that week.
  A glass hit the bar with a thud.  “Thanks,” said Phil with a start.
“Hair of the dog,” replied the bartender. 
Phil squinted at him.  “Sure,” he replied.  He took a sip of the drink and spit it back into the glass. 
“Hey,” he said beckoning to the bartender with his index finger. 
The barkeep glided toward him.
“This is isn’t what I ordered.”
“Hair of the dog,” replied the bartender with a smile.
Phil eyed the bartender warily.  His reply sounded eerily familiar.  “I ordered a Beefeater and tonic.” 
“Hair of the dog,” repeated the bartender through his wide toothy smile.  His head pivoted from side to side as if his neck were full of ball bearings. 
Phil began to sweat.  He grabbed the bartender’s hand.  “You shut up.  Do you hear me?  Shut up!” he repeated, with a hint of desperation in his voice.  Phil got off the barstool and backed toward the door.  It’s happening again, he thought. 
“Something wrong, mein Herr?” 
As Phil slipped out the door he could still hear the bartender rambling behind him.  “I’d smoke one myself if I wasn’t on the clock,” he said.
Phil ran around the corner and fell back against the brick wall.  He ran his fingers through his hair.  “Am I losing my mind?  Am I in a padded room somewhere?”

Back at his apartment, Phil put his back against door and slowly slumped to the floor.  He stared at the worn parquet slats and caught his breath.  Eventually his attention floated to Haley’s door.  At that moment he realized he hadn’t seen his roommate all week.  He was used to her locking herself away, but he’d see her periodically when she came out to use the bathroom or microwave some god-awful vegan meal. 
Phil rose and approached her bedroom.  His hand trembled as reached for the doorknob.  What’s in there? He wondered.  It couldn’t be her.  She’s, he paused as he realized what he’d already known for years.  She’s dead.
The knob wouldn’t turn.  Phil wanted to let it be, but he was compelled to see what lay inside Haley’s bedroom.
“Haley?  It’s Phil.  I need you to open the door,” he said.
No reply.
Phil tried the knob again, this time with more force.  “Haley, damn it, enough is enough.  You open the door right now or I will break it down!” 
Still nothing.
Phil wound-up and kicked, splintering the doorjamb. 
Haley sat on the bed cross-legged, her head facing away from him.  He cautiously stepped into the room.  The air tasted stale and dusty. 
As Phil crept closer Haley remained motionless.  He put his hand on her shoulder and when he did her head pivoted 180 degrees.  Her wooden face revealed a tooth-filled smile.  Haley’s waist rotated.   Her hands extended toward him, eager to reset the nightmare.
“Stop,” said Phil forcefully.
Haley’s hands fell to her sides. 
“You’re dead.”  His voice caught in his throat.  “You killed yourself.”
“You let me die, Phil.”  As she spoke her smile never wavered, like a ventriloquist’s dummy. 
                “I didn’t let you die,” he said, his voice quavering.  “How was I supposed to know something was wrong with you?”
                Haley’s arms sprung reached toward Phil.
                “Stop,” Phil said with authority. 
                Haley obeyed.
Phil guessed that if he was in a dream, then he could control it as long as he was confident. 
                “I want Haley!  I want the real Haley.”
                Suddenly the doll’s plasticity began to soften until what sat before him was the organic semblance of his dead roommate.
Phil squinted.  “Who are you?”
“Haley.”
He shook his head. 
“You ran,” Haley said.
“What?”
“When I needed you, you left.”
He pursed his lips and narrowed his brow.  “So what if I did?” said Phil.  “You were miserable.  You hated me.  Who wouldn’t have moved out?”
“I didn’t hate you, Phil.  I was sick.”
Phil’s scowl faded.  “I know.  I just,” he exhaled, unsure of what he was trying to say.  “I’d never dealt with mental illness before.  I felt like—like I wasn’t enough for you.”
“I was depressed.  I only needed you to understand.  Just like your mother needed you to.”
Phil lowered his eyes and was silent.  After a moment he spoke up.  “Can you forgive me?”
“I can’t.  I’m not really Haley.”
Phil raised an eyebrow.
“This Haley,” she said, lowering her arms as if presenting herself, “is a reflection of you.  The dead can’t forgive.  You can only forgive yourself.  Can you?”
Phil swallowed.  “I can try.”
She smiled and nodded.              
                They stared at one another.  “If you’re not Haley, then who are you?
“I am the mind beneath the mind.”
                Phil squinted.  “What’s this place?” He said, looking around the room.
                “A prison.” 
                “What do you mean?”
“It’s an illusion—fashioned from pieces of memory—to keep you trapped in your subconscious.” 
                “What about the animatronics?”
                “The prison guards.  They restrain you when you get close to escaping.”
                “Who’s keeping me here?”
                “I can’t tell you because you don’t know.”
                Phil sighed.  “How do I get out?”
“Memories are only a recreation of what your mind believes happened.  Seek what you can’t imagine.”
               
