Purgatorium (17 page)

Michael
holds the end of his blackjack up against my cheek.

“Why sixty?”
Michael
winds up again and slams his baton against my head, knocking me, chair and all, onto my side against the ground.

“Why sixty?!”

My eyes get cloudy as everything fades away from me. I hear the faint sound of young voices in the distance.

I rub my eyes, blinking. It is bright. I am somehow outside, standing on a running track, surrounded by 18-year-old boys who look like they’re in high school. All of them, including me, stand beside the starting line of a race.

I feel thinner, stronger. I must be in one of my memories again. I look at my hands and see that my skin is much younger. I feel as though I am once again just watching myself. I cannot move anymore. I start to lose my sense of perspective; any connection with my immediate past in the meat locker with Michael is fading. I look up at the scoreboard and see the date.

It reads: 1988.

I take a few steps up to the starting line. No one else is in position to start yet. I look at the officiating table. There is a sign that says “Half Marathon” hanging over the front of the table.

I position my front foot just behind the starting line and relax for a minute. I can feel the heat from the afternoon sun warming my bare shoulders. The warmth is pleasurable. I smile, taking a deep breath.

Within seconds, other racers begin lining up around me. Their eyes are trained forward as they take their positions.

I glance over at the neighboring lane. The skinny kid beside me has a scrawny wrist and neck, a head of thick curly hair, and pale blue eyes. He looks nervous and uncertain, as if he’s distracted by something else. I wipe my sweaty palms on my shorts and kick my back foot into the track cinder, like a bull preparing to break loose of its holding pen.

I watch in my periphery as the heavyset race official makes his way from the officiating table to the starting line, holding the starting pistol loosely in his right hand. The official lifts his left hand up to set the stopwatch. He puts his finger on the top knob, ready to press it, and looks across the line at the racers’ feet.

All the runners lean forward more, getting their weight further out, poised to spring at the crack of the pistol. The official has stopped looking at the line and glances back at the officiating table to let them know he is ready to start. I inch my right foot forward, breaching the white chalk, my toe pressed slightly beyond the starting line. Any edge I can get, I’ll take. I look down at my right hand where I have wrapped a necklace around my wrist.

It’s familiar—a gold coin pendant etched with an
hourglass
.

At this very moment, I lose my focus. Sounds flood into my ears with increasing and unbearable intensity. I hear each breath from the other racers, the roar of cars racing up and down on the busy street below the stadium, and the jet engines of a plane overhead.

I can hear people in the crowd telling each other to hush as the race nears its start. I can hear their bodies as they settle into their seats, their hands gripping the edge of their chairs, and even their exhalations. I pull my arms up, one back and one forward, crouch down a little lower, my leg flexing. I shake my head to try to regain focus.

Just as I begin to feel my attention narrow to the race ahead, I am once again overwhelmed by a curious sound—cascading sand, coming from somewhere nearby.

I look around but cannot find its source. My stomach is beginning to churn. I am desperate to make the sound go away. I grind my teeth and clench my eyes shut, sweat is trickling down my cheek from my brow. This is only my imagination getting away from me, weakness, a distraction to overcome, I think.

I lift the
hourglass
gold coin necklace up to my lips and kiss it. Everything around me slows to a dead stillness. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the race official, his red lips drawn tight into an O, squeeze the trigger. My body tightens.

CRACK! The runners explode off the line, hitting the track hard, pumping their arms and sprinting for position.

I stay close to the leaders for twelve miles. I am back three places as the lead pack passes the starting line for the last time. With only one mile to go, I feel fear take over and panic. A runner from behind quickens his stride, pushing hard, and passes me on the outside.

Feeling more and more despondent and anxious, I look at the runners ahead. They are too fast. I can’t catch them.

I suddenly clip my back foot on the front, tripping myself. Completely off balance, I fall onto the grass. Shocked and despairing, I hold my head in my hands and look up at the race clock.

It reads 42:02.

I breathe heavily. I can’t win. There is no way I can even catch them now. They are just too fast. Even if I got back up and finished the race dead last I would never hear the end of it. Dad would have found this whole thing typical if he had shown up. Just another thing that would have made him less proud of me.

I watch the other runners make their way past me as I continue to lie there deciding my fate. I look at my slightly wounded leg and wish it had just twisted so I wouldn’t have to continue this shameful race.

Suddenly a thought pops in my head, almost as if someone whispered the idea to me. I could just lie. I am a solid actor, thanks to the many school plays I was forced to participate in. I can finally use that talent for some good use.

I take my knee and really try to sell it to the crowd. I put on the most painful face I can think of. Reaching all the way back to when my mom passed. Tears begin to flood out. I see in the distance, two men making their way towards me. I wipe away my tears long enough to find out they are holding medical kits and a stroller.

No going back now.

When they finally get to me, I lay my head back down. They begin asking me a hundred questions pertaining to my knee.

I lie.

They feel around my leg and rant about if anything else feels out of place.

I lie again.

They begin to bandage me up while I lie there feeling ashamed of myself. I turn my head to watch the time on the scoreboard move up as if each second that passes seems to last a lifetime.

They lift me up and put me in the stroller. I continue to act, to lie. So good that I almost started to believe what I was saying.

Minutes later, to the cheers of the crowd, I see the winner breaks the finish line at 60:00 flat. That was supposed to be my time, is all I could think about.

