Chuck Palahniuk - Lullaby

The police scanner says a code three-eleven.

I say, I'm sorry. Grabbing her wasn't right. I pinch the crease in my pant legs and pull them up to show her the purple bruises on my shins.

«That's different,» Mona says. «I was defending myself.»

I stamp my foot a couple times and say my infection's a lot better. I say, thank you.

And Helen yells, «Mona? What's another way of saying “butchered”?»

Mona says, «On your way out, we need to have a little talk.»

In the inner office, Helen's facedown in an open book. It's a Hebrew dictionary. Next to it is a guide to classical Latin. Under that is a book about Aramaic. Next to that is an unfolded copy of the culling spell. The trash can next to the desk is filled with paper coffee cups.

I say, hey.

And Helen looks up. There's a coffee stain on her green lapel. The grimoire is open next to the Hebrew dictionary. And Helen blinks once, twice, three times and says, «Mr. Streator.»

I ask if she'd like to get some lunch. I still need to go up against John Nash, to confront him. I was hoping she might give me something for an edge. An invisibility spell, maybe. Or a mind-control spell. Maybe something so I won't have to kill him. I come around to see what she's translating.

And Helen slides a sheet of paper on top of the grimoire, saying, «I'm a little occupied today.» With a pen in one hand, she waits. With the other hand, she shuts the dictionary. She says, «Shouldn't you be hiding from the police?»

And I say, how about a movie?

And she says, «Not this weekend.»

I say, how about I get us tickets to the symphony?

And Helen waves a hand between us and says, «Do what you want.»

And I say, great. Then it's a date.

Helen puts her pen in the pink hair behind her ear. She opens another book and lays it on top of the Hebrew book. With one finger holding her place in a dictionary, Helen looks up and says, «It's not that I don't like you. It's just that I'm very, very busy right now.»

In the open grimoire, sticking out from one edge of