Close Encounters (12 page)

She did not know what to do, perhaps wait until Adam came and let him straighten the whole mess out. Shawn would be apprehended, his identity laid-bare, and their lives again free of blemish. A mistake, they'd laugh. What a mistake! That had to happen, right? That's the way it always happened. But what if it did not happen that way this time? What if Adam did not show up? What if she began to think about her father again? What was she going to do then?

She suddenly understood this was not how the situation was to be handled this time. Shawn was still beside her, as indeed she knew he would be. She would not go to the security office. He was hers, Shawn was. He'd been with her all this time, these years; why deny it? And when Adam came, if Adam came, he would have to understand that Shawn was hers, at least for now, until they had straightened out the situation, yes, between the two of them. Between all of them.

She looked down at where Shawn leaned against the wall in wait, their luggage protectively around him. He looked at her curiously behind tear-streaked cheeks as she held out her hand and motioned.

“Come, honey,” she spoke, and he jumped up, eagerly busying himself with their things. “Your father's not coming. We need to call a cab.”

COMMENCEMENT SPEECH, WHITNEY HOUSTON, EAST SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY, JUNE 9, 2006

THANK YA'LL FOR COMING to see me tonight. How are you doing? Let's get this party stared, yeah!
(Assistant whispers to Whitney)
Oh, oh right. What college is this? East Southern University. Well hello, ESU. ESU, ESU
(dances)
Let me start by saying, I believe that children are our future…(hums)…lead the way/show them all the beauty they posses inside…shit it's hot.
(Wipes brow and drops fur coat to ground)
Why you having this shit outside anyway? You never heard of air conditioning? Where's Bobby? You know, I got to tell you a little secret. Just between you and me.
(Leans over the podium)
The demons are after Bobby. I try to protect him now, ‘cause he's my man and you ain't mess with my lair, my family. ‘Cause family is the most important thing in your life. You need to find a man that has your back, that will do anything for you, deal with your shit, literally, your black love. But what can I say
(shakes head repeatedly)
demons after him…but Bobby, baby, I just want you to know IIIIIIIIIIIIIII will always love yooooooooooouuuuu.
(Assistant whispers to Whitney, points to note cards on podium)
All right, right now, don't you be bossing Whitney around.
(Rummages through note cards)
All right, who got my glasses? Shit.
(Tosses cards into air.)
No one needs to tell me how to live my life. I am Whitney Houston, baby. I can tell you all you need to know about being a success in life, ‘cause I'm a f*cking diva. You know, they say everybody searching for a hero/people need someone to look up to. Well, let me tell you—I never found anyone to fulfill my needs…so I learned to depend on me. You can't depend on nobody but yourself. Everybody is out to get you. The tabloids, the demons, the bitch-ass at the Chinese place that always messes up my order. The only person I depend on to get through the day is God and Whitney. And you know what? We have the greatest love of all. Inside of me. If you have that, if I have that, they can't take away our dignity! And let me tell you something else. You succeed in the world like I have, you don't do cheap shit, OK Diane Sawyer? Crack is cheap. I make too much for me to ever smoke crack. Let's get that straight, OK? We don't do crack. We don't do that. Crack is whack. Stay in school, I tell you. You got to stay in school.
(Assistant whispers to Whitney)
Right, right, right. OK, you out of school now. Well, use your education to be a lawyer or banker or teacher or something. I didn't need no education. God gave me a voice to sing, and when you have that, what other gimmick is there? So find your strength in love, baby. Where's Bobby? Who's that in the front row—the demon with the robes on? Bobby, they coming for you! Get my gun out of the Lincoln, baby.
(Knocks over podium, reveals pajama pants overtop a bathing suit.)
Hold on, baby. God is on his way. He told me to hold on. He's on his way. Where's my pistol, god dammit?!?