Semi sat on the backrest of a weathered bench in Alistair Park drinking an Old English forty—a ritual that had come to precede each night’s work.  A refreshing breeze filtered through the empty playground equipment causing the swings to gently sway.  Even when it was daytime no children played there.  
Semi was thinking of an excommunicated Hasidic Jew named Aharon.  Aharon had taken to trafficking psychedelics to a small splinter sect of Hasids that used the drugs—LSD and ecstasy mostly—as a means of communing with god.  Aharon had failed to deliver the money for the last shipment.  Semi’s distributor had instructed him to find Aharon and shake him down. 
Ever since Darnell sold out his distribution network to avoid jail it seemed like all Semi did was muscle low-level dealers.  But that wasn’t a surprise.  Darnell’s betrayal had brought down nearly every dealer, mule, holder, and pusher in his boss’s circle.  Each position needed to be replaced and each person was green to the role.  Mistakes needed to be corrected, noses had to be broken.  Malt liquor took the edge off.
The hum of traffic rolling down Borenquin Avenue eased his anxious mind.  The Jew would buckle, he thought, and the running around would die down just as soon as all the new dealers were housebroken. 
As Semi put the bottle to his lips a violent blow to the back knocked him off the bench.  His front tooth cracked on the lip of the bottled as he crumpled to the ground. 
Though overwhelmed with pain he still could hear laughter behind him.  Semi tried to roll onto his back, but he couldn’t move.  His second and third thoracic vertebrae had been shattered sending shards of bone into his spinal cord.  He was paralyzed from the chest down. 
Semi was overcome with terror when he realized he couldn’t move.  A foot slid under his shoulder and rolled him onto his back.  A white boy stood over him, his smile as wide as the moon above his head.  The boy patted an aluminum baseball bat against his left hand.    
“Surprise,” said Phil in a thick Jamaican accent. 
“Wh—?” Semi struggled to speak.  He couldn’t identify his attacker.  “I got no business with you,” he grunted. 
“But you do with Darnell—same as your spic friend.”
“What you care?” said Semi, too pained to form a complete sentence.
“Don’t I sound familiar?” said Phil, the soft island patois emanating from the front of his throat.
Semi furrowed his brow.  He did sound familiar, but the only man he knew that talked like that was dead.  
“You keel me.  Now I keel you,” said Phil, pointing the end of the bat at Semi, “and everythin’ be irie, mon.”
Semi’s eyes widened.  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  The white boy was speaking with Darnell’s voice!  Before he could consider the phenomenon further, Phil brought the bat down hard on his head.  Semi cried out in pain.  Phil hit him again and again until he was silent. 

Phil heard a man cry out in pain.  His voice echoed through the crystalline sky like distant thunder heralding a storm. 
Phil walked up the stoop of a neighboring apartment building and opened the front door.  A staircase lead to the floors above—not the unfinished space he had uncovered in Epcot Germany.
What don’t I remember?  He said to himself.  What can’t I imagine?  Mundane details wouldn’t do.  Even if he didn’t know what was behind the door of a specific apartment building, his mind could cobble together a similitude of reality based on memories of the thousands of apartment buildings he’d visited throughout his life.  He needed something completely unfamiliar. 
Phil plodded down the stoop.  He walked north on Union Ave.  The intersection of Union and Grand should have been bustling, as it was at all hours of the day, but it looked evacuated. 
As he crossed the street, Phil scuffed his sneaker on a manhole cover.  Suddenly he got an idea.  Phil squatted and sank his fingers into the holes of the metal disc.  He pulled, but the manhole wouldn’t budge.  The difficulty was a good sign, he determined.  Phil pulled again with all his strength.  He let out a long grunt as the manhole cover slowly gave in to his strength.  It flipped over, spinning around like a jar lid, slowly then faster, before coming to a rest.  
Beneath the manhole (what an absurdly base name, thought Phil, a hole for a man) was blackness.  Not the blank white he had hoped for.  But then, he thought, wouldn’t he have imagined a void beneath a manhole cover?   What was beneath the darkness? 
Phil looked up and down the empty street.  He let out a long sigh and then pin-dropped into the Brooklyn sewer system. 
As he fell, the blackness gradually brightened into the white infinity he had found behind the mystery door in Epcot.  An odd wave of relief washed over him as a black dot appeared far below.  As Phil sailed headfirst through the portal, an unseen force cushioned his momentum like the arresting cable on an aircraft carrier catching a plane’s tail-hook.  He snapped into his consciousness.
As before, the flicker of reality was confusing.   A young girl lay beneath him, his knees pinning her shoulders to a bed.  Her eyes fluttered, and her brown skin turned blue as his hands tightened around her neck. 
Shocked, Phil released the girl.  She gasped for air.  Phil recoiled, frightened by what he had found himself doing. 
“I’m sorry!  It wasn’t me!” He said.
The girl coughed.  She looked at him from the corner of her eye, unable to speak. 
“It wasn’t me!  Something was in me—someone.” 
The girl continued coughing.
Phil got up and found his way to the kitchen.  After rifling through the cabinets for a cup, he filled a glass with tap water and returned to the girl. 
He handed her the glass.  “Drink this.  It will help.”
“You damn fool!” said the girl punching Phil in the shoulder.  Her cough began to subside.
Ow!  I swear it wasn’t me!”
“I know it wasn’t you!” She said.  “But you’s stupid enough to drink the whiskey I left for Darnell!”
A look of confusion crossed Phil’s face.  “How did you know that?"
“Because he told me, you idiot!”  She rubbed her throat.  “Darnell’s too cocky to kill me without letting me it was him.”
“Do you need me to take you to the hospital, miss—uh?”
“Shakia,” she said.  “And, no, I don’t need you to take me to the hospital.”  Shakia looked away.  “Couldn’t afford it if I wanted to,” she muttered.
“So you’re ok now.  I should probably leave, huh?”  Phil feared she might call the police.
Her eyes widened.  “Oh, no you’re not!” she said.
“I’ve got it under control now, really,” he said, trying to reassure her. 
Right,” said Shakia sarcastically.  “I’m not letting you out of my sight until Darnell’s outta you.”
Phil shifted uncomfortably.  “How the hell is that going to happen?” 
“I don’t know,” she replied.  “But I know someone who might.”

