The Wicked Garden (17 page)

So much for telling her I was thinking about flying to Illinois
, Eli thought forlornly.

Diana grabbed her coffee cup and marched out the room. Father and son watched her go without saying a word until she slammed the door. Eli was surprised to note that her hands were shaking when she reached for her mug.

“Your mother’s hitting the caffeine a little hard these days. She’s a bit on edge,” his father remarked. Given how high-strung Diana was
without
stimulants, that was really saying something.

“She’s pissed now. Why did I even come?” Eli asked.

“Because you’re still hopelessly in love with Gretchel, and you want your mother to back the fuck off so you can go after her,” his father answered. “Did I come close?”

“Dad, is it wrong for me to still want her after all these years? Is there something wrong with me that I can’t move on without her?”

Peter blew out smoke rings that danced around the sunlit room. Eli felt a stoned disquisition coming on. He eased into the sofa and made himself comfortable. This could take awhile.

“You saw yourself in Gretchel; that’s what love is, son. You were drawn to her because, in her, you saw some aspect of yourself that you thought was missing. You’re still trying to recapture that recognition. You don’t think you’ll be complete until you find her.

“But I’m not sure that’s true, Eli. You’re complete now and you always have been; you just don’t recognize yourself anymore. Gretchel helped you see yourself and your true potential with open eyes. When you were with her, you were wide awake. When it ended, you fell into a deep sleep—metaphorically speaking. You’ve convinced yourself that getting her back is the only way to wake up again, even though you know that’s not the case. Your upbringing might have been deficient in some respects—” Eli was shocked to hear this admission from either of his parents—“but, at the very least, you had a solid education in opening the doors of perception.” Peter paused to relight his pipe. He offered it to Eli, who declined. Peter had access to weed of truly astonishing quality. The contact high was enough for his son. After an impossibly long inhalation, Peter continued.

“That said, I have to admit that there is no more joyful way to live a life knowing the self than being in love with a beautiful woman who fills up your world with vibrant light and truth. So, I say go after her. Devil may care. Let’s say she breaks your heart again. So what?”

Peter paused again to make sure that he had his son’s attention, and he looked more serious than Eli had ever seen him look. “But if she
is
going to break it again, son, make sure she does it in a way that makes you feel so utterly insane that just the shock of it wakes you up and makes you cry out for change. If she’s going to break your heart, at least give it your all. Go in with open arms. Reach out and embrace the insanity. Dance in the flames of her desire. Run through the fields of her ecstasy. Go in like a beginner, as if you’ve just met her for the first time. Be a fearless child and ask to be taught. If she cries, cry with her. If she laughs, laugh with her. Jump up and down and shoot a million sparks out your ass. Let the sparks engage the wick of the explosive that will
wake you up
. Who cares if she breaks your heart again, if that pain turns your pitiful pining into action? What better way is there to know you’re alive than to feel love and pain so deeply?”

Peter paused again. This time he availed himself of the opportunity to take another hit. “But what if she
doesn’t
break your heart? It’s quite possible she has an ongoing hard-on for you, too. Have you considered the possibility that she’s waiting on you to finally grow a pair and chase her down the rabbit hole?”

Peter took one more draw on his pipe and blew out a few contemplative smoke rings. “I’m not saying I know the answer, because there isn’t one. There are an infinite number of ways this scene could go down. But I
do
know this, Elliot: You have got to quit whining about Gretchel, because you’re totally fucking up my flow.”

Eli’s heart swelled with tenderness. Peter was a flipped-out, eternal child who claimed to be friends with a fairy named Claire. He lived on the edge of a dream—and he was a genius. Now Eli knew why he had come back home. He needed this—this advice, but, more generally a dose of familiar insanity from his reliably crazy parents. What could be more comforting than listening to his pink-paisley-clad father talk metaphysics while smoke from the stickiest bud the Pacific Northwest had to offer scented the air? Eli felt like a kid again—but, this time, in a good way. He stretched out on the sofa and stuffed a pillow under his head.

“If I do find her, can I tell her who you are? Who I really am?”

“Devil may care, son. Let the FBI take me.”

“The FBI doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you, Dad,” Eli sighed. This conversation also had a soothingly well-worn quality. “You’re an American institution, or you belong in one. In any case, your legend has surpassed your paranoia.”

“Maybe. Ah, what does it matter anymore anyway? Devil may care.” Peter stretched his legs and then rearranged himself in his cocoon-like chair. “You know, I fought the devil once, in the late 70’s. I was on peyote. I pinned his scrawny ass to the ground and made him my bitch. You’d be surprised to know who the devil really is. Not who you think. Not who you think at all. It would knock your Technicolor socks off to know that little nugget of truth, but you’re not ready to face that epiphany. Not yet.”

Eli had heard this anecdote before, too. It was practically the little brother he had never had. His thoughts, though, had turned to more immediate matters. “Mother is never going to agree to any of this, though.”

“She’s a protective thing. She thinks you’re a gift from the gods, and she believes what Gretchel did was unnecessary.”

“She doesn’t have a fucking clue.”

“Maybe not, but do you? Do you know why Gretchel broke your heart?”

Eli was speechless. He had never known, and he still didn’t know.

Peter patted his son’s knee and brought him back from the throes of self-pity. “If Gretchel’s as smoking hot as you’ve always said she is, I may just come out of exile and shag her myself, you little pansy-ass mama’s boy.”

“That’s not even remotely funny,” Eli fumed.

His father cackled. “Jealousy doesn’t become you, son. Detach yourself from ego. Manifesting a desire shouldn’t be such hard work. Stop resisting.”

