Quantum nightmares, p.25
Quantum Nightmares, page 25
With the twitching attack that seemingly shed his meek skin, the inorganic bravado Father Rodgers tried to project earlier melted into the real deal, as if another person had shot down from the heavens and entered his body at freefall speed.
The Holy Spirit maybe? Jack thought.
It didn’t matter. Jack was very pleased with the answer.
“If you wouldn’t mind, I would like to begin at once.” Father Rodgers looked at his watch. “We haven’t much time left.”
“Swell.” Jack slapped the bed and sat upright before swinging his legs over the edge, his feet dangling a few inches from the ground, swinging back and forth.
“So, how does this work exactly?” he said. “I give you money and you pay Saint Patrick or what?”
“Saint Peter.”
“Huh?”
“Saint Peter mans heaven’s gate,” Father Rodgers said. “Not Saint Patrick.”
Jack twisted his face and said, “Then there’s a drunken midget somewhere in Chicago that owes me alotta money.”
Father Rodgers sighed the embellished sigh of one who wasn’t entertained. He leaned back, clasped his hands on his stomach, twiddled his thumbs. His demeanor suggested annoyance but a well full of patience. Jack was impressed with his maturity, most twenty-five-year-olds aren’t so serious. “Sorry,” he said.
“I take it you don’t trust the church?” Father Rodgers said.
“I’ve never given the church much thought one way or another,” Jack admitted. “What I don’t trust is man.”
“Fair enough.” Rodgers smacked his hands together then put his elbows on his knees, leaning forward. “I can leave you to your own devices if you’d prefer.” He stood and made for the door.
“No, wait. Wait.” Jack grabbed the padre’s arm. He noticed blood stains on the right cuff of the inner shirt sleeve, splotches like red ink soaking into a napkin. Jack lifted the shirt ever slightly, exposing more blood. Father Rodgers followed Jack’s concerned eyes to his cuff then ripped his arm away.
“Are you okay?” Jack asked.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’ve a proclivity for nosebleeds.”
He sat back down and waited for Jack to speak. They stared at each other for a long moment. The air buzzed with electricity.
“I just don’t know how to start, s’all,” Jack lied. He knew because his wife knew. They shared everything.
“Well, have you ever sinned, my child?”
Jack scoffed, winced, then stared bitingly at Father Rodgers who stood his ground, shaking his head, gesturing that he didn’t understand the source of Jack’s sudden anger.
“Please don’t call me child,” Jack said. “I’m twice your age.”
“As you wish.” Father Rodgers nodded respectfully. “Have you ever sinned, Jack?”
“Me, sin?” Jack lifted his arms as if he wanted to hug a massive bear. “Never. I’m just quite fond of my stripped liberties. But mostly—” he said looking at the walls, nodding, “—I really dig the state-of-the-art voice-activated latrine module.”
The wall across from the bed lit green and an automated voice said, “Activating latrine module.” The seamless wall yawned open, and a commode crawled out. Rodgers seemed stunned.
“Not now, Lucy,” Jack said.
“Who’s Lucy?”
“That’s what I call the toilet voice.”
Father Rodgers thought hard as he stared at the toilet. He rephrased the question. “Is there something you would like to confess?” he said.
This struck a somber chord in Jack. He did have something he wanted to confess, something that had been weighing on him for years. He cleared his throat and began his confession.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” Jack whispered. “This is my first confession.” His eyes were distant, obscure, locked on the cold concrete floor. Father Rodgers leaned against his cane. He attempted to make eye contact, but his efforts were futile as Jack’s eyes remained staunchly on the ground. After a pronounced silence, he straightened his back and urged Jack to press forward.
“I’m afraid this is a time-sensitive matter,” he said. “As you well know.”
“I don’t know where to begin.”
“The beginning is usually a good start.”
Jack smiled and nodded. He licked his lips, then: “It was a special day for my wife and I. But not special in a good kinda way. It was special in a bad kinda way. You see, it was the anniversary of a horrible accident we had eight years prior. As was our tradition, we went to the cemetery where the family was buried—to pay our respects.”
