Something I Can Never Have Read online

  I once thought that my paranoia and blackouts were like teenage acne—that I’d eventually outgrow them. Especially since I decided to go into a noble profession—being a pastor and sharing the good of the world with everybody. Even if my own beliefs are a bit different from those of the church, how can I not be doing a good thing? I’m helping people. I’m helping students. And especially since I moved away … all those things should have put an end to the episodes.

  Perhaps the medication really can be a solution. I know you say it’s only temporary, that medication is only a Band-Aid. But this Band-aid is working. For now.

  Heidi … she’s another story. I will make it up to her and begin to tell her some of my past. Just some. I don’t think she could take everything. I wouldn’t want her to know everything. I can just give her highlights and tell her why the medication is important.

  At least it didn’t happen during the supervision of a bunch of teenagers. If anything happened … the thought terrifies me. That’s why I need things to be under control. And why I need the medication to work.

  I look forward to our conversation in another couple of weeks. Thank you for being willing to talk more often.

  Jeremiah

  June 19, 1997

  Dear Mr. Barlow:

  You were right, and I’ll be the first to admit when I’m wrong. I did exactly what you said. I took an entire day off just to watch and see for myself. Of course, just as I said, I believed there wouldn’t be anything to see … but I discovered there was a lot to see. I don’t know if there is anything physical going on between them, but I do know that Heidi has a young, good-looking, male friend. I wouldn’t call him tall, dark, and handsome, but he is tall and handsome enough to warrant suspicion.

  Heidi left the house shortly after lunch and drove to a nearby Starbucks. I watched her go inside, then kept tabs of everybody else who went inside. The young man—probably in his late twenties—arrived shortly after she did. They left at the same time almost two hours later. But just to be sure, I went inside afterwards and pretended I was supposed to be at a meeting with the two of them. Sure enough, the guy behind the counter said they’d been in there talking and laughing like they usually did in the afternoon. Like they usually did.

  On my drive home, I needed to stop and park and just calm down. My head felt like a cantaloupe that had been dropped on hard pavement. I actually couldn’t see for a while (and—slight tangent—I feel like I need to see an eye doctor—I wonder if I need glasses). I parked at a fast food restaurant and just closed my eyes. When I woke up it was hours later. I’m not lying. Hours later. And my right hand was bloody, with the skin of my knuckles torn away.

  I thought the worst, but when I got home Heidi asked about me in a way she normally would. She was worried sick and wondered if I was okay. She didn’t notice my hand.

  The next day I did the same thing, staying back from work and then following her out to her afternoon rendezvous. I wanted to know if somehow I’d managed to find this guy and damage my fist on his face. But he looked as pleasant and normal as he had the day before, which only made me angrier. Maybe I just went out and tried to beat up a wall.

  I know if anybody else heard such craziness, they’d probably call a shrink or the police. That’s why I’m glad I can write to you—to actually handwrite this letter instead of e-mailing something that could be copied and pasted somewhere else. I’m glad to know that you keep our correspondence confidential. You have to, of course. That’s your job and that’s the law.

  I don’t know who this guy is or what’s going on with the two of them, but nothing about it can be good. Even if they’re just friends, it’s wrong. I want her to be able to tell me everything. There are bigger things about this world that she doesn’t understand (and perhaps might never understand), and that’s why I keep certain things from her. But I don’t withhold my love and adoration from her. This job I’m in is a steppingstone to something bigger and better, and she needs to understand that I have a job to do. It doesn’t make it any better if I have to take time off from that job to spy on her.

  This is a problem, but as you say, problems are hurdles that simply need to be run over in whatever way possible. Even if it’s running through them.

  I will share more when I have time. All the best.

  Jeremiah

  June 28, 1997

  Dear Dr. Barlow:

  His name is Cliff Floyd. He’s in his thirties, lives by himself, and works for a cable company. I’m still not sure how they met.

  I still haven’t seen any wrongdoing. At least nothing that says they’re having sex. But the secrecy—the fact that Heidi hasn’t told me anything about Cliff. I mean—Cliff. What a name. A guy who installs cable at homes.

  I have no idea what she’s doing hanging out with him. Maybe he makes her laugh. I don’t know. It’s been awhile since I’ve made Heidi laugh. Or since I’ve made her do much of anything. If this were a girlfriend she was meeting, I’d have no problem. But Heidi would probably tell me if she was going out with a girlfriend.

  She doesn’t understand that I don’t need this kind of drama, if that’s what I should call it. Heidi doesn’t realize the heat I took this week from our senior pastor over some remarks I made at a recent Sunday evening service.

  I never said that Jesus Christ wasn’t the son of God. Never. And that’s what I told the head pastor, that sanctimonious prick. Is he really concerned about the meaning of what I said? Of course not. He’s interested in the couple who got offended, because they’re from an affluent family that gives the church a lot of money. I’m not an idiot. I know how these things go. And just because I happen to question the validity of one man’s assertion that he was indeed the one and only son of God Almighty in front of an arrogant, know-it-all senior in high school who thinks he’s got it all figured out … that gets me in trouble.