Eli pulled a folded printout from his back pocket. “This is an old photo of Gretchel with her kids. Ame’s almost seventeen now.”

Peter looked closely at Gretchel. This was his first glimpse of the woman who had captivated and then devastated his son.
Hot damn,
he thought. Then he studied the little girl, and he grinned.

He pulled a bag of mushrooms from the pocket of his pink paisley bathrobe. “Let’s take a trip together, son, for old time’s sake.”

Eros who is love, handsomest among all

             
the immortals

             
who breaks the limbs’ strength

             
who in all gods, in all human beings

             
overpowers the intelligence in the breast,

             
and all their shrewd planning
….

Peter was lying on the floor, quoting Hesiod. Eli was still stretched out on the sofa.

He closed his eyes and tried to find a happy place before the psychedelic alkaloids kicked in….

Carbondale, 1990s

Eli thought back to Carbondale, of course. He drifted right into the backyard of the house on Pringle Street. The garden was all lit up. A feast of food and three kegs sat next to the greenhouse. Revelers where scattered about the backyard, celebrating the end of the summer.

This particular party was in Gretchel’s honor. She was only a sophomore and school rules said that she had to move back to the dorms. Eli had already enrolled for the fall semester at SIU without his mother’s permission. He tried not to think about Diana’s impending fury as he watched Will hold a cute blonde upside down for a keg stand.

“So help me Jesus, Will. You’re going to drown her,” Patty yelled. She helped Will get the girl upright again, at which point the cute blonde spewed beer everywhere. Eli pulled a clean handkerchief from his back pocket and helped her dry herself off a bit. Excessively, drunkenly grateful, she leapt into Eli’s arms, wrapped her legs around him, and tried to give him a kiss. When Eli resisted, she giggled and patted his curls instead. “Your hair’s all bouncy,” she laughed.

“Bouncy. What a great description,” Gretchel said, taking her place beside Eli. He set the little sprite down as gently as he could, and she ran off to join her friends at a picnic table.

Gretchel shook her head at Eli playfully. “I can’t leave you alone for two seconds. You’re a chick magnet.”

He grabbed her, buried his face in her neck, and shrouded himself in her beautiful red hair. She smelled, like always, of fresh strawberries. “Where have you been?”

“I had to lay down for a bit. I started feeling really sick, like I was gonna barf. Think I’m nervous about leaving.”

“I don’t know how I’m going to be able to sleep without you by my side every night,” Eli said, but he was more worried about how she would sleep in a dorm room without him there to quiet the screams.

“I promise I’ll be here every weekend, and some weeknights, depending on my work schedule.”

“You don’t have to work, Gretchel.”

“Really?” she asked sarcastically. “You’re
really
going to support me and pay for my education? Can you start paying back my student loans while you’re at it? And I’ve
love
a new car….”

It was killing him to not be able to help her. He had the money, he had the time, he had everything. “I have some money saved. Whatever you need, I can give you. You don’t have to work.”

“You’re silly.” The anger in her voice was gone. “I’m a bottomless pit, Eli. Once I got started borrowing money from you, I wouldn’t stop. I’d be spoiled, and you’d be broke in a month.”

Not likely
, he thought as he led her away from the keg. She was eyeing it way too much for his liking. After three months together, he had still never seen her drink, and he didn’t want their last night in the house on Pringle to be the first.

“Who’s that girl hanging around Will?” Gretchel asked. Eli noticed that Gretchel had become very protective all of the sudden. The girl was pretty, and looked like she had arrived via Grateful Dead caravan. As if she could tell that they were talking about her, she turned and made eye contact with Gretchel. Eli watched Gretchel jerk back.

“That’s Ginnifer. She’s moving into your room tomorrow,” Eli said, still watching Gretchel’s reaction to the girl’s gaze.

Ginnifer returned Gretchel’s puzzled stare with a calm smile. Silently, the two women seemed to come to some sort of understanding. Ginnifer waved and turned away.

“What was that all about?”

Gretchel turned back to Eli. “She’s moving in my room?” Evidently, she wasn’t interested in telling Eli what that was all about. “The owner doesn’t waste any time does he?”

“How do you know it’s a he?”

“I spoke to him on the phone when I called about the place in May. Wish I could meet him to say thank you. Staying here has been the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
You
are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Eli kissed her long and hard. He didn’t want to let her go. There had to be some way to bend the housing rules. Maybe he could convince the powers that be that her nightmares
were a mental handicap, and that she needed to stay off campus. It was a thought.

Gretchel and Eli came up for air just in time to see a local band start their second act. The crowd began to cheer.

Gretchel jumped up and began dancing, her bohemian dress twirling around and around. Eli was enchanted. He watched intently, unable to move his eyes away from the divine sight of Gretchel dancing freely against the light of the bonfire. She motioned for her loving cup on the ground. He picked it up, and held it out to her. Déjà vu struck him in the chest as she moved forward, took the cup, and sipped at the fresh water. He shook off the eerie feeling and joined her. They danced and danced and danced.

“I love you infinitely,” Eli whispered into her ear. “Please don’t ever forget that Gretchel.”

She whispered to him, “I love you, too. Please don’t ever forget that… that... that.... Eli... Eli... Eli...”

The memory was beginning to skip. He couldn’t see her anymore, but he could feel her presence and her hand in his. The ‘shrooms had kicked in—
way
in.

With her attitude in check and an aluminum bottle of water instead of coffee, Diana opened the doors of her office suite to find Peter naked, wrapped up in the drapes quoting Rimbaud:

…
one evening I sat Beauty on my knees

And I found her bitter