Jack finally looked up. His eyes were full of tears, puddles that refused to drip. “It was the least we could do.” His voice crackled with unseen pain.
Father Rodgers nodded solemnly. After a few short moments of continued silence, he motioned for Jack to continue.
Jack sniffled, wiped his nose, and complied.
“It’s funny, most days of the year, I was on autopilot. Going through the motions of life but never really present. Which is how most people live their lives, I suspect. Day in and day out. But every year on August 8th, my wife and I, we would have an annual reprieve. It was the one day of the year we were able to take a step back and count our blessings. It may sound weird, and perhaps even a little fucked up to admit it: but it was hands down my favorite day of the year. It was the only day for certain when I was aware of every breath I took.”
Jack inhaled deeply, his breath shallow, shaky. He heard his wife’s voice. “Don’t take it for granted, love.” But he did take it for granted. Every breath, every moment, every experience. He took it all for granted. Everything. And now, with death at his doorstep, he wished he could have the time back. What he wouldn’t give for just a little bit of time. But it was too late.
“You will feel better after you let it all out,” Father Rodgers said. “Let it all out. Purify your soul.”
Jack looked up, small beads of sweat dripping down his nose, connecting with the strings of snot dangling from his nostrils.
“On any other day, I would just wash the dishes or drive the car but on August 8th, I felt the texture of the bubbles as waves of a pleasant lemon-scented aroma ignited my sense of smell with every inhalation.”
Jack got lost in the memory, experiencing a knowing nostalgia by the remnants of such a feeling. He could almost feel the bubbles now. Smell them. He stared at the ground with lost eyes. Father Rodgers knew his mind’s eye saw something deeply profound: a nugget of wisdom about life that comes only with the promise of death.
Don’t take it for granted.
Father Rodgers cleared his throat, beguiling Jack from his trance-like state.
“Then what happened?” he said.
Jack returned from whatever internal memory he had been lost in and continued.
“Jane and I were rolling high on the euphoria of just simply being alive. Ya know? That inner joy that just springs forth from your chest. It was the one night a year when we put down the electronics and played board games with our daughter, Layla.”
Father Rodgers smiled and nodded. “What game did you play?”
“We played Monopoly.” Jack laughed loudly, putting his hand to his lips, shaking his head, returning to the land of abstraction.
“God, did I hate playing Monopoly,” he said to the memory playing on the ground. “It’s such an insufferably boring game. But Layla loved it. So, we played. Now on any other day, my mind woulda been elsewhere—patients I’d seen that week, articles I’d read, planning our next vacation. My mind woulda been anywhere but there—but on that day, I was utterly immersed in it. We played for hours and … and …”
Jack’s breathing became erratic. He swallowed huge swaths of air as if he had just resurfaced from an undertow that’d nearly ended him. He fell to the ground, pulled his knees to his chest. Then, hugging his knees, he swayed back and forth, crying.
Father Rodgers rested his hand on Jack’s head. “What happened next, Jack?”
It was odd to Jack, this compulsive pushing of the story.
Didn’t they teach students at the clergy some fucking tact? he thought. Some bedside manner?
He didn’t want Father Rodgers’s pity. But you gotta warm a lady up before you try and stick the tip in, he thought.
Father Rodgers had no warmup in him. He was all go. His complete lack of etiquette, though surprising, was also a blessing for Jack, a marvelous distraction allowing him to compose himself more readily. He took several deep breaths, searching the depths of his intellect to bring the memory forth. There it is.
“I read a bedtime story to Layla and then made love to my wife,’ he said. “I don’t know why I did it. Maybe I snapped because of the anniversary or—” His eyes dropped, following the descent of his speech. He looked at the ground for several moments before speaking again.
“—Maybe deep down, on a visceral level, I felt guilty and undeserving of the perfect day I just had—that I deserved penance for depriving another family of such immense joy.”
Father Rodgers kneeled beside Jack and embraced him. He whispered in Jack’s ear, not words of comfort or solace, but words of encouragement to continue with the confession.
