Lunar Park (24 page)

The crime scene—the murder that shattered the pattern—at the Orsic Motel, just off the interstate in Stoneboat, was insanely elaborate. There were ropes and body parts positioned in front of mirrors; the head and the hands were missing, and the walls were splashed with blood; there was evidence that a blowtorch had been used at one point, and the bones in both arms had been broken before the skin had been peeled off, and a woman’s torso was found in the shower stall, and a huge drawing—in the victim’s blood—of a face adorned the wall above the gutted bed with the words—
I’M BACK
—also dripping in blood, scrawled below it. There were, again, no prints. “No one even knows how the room became occupied . . . The maid . . . she . . .” Kimball’s voice was fading.

It was getting dark in the office and I reached over and switched on the lamp with the green glass shade sitting on my desk, but it failed to illuminate the room.

As I listened to Kimball my heart was whirring erratically.

Though the crime scene had not been contaminated, the print man could not even come up with smudges or smears, and technicians found no signs of footprints or fibers, and serologists inspecting the spatter trajectories and the defensive wounds had found no blood samples other than the victim’s, which was exceedingly rare considering the brutality of the murder. The neighborhood had already been canvassed, and a psychic was now being consulted. And crushing everything was the fact that this crime did not exist in my book.

My armpits were damp with sweat.

I wasn’t relieved

(
Aimee Light is missing
)

because even though no crime like this was featured in the Vintage edition of
American Psycho,
there was still a detail that bothered me. There was a suggestion in Kimball’s description of something I had once come across. Immediately my eyes refocused on the footprints as Kimball’s voice drifted in and out.

“. . . won’t have a positive ID for at least a week . . . maybe longer . . . maybe never . . . basically a wait-and-see situation . . .”

His stoicism was supposed to be comforting, and I realized he thought he was taking away something that was ruining my life and that I should be relieved. The more he spoke—in the soft voice meant to rid me of guilt and stress—the deeper my fear increased. Because what could I tell him at this point? Kimball waited patiently after he asked what it was I had called about, and he was unrewarded by my silence. My face actually reddened when I realized I had nothing to offer him—no proof, not even a name, just a young man who resembled me. And when he saw that I had nothing to give him—that I was hiding—he retreated back into trying to process what had hit him at the Orsic Motel earlier that day. He had no questions to ask me. I had no answers to give him. A train of futile incidence had led us here—that was all. Nothing was connected anymore. And while we both fell into our respective silences my mind started widening with possibilities I couldn’t share with the detective.

A boy was making a book come true. But I did not have the name of this boy.

He had been in my house. (He denied this.)

He had been in Aimee Light’s car. (But had you really seen him?)

He was involved with a girl I was involved with.

(Bring this up. Admit the affair. Let Jayne know. Lose everything.)

And he had been in a video that was made the night my father died twelve years ago.

(But don’t forget: in the video he is the same age as he is now. That’s the crowning detail. That’s the admission that will really make this case fly. That’s the thing that would be used against you.)

In the end it was the fear that Kimball might view me as insane that was the most legitimate reason I had for not saying anything.

(
The wind? What do you mean, the wind stopped you from searching a parking lot? What were you looking for? The car of a nonexistent student? A phantom? Someone who had the same exact car that you had driven as a teenager and was—
)

Another horrible feeling: I was gradually being comforted by the unreality of the situation. It made me tense, but it also disembodied me. The last day and night were so far out of the realm of anything I had experienced before that the fear was now laced with a low and tangible excitement. I could no longer deny becoming addicted to the adrenaline. The sweeps of nausea were subsiding and a terrible giddiness was taking their place. When I thought of “order” and “facts” I simply began laughing. I was living in a movie, in a novel, an idiot’s dream that someone else was writing, and I was becoming amazed—dazzled—by my dissolution. If there had been explanations for all the dangling strands in this reversible world, I would have acted on them

(
but there could never be any explanations because explanations are boring, right?
)

though at this point I just wanted it all to hang in the limbo of uncertainty.

Someone has been trying to make a novel you wrote come true.