S
TATEMENT
RELEASED
BY
W
HITNEY
H
OUSTON
E
NTERPRISES,
J
UNE
10,
2006:

Because of the hectic demands placed on her by her performance at the 2006 Olympics back in February, Ms. Houston has been suffering from severe exhaustion and regrets that any part of her commencement speech at East Southern University was taken out of context. Ms. Houston believes that education is the greatest priority a young mind should have, and she is proud of the young men and women at ESU who made a commitment to education and achieved it. She wishes all recent graduates much success in the workforce and hopes that her own perseverance and determination will serve as an inspiration to those who are in the midst of achieving their dreams.

IN THE WAITING LINE

THE COFFEE BURNS A HOLE right in my stomach, and I'm out of antacids. I know I shouldn't drink it, but I'm supposed to see Patty at ten o'clock. She's running behind, as the others have warned me, and there's not much else to do here but wait and drink coffee. I bend over uncomfortably in my seat, studying the others who are waiting from the perspective of my knees. If they are in need of guidance, they surely don't show it. In fact, they look bored or slightly inconvenienced by the whole process. The middle-aged woman with a set frown and smudged glasses is staring at the television that is mounted in the corner of the ceiling. She's wearing a faded sweatshirt of an eagle with “Born Free” written underneath and a pair of teal sweatpants that ride up on her ankles. Every once and awhile, she barks at and smacks a teenage boy who frantically paces the office, picking a scab on his arm. The man by the magazine rack picks up each one and stares at the cover, although he shows no intention of reading them. There are a couple of young black guys in the corner who are having trouble getting reception for their cell phones. There is no reception here, at least not with their fellow brethren—they'll figure that out soon enough.

“Smoot.” Patty leans out of her office door. She's slightly plump but attractive in an impish, pixie way. Her hazel eyes squint when she smiles and her pointed chin dimples. She reminds me of someone I've known or known of in my life, but I can't put my finger on it. She's wearing an oversized cardigan and a turtleneck and jeans, and I wonder how it is she got stuck here, of all places. She's too nice, from our conversation on the phone to my view of her this morning, to be punished with the lot of us. I only hope that our meeting will be a pleasant treat for her.

Smoot, a fiftyish man in the corner, stubs his cigarette and follows Patty into her office. His bare chest reveals a potpourri of tattoos, from dragons to aliens to geisha girls, and his skin hangs off his body, around his pecs and stomach, in large half circles, as if he lost a lot of weight quickly. I assume he's been on the junk or something. Probably made a mistake or two out of stupidity or desperation. Will he be contrite enough to take the long path to redemption, as I have, or will he listen to Patty half-heartedly, take her advice with a grain of salt, and head back out into the wilderness, convinced there is a faster, easier way?

It's a long road to these offices. At least for me it was, anyway. Mostly, I was tired of trying my way. Sometimes it's not failure, which implies that success is another option, the other side of the coin, but instead the exhaustion kills you. It's the burning ember in my stomach that reminds me of every decision I've made in my life, decisions that, at one time, meant nothing to me but now, when viewed within the prism of contrition, nag at me to right things, to make peace with what was once my life. To make peace with myself.

Smoot comes out a half hour later, nodding his head and talking with himself as he shuffles through the papers Patty has given him. Good intentions always are tripped up by paperwork, I've found. It's hard enough to kill the actual demon, and then you've got to step over the red tape while doing it. I expected this place to be a little different, a little more religious dichotomy than bureaucratic gray scales, but maybe they had a little bit of an existentialist last laugh here, I don't know.

“You OK there, man?” I ask Smoot as he crosses the waiting room near me.

“I got all these forms to fill out before they let me in the program,” he answers with exasperation, and I feel the snare already being set. I don't know why I worry so much about others, particularly when it's been hard enough to worry about myself, but I've seen guys like Smoot in the interspace, drifting back and forth, trying to get back to their lives for some sense of purpose. The most they're usually able to muster is a ghost, a formless mass that lives on in the space they once occupied, sending a cold chill through the lives of the those who might live in their former apartments, trailers, bars, but not much else. Frankly, they're not smart enough or deviant enough to pull off possessions or chaos and so they rest, dim stars on the astral plane while they expend just enough energy to know they are unhappy.

“You don't want to go back out there, man,” I say. “Come on, let's take a look at what you have.”