Suddenly, it was as if the roar of the crowd, the echo of my coach yelling, and the seconds continuing to count up on the clock were all sounding as if they were a thousand miles away. And what remained in that bizarre, muffled silence was only my thoughts. At that moment, my triumph was not met with simple clarity. The realization that every instinct to the contrary had simply been a denial of the following truth. I am now, and would always be, a quitter. Hiding behind my shame, I close my eyes, wanting the day to just end. I hear the sound of my watch alarm going off.

30 Minutes

I wake up, back to normal, inside the meat locker freezer, feeling humiliated, but happy to have control of my thoughts again. I feel my arms and legs still tied to the chair, the side of my head on the cold floor.

Suddenly, I see a reaper’s head appear over me! I lose my breath as I notice the head is decapitated.
Michael is holding it
and looks down at me.

“Had to go take a picture. Ran in to a visitor while you were walking down memory lane.” He tosses the head next to the door, takes out the picture, and shows it to me. “Couldn’t forget this one in the collection!”

I see that it’s a picture of my office window. I look to him and don’t understand.

Michael looks back at it and geeks out like he has a one of a kind baseball card or something. I think to myself,
Well he has clearly lost it.
I start to feel it get a little warmer now.

“The air conditioning can’t stay on for a long period of time. Around thirty-four minutes and thirty seconds the generator will start to cool down. So to put it plainly, if you’re not out of here by thirty-five minutes on the dot, the reapers will have officially won hide and go seek on your thawed out butt,” he says to me.

“Now, you have two choices. You can just sit there, and give up like you do best. Go back to being what they want you to be. A soul with no ambition on ever getting out. Or, you can break free and finish what you started. The choice is up to you. Are ye lion or lamb?” He takes out the butterfly knife and flips it around. He takes the reaper’s head and sticks it straight up on the reaper’s skull.

Michael
opens the meat locker door and walks out. The reaper’s head begins to freeze over. The temperature starts to climb up, making the cold air turn warm. The reapers will soon know where I am!
Is he nuts?!
I think.

I am scared and I don’t know what to do. What does he want me to do? It’s not fair. I don’t know anything about my life and the things that I am starting to learn aren’t very good. I am being punished for things I don’t remember doing. This is my life now, if I can even call this a life.

I think about what I just said. This is my life and I want out of this chair. I struggle to break free. I pull as hard as I can on my arms. The wooden chair starts to creak. I close my eyes, steel in determination, and pull my arms back towards my shoulders as hard as I can, straining my biceps painfully.

The wooden arms of the chair bend, creaking at their joints, and suddenly crack. The arms pull right off, splintering wood as they do. My arms fly back, my fists hitting my shoulders. I quickly slip the rope off each arm, flinging the broken pieces across the floor as my arms come free.

Still on my side on the floor, I untie my legs and roll over onto my hands and knees. I slowly get up, kicking the chair out of the way. I reach up to my face where the mask is and I go to take it off when I stop. I breathe in deeply, looking down at the ground, and close my eyes.

For the first time, I feel an immediate sense of control. I am not an observer anymore, just watching myself do things. I feel directly aware and capable of making my own choices. I choose to keep it on because it’s my decision. My watch beeps.

35 Minutes

I look at the frozen reaper’s head and watch it start to melt. The knife begins to almost drown in it. What am I going to do? I don’t even know where Michael put me? How am I going to get to the lighthouse now?

I sit there and realize, I could make a run for it. See how far it gets me. I stand there for a moment. Or I could just stay here and let the reapers get me. All of this would be over. The knife is about to topple over as the ice is all that’s left from the reaper’s head. It slowly becomes liquid. I think back to the race and how I just gave up.

I pause for a moment, then quickly snatch up the knife before it falls. I look up, run towards the door, and push it open further. I see that I am in a kitchen. I continue past the prep table and the stoves to the door directly ahead. I shove it, and as soon as it swings open, I recognize the interior of the lighthouse restaurant.

Michael is sitting at a table just to the left, staring at me. The same waitress stands next to Michael and looks over at me too. She lays down the silver container to my food on the table. Michael seems satisfied, almost affirming. He smiles proudly at me. It’s as if he were testing me this whole time just to see what choice I would make.

“I was just telling our beautiful waitress here to turn the thermostat up; it’s a little chilly in here, don’t you think?”
Michael
says. “Come! Sit!”

I look at Michael, then at the waitress, wondering what her role in all of this is. I walk over to the table and sit across from him. I see him using his poncho as a bib, cleaning both sides of his lips. His plate is clean.

“Why, you look upset? I would either figure it was because it had something to do with what all happened in the freezer or that I ate your well-cooked dinner. Though I do figure it is the latter of the two, I can’t help but put in perspective of the dish that this woman nicely prepares for you every single day. Not once do you eat nor give thanks for her troubles. If you don’t like the same ol’ dish, then why not request something different?”

The waitress turns and walks away towards the kitchen.

“Hold on!” Michael shouts, waving for her to come back. The waitress returns obediently. “Are you familiar with the five finger fillet?” he asks her. The waitress looks confused.

“Then you’re in for a treat! It’s a specialty of mine. I may need your assistance, though.”
I have forgotten that the
butterfly knife is still in my hand. “Go on, keep practicing,” he says to me.

I am determined to keep trying so that I can find out more about myself. I flip the knife around and keep messing up. I have at least learned not to drop it. I see Michael getting his Polaroid camera out and taking a picture of the silver cover on the table.

What a weird angel.

I look up at Michael momentarily, then back down at the knife, trying to force myself to concentrate harder. Amazingly, I make the balisong knife twirl and aerial up. I have done it!
Michael
laughs and claps his hands a few times.