  That’s why I don’t need Heidi sneaking off. I don’t have time for her games.

  I don’t have time to keep track of her.

  They’ve been on me about my hours. I know. I haven’t been here long enough to start making such a bad impression. I have to score some points and do some good things. Get the students talking and the parents talking and get the others off my case.

  It’s either that, or by God I’ll take a spoon and a fork and gouge their eyes and ears out and put them on a silver platter for the senior pastor to suck up.

  I’m still getting used to how flat it can be around here. And the humidity. Not just heat, but brutally intense humidity. But I know I won’t be here long. At least I don’t plan to be here long.

  Sometimes I think Heidi might be settling in a bit too much.

  I worry about her that way. I worry about her a lot.

  We’ll see how that goes. I will continue to keep you posted.

  Sincerely,

  Jeremiah Marsh

  July 14, 1997

  Dear Dr. Barlow:

  It’s too soon for things here to start disintegrating. I’ve worked too hard and have come too far with Heidi to have things just suddenly begin to deteriorate. But everything is falling down around me like a hundred flakes of dandruff or dried-up pieces of sunburned skin. I’m no writer or philosopher. Dandruff and sunburn—those are my big insights into my life right here and now in Northbrook.

  The other night Heidi didn’t come home. I would like to say that I waited up for her, but … well, I know one thing for certain. I didn’t sleep that night. Maybe she didn’t either. But by the time I came to, I was covered in blood and driving down a street I didn’t recognize with a butcher knife next to me, feeling like I was suddenly transported to a Quentin Tarantino movie.

  The pills obviously are not working, and something is about to give. Once again I feared the worst. But Heidi came home the next day and then reminded me that she’d had an overnight function with some of the ladies at church. I didn’t recall any such thing, and nothing I looked up said there was such an event. The good news was that the but
cher knife had not been used on her.

  Everything in me will use it if I have to but you know that and always have known that, haven’t you?

  The next week I searched out Cliff and found him at his job, doing whatever it is that he does. So Cliff is fine as well. I scanned the newspapers and evening news for any kind of story that could explain the blood and the knife, all of which I had to clean up and dispose of. But there was no explanation.

  I tried to initiate something with Heidi—something, anything—and she looked scared. She didn’t say no. But holding her felt like holding a comatose person. We used to have passion and heat between us, and real, true love. I know that. I know that for a fact, and yet when I held this woman she felt so hard and so cold and so bony. She’s been losing weight, and I’ve been on her about that. She’s got a reputation to maintain just like I have. She’s got a duty just like I have. She’s got a body just like any woman that’s there for the taking when I need it. So I ignored that cold, lifeless body, and I took it.

  I just don’t understand her. She won’t tell me where she comes and goes and she eats meals with me in silence and she just seems limp in every single way. Yet she doesn’t try to leave.

  Perhaps we will both need counseling before this is all over. Then again, I’m afraid for her to hear about those awful things I used to believe were true. The nights when I would feel like I was being raped repeatedly, only to go to school to see proof of the visions by bruises and cuts. I know the doctor told me they were self-inflicted, but I still believe that they were real in some way. Maybe the bloody knife was “self-inflicted” as well—maybe it’s just a big act to freak myself out—but it doesn’t seem like that.

  The words out of my mouth at church feel like lies. The prayers and the sermons. At least I’m speaking to teens who usually want less rather than more. They don’t always hear or care what I’m saying, and that’s fine. I make sure it sounds authentic. But deep down, God seems a long way away. Just like Solitary.

  Those nightmares, however … they don’t seem far away at all. They seem like someone standing outside my bedroom window waiting to come in. Just tapping and grinning and undoing the lock and slipping inside ready to crawl into my bed and slip inside me.

  And that’s when I feel trapped and know I need to claw my way out and strike back and burn before it’s all over.

  I can feel my heart racing just writing these words. I just can’t have Heidi be a part of all that. She can’t know about the past or about this present. These nightmares and these visions.

  If she knew, I think it would be over. And I know one thing. I can’t lose her. Not the way I lost Mom and Dad. I can’t lose someone else, and I would do anything and give everything I have to keep her.

  Heidi doesn’t even know my last name isn’t really Marsh. There’s no need to tell her. No need to get into any of that. You have been good to me by replacing my past with somebody else’s. I owe that to you and to the town and I thank you. That is why I don’t want to let you down.

  I will talk to you very soon with another update.

  Sincerely,

  Jeremiah

  July 29, 1997

  Dear Dr. Barlow:

  My hands are shaking as I write this, thinking and remembering what I saw this afternoon. It was a revelation, as if God himself spoke out loud and told me to see what I needed to see. I feel empty now. I’ve been crying, feeling like a teenager again, feeling lost and lonely and abandoned. There’s nothing left to do, really. Not anymore.

  Today I could see them through the window where they met. Heidi and Cliff. Good old Cliff. Some broad-chested boy-man who needs to be buried under ten feet of sand or concrete or excrement. Whatever works and whatever I can get my hands on my hands those sweet, slender hands that used to hold her and soothe her and now only want to smother to smash to squeeze.