It turned out that Shakia’s apartment was not far from Phil’s.  They headed down Union Avenue to the corner of Grand Street.  She stopped at the fortune teller’s storefront.
“A fortune teller?”  Said Phil incredulous.  “They’re frauds.”
“Ma Obelique is not a fraud.”   
“Well, she’s not open,” said Phil pointing at the neon sign—an eyeball in the center of a hand.  It was turned off.  “We should go,” he said, eager to leave. 
“Ma will open for me,” said Shakia.  She rang the door-buzzer. 
After a moment a groggy voice sounded overhead.  “Who’s there?”
Shakia and Phil stepped back from the door and looked above the awning.  Ma Obelique was leaning out the window squinting at whoever had disturbed her sleep.  Ma’s hair was tucked beneath a brown bandana.  Her huge breasts drooped low under her billowing nightgown. 
“It’s me, Ma Obelique,” Shakia whispered as loudly as she could. 
“Shakia?” said Ma bewildered.  “It’s late, child.  Come back in the mornin’.”
“Ma, this is serious.  It can’t wait ‘til morn.” 
She sighed and hesitated.  “Alright, alright,” she conceded.  “Give me a minute.”
A moment later the door opened.
You,” she said, recognizing Phil. 
Damn, thought Phil. 
Shakia crossed her arms and glowered at him.  “What did you do?” She said.
“Boy pissed on my shop.”
“That was here?” Phil said genuinely surprised.  “Look, I’m sorry,” he stammered.  “I was drunk and stupid.”
Shakia smacked Phil on the back of the head.
“Ow!”
“Drunk and stupid seems to be your M.O.” 
“Fine!   You’re right!  I’m a stupid drunk!  Ok?  I’m sorry,” he said.  He turned to entreat Ma Obelique. “Could you please just help me?” he said desperately.
Ma Obelique stood silently with her arms crossed.  Living in the neighborhood for over forty years she had seen her share of immigrant groups—Polish, Spanish, Hassidic Jews—they had moved in and carved their community into the bedrock of the neighborhood.  But this latest group, the rich white kids, was the worst yet.  They were self-absorbed and entitled.  They had no respect for the people who had been there for years or for their communities.  They came in riding on a tide of their parents’ money.  They raised rents and prices—displaced life-long residents and businesses and tore down their homes to make room for outrageously priced condos.  Locals used to come to her for advice and wisdom.  Now the few people that came for a reading did so merely to laugh at her and her odd rituals.  An apology from one of the white boys who was destroying community and ruining her livelihood?  It wasn’t enough.
Ma looked at Phil skeptically.  “If I came to you, would you help me?”
“Sure,” said Phil, shrugging his shoulders.
Ma shook her head.
                Phil grimaced.  “Come on, Shakia,” he said.  “She doesn’t want to help me.”
                “I need your help, Ma.  Darnell got in this boy, and he’s using him to kill me.”
                She looked at Phil with intrigue.  “You’s possessed?” She said. 
                Possessed, Phil mused.  He hadn’t thought to describe his condition using that word, but it seemed to fit.  He shrugged. “I guess.”  
                Ma pursed her lips.  “I’ll help you,” she said pointing at Shakia.  “But it’ll cost you.”  Her finger swung toward phil.  “Come.”  Ma Obelique stepped inside and the two followed.

                Ma Obelique listened with great interest as Shakia explained how Phil had come to be a surrogate body for Darnell’s soul.  When the story caught up to the present, the fortune teller delivered her verdict.
                “You don’t take offerings for the dead,” she said, her wagging finger emphasizing each word. 
                Phil stared at her blankly.  His brain was churning out sarcastic remarks at assembly line-pace, but he decided to hold his tongue.  Disrespect had landed him here, he realized.  Maybe it was time to retire that approach.
                “How do I get him out?” said Phil.
                “It’s a battle of wills,” she replied. 
                “I need to will him out?”  He looked to Shakia in hopes of an interpretation, but her expression was as confounded as his.  “Ok,” he said and stood up.  He took a deep breath.  “I want you out.”  Phil tensed his whole body until it shook.  Nothing happened.
                “It’s not dat simple,” said Ma.  “You need a symbol of your will—a sacrifice.”
                “What the hell does that mean?”
                “That’s for you to decide.”
                Phil huffed.  “Thanks a lot, lady,” he said hollowly.  He turned to leave.  Ma cleared her throat.  Phil turned around.
                “A tithe,” she said holding her hand out.
                Phil took out his wallet.  When he opened the billfold he was shocked to find it was stuffed with cash.  “Holy!  I have a shit-ton of money!” He said with a smile.
                Shakia stood up.  “Darnell probably stole it from his victims.”
                Phil grimaced.  “Oh.  Right.”  He emptied his entire wallet onto the fortune teller’s card table.  “You take it.  I don’t want it.”
                She issued a stiff nod.