“You will not attain absolution unless you say the words, Jack,” he said. “You will not be allowed entry into heaven unless your spirit is completely purged of sin.”
Jack reined in tears and continued.
“I took a long shower, and we made love, my wife and I. Then I checked the appointments I had the following day; it was a light load. Only two clients. I brushed my teeth and read Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. By the time I finished my nightly routine, my wife was sound asleep. I inched into bed beside her and stared at her until I finally dozed off, counting my lucky stars. She was so beautiful. The kind of woman you would have to look at twice, just to make sure she wasn’t a figment of your imagination.”
He straightened his back and met Father Rodgers’s eyes. His brow furrowed and he shook his head, confused. “But this is where things get all wonky and confusing,” he said. “That night, ya see, I dreamt that I woke up at precisely 2 a.m. I went downstairs to the kitchen and grabbed a glass of water. As I placed the cup in the sink, a butcher knife caught my attention. I picked it up, completely unambiguous in my intentions. As soon as my fingers touched the cold wooden handle, I was filled with a murderous impulse that never faded. It consumed me, entirely. I tiptoed back upstairs, crept into my daughter’s room, and started stabbing her.”
Jack was bone dry of tears. The moment of intense emotion drifted away like a storm passing in the distance. He recalled the event with utter detachment. It was as if he were remembering a grocery list, he’d written a week ago.
“I killed her dog after that—the fucking dog?” He shook his head in disgust. “Then dropped the knife on the blood-soaked carpet and went to the bedroom where my wife was sound asleep. I grabbed the sound pillow she got me for our anniversary and suffocated her. The casual demeanor which possessed me while doing all of this is staggering—like I was conducting another one of life’s mundane task—washing the dishes, mowing the grass, folding the laundry. I fucking killed her on autopilot. I killed them both. When she stopped struggling, I laid beside her and drifted to sleep. I was tired. I remember that. But how I was able to fall asleep, to this day, it astounds me. I had not a care in the world. Not a fucking care in the world.
“The next morning, I realized my dream was actually a memory. I stabbed my baby girl twenty-three times. There is no place in heaven for me.”
Father Rodgers placed his hand on Jack’s head and recited a prayer in a language that was foreign to Jack. Even though he didn’t understand the words, the incantation was oddly comforting. Liberating, even. It was rare for him, experiencing such a freeing feeling. He opened his heart up, surrendered his life, gave it to a higher power whom he chose to call Jesus Christ. He’d never felt so free in his entire life. It was like he was soaring in the clouds. His stomach filled with an intoxicating sereneness that was majestic, empowering. Father Rodgers continued speaking in whispers. As the words washed over Jack, something within him awoke. He began to weep, not tears of anguish or regret or pain, but tears of forgiveness, reconciliation. Tears of salvation—in fact, letting go of his past. Father Rodgers grabbed him firmly by the shoulders and stood him erect. He looked Jack in the eyes and told him that he would be allowed entry into heaven if only he said ten “Our Fathers.”
Jack was astonished by the meager fee for atonement dished out by one of God’s homies. But he most definitely was not disappointed.
He recited the given punishment on his knees, rocking humbly back and forth, the freeing love of God coursing through him. He laid there in the child’s pose for a few seconds more then he stood and lunged at Father Rodgers, swallowing him in his arms, squeezing him, holding him until Father Rodgers cleared his throat.
“Sorry.” Jack laughed. “Didn’t mean to make it weird.”
“No worries.”
They took their seats, Jack on the maglev bed and Father on the chair. Each were lost in thought, Jack brimming with a freedom and inner joy he’d never experienced before and Father Rodgers seemingly brooding over something or another. He was clearly upset about something. Jack was perplexed.
“Are you okay, Padre?” he asked.
“You mentioned a tragic accident earlier,” Father Rodgers said. “Something about a family.”
All at once the bubble of serenity Jack had been in, popped, dissipated. The faucet in his tear ducts turned on. He began to cry. He fell to his knees and begged Father Rodgers to listen to one more confession. “Please,” he said. “Just one more.”