We sit at a table by the vending machines and look at his forms. One is a standard questionnaire, the kind you'd fill out for a job application, one is a form to take to the jury commissioner confirming that you are applying for People Entering Revelatory Guidance, Perg, as we call it, and that you are exempt from the interspace while participating in the program. One form asks questions about your treatment history, to be filed with the Treatment Department, although I'd suppose they'd know if you'd attempted Perg before. One questionnaire asks, for Census purposes, your preferred religion and how you learned about Perg. Perg, like their sponsor, The Pearly Gates of Enlightened Nirvana, advertise in all markets, but it's nice to know from time to time which ones bring the highest return.

“What did you do to get stuck in the interspace?” I ask as we set to work filling out the forms. Everyone has a history here, so there is no shame in asking.

“I was on the junk,” he answers, and I nod. Unfortunately, Smoot will continue to be on the junk unless he gets through Perg or finds a way, through interspace, to get into someone else. Fortunately, I have no physical wounds or grievances to plague me. It's just the burning of my conscience, continually, in my gut that has finally turned me here. That and the futility of clawing out my phantom stomach.

“I didn't want to hurt nobody,” Smoot continues. “I had a job for a while but got laid off, and nobody wanted to hire me ‘cause I'm a con. I just needed money for the junk, you know. I shot him, the guy at the convenience store, but I didn't want to kill him.”

He lights a cigarette with shaking hands and hands me the pen to fill out his forms. I wonder whether it's because of the shaking or because perhaps he's illiterate. I read the blanks out to him, and he answers: name, sex, race, date of birth, date of death, and so on.

“Some big nigger stuck me in the pen,” he continues after a long drag. “He said he didn't like no scrawny ugly junkies. Got me right after breakfast in the shower room. I still feel that knife when I breathe. When he comes over here I'll get his ugly ass good, that's for sure.”

“No you won't.” I pat his back. “That's why you here. You'll be long gone out of Perg when he comes. I doubt he'll do Perg anyway. Not for the first few years. Everyone's hard-headed about it.”

“Even you?” He looks at me with surprise, as if forgetting we all have histories, as if we're all stubborn. As if we weren't all human.

“Higgins?” I see Patty poke her head out of her office.

“Listen.” I stand up. “Wait for me here, and I'll help you with the paperwork once I'm finished, OK?”

Patty holds the door open for me with a big smile. Part of me wants to fuck up again just so that I can see Patty again in another few months, another year, another five years if I could stomach it. But I can't. She sits at her desk and runs through my file silently as I take in her office. Its walls are decorated with the mandated institutional posters that spout the usual slogans, such as WHERE WOULD WE BE WITHOUT SECOND CHANCES? along with calendars listing the various support groups. I play with a smooth paperweight on her desk.

“So, Mr. Higgins, this is your first time?” She looks up. I smile and nod. “Very good. I see you've been eligible for the past six years?”

“I was stubborn.”

“Aren't we all?” She laughed. “It's what makes us human. But deciding to make a change after six years is just as wonderful as making a change after six minutes. Eternal peace is the same for everyone, Mr. Higgins.”

“Call me Patrick, please. And yes, I couldn't take it anymore.”

“Some people think that makes them weak.” She takes a sip of her coffee, and I feel my stomach rumble. “What's really weak is not being able to admit your mistakes. You're a bigger man than they are, Mr. Higgins. Don't let them fool you out there in interspace.”

“Thanks for your encouragement, Patty, but I think I won't need it. I know you get a lot of stragglers, undecided, but I'm the real thing. I'm not getting stuck on that plane for the rest of my life.”

“Of course, Mr. Higgins. I know.” She glances at my file again. “So why don't you tell me what happened?”

I was so much younger when it all started that it's hard to think of now, even as I have spent the past six years of my death trying to avoid it, trying to pretend that I did not die, that I could move among my human brethren and pretend I was still living. Of course, Patty has heard it all, and she doesn't flinch as I relate the details. She takes notes and asks me to clarify some areas, and that is it. She prints out my forms that I am to fill out and shakes my hand, welcoming me to Perg.