                The sun began to rise as Phil walked Shakia to her apartment.  It was one of the few hours during the day when no one was around.  Even the hardest late-night drunks didn’t make it that far. 
                “What are you going to do?” said Shakia.
                “I don’t know.  I have to think of something.”
                “Well, you better do it quick.” 
                Phil yawned and rubbed his eyes.  He was about to reassure her, when he was startled by something from deep in the pit of his mind.  Something was rising to the surface, like a piece of flotsam broken free from an underwater snag. 
                “Run.
                “Run?” said Shakia, her head cocked to the side.
                “He’s coming back,” Phil said through gritted teeth, his fists pressed against his temples.  “Run.”  He staggered in the opposite direction.  “Don’t go home.”  He grunted.  “We’ll find you.”
                Shakia took off like a bullet. 
Phil stumbled down the street while struggling to keep Darnell at bay.  He needed a private place to sit and battle the thug until, he assumed, Darnell grew tired and gave up.  Phil came upon a fenced-off construction site.  He squeezed through a gap in the gate. 
Behind the plywood fence were the remains of a demolished building— recently leveled to make room for high-end apartments.  As Phil wove his way through a grove of naked rebar, rats darted in and out of the mounds of crushed concrete and brick.   A stray mutt approached him.  It whined for food. 
                “Get away!” said Phil shoving the mangy dog aside.   The dog yelped and then disappeared behind a mound of rubble. 
                Darnell’s assault was getting harder to fend off.  Phil sank to his knees and hugged his chest. 
                “Sacrifice,” he whispered.  The dog? He thought looking at the piled debris.  No.  It has to come from me. 
At that moment Darnell pushed hard.  Phil tensed his body until he felt Darnell’s will subside.  Phil relaxed.  The fight was exhausting.
Phil broke the problem down to its rudiments.  A part of Darnell had gotten into the whiskey.  He had drunk the whiskey.  The whiskey went into his blood, and Darnell went into him.   His eyes widened with an epiphany.
There wasn’t much time.  Darnell was preparing for another coup—he could feel it.  Phil surveyed the rubble.  He spied a claw-footed porcelain bathtub that had broken in half over a steel girder.  Phil limped over to it.  He bent down to pick up a shard of porcelain.  Phil took a deep breath and then dragged the sharp edge across his wrist.  Hot blood poured from his radial artery and pooled in one end of the broken tub.
Get out,” Phil repeated.  He envisioned Darnell’s spirit rushing out of his body in a white vapor, comingling with the blood in the tub.  As the blood streamed from his body he felt alleviated, like a clog forced through a pipe.
After a pint and a half of blood had been let, Phil took off his plaid over-shirt and wrapped it around his wrist.  He applied pressure to the wound, but it continued to bleed.  As the crimson stain on the button-up continued to spread Phil grew nervous.  He sat on a mangled water-heater, hoping to calm his heartrate. 
Eventually the blood slowed.  Phil hobbled toward the break in the fence feeling dizzy and weak, but also victorious.  Darnell was gone.
Before he reached the gate a low growl sounded behind him.  Phil turned slowly to find the stray mutt had returned.  The dog’s hair stood up straight on its hunched back, and there was blood on its maw and in its bared teeth.  Behind the dog Phil could see streaks of his blood splashed onto the side of the bathtub.
“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” said Phil.  
He made for the fence, but the dog lunged, sinking its teeth into his ankle.  Phil cried out in pain.  He kicked and caught the dog’s nose with the heel of his sneaker.   The dog squealed and backed off. 
Phil hurried to a pile of rubble and picked up a cinderblock.  As he hoisted the stone overhead the blood rushed to his brain and he grew even dizzier.  He dropped the block and reeled backward. 
He was tired and disoriented.  If only I hadn’t lost so much blood, he thought.
The dog jumped.  Phil ducked and it sailed over him, crashing into a pile of hard fill.  The dog howled in pain. 
The only chance Phil had was to get to the street.  Phil headed toward the opening in the fence.  More growls sounded from close behind him.  He wasn’t going to make it. 
Phil turned around, and as he did the dog leapt toward him.  It was too quick to dodge.  Instead Phil caught the mutt as if it were an excited child jumping into a parent’s arms. 
They whirled around like drunken dance partners as the dog snapped at Phil’s face and neck.  In the midst of their chaotic cyclone Phil spotted an opportunity.  He whisked to dog toward the forest of protruding rebar where he slammed the mutt onto its side, forcing a metal rod through the dog’s torso.  The dog wailed like nothing Phil had ever heard, and then it abruptly died.

Philip left the construction site dirty, bloodied, and pale.  Passerby’s heading to work crossed to the other side of the street when they saw him coming.  No one offered help.  Phil was reminded of Ma Obelique’s words, If I came to you, would you help me?  Had he always been so callous?  He wondered
Phil rang the fortune teller’s doorbell.  When Ma opened the door she found him passed out in the stairwell.

Phil awoke in a hospital bed.  Shakia sat in a chair beside him reading a magazine.  She smiled when she noticed he had regained consciousness. 
“Did you get rid of him?” she asked nervously.
Phil smiled weakly.  “I did.  It almost killed me, but he’s gone.”
“That’s all I needed to know.”  She stood up and headed toward the door.  “Feel better.”
“Wait.”  Phil pursed his lips.  “Would you maybe want to get a beer sometime?”
Shakia smiled and shook her head.  “You’re crazy.  You know that?
“I think attempted murder deserves at least an apology drink.  No?”
Maybe,” she said.  “Let’s see how we feel in a few days.”
Phil smiled.  “Well, I know where to find you.”
The smile fell off Shakia’s face.  “That’s what scares me.”
“You know what I mean.”
Her smile returned. 
After Shakia left Phil picked up the patient telephone and dialed home.  His mother was surprised to hear from him.  Phil explained to her that he had been admitted to the hospital after being bitten by a stray dog.  It took ten minutes to convince her that the dog wasn’t rabid and that he was going to be fine. 
“Mom,” he said.  “I wanted to apologize for the way I treated you and Robert….”
After a lengthy conversation Phil hung up the phone.  He then closed his eyes and quickly fell asleep, where he dreamed dreams that were his and his alone.       

Hair of the Dog (Part I)

Hair of the Dog (Part I)

