Simon Says (20 page)

Then the minister clears his throat, and her sobbing eases. He stares out at all of us, holding his prayer book, and intones, "Man that is born of woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay."

I stand rooted to the plastic grass, refusing to look at the coffin above its gaping hole, but the earth seems to lurch and everything tilts sideways through a sudden wash of tears until I can see nothing.
Graeme ... he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.
But now, surely now he's reached home at last. Surely he achieved an end to other people's roles and expectations. He's dead, for God's sake!...
and never continueth in one stay...

"In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek for succor, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins are justly displeased?

"Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death."

Death.
In the midst of life we are in death.
No, that's not the way it should be. It's not the way it has to be! I
hear words, like a dull echo in the back of my head: "You're dead, Graeme—you're dead, inside, where you should be most alive, and you didn't know..." I can still see the shock on his face, flooding his eyes, turning them black in fear and emptiness....
The bitter pains of eternal death...

"Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty..."

I shake my head violently, to knock loose all possible thoughts.
Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts, the secrets which we can't even admit to ourselves, the horrible, frightening, hurtful secrets that we don't dare confess...

"Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our brother departed, and we commit his body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ"

Eternal life. Death.
You're dead, inside, where you should be most alive.
And his ultimate comeback.
I'm setting myself free from their expectations, even if only for one brief moment. But it is my moment, and no one will ever be able to take it away from me ... Just being myself, even for a moment, will make a lifetime worthwhile...

Hefleeth as if it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay...

You're dead, Graeme—you're dead, inside—you're dead—you're dead
—and those eyes, black and lifeless in
horror, staring back at me, believing me, accepting what I said. I passed judgment on him and sentenced him to death, and he carried out the sentence himself....

Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy...
I killed him. I told him he was dead, and he believed me. He never broke free, he never came to life—he killed himself because I told him that
I
saw him as dead already, and he believed me. First he tried to fill that emptiness by reflecting my expectation of him, and when he couldn't play the role of creator, he played the condemned role I'd written for him, not even realizing what he was doing.
Charles says ... you're dead, Graeme...

I killed Graeme Brandt....

Graeme Brandt was killed by a heart attack in his studio. Graeme Brandt was killed by a lethal injection, which stopped his heart and froze his lungs on a soft spring afternoon. Graeme Brandt was killed by Charles Weston, by a truth that never had to be spoken, a truth that killed Graeme's eyes and turned them black and empty—by a vision of paint he never should have been allowed to see....

Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts.

They've lowered him into the ground and shut away the dead face forever. People are leaving. His mother is sobbing to the family. "Graeme was such a gifted writer. I always knew he would write great books, important books, even when he was just a little boy. He was such a good boy, so affectionate, so understanding—he always
knew just what you wanted, and he was always there when you needed him, with just the right word or the right gesture..."

Man that is born of woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay...
Graeme
never had a chance, not really, I try to tell myself. That woman, his mother—she wanted him to be the way he was. They all did.

But you killed him.

The pain inside me is growing past the point where I can take it, past the point where I can bear to stand here, surrounded by Graeme's people—

They were right after all, dressing him in that suit and smearing makeup all over him. He's still playing roles for them, as he played roles all his life, forever.... He was playing a role when he died, the role I assigned him. My role—my fault.

I murdered Graeme Brandt.

I haul myself up the stairs to my studio, feel the hasp lock shuddering in my right hand, concentrate on its solid weight as the unsteady key in my left hand skitters across smooth metal. Just get inside....Don't
think, don't see Graeme, proud and tall when he left me that morning, proud as he must have been when he wrote me that letter—

I jerk the lock free and slam the door behind me to block off the images. My studio ... safe—

But the images crowd inside with me. I see Graeme, staring transfixed by my cityscape. I hear my voice, pronouncing his death sentence.

No! Not here—not my studio! This is the one place I can always be me, the one escape from what everybody else thinks, the one place I belong. Only this time I'm not trying to escape them. This time I'm trying to escape myself, and my studio is no protection against that I slam the door again, this time from the outside, banging the hasp lock shut, protecting my studio from the real danger, from the destroyer I've become. Where
can I go now? Where can I hide? The dorm ... but Adrian will be there. He'll know. He sees too much, with his composer's precision and his shrinks brain. The roof ... but I recoil from climbing the stone steps, knowing I'll only see Graeme up there, his eyes black and dead—
the shadow poised on the parapet, crashing into hell...

Down the stairs and outside. No one notices. The other kids, they've got their own griefs and fears, no pain wasted on mine. Got to remember, though, keep away from adults. They might see, and think they can help. No one can help.
Simon says ... behave yourself in public Be a good boy ... Yes, Mother...
I want to call home, hear her voice, hear my father, but what could I tell them? What could they say?
Make everything all right, please
—But no one can. I've made everything all wrong.

How do you accept killing a friend? How do you accept a friend who allows you to kill him? How do you accept a friend who forces you into the worst Simon Says game of your life, who just gives himself over to you and lets you judge him, condemn him, and sentence him?
Charles says...

I should never have come here to meet Graeme Brandt I should have stayed in that stupid everyday high school, learned to hide myself from the wolf pack and to care, instead, which team kicked a ball in which direction, gone to a business school, gone into advertising, given up painting except in my locked studio—never reached out thinking there was anyone else like me. I should have ignored Graeme after I saw what he
was that first night, turned away from him when he tried to reach out, cut him off.