  I have to stop—my hand hurts writing this.

  I am back now, feeling better. I threw up, but that’s always been the case with my nerves. I will share what I saw. I’d rather do it in a letter than tell you on the phone, only to hear that silence of yours. I have to admit I hate that. Sometimes I will tell you something else to fill the space with more words, even if they’re empty and meaningless and meandering.

  Today I saw Heidi and Cliff talking, and I could see it in Heidi’s eyes.

  It was a reminder—a snapshot—of yesterday. When I first met her and it was just the two of us. When everything in Solitary was far away, and we were falling in love.

  She gave Cliff that look.

  The look of … not just love and adoration. That’s too simple.

  She gave him something that I’m afraid I’ll never see again.

  Her full attention … yes, sure, that’s one piece of it, but I always have Heidi’s full attention because lately she seems like she’s been more scared of me with each passing hour. I don’t know why. But I have her attention.

  It was a pleasant, hopeful, lovable glance. A look that said I want to be here and I don’t want to leave.

  It was innocent and free and beautiful.

  I saw this from my car, and I knew just like that it was over between us. It was a look I once had from a soul I believed would be mine forever. But it’s no longer mine, and I don’t think it will ever be mine again. And all I want to do now is paint the world black and blue and see the face of every single soul I see ugly and red.

  I will confront her soon. But there are other things I need to do. I know that you didn’t object when I mentioned what I might do to Cliff, but I also know how careful I need to be. I will be careful. Nobody will know, and Heidi will be afraid to tell everyone. I think she’s started to see the boy who used to live in Solitary and not the man she married. I’m afraid that she’s starting to see the Turner instead of the Marsh.

  I really believed that boy died after the darkness and the deaths. I thought he was gone for good.

  But he’s been hiding and waiting and wondering when the time will come when he can reach out and hurt and destroy like a festering, breathing, living virus of death.

  I must go. It’s late and I’m lost and tired.

  Sincerely,

  Jeremiah

  August 10, 1997

  Dear Dr. Barlow:

  The nightmares are back. The kind I scream inside of. The kind I remember vividly when I get out of. They’re black and gray and red and swirling like a tornado and I’m there in the middle right in the middle with my mouth laughing opened wide.

  I have tried to avoid everything and just focus on my job. But my job reinforces the dreams inside. The light I see on others’ faces and in their spirits only reminds me what a phony fraud I’ve been my whole life. You know, don’t you? Only I know you wouldn’t call it that. You would say I’m coping, that I have been coping since I’ve had to, that I’ve been using this as a defense to keep living and breathing. But sometimes I don’t want to live and I don’t want to breathe.

  Then again, sometimes I never want to die. Sometimes I see how badly people want someone to follow, how badly they need something in their lives. Not something that’s real and fearful, like the God of the Old or New Testament. They want more than an aspirin, but less than a God. They want their vices and their Oprahs and their heroes and their gossip. They can want someone like me, too.

  But all I want is to see them burst ablaze and go away.

  I don’t see us being here much longer, because I feel I’m on my own. Heidi is only becoming more and more withdrawn. Sometimes I can see the fear in her eyes when she looks at me. I’ve apologized and told her that I’ll be getting better, but each day is a little worse.

  I just can’t stop spying on her and can’t keep thinking of Cliff. The more I do, the worse it becomes. But frogs have souls, don’t they don’t the bluebirds sing in the night as big and as bad as the owls and the piggies. The piggies that I need to gut and skin and fry up.

  I don’t know. It doesn’t make me feel much better, but I try to keep
my mind off them.

  There are thoughts I have that don’t seem to even be mine. It’s not like it used to be when I’d black out and then come back around. Sometimes I feel myself sinking lower and lower under the surface of something dark and wet and cold. It’s like I’m sleeping, but I’m wide awake with some hideous, faceless, colorless creature keeping my eyelids opened with fingerlike claws. I sink and can no longer breathe. I sink further and can no longer see. I’m still awake and I’m still functioning, but suddenly I just want to make everything out there burn. I want to rip it out of the ground and torch everything and everyone.

  You say it’s time you came up here to see me, but I’m not sure. I’m not sure I can dive back into the history and counseling thing. The meds work on and off, but it seems like I’m growing used to them. I take them like an alcoholic needing another drink. But that drink never quite fixes the hole inside.

  It’s late now, and Heidi isn’t here. I’m writing to get my mind off her, but I can’t. When we started dating she was the one thing in my life that seemed to be like a doorway to a better life. A normal life. A life where a man works and eats and sleeps and pays bills and makes love and produces children and leaves something behind. Not a life where a blanket of cold death covers him and makes him want to suffocate everyone he comes in contact with. I lie to those students every time I get up and talk. Because if they really were to ask me, I’d say that Heidi was the way, the truth, and the life. I’d get run out of the church for saying that, but she is. Or at least she was when she was mine.

  But she’s not mine anymore.

  And that’s why she’s either going to stop this madness or end up in a ditch with her body ripped apart as though she was attacked by an animal in the wilderness. Because I’ve been in the wilderness way too long and I’m hungry and I need something to destroy.