Lisa Unger - Black Out

Marlowe went to the bathroom, and while I waited, staring into the depths of my coffee cup, a man walked past me too close and dropped a napkin onto the table. I turned to see his wide, heavy frame and the back of his bald head as he walked out the door.

I unfolded the napkin. There was a note: Bad things are about to happen to Marlowe Geary. Save yourself, if you still can.

I crushed the note in my hand and dropped it on the floor, adrenaline flooding my body.

“What’s wrong?” asked Marlowe when he returned and sat across from me.

I shook my head. “Nothing. I’m tired.”

“You’re always tired,” he said.

“Maybe it’s the company I keep,” I said, the words escaping before I could catch them. He looked at me, surprised. Then he leaned his face close to mine over the table. “Watch yourself.” His voice was tight with menace. There was a trail of brutally murdered women behind us, his tone said to me, and I could easily be next.

I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. The bathroom was filthy, dirt gritty on the tile floor, graffiti scratched on the stalls, and it smelled of urine. I was unrecognizable to myself with my jet-black hair and pallid complexion; my reflection was frightening.

How can I explain myself? How can I explain my relationship to Marlowe Geary, who I loved and hated, feared and clung to? I can’t, not then, not now. Save yourself, if you still can.

When I walked back out, Marlowe had already left the restaurant. I knew he was outside waiting for me in the car. That’s how sure he was of me. There were two uniformed officers sitting at the counter. They hadn’t been there when I entered the bathroom, but now they sat, both drinking coffee from white ceramic mugs. Their radios chattered; large revolvers hung at their hips. Their shirts were bulky with the Kevlar they wore beneath. I think we were in Pennsylvania at the time. I remember that the uniforms were brown, light shirts with dark jackets and pants. One of them laughed at something the other said.

Everything around me slowed and warped as I approached the counter where they sat. Save yourself, if you still can. I imagined walking right up to them and turning myself in. Marlowe would have been able to get away. I would tell them he’d left me here, that he’d let me go, and they’d arrest me. They’d take me into the station in the back of their car. Maybe they’d call my father. He’d come get me. I’d finally tell him I wasn’t all right and that he needed to take care of me. And he would, this time he would.

But I didn’t stop. I walked right by the two men. Neither of them noticed me as I walked out the door into the cold night. Marlowe was waiting for me outside the door. I slipped into the car, a stolen Cadillac. The heat was cranking.

“Cops are so unbelievably stupid, man,” he said with a laugh, as he peeled out of the lot.

Save yourself, if you still can. I couldn’t.

I have abandoned and betrayed myself so many times, given so much over for any poor facsimile of love. I have never been true to Ophelia; I have locked her in a cage deep within myself, depriving her of light and air, and kept her from growing up. I have denied her. I have killed her. I have done all this because I judged her and found her unworthy. Of all the people who have wronged Ophelia, I am the worst offender. But now I have had to reclaim her and do right by her to save my daughter.

The irony of this is not lost on me as I walk quickly on wet concrete. I pass the glaring windows of a music store. The glowing album covers, lit from behind, feature the faces of too-thin, carefully grungy pop stars and cast a yellow light at my feet. People who buy and sell music albums are living in a different world from me; their lives seem frivolous and foreign. I wait on the corner in the rain as cars and taxis race past me. I can see my father’s shop across the street, and it’s all I can do not to race into traffic to get there. The shop is closed, but I can see the blue flickering light of a television screen in the windows above.

New York City. How did I get here? The truth is, I don’t quite know. Already I doubt my memories of the sinkhole, the ship and the man named Dax, the metal room and the Angry Man. But the picture of Victory in my pocket and the necklace I’m wearing make me think some of it might be close to the truth.

I woke up on a commuter train pulling into Grand Central Station. I was wearing fresh clothes I’ve never seen before and a long black raincoat. Leather boots. People around me chatted on cell phones, stared blankly at small handheld screens, headphones plugged into their ears. I gazed at my reflection in the window beside me, saw that my hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail at the base of my neck. I had dark circles under my eyes.

At the train station, I was swept into a current of people moving determinedly toward wherever they were going. I saw a bank of pay phones and wondered whom I could call now. I want desperately to call Gray or Vivian, but I can’t do that. There’s too much at stake, and I don’t know whom to trust.

The traffic clears now, and I cross the street. I stand in the vestibule and press the buzzer to my father’s apartment. I press it five, six times, hard, hoping to express my urgency this way. Finally I hear heavy boots on the stairs.

“Hold on, for crying out loud!” my father barks. “French, if that’s you, I’m going to beat your ass.”

An old man who looks like a badly aged version of my father bangs into view. It takes me a second to accept that it is him. He sees me then and stops in his tracks, leans a hand against the wall and closes his eyes.

“Dad,” I say, and my voice sounds scratchy and uncertain. He looks awful, ragged and overtired. His clothes are rumpled and hanging off him a bit, as though he’s lost a lot of weight recently and hasn’t bothered to replace them.

He reaches for the door, swings it open, and pulls me into a bear hug. He has never done that. Never. Even though it’s awkward to be embraced by him, this one thing almost makes up for all the ways he has screwed up as a father. I breathe in his scent of booze and cigarettes. It has been almost seven years since I’ve seen him.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “You’re supposed to be dead, Ophelia. Again.”

“I think I’m going to die out here.”

Marlowe said this matter-of-factly, as though he couldn’t care less. The thought of his death was something I couldn’t handle. It filled me with a perfect storm of hope and terror. We were in New Mexico, somewhere between Taos and Santa Fe. From the road he’d seen an old church, a tiny white adobe building, glowing like a beacon. He’d pulled over without a word, stepped out of the car, and starting walking toward it. I followed him, taking in the scent of sage and juniper that was heavy in the air.

The building was dark, the wood and wrought-iron doors locked tight. I looked in the window and saw the flickering rows of votive candles inside twinkling like fireflies. He lay down on the small patch of grass inside the fence around the church, and I came to sit beside him. He folded his arms behind his head and took a long, deep breath, released it slowly. The desert air was cool, the sky above alive with stars. I was a city girl. I didn’t even know there were that many stars in the heavens.

“If it looks like we’re going to get caught, I’m going to die.”

I let the words hang in the air for a few breaths.

“You’re going to kill yourself?” I asked.

He shook his head, turned those dark eyes on me, and I looked away. I couldn’t stand to look at his face anymore. Every time I did, I heard screaming, saw a river of blood.