Yet isn’t that what
you
did when you wrote the book?

(
But you hadn’t written that book
)

(
Something else wrote that book
)

(
And your father now wanted you to notice things
)

(
But something else did not
)

(
You dream a book, and sometimes the dream comes true
)

(
When you give up life for fiction you become a character
)

(
A writer would always be cut off from actual experience
because
he was the writer
)

“Mr. Ellis?”

Kimball was calling to me from someplace far away, and I faded back into the room we were both in. He was already standing and his eyes interlocked with mine as I got to my feet, but there was a distance. And then, after a few promises to keep each other posted in case anything “came up” (a term that was left so deliciously vague), I walked him to the door and then Kimball was gone.

Once I closed the door, I noticed the manila envelope next to the footprints stamped in ash, resting on the floor, an object I hadn’t noticed before.

(
Because it hadn’t been there before, right?
)

My mind shrugged: anything was possible now.

I stared at it for a long time, breathing hard.

I approached it not with the casual wariness I usually felt when a student was handing me a story, but with a specific trepidation that spasmed throughout my body.

I had to force myself to swallow before picking it up.

I opened the envelope.

It was a manuscript.

It was called “Minus Numbers.”

The name “Clayton” was scratched in the corner of the title page.

I don’t know how long I stood there, but suddenly I needed to talk to Kimball.

When I rushed to the window I saw the taillights of Kimball’s sedan rolling down College Drive and in the distance, farther into the valley, the searchlights of an army helicopter sweeping over the deserted forest.

By now it was completely dark out.

But what was I going to tell Kimball? The paralysis returned when I realized I wanted to ask him something.

You will drive to Aimee Light’s studio, which is located a half mile from the college in a series of perfunctory brick bungalows that house off-campus students and brackets a parking lot surrounded by pines. Her car will not be there. You will cruise through the parking lot, searching for it, but you will never find it (
because it was driven from the Orsic Motel and dumped somewhere
) and your palms will actually be sweating, which will cause your grip to slide off the steering wheel. The moon will be a mirror reflecting everything it looms over, and the smell of burning leaves will permeate the night air as you briefly reflect on a day that has passed too quickly. You will park in her empty space and get out of the Porsche and you will notice her lights are off, and the only noise will be the hooting of owls and the cries of coyotes lost in the hills of Sherman Oaks, emerging from their caves and answering one another as they lunge toward lit pools of water, and always with you everywhere will be the constant scent of the Pacific. You will walk to the door and then stop because you don’t really want to open it, but after pushing uselessly against it you will give up and move to a side window and you will peer through it

(
because you need to be so much bolder than you feel
)

and the computer on her desk will be the only light in the room, illuminating a stack of papers, the Marlboros she smokes, the hurricane lamp next to the mattress on the floor, the Indian rug and the worn leather chair and the CDs scattered next to an ancient boom box and the framed Diane Arbus print and the Chippendale table (the only concession to her upbringing) and piles of books stacked so high they act as a kind of wallpaper, and as you scan the empty room suddenly something will jump up on the windowsill and scowl at you and you will scream and leap back until you realize it’s only her cat, pawing hungrily at the pane of glass separating you from it, and you will rush back to your car when you notice the dried blood staining its jaws, and as the cat keeps clawing at the window you will pull out of the parking lot, wanting to drive to the Orsic Motel in Stoneboat, but that’s forty minutes from here and will make you late to meet Jayne for couples counseling, though, of course, by this point, that isn’t the real reason. You are afraid again because it isn’t time to wake up from the nightmare yet. And even if you could, you know that there are so many new ones about to begin.

What I wanted to ask Kimball was: Did you find a navel ring on the torso in that shower stall in the Orsic Motel?

