Gary Braver - Elixir

"Donk, donk."

"That's it, that's it," Jenny laughed. It was the only moment of peace the whole evening. Before Ted stomped out of the house for his card game with the boys, they had had a big fight. He didn't like how much they had gotten themselves involved with her fugitive sister and her husband. "Their faces are all over the networks," he had shouted.

"She's my sister."

"I don't care if she's the Virgin Mary. If they find out we helped them, they'll put us away for twenty fucking years."

She hated him when he got loud and vulgar. She hated how his face contorted and turned red, and the filthy language that flowed out of his mouth like raw sewage. "Will you please lower your voice? The baby can hear you."

"The baby, the baby. Is that all you think of? We supplied bogus IDs to the most wanted criminals in the fucking country, and you're worried about the baby waking up. Jesus!" He jabbed a finger at his forehead. "Sometimes I think you're not all there."

Jenny deflected that. "Well, it's not the first time you've done something outside the law."

They both knew what she was talking about. In the late seventies, the Internal Revenue Service had caught Ted for tax evasion and sentenced him to three years in prison. Jenny also suspected that he had something to do with a car-theft ring that exported stolen luxury vehicles to Europe and the Middle East.

"You bitch. You just don't let go, do you? The dog shits once, and you just keep rubbing his nose in it."

"Will you please stop swearing. She'll hear you."

"Jesus!" he shouted in frustration. "Now I know why that kid of yours is such a flako." He grabbed his keys and left the house, slamming the door behind him.

She heard him drive off, thinking how for years Wendy had complained that Chris was never home. How Jenny envied her that. She loved it when Ted was gone. He knew nothing about the sensitivity of children-how impressionable they were. That was the problem with men. They created a vulgar and dangerous world unfit for the babies they sired.

Jenny ran upstairs. All the shouting had aroused Abigail. "Don't cry, my little angel, don't cry," she cooed, as she took her in her arms. "Daddy's been bad, but he's gone now. And Mommy's right here."

Jenny dimmed the light and sat in the rocking chair while the music box tinkled softly in the background.

"Don't cry, my little beauty, don't cry. Mommy's going to be your mommy for a long long time," she said, and her eyes fell on the two glass vials sitting on the nightstand.

On schedule, Wendy called Friday morning to say that she had a complete set of new ID's-licenses, birth certificates, and social security cards. Their names were Roger and Laura Glover, and their son was Brett.

He liked the names but couldn't process the fact that when she returned they would no longer be known as Christopher, Wendy, and Adam Bacon. It was too much to hold onto.

In fact, Chris's mind was having problems holding much of anything. His metabolism had kicked into turbo. It was like being on amphetamines nonstop. He could not focus. Were it not for Adam, he would have gone for a long burning run. Instead, he put the baby down and made a mental note that there were three things he had to do that night-three MUST-DOs: Check up on Adam. Pick up Wendy. Take his next Elixir injection.

If another treatment made him even more hyper, he'd take some Xanax-what Ross Darby once recommended for insomnia.

He shot out back to the pile of tree trunks. The night was clear and frigid, the sky pinpricked with a million stars. Low on the horizon of trees rose a fat white moon. Over the last week he had moved to the chainsaw. The sound traveled, but there were too few winter residents about to take notice. Besides, he got a lot more wood cut. It was also much more exciting. He pulled the cord, and the saw growled into action.

In the light from the deck he worked the saw, cutting logs until he had a huge pile. He did that for an hour until his hands felt fused to the machine-as if the muscles of his arms had grown over the grips and up the blade of the rotor, its high-whining barbs powered by the heat of his own blood and blotting out all awareness but the raw pleasure of grinding through the timbers and spitting up dust and smoke and filling his head with a gratifying roar.

He chainsawed until he ran out of gas, then refilled it and continued cutting, knowing in the back of his mind that he had passed into some crazed auto-mode.

Someplace deep down a voice whispered of things he couldn't forget- three of them.

Adam.

He snapped off the saw and bolted back into the house. The baby was in a deep sleep still. "Good," he whispered, and shot outside again.

A flick of his arm, and the chain screamed into action, and he cut until the motor choked out again.

You 're forgetting something

Adam's fine, he told himself. So he refilled the tank and pulled the cord to action.

Something else. Wendy. Pick up Wendy… Where, though? Where was Wendy?

Bus station.

Lake Placid.

The thoughts came to him in little periodic bursts. Bursts that were getting farther apart. Lake Placid. Plenty of time.

time

What time?

He put the saw down still idling and ran into the house and checked Adam. His eyes passed by the clock, but nothing registered. Not the fact that it was 9:45 and he was supposed to be on the road by now.

Back outside he revved the saw then screamed through another ten-foot trunk of oak until he had neat fat logs in a pile.

forgot something else

time

Adam

something else

He turned it off the chain saw and looked around as if expecting somebody to step up with a cue card. He walked toward the lake. The surface was a brilliant sheet dusted with diamonds. It was a magical scene, and for a long moment he just stood by the banks taking it all in, his head still buzzing from the saw.

Without thinking he plopped onto the ground. He was sweating profusely, his shirt icy against his skin. He rubbed the cold metal band of his watch. In the moonlight he noticed the small hand on the eleven, the long one on the three. But it didn't register because he felt faint.

He got up hoping that movement would help. Guided by the moonlight, he began walking but instead of heading toward the house he moved into the woods without thought. Deeper into the thick he stumbled until he was totally disoriented and feeling fainter, driven onward in hope of remembering just what he had forgotten to do.

Wendy.

He braced himself on a tree. "Where's Wendy?" he said out loud.

Coming home

"Have to get Wendy. Almost forgot."

You forgot something else

He turned and saw the moonlight through the trees and he felt his body jolt.

"It was horrible. He just shriveled up like that."

" Oh, God, no. Nooooo…"

He stumbled toward the moon, thinking it was the warm bright lights of home, with Wendy inside and Mom and Dad and baby Adam all by the fire. And a big bed.

and in the big bed was…

gotta get back before it's too late.

not enough time.

gotta take my shot.

no, not the insulin

ELIXIR

ELIXIR

He saw the bed, open and clean white glistening sheets so wide and smooth… I want to go home. Not feeling good. Body sore. Hurts me.

me hurt

He flopped on the bed and spit out a tooth. The tip of his tongue found the gaping hole. He put his finger inside and felt another wiggle. His teeth were breaking off in jagged pieces. It was horrible. They filled his mouth and he spit them out.

His head ached. He pulled off his gloves and ran his fingers across the scalp. Large clumps of hair came off in his hands. His head felt cold. He was going bald by the second.