Father Rodgers glanced at his watch and nodded.
Confession 2
“My wife and I were heading home from her parents’ house in Boston. It was their fortieth anniversary and a rare treat for Janey, who hadn’t seen her siblings together at the same time in something like twenty years. Jane’s parents were Irish immigrants, from the motherland itself, Dublin. As you can imagine, the occasion turned into a drinking affair. My wife was seven months pregnant with my daughter, so she only had a few glasses of wine. Whenever I objected, she pulled the doctor card. ‘You worry about shrinking people’s heads, my pretty ‘lil darling,’ she said. ‘I’ll worry about the medicinal side.’
“She had her own practice, ya know?”
Jack smiled, the memory of her face, her hair, potent and fading in equal measures. The sadistic ritual of seeing her every night, of murdering her every night, didn’t help him remember her face as one would think. Her memory was fading from him at the same rate it would without the nightly visits provided by the Lullaby.
“Now, I’m not one to back down from a challenge,” Jack said, “so when my five brothers-in-law challenged me to some beer bongs, I answered the call and drank more than I care to remember.”
Jack stopped and smiled, remembering how after his fifth consecutive beer bong, he vomited back into the translucent tube, but he refused to let his mouth break the seal. The vomit mixed with the golden lager. He took a few moments to compose himself, looking at chunks of cabbage and corned beef floating, spinning. He had a determined look in his eyes, a look his wife knew well. “Don’t you dare do it,” she said. He wanted to laugh but that would’ve broken the seal, spilling the contents and every Irish man worth their salt lived by the golden rule: You never spill liquor.
To combat the urge to laugh, he parachuted the rest—vomit and all—quickly and efficiently. He remembered jumping up and down, his belly a tumbling mass of liquid swishing and mixing with the remnants of his last meal.
He doesn’t remember much after that.
“Yeah, I was in no condition to drive,” Jack admitted. He paused, biting his bottom lip, a compulsive habit his wife abhorred. He nibbled at an old scab, opening the wound. He stopped himself after the coppery taste of blood touched the tip of his tongue.
“That’s disgusting, Jack,” his wife used to say. He would chase her around, pinching her butt, blowing raspberries at her, tackling her, tickling her, kissing her. He could almost feel her lips as the memory swept him away to better times.
Rodgers interrupted the buzzing silence. “So, it was your wife that drove home?”
Jack was the lead psychologist and scientist of a crack-shot team in the behavioral health science department at Columbia University in New York City. In another life he was the world’s foremost authority on schizophrenia, his paper, titled “Schizophrenia: The Hidden Battle,” garnered him a cult following in the mental health community. His specialty was schizophrenia, but the study he worked on for ten years concerned patients with chronic mental illnesses. After countless hours observing patients, he quickly noticed Rodgers’s peculiar idio-syncrasies.
Involuntary spasm of the shoulder and neck, he thought. Recurring twitch. Mannerisms inconsistent. Maybe schizophrenia, possibly personality disorder.
He fed the insatiable curiosity he’d had since he was six and his grandfather, who was also a scientist (aeronautical engineering), showed him how to build a rocket. Like Rodgers’s spasm and twitch, this thought process was entirely involuntary, something Jack had no control over.
He caught himself, bringing his mind back to the matter at hand.
Once upon a time, he would’ve wanted nothing more than to have Rodgers lie down, close his eyes, and spill his guts out, peeling back the onion of his mind. The scientist in him begged for answers. But the man in him wanted only one thing: he wanted to feel the brief but potent feeling he’d felt a few minutes prior, the liberating feeling that comes only after cleansing one’s soul.
He wanted to finish the confession.
He needed to finish the confession.
“It was snowing quite a bit when we left,” he said. “Visibility was only a few feet. I fell into a liquid coma before we even left Boston. I probably would’ve slept until we made it back to New York, but my wife woke me with a godawful scream. My mind started spinning in a whirlwind and I couldn’t tell whether it was the alcohol or the world that was spinning.