17. couples counseling

W
hen I arrived back home Jayne was in the middle of packing. The studio’s Gulfstream would fly her out of Midland Airport tomorrow morning and land in Toronto sometime after ten. Marta reminded me of this while Jayne busied herself in the master bedroom, fitting clothes into various Tumi bags spread across the bed, checking each item off a list. She was saving everything she needed to say for Dr. Faheida’s office. (Couples counseling always reminded me of what a terrible thing optimism was.) I took a shower and dressed and was so exhausted I doubted my ability to sit through a session—I shuddered at the energy it would take. Since these dreadful hours usually ended in tears on Jayne’s part and a raging helplessness on mine, I steeled myself and didn’t mention the phone call from Harrison Ford’s office that I received in the parking lot in front of Aimee Light’s studio, warning me that it would be in “everyone’s best interests” (I noted the ominous new Hollywood-speak) if I could be there on Friday afternoon. In a zombie monotone I said I would call them back tomorrow to confirm while I stared through the windshield at the swaying pine trees looming up into the darkness above where I sat in the Porsche. Another failure on my part—though any excuse to get out of the house was now acceptable to me. Was, in fact, becoming a priority. While waiting downstairs I avoided the living room and my office and didn’t glance at the house as Jayne and I walked to the Range Rover parked in the driveway because I didn’t want to see how much more of its exterior had peeled off.

(
But maybe it had stopped. Maybe it knew that I understood already what it wanted from me.
)

And there was none of the casual bitching in the car that usually preceded these evenings. No argument ensued because I kept focusing on my silence. Jayne knew nothing about what was going on inside the house, or that a video clip existed of my father moments before his death, or that 307 Elsinore Lane was turning itself into a house that used to exist on Valley Vista in a suburb of the San Fernando Valley called Sherman Oaks, or that a vast wind had kept me from looking for a car I’d driven as a teenager, or that a murderer was roaming Midland County because of a book I’d written or—most urgently—that a girl I desired had disappeared into the Orsic Motel in Stoneboat sometime late last night. And I suddenly thought to myself: If you wrote something and it happened, could you also write something and make it disappear?

I concentrated on the flat asphalt ribbon of the interstate so I wouldn’t have to see the wind-bent palm and citrus trees that suddenly lined the roads (I imagined their trunks pushing out of the dark, hard ground for my benefit only), and the windows were rolled up so the scent of the Pacific didn’t seep into the car, and the radio was off so “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” or “Rocket Man” wasn’t pouring from an oldies station in another state. Jayne was leaning away from me in the passenger seat, arms crossed, tugging her seat belt every so often as a reminder for me to strap myself in. She made a clicking noise with her mouth when she noticed my conscientiousness. It was taking every cell I possessed to destroy (for just this evening) all the things that had been whirling through my mind, but in the end, I was just too tired and distracted to freak out. It was time to concentrate on tonight. And because I started paying attention something eased as we walked through the parking lot. I made a joke that caused her to smile and then we shared another joke. She took my hand as we moved toward the building, and I felt hopeful as the two of us entered Dr. Faheida’s office, where Jayne and I sat in black leather armchairs facing each other while Dr. Faheida (who seemed at once stirred and humbled by Jayne’s stardom) perched on a wooden stool off to the side, a referee with a yellow legal pad that she would mark up and casually refer back to throughout the session. We were supposed to talk to each other, but often forgot and during the first ten minutes we usually aimed our complaints at the shrink, forgetting to not use specific pronouns, and I always zoned out while Jayne always started (because she had so much more to contend with) and then I would hear something that would snap me out of my lassitude.

Tonight it was “He hasn’t connected with Robby.”

A pause, and then Dr. Faheida asked, “Bret?”

This was the crux of the matter, the slashing detour from the numbing sameness that enveloped each hour. Very quickly I began formulating a defense with “That’s not true” but was interrupted by an exasperated sound from Jayne.

“Okay . . . I
want
to say that’s not true because it’s not
totally
true . . . I think we get along a little better now and . . .”

Dr. Faheida held up a hand to silence Jayne, who was writhing in her chair. “Let Bret speak, Jayne.”

“And, I mean, Jesus, it’s only been four months. It can’t happen overnight.” My voice was rigid with calm.

A pause. “Are you finished?” Dr. Faheida asked.