By Brett Van Valkenburg

The door of the Tin Lounge swung open.  Darnell Harris stumbled out of the bar and fell to the ground.  His fitted Yankees cap flew off his head, landing in the gutter.  Already his eye was swelling shut.  The man who had given him the shiner attempted to follow him out of the bar, but he and his stocky partner were blocked by a 350 pound bouncer.
                “We’re leaving!” said the boxer.  He was on the tips of his Timberland boots, trying to see over the bouncer’s mountainous frame.
                “I can’t let you leave until he’s gone,” replied the bouncer, pointing his thumb over his shoulder.  He knew if he threw them all out at once there would be a brawl in front of the bar, and that would draw the police.  A business that dealt largely in cash, the Tin Lounge’s accounting practices weren’t exactly on the level, and the owner’s policy was to avoid deferring to cops whenever possible.    “When he’s gone you two can go.”
                Darnell stumbled down the street, his head awash in alcohol and adrenaline.  He leaned against an apartment building to regain his bearings.  It was foolish to go out in public so soon, he knew, but he had been cooped up in his girlfriend’s apartment for over two weeks and he was beginning to go stir-crazy.  Darnell looked back.  The bouncer was trying to force Semi and Miguel back into the bar with little success.
How did they know where to find me? He wondered.  Only one person knew where he was going that evening.  His eyes widened.  “That bitch,” he said in his thick Jamaican accent.  Darnell balled his fist and punched the brick wall.  The mix of chemicals in his blood helped him ignore the pain that accompanied a broken hand. 
“Get back here!” someone shouted.
Semi and Miguel had forced their way out of the bar and were running toward him. 
“Shit,” muttered Darnell before breaking into a run.
The chase led from Bedford Stuyvesant into Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where various cultural enclaves gave way to white gentrification.  Darnell knew he had to make it to the police outpost beneath the Lorimer Street subway station if he were to survive.  Although he was on probation, it would be better to deal with possible jail time than face Semi and Miguel. 
As Darnell neared Grand Street he heard a loud pop and felt a piercing pain in his thigh.  He fell hard onto the pavement.  Darnell felt the leg of his camouflage pants begin to soak with a sticky liquid.  I’m shot, he realized.  Darnell stood, his hands cuffing the bullet wound.  He turned to see the duo closing in.  There was a gun in Semi’s hand. 
Crippled, he pressed on toward the police station.  After crossing the street he was shoved to the sidewalk.  Darnell rolled onto his back and faced his pursuers. 
Semi pointed the gun at him.
“Wait, wait!” he pleaded.  “Don’t keel me.”
“You should’ve taken it like a man, punk,” said Semi.  He had been in and out of jail most of his life, and had no sympathy for rats. 
Miguel mumbled something in Spanish and spat in Darnell’s face.
Darnell whimpered as Semi cocked the gun.  He fired three rounds, hitting him in the chest.  Darnell’s body convulsed with each consecutive shot. 
Miguel moved in, hurriedly stripping a wallet and fake Rolex from the body.  He turned back to find that Semi had already sprinted halfway down the block.
“Wait for me!”
“Come on, you idiot!” Semi yelled over his shoulder.
Miguel ran after him.
As Darnell’s life detached from tissue and bone, he could hear sirens in the distance.  His consciousness seemed to liquefy, draining through the bullet holes in his body and spilling onto the cement.  It mixed with his blood and coagulated inside the pores of the concrete. 
After 24 years of misdeeds and continuous struggle, Darnell Harris was no more.  And yet… much more.


Over the course of the following week a shrine accumulated on the side of the La Bonita bakery where Darnell died.  Flowers, devotional candles, and knickknacks were left in memoriam.  Some offerings were left fondly, but most were left by acquaintances and relatives who looked on their ties to Darnell with confliction.   Money was the only thing he had respected.  A tattoo on his back read Rags to Riches, Schemes to Dreams.  It was a motto he lived by.  Whether it was selling stolen Apple computers and chopped-up motorcycle parts or dealing drugs, Darnell’s methods of money making were always crooked, and everyone who knew him was aware of it.  
“You stupid bastard,” said Shakia Monroe.  Tears streamed down her face.  She took one last pull from a bottle of Hennessy before setting it in front of a milk crate that housed a statue of the Virgin Mary.  Beneath the bottle Shakia could see a faint smear of her boyfriend’s blood.  It stubbornly persisted no matter how many times the bakery owner washed the sidewalk.
“Wasn’t his fault he got shot,” said Shedley Harris, Darnell’s cousin.  Shedley was in the middle of painting a mural on the bakery’s cinderblock wall.  The mural depicted Darnell wearing a white robe and Yankees cap, sitting cross-legged on a cloud.  Angel wings sprouted from his back.  Shakia couldn’t help but smirk at the gross misrepresentation of her on-again, off-again lover.
“Don’t be stupid,” she seethed.  “He chose this life.  This life got him killed.”
Shedley shook his head and went back to detailing the feathers on Darnell’s wings.  He was proud of this piece.  His work had been steadily improving over the last two years, and this was his most lifelike depiction yet (wings withstanding of course).  Shedley made a note to take a photograph.  It would make a great addition to the portfolio he planned to submit to Pratt Institute the following fall. 
Shakia nudged the bottle of whiskey with her foot.  An inch of brown liquor sloshed around the base of the bottle.  “Now don’t you go drinkin’ that, Mary,” she said to the virgin icon staring at her shins.  “That’s for Darnell.”


When Phillip Paige awoke, the first thing he noticed was the unfamiliar white stucco ceiling overhead.  Phil sat up in his queen-sized bed.  A painting hung on the striped white and yellow wall across from him.  In the picture a carousel blooming with light caught the attention of Victorian passersby on a spring evening.  In the background Cinderella’s Castle rose into a salted night sky.   Phillip was in his room at the Disney Boardwalk Inn outside Orlando, Florida. 
He looked through the glass door that led onto the veranda.  The sun was beginning to rise over the eastern shore of Crescent Lake.  Phillip sat up and pressed his feet into the blue and gold checkered carpet.  The polyester fibers soothed his toes. 
                The bed across the room was neatly made.  Where are mom and dickface? Phil wondered.
His mother was an early riser.  Phil guessed she let him sleep while she and her new husband enjoyed a moment without him, which wasn’t a surprise considering the attitude he had radiated during the drive down from New York. 
                Phil got out of bed and walked over to the veranda.  He opened the sliding doors and stepped outside.  A warm breeze blew against his half-dressed body, enveloping him like amniotic fluid.  He peered over the banister past the empty boardwalk.  The surface of Crescent Lake was as still as glass. 
                Phil shut the door and headed toward the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face.  As he crossed the bedroom he noticed a note on the desk next to the television cabinet.  The note read: Went to park.  Meet for lunch at noon in Germany. Love, mom and dad.
                Dad—right, thought Phil.  His lip curled.  His name is Robert. 