Cut them all off. Rachel—I have to stay away from her. I can't trust those analytical eyes that look inside me to take apart the pieces of myself. I can't let her revise me (
fix me—make everything all right
). Graeme wanted to look inside me and I killed him. Adrian—I have to destroy the drawing, stop him thinking we're friends. If he knew me, knew what I'd done to Graeme, he'd hate me as I hate myself.
But there has to be someone...
Stay with faceless, empty people (
like Graeme?
), people who expect me to be empty, too; people who won't look inside me, who won't pry behind the mask, who won't even care that the mask exists.

I walk, hands clenched in my pockets, past the concert hall with its music practice rooms (
Adrian
), down a twisting path that seems dimly familiar. My stomach heaves in sudden recognition and I turn, striding through soft grass, running away. My feet carried me to Graeme's studio...
Where I turned away from him ... where he killed himself ... where he carried out my sentence...

My hands ache and finally I notice something warm and sticky on my palms. I pull my hands out of my pockets and stare dumbly at red-rimmed fingernails. I've ground them into my palms until the flesh is bleeding. I stand on the new spring grass with Graeme's studio behind me, watching the red smear oozing along the lines in my palms.

Good! I jam my hands back inside my pockets, savagely clenching and unclenching my fists, enjoying the
punishment But it's too small a payment for the crime of murder. I have to find something I can do, something gaping and ugly that I'll see for the rest of my life, some fair value payment to remind me that I killed Graeme Brandt I drown in images of slashing my left hand, crippling my fingers so they'd never draw again the way he'll never write again, or blinding myself, blackening my own eyes as I blackened his, shutting out color on canvas forever.

But I couldn't do it My shoes hit the pavement, the writers' studios far behind me now, and I follow a different path blindly. I can cripple myself so that I can just barely paint but I'll always find some way to express my art unless I take my own life. And I don't have that much courage (
that much cowardice?
). I don't even have someone who'll take the responsibility of handing me that death sentence. All I can do is destroy others, the ones who get too close to me, who don't measure up to what I think they should be. Viciously I grind my fingernails deeper into my palms.

"Charles!"

There is no one. I refuse to turn and look for a person who thinks she knows me, who wants to see inside of me.
A person I want to turn to.

"Charles, wait! It's Rachel Charles—are you all right?"

A hand clutches my arm and turns me. She looks into my face, her brows drawn together. Then her eyes widen.
Fine,
I think grimly.
Now you see—I'm an outcast, all right? I don't belong here. So just let me go.
But, perversely, her grip tightens.

"What's wrong?" she asks in an unsteady whisper. "I saw you—at the funeral." Oh, God. She was there? What did she see? "Your hands—" How did they get out of my pockets? She's staring at the blood on my palms. "What's happened?" She shakes her head. "Never mind. Look, the center's right over there. Come to the office and we'll clean you up."

Simon says ... come inside and Mommy will clean up that scrape...
If only it could be that easy.

I'm staring at her blankly, wondering why she stopped babbling. Was I supposed to say something? I don't have anything to say. I've never sketched her—I don't know her, not truly. Is she really apart from the games, or did I only want her to be?
Charles says ... you're dead, Graeme ... Charles says ... you're like me, Rachel
But what is she really like? Does she see too much, like Adrian? Does she really think she likes (
loves
) me? Maybe she does. Maybe we could have been friends, or even more. But that's false hope trying to rise from cold ashes. She wouldn't even want to know me, if she knew.... Why can't she just go away?

Instead her hand tightens on my arm, tugging firmly. "Come on." And my feet move, following her lead. I try to clean my mind, scrape off the paint and douse my canvas with turpentine, try to blot out my responsibility for Graeme's death, try to convince myself I should be grateful for someone's concern, and not rip her hand from my arm and shove her away before I contaminate her—or before I see into her and see truths I don't want to face.

Her sense of purpose drags me along beside her,
helpless, obedient, as though I'd been waiting to give myself over to her care and understanding. But I don't want her understanding. I don't want her to take me apart and reassemble me so the best pieces fit neatly and the others are discarded and the new Charles Weston she has created is forgiven. Even my studio can't protect me—how can Rachel's revisions fix me? She'll find some tidy way to delete the guilt, the pain, and bring out my potential in a polished new version of me. But that would be a cheat I killed Graeme—that has to count for something! It has to be paid for.

"Come on inside."

One bronze door creaks open, the muses in the border frieze mocking me.
Adrian says ... show time ... I
follow her inside, through the front hall to the unreliable elevator. The door inches closed and the elevator groans upward. This would be a good time for the decrepit cables to snap at last I'm ready now. A metal coffin (
like Graeme's
) plunging into the basement burying me inside its crushed walls. That would be fair. Well, probably not to Rachel.

Somehow we're at the
Ventures
office, and it's deserted. "Between issues," she explains, unlocking the door. "And I wasn't the only one who wanted to go to the funeral."

Simon says ... nod your head ... say something.
But the muscles refuse to work, and I stand there, caked blood drying on my hands, anger beating inside my head, pounding at my brain.
Get out of here—get out where you can be alone again, where you can find your punishment
My left fist clenches suddenly, and I look
down to see fresh blood seeping out of the palm. I see Graeme lying dead in his studio.
Blood pays for blood...
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to blot out the image of blood cascading out of my left hand, no longer just gouges in my palm, but jagged slices across my wrist I yearn for the blood.