“I mean, I could say
he
hasn’t connected with
me.
” I turned to Dr. Faheida. “I can say that, right? Is that okay? That Robby hasn’t tried connecting with
me
?”

Dr. Faheida stroked her thin neck and nodded benevolently.

“He wasn’t here when Robby was growing up,” Jayne said. And I could already tell by her voice—just minutes into the session—that her rage was going to end up being defeated by sadness.

“Address Bret, Jayne.”

She turned toward me, and when our eyes met I looked away.

“That’s why he’s just this boy to you,” she said. “That’s why you have no feelings for him.”

“He’s still growing up, Jayne,” Dr. Faheida reminded her gently.

And then I had to stop my eyes from watering by saying: “But were you really there for him, Jayne? I mean, all these years, with you traveling everywhere, were you really there for him—”

“Oh God, not this shit again,” Jayne groaned, sinking into the armchair.

“No, really. How many times have you left him when you went on location? With Marta? Or your parents? Or whoever? I mean, honey, a lot of the time he was raised by a series of faceless nannies—”

“This is exactly why I don’t think counseling is helping,” Jayne said to Dr. Faheida. “This is it exactly. It’s all a joke. This is why it’s a waste of time.”

“Is this all a joke to you, Bret?” Dr. Faheida asked.

“He’s never changed a diaper,” Jayne said, going through her hysterical litany of how the damage we were trudging through was caused by my absence during Robby’s infancy. She was actually in the middle of pointing out that I’d “never been thrown up on” when I had to cut her off. I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted her guilt and anger to really start kicking in.

“I
have
been vomited on, honey,” I protested. “Quite often I have been vomited on. In fact there was a year sometime back there when I was vomited on continuously.”

“Vomiting on
yourself
doesn’t count!” she shouted, and then said, less desperately, to Dr. Faheida, “See—it’s all a joke to him.”

“Bret, why do you attempt to mask real problems with irony and sarcasm?” Dr. Faheida asked.

“Because I don’t know how seriously I can take all this if we’re only blaming me,” I said.

“No one is ‘blaming’ anyone,” Dr. Faheida said. “I thought we all agreed that this is a term we don’t use here.”

“I think Jayne needs to take responsibility as well.” I shrugged. “Did we or did we not finish last week’s session talking about Jayne’s problem? The little teensy-weensy one”—I held up two fingers, pressing them together tightly, to illustrate—“about how she doesn’t think she’s worthy of respect and how
that
messes up everything? Did we or did we not discuss this, Dr. Fajita?”

“It’s Faheida,” she corrected me quietly.

“Dr. Fajita, doesn’t anyone see here that I didn’t want—”

“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Jayne shouted. “He’s a drug addict. He’s been using again.”

“None of this has anything to do with being a drug addict,” I shouted back. “It has to do with the fact that I didn’t want a kid!”

Everything tensed up. The room went silent. Jayne stared at me.

I breathed in, then started talking slowly.

“I didn’t want a kid. It’s true. I didn’t. But . . . now . . .” I had to stop. A circle was narrowing around me, and my chest felt so tight that I was momentarily lost in blackness.

“Now . . . what, Bret?” This was Dr. Faheida.

“But now I do . . .” I was so tired, I couldn’t help myself and started crying.

Jayne stared at me with disgust.

“Is there anything more pathetic than a monster who keeps asking
please? please? please?—
”

“I mean . . . what more do you want from me?” I asked, recovering slightly.

“Are you kidding? You’re actually asking that?”

“I’m going to try, Jayne. I’m going to really try. I’m . . .” I wiped my face. “I’m gonna look after the kids while you go off tomorrow and—”

Jayne started talking over me in a tired voice. “We have a maid, we have Marta, the kids are gone all day—”

“But I can look after them too, when, I mean, when they’re at the house and—”

Jayne suddenly stood up.

“But I don’t want you to look after them because you’re an addict and an alcoholic, and that’s why we need people at the house, and that’s why I don’t like you driving the kids anywhere, and that’s why you should probably just—”

“Jayne, I think you should sit down.” Dr. Faheida gestured at the armchair.