                Phil plodded down the carpeted staircase into the lobby of the 1940s-styled seaside inn.  As he passed the hotel bar he overheard a patron ask for the “hair of the dog.” 
“Hennessey on the rocks,” replied the bartender. 
A little early to be drinking, Phil thought.  Even at the fresh age of fifteen he knew what an alcoholic was. 
                A ferry was tied to the dock that extended from the boardwalk over the pristine waters of Crescent Lake.  Phil hopped on board.  The captain nodded and smiled. 
As the empty ferry puttered around the bay Phil searched his pockets.  He was pleasantly surprised to find a full pack of Camel cigarettes in his khaki shorts. 
                He slapped the pack against his palm to pack the tobacco tighter, or so one of his buddies had instructed him.  The noise caught the attention of the ferry captain.  They locked eyes in the rearview mirror.  Phil smiled at him guiltily.  “No smoking?” He said. 
                “Aren’t you a little young?” said the captain. 
“It soothes my arthritis,” he replied, trying to win the captain over with a joke.
The captain paused.  “Ah, go ahead.  There’s no one else on board,” he said with a smile and a wink.  “I’d smoke one myself if I wasn’t on the clock.”
                Phil thanked him.  He opened the pack and threw a cigarette into his mouth.  To his embarrassment, the first drag of the cigarette made him cough.  He was still trying to get the hang of looking cool
                The ferry puttered down the channel leading to the main lake.  The captain pulled the boat beside a set of cleats bolted to a stone break-wall.  “First stop: France!”  He leaned out of the boat and roped the ferry to the cleats.
                “Thanks,” said Phil. 
                He jumped out and headed toward the Eiffel Tower looming in the distance.  Where is everyone?  He wondered.  The park was empty.  Abandoned.    
The scent of fresh pastries wafted toward him.  Phil followed his nose and headed to Les Halles Boulangerie & Patisserie where he purchased a croissant and a hot chocolate.  When Phil left the café he was surprised to find that, in only a few minutes, the park had filled with people. 
                He ate and drank as he headed to Japan.  On the porch of a pagoda, three Japanese women in full eastern regalia danced as they wildly beat on a series of elongated wooden drums.  Phil watched, captivated by their showmanship.  After Japan it was on to the American Adventure


The Imagineers at Disney had done a wonderful job.  The American Heritage Gallery looked exactly like the interior of a 1700s Georgian-styled building that one might find in Williamsburg, Virginia.  Crowds of people bustled around him.  They moved from one exhibit to another examining paintings, artifacts, and interactive displays.  In the grand hall, a colonial-garbed acapella group sang the richest rendition of Yankee Doodle Dandy Phil had ever heard. 
The music reminded him of his father.  He had been in bands all his life, even up to the car accident that ended his life five years earlier. 
Dad would have liked this, thought Phil.
When the song ended Phil entered a theater and took a seat in the last row.  He was just in time for the American Adventure.  The show began with a prologue delivered by a woman dressed in authentic colonial attire.  Upon her exit, the spotlight focused center-stage where animatronic replicas of Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain discussed the virtues of a nascent America. 
                Phillip was fascinated by the life-sized robotic puppets.  From a distance they looked and sounded real.  The only thing that gave away their soullessness was the way they moved.  The puppets’ appendages glided smoothly through the air before abruptly stopping, like assembly-line machinery in a factory—their momentum countered by an opposing mechanical force—too precise to be human. 
                More puppets came and went, and after a half hour the show ended.  Phil left the theater aglow.  He stopped in the grand hall and leaned against a Doric column to watch the acapella group perform another song.  Phil nodded his head to “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”.  As the performance progressed, Phil felt that something was off.  The choir group seemed stiff—their movements rigid and punctuated.  He looked around the audience to see if anyone else shared his look of suspicion.  The crowd was blissfully unfazed.  They simply nodded and clapped along with the arrangement.  That’s when it occurred to him that they also moved oddly.  The spectators clapped in exact unison, one hand bouncing off the other and stopping at a precise outer orbit. 
Their movement is too smooth, thought Phil, too clipped, too… mechanical.  Phil backed away from the circle.  “What’s going on?” he whispered to himself. 
                Despite the music and his hushed tone the entire crowd seemed to hear him.  The singing stopped immediately and at once everyone in the grand hall pivoted their heads in his direction.  There was a moment of stillness and then the crowd encroached upon him. 
                 “What are you doing?” said Phil.  “Get away from me!”
                The crowd said nothing.  They moved toward him slowly and smoothly, as if on rails.  Their legs rose and fell in exaggerated motions, but contrary to their grand movements, they moved at a crawl.  Their eerie simultaneity was enough to send Phil running.
                He dashed to an emergency exit and shot outside.  The park was empty.
                Where the hell did everyone go? Phil wondered.
                The puppets poured through the main entrance of the American Adventure.  Phil ran.  He ran all the way to Epcot China before stopping to catch his breath.  The puppets never halted their pursuit, zipping along hidden rails on the edge of the lake. 
Phil kept moving.  When he reached Norway he found it was enclosed by a tall wooden fence.   Pardon our appearance while we make some improvements read a sign strung across a gate.  Exhausted, Phil decided to hide.  He leaned into the gate, trying to create enough space to slip through.  The fence gave and when Phil peaked inside he was shocked by what he saw.  Behind the fence was nothing
Startled, he let up and the fence contracted.  Phil stepped back and put his fist to his mouth.  He was unable to reconcile what lay hidden behind the wooden panels.  Overcome with curiosity, he again pushed against the fence and peered through the crack, and once again there was nothing.  Not demolition, not an unfinished building, or even a vacant lot—it was a completely washed-out section of reality, as if the whole world had been painted by an artist who stopped at the stretch of canvas that would have been Norway.  The blue sky, the fence, the pavement—all matter was defined to the edge of a circle where it faded to pure white, like the photo negative of an eclipse. 
He backed away, scared and confused.   When Phil turned around he found the mob was right behind him.  They enclosed with arms outstretched, forcing his back to the gate.  Trapped, he took one last look at the pure nothing behind the fence.  With nowhere else to go their reaching hands drove him to the pavement, pressing him against the concrete.


                Phillip awoke with a yelp.  He sat up and gasped for breath.  After a moment he realized he was back in his hotel room.  The early morning sunbeams illuminated the carousel painting on the wall. 
Just a nightmare, he thought.  An extremely vivid nightmare. 
Phillip got up and washed his face and brushed his teeth.  He dressed and then left the room.  As he headed downstairs he heard a patron in the hotel bar ask for the “hair of the dog.” 
“Hennessey on the rocks,” replied the bartender. 
Phil paused.  His stomach knotted.
He headed to the front door, but he stopped, his gaze stuck on the entrance to the hotel bar.  Phil swallowed.  He wanted to keep going, but he was too curious to deny an investigation.  Phil peered in and saw a male patron, dapperly dressed in a three-piece suit.  The man lifted an empty rocks glass to his mouth.  He tilted his head up and down several times before setting the glass back on the counter.  He did this again and again even though there was nothing to drink.  The glass was a prop. 
Is this a… park amusement? He asked himself.
Suddenly the patron and the bartender turned their heads toward Phil, their gaping toothy smiles sending an arctic chill up his spine.  Phil quickly turned away.  He strode across the lobby and out the door, taking care to avoid eye contact with the concierge.
               

The ferry carried him across Crescent Lake.  He looked out over the water and ran his hands over his thighs.  There was something in his pocket.  Phil reached inside and found a pack of unopened Camels.  The ferry Captain stared at him through the mirror.  Phil swallowed.
                “Go ahead,” said the captain.  “No one else is onboard.”  His tone was more jovial than it sounded in Phil’s dream.  “I would have one if I wasn’t on the clock.”
                Phil suddenly felt too sick to smoke. 
                “Shall I drop you off in France?” asked the Captain.
                “Yeah, sure,” said Phil thoughtlessly.  “No.  Let me off at Norway.” 
                The captain nodded. 
                Moments later the boat pulled up to the dock at Epcot France. 
                “Here you are,” said the Captain.
                “I said ‘further down shore!’” Phil barked.
                The Captain said nothing.  He sat, back turned, waiting for his passenger to get out.  A slack-jawed smile never wavered on his face.
                Phil deboarded, more to get away from the glib Captain than anything else.  He didn’t visit France.  He even skipped the next four countries before stopping at Germany.  A sign for the Biergarten Restaurant caught his attention.  Robert and his mother were supposed to meet him there in a few hours. 
Phil swallowed.  Maybe I can sneak a drink, he thought.   He glanced from side to side and then entered the biergarten.
                The restaurant was a full-scale recreation of a Bavarian village during Oktoberfest.    The hall was almost empty aside from the wait-staff.  They zipped in and out of the kitchen, preparing for the day’s customers.  Phil took a seat at a banquet table. 
                A bandstand stood in the center of the faux village.  It was bordered by half-timbered homes—their exposed wooden framework creating a convincing air of authenticity.  There was even a projection of a parallactic moon moving over the buildings.
                “Can I get you a drink, mein Herr?”
                “Ah!” said Phil, grabbing his chest.  A tall, slender waitress stood behind him. 
                “Sorry, I did not mean to startle you,” she spoke with a German accent.
                Phil relaxed.  The waitress was a stereotypical Bavarian beer girl complete with blond pigtails and a black and green dirndl. 
                “Could I get a beer?” he said, uncertain.
                She smiled and nodded. 
Phil was relieved to get a break, but he scolded himself for not being more confident.  Conviction, he knew, had the power to make or break a scam. 
                Without warning the red stage curtain drew back revealing a three-piece oompah band—accordion, tuba, and bass drum—clad in lederhosen.  Phil smiled and leaned back against the table.  The restaurant was relatively empty.  He’d have time to think, music, and he’d have beer. 
                The thought was punctuated by a heavy thud as thick glass met wood.  He turned to find that the waitress had delivered his beer with lightning speed.
                “Thank you,” he said. 
                He tilted the voluminous stein consuming half a liter within seconds.  Good gravy, he thought.
                The oompah band began to play a traditional German song.  The simple, syncopated rhythm had a lulling effect.  He took another gulp of beer and scanned the band.  Their playing was like clockwork.  It’s almost too precise, Phil thought, ringing his hands. 
The waitress came back.  “Something wrong, mein Herr?” She said, tilting her head.
                “Are these musicians animatronic or are they real?” he asked.
                “Why don’t you finish your drink?”
                “I don’t want to drink.”  His brow creased.  “I want to get out of here,” said Phil rising from the table.
                Suddenly the band stopped playing.  Their heads swiveled toward him in unison.  The wait staff at the front of the restaurant stopped bustling about and turned their eyes to Phil.  Without warning, the waitress snatched him by the shoulder. 
                Her grip was strong.  Phil cried out in pain.  Without thinking, he picked up the beer stein and slammed it into the her head.  She glided backward. 
                “You dick!” he said as he rubbed his shoulder.
                The right side of the waitress’s skull was collapsed into her head.  A liquid the color and viscosity of port wine oozed from the indent in her cranium.  It flowed down her forehead and over her bulging right eye.  Her arms shot out as she stiffly marched toward Phil.  Like Frankenstein’s monster, he thought. 
                The rest of the wait-staff came for him as well.  As he backed away Phil looked around the room for an escape. 
                Phil ran toward a green door set into one of the faux village houses.  He jiggled the handle, but it was sealed shut.  When he turned back he found that the waitress was only feet from him with the rest of the staff closing in behind her. 
Phil kicked the door.  At first nothing happened, but he kicked again and again until it began to give.  Finally the door flew open revealing a blinding light.
