Lisa Unger - Black Out

His name was Oscar, or so he told me. He was depressed, he claimed, suicidal. He’d thought about taking a leap off the Verrazano, but he thought about it too long and the cops came and pulled him back over the railing. “You make enough people disappear and the world doesn’t even seem real anymore. Nothing matters.”

“What do you mean, disappear?” I asked, not sure I really wanted to know.

He cleared his throat, glanced around. He reminded me oddly of that stock image of Albert Einstein, though much younger, with crazy hair everywhere, thick and spiky like pipe cleaners, and bright, clear eyes.

“You’d be amazed how many people want or need to walk away from their lives.”

Like me, I thought, looking at the cards in my hand. “Really?” I said.

“I’m the one they call,” he whispered, leaning in close. He tapped his chest. “I arrange the details.”

“I see,” I said politely.

“Oh,” he said, suddenly indignant. He let his cards tip, and I saw his hand. “You don’t believe me. Because we’re in here.” He swept his arm around the room, at the zombies in repose.

“Well, let me tell you something,” he went on when I didn’t answer. “You got to be someone or know someone to be in this place. They don’t let just anyone in here.”

I stayed silent, remembering how Gray had told me his father knew the doctor who ran this posh and privately funded hospital, that favors were called in. This is a place mainly for former military personnel, lots of Special Forces guys, Gray had said. Guys suffering posttraumatic stress disorder and the like.

“Which leads me to ask, little miss,” said Oscar. “Just who the fuck are you?”

“I’m no one,” I answered.

He gave a soft grunt. “Aren’t we all?”

“Queen of hearts,” I challenged.

“Go fish.” I’d seen the card when he inadvertently revealed his hand earlier. But I drew from the pile between us, anyway. I figured the fact that we were both cheating made us even.

I just say the one-word code Oscar gave me, years ago now, on the night he checked out of the hospital. “Maybe you never need it,” he said. “Maybe you and me never see each other again. But hey, just in case.”

“Vanish,” I say, and hang up.

It seems improbable that he’ll remember me, but I don’t have any choice other than to follow the instructions he gave me back then. Or maybe he was crazy, as crazy as I am, and this call will come to nothing. In any case, as I drive away, I feel light-headed, sick to my stomach that I’ve even taken things this far. I have a kind of vertigo as I lean over the edge of my life and look down. I will just tip over and be gone.

Everything that happened next happened so fast that I remember it like a landscape passing outside the window of a moving train. Believe it or not, my mother succeeded in getting Frank a new trial. The young death-row appeals lawyer she found was hot to make a name for himself; a high-profile case like Frank’s was exactly what he needed. After a few phone calls back and forth, and my mother scurrying off to the post office with newspaper clippings and the research compiled by the private investigator, he agreed to bring Frank’s case before a judge.

Between the dirty arresting officer and new testimony from the deceased eyewitness’s ophthalmologist, who claimed that the old woman’s vision was so poor she wouldn’t have been able to see much of anything at night, this lawyer was able to convince a judge that Frank deserved a new trial.

I came home one day to find my mother on the steps of our trailer surrounded by reporters. They flitted around her like moths to light, asking their questions. She looked beautiful and regal; no one would have guessed she was a waitress with a ninth-grade education. She spoke with the authority of someone who’d done her research on the legal system, mimicking all the right phrases, certain of her convictions. I stood in the back of the crowd and listened to my mother crow about her crusade, her faith, her belief in Frank Geary’s innocence. I felt dizzy as I determined from their questions that a new trial would begin in a month.

I pushed my way through the crowd and past my mother, shaking her off as she tried to introduce me to reporters, not hearing the questions they shouted.

“What’s the matter with you?” she complained when she entered the trailer. “Everyone will be looking at us now. We have to show our support for Frank.”

I was speechless. I felt like my chest and my head were going to explode with the sheer force of my anger and disbelief. How could this be happening?

“I told you, Ophelia,” she said triumphantly. “I told you the Lord wouldn’t let an innocent man die.” She was behaving as if he’d already been acquitted and was moving home.

In a desperate rush, I told her all the things that Marlowe had told me, about the purses and the shoe under the porch. She scoffed, pulling her shoulders back and sticking out her chin.

“Marlowe’s testimony was thrown out of court, Ophelia. Do you know why? Because he’s a compulsive liar, just like your father. A child psychologist testified that Marlowe’s statements were unreliable. No one ever found those purses or that shoe.”

“Mom!” I yelled. “He’s a rapist and a murderer. He is going to kill you.”

She slapped me so hard I saw stars in front of my eyes. I stood there for a second, my face burning, my eyes filling with tears. My mother took a step back, closed her eyes, and rubbed her forehead with both hands.

“Ophelia, I swear,” she said in a gasp through her fingers. “You bring out the worst in me.”

I left with her yelling after me and went straight to the pay phone outside the gas station across the street from our trailer park. I was sure this would be the thing that convinced my father to come get me.

“I need to speak to my dad,” I told the woman at the tattoo parlor who accepted my collect call. I think her name was Tawny.

“Ophelia, honey,” she said, sounding strained. “He’s gone.” Something about the way she said it made my throat go dry.

“Gone where?” I asked, trying to keep the shake out of my voice. “When will he be back?”

“Honey, I thought he would have told you.”

“Told me what?” My voice broke then, and I couldn’t hold back my tears or the sob that lodged in my throat. There was a long silence on the line as I wept, cradling the phone in my hand.

“He got himself a new Harley,” she said gently. “He’s taken off on a road trip to California. We don’t know when he’ll be back. It might be a month or more.”

Marlowe’s words hit home then. He’s not coming for you, he’d said.

“I don’t have any way to reach him,” she said. “But if he calls to check in, I’ll tell him you need him.”

I hung up then without another word. I remember holding on to the phone booth for support, feeling as though someone had punched a hole through my center, where a cold wind blew through. I don’t know how long I stood there, crying hot, angry tears.

Drew and Vivian are at the house when I get back, sitting in the kitchen with Gray, drinking coffee and looking grim. They all turn to look at me when I walk through the door from the garage. The small television on the kitchen counter is on, with the volume down. I see the face of the murdered woman again; she looks so sad in the photograph they chose. Couldn’t they have found a picture where she looked happier? I don’t know why it should bother me, but it does.

“What is this?” I say with a fake laugh. “An intervention?” They must know what I’ve done. I check the coffeepot to see if it’s still warm, and I pour myself a cup. I keep my eyes on the black liquid in my mug as I turn around.