Jayne breathed in.

Realizing I had no other options (and that I didn’t want any other options), I said, “I know I haven’t exactly proven myself, but I am going to try . . . I am really gonna try and make this work.” I hoped the more I said this, the more it would register with her.

I reached for her hand. She knocked it away.

“Jayne,” Dr. Faheida warned.

“Why are you going to try, Bret?” Jayne asked, standing over me. “You’re gonna try because your life is so much worse by yourself? Because you’re too afraid to live it alone? Don’t tell me you’re gonna try because you love Robby. Or because you love me. Or Sarah. You are far too selfish to get away with fucking lying like that. You’re just afraid to be by yourself. It’s just easier for you to stick around.”

“Then kick me out!” I suddenly roared back.

Jayne collapsed into the armchair and started sobbing again.

This caused me to regain my composure.

“It is a process, Jayne,” I said, my voice lowered. “It’s not intuitive. It’s something you learn—”

“No, Bret, it’s something you
feel.
You don’t
learn
how to connect with your own son from a fucking manual.”

“Two people have to try,” I said, leaning forward. “And Robby is not trying.”

“He’s a child—”

“He’s a lot smarter than you give him credit for, Jayne.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Yeah, right, it’s all me,” I said, giving up. “I’ve betrayed everyone.”

“You’re so sentimental,” she said, grimacing.

“Jayne, you took me back for your own selfish reasons. You didn’t take me back because of Robby.”

Her mouth dropped open in shock.

I was shaking my head, glaring at her.

“You took me back for yourself. Because
you
wanted me back. You
always
wanted me back. And you can’t stand that that’s how you feel. I came back to you because you wanted me back and this choice had very little to do with Robby. It was what Jayne wanted.”

“How can you say that?” Jayne sobbed, her voice high and questioning.

“Because I don’t think Robby wants me here. I don’t think Robby ever wanted me back.” I became so tired when I admitted this to the room that my voice became a whisper. “I don’t think the father ever needs to be there.” My eyes were watery again. “People are better off without them.”

Jayne stopped crying and regarded me with a cold and genuine interest. “Really? You think people are better off without a father?”

“Yes.” The room could barely hear me. “I do.”

“I think we can disprove that theory right now.”

“How? How, Jayne?”

Quietly, and with no effort, she simply said, “Look how you turned out.”

I knew she was right, but I couldn’t stand the silence that would have punctuated that sentence, the silence that would give it dimension and depth and weight, transforming it into the sentence that would connect with an audience.

“What does that mean?”

“That you’re wrong. That a boy needs his father. It means that you were wrong, Bret.”

“No, Jayne,
you
were wrong. It was wrong of
you
to have that child in the first place,” I said, meeting her gaze. “And you knew it was wrong. It wasn’t planned, and when you supposedly consulted me I told you that I didn’t want a child and then you went ahead and had him even though you knew it was wrong. We did not make that decision together. If anyone is wrong here, Jayne, it’s you—”

“You’re a walking pharmacy—you don’t even know what you’re talking about.” Jayne was sobbing again. “How can anyone listen to this?”

I thought I had reached a threshold of caring, but exhaustion kept me pushing forward in a rational tone.

“You did a very selfish thing by having Robby, and now you’re understanding just how selfish it was and so you blame
me
for that selfishness.”

“You fucking asshole,” she sobbed, wrecked. “You are such an asshole.”

“Jayne,” Dr. Faheida interrupted. “We talked about how you should ignore Bret when he says something you disagree with or know to be patently false.”

“Hey!” I exclaimed, sitting up.

“Oh, I try,” Jayne said, breathing in, her face twisted with regret. “But he won’t let me ignore him. Because Mr. Rock Star needs all the attention and he can’t give it to anyone else.” She choked back another sob, and then she directed her fury at me again. “You can’t step back from any situation and see it from any perspective but your own. You are the one, Bret, who is completely selfish and self-absorbed and—”

“Whenever I try to give you or the kids the attention you all say you need, all you guys do is back away from me, Jayne. Why should I even try anymore?”