                Phil darted through the doorway, but he halted only feet past the threshold.  Behind the door of the Disney set-piece was, nothing—absolute, pure nothing.  Just like Norway, he thought.
Phil marveled at the sight of the white room, which was physically unlike any room possible.  There were no walls.  There were no angles or shadows.  It was simply an endless expanse of undetermined space interrupted only by the door he had come through.
                This isn’t real, he thought.  This isn’t real.  It’s a dream.
                Phillip backed out the door.
                The mob was still inching toward him, but compared to the intimidating infinity of uncharted space, the mob was small potatoes. 
The waitress reached for him, but Phil kicked her in the gut sending her flying into a lamppost.  As she slid to the floor the lamppost loosened and toppled onto one of the lederhosen-clad waiters.  His head came off sending a spritz of dark liquid into the air.
                They were vulnerable.  Phil was tense, but he was no longer scared.  “Cut the crap!”  His voice echoed off the walls, and with that, everyone in the room shuddered to a halt. 
                Phil squinted at the crowd of puppets.  “Now sit down!” he commanded.  They sat—some on seats, some on thin air.  Somehow he was now in control.
                “You,” Phil said to the waitress.  She sat up and stared at him, her face dented and her back twisted out of alignment.  “What is this?” 
                She stared at him blankly.
                “Tell me!”
                “It is a dream fashioned from memory.”
                What does it mean? He thought, uneasy.
                The door swung open and two figures came into the biergarten.  As they approached Phil’s jaw dropped.  It was his mother and his father—not Robert his stepfather, but his real father.
                Phil could hardly believe it.  His father had died years ago, and yet here he was standing before him.  “Dad!” Phil said enthusiastically. 
                “Phillip, come,” said his father taking his son by the hand.  His tone sounded exactly as Phil remembered.  “Let us wake you from this horrible dream.” 
                Elation turned to unease as Phil took a closer look at his father.  His face appeared stiff and waxen, and he was wearing makeup.  He looks just like he did at the funeral, thought Phil.  Phil snapped his hand from his father’s grip and backed away.
As if responding to his moment of weakness the puppets stood and began to file toward him with outstretched arms. 
                “I said stop!” said Phil, this time with less confidence.  But they kept coming. 
He looked over his shoulder.  The door that led to the unfinished world beyond Epcot was still open.  It was his only exit, but where would it lead? 
                “Ah, screw it.” 
Phil took one last look at the imitation of his father and then charged through the open door.  As he ran through the blank landscape he looked up.  The white canvas stretched overhead spanning into a sterile white sky.  Phil looked at his shoes.  He wasn’t quite sure what his sneakers were making contact with.  Everything was so flawlessly white that it was impossible to infer dimension. 
I should turn back, he thought.  No.  Better the infinity of negative space than a hostile set-piece. 
A tiny black point appeared in the distance.  As he drew closer the dot grew bigger and bigger.  Phil ran faster.  He noticed that no wind blew in his face as he moved.  The black hole grew to the size of a manhole cover suspended in the air.  He dove through the hole.
Phil came into his consciousness with a gasp. 
A young Hispanic man standing only inches away stared at him menacingly before falling to the floor.  Phil looked down.  In his hand was a large carving knife smeared with the man’s blood.  Was this another dream, he wondered?  Phil nudged the man with his foot.  His lifeless body felt distinctly real.
What have I done? Phil asked himself, shaken.  Where am I?  This has to be a dream.  It has to be.
He was standing in a small, dark kitchen.  Streetlight ebbed in through the window.  The glass rattled as violent gusts of wind pelted it from outside. 
Phil dropped the knife.  It clattered to a rest on the worn linoleum floor.  Disoriented, Phillip hobbled down a dimly lit hallway, his ankle in inexplicable pain.  A lighted door at the end of the hall revealed a bathroom.  Phil entered and shut the door, careful to lock it.  He stared in the mirror.  His left eye was blackened.  His upper lip—swollen.  A sliver of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.  He pulled his hands down his face, as if hoping to wipe away the insanity with the sheen of sweat that glistened on his skin.
Phil stared at his sorry face in the mirror.  What happened? He wondered.  The last thing he remembered was being at a bar.  The bartender had claimed he was too drunk and threw him out.  As dawn broke, he staggered down the empty street in the direction of his apartment. 
His bladder was full.  Phil leaned against a store front and relieved himself. 
“Hey!” said a voice from the floor above the shop.  “You get away from my shop!”
“Fuck off,” he had slurred as he zigzagged across the street.
A mural on the side of the local bakery caught Phil’s attention.  Through his drunken haze he noticed a bottle of Hennessey sitting in front of a milk crate topped with lit candles.  Phil knelt down and examined it.  He had an urge to finish the whiskey, almost as if to spite the dead man it honored. 
Phil picked up the bottle.  “You don’t need this,” he said showing the bottle to the man in the mural.  He uncapped the container and was about to take a sip when he suddenly felt compelled to say something, as if out of ceremony.  He thought for a moment.  “Hair of the dog,” was all he could come up with.  Phil raised the glass to the dead man and then downed what was left of the Hennessey.   
After that his memory faded.



As he stared at his face in the mirror, it began to slowly change.  His eyebrows darkened and his skin tanned.  His hair became black and coarse.  At first he thought it was a trick caused by a dimming lightbulb, but after his nose widened and his irises turned black he realized it was something sinister.  His face was no longer his own.  Phil thought he recognized the stranger staring back at him in the mirror.  It was the face that was painted on the bakery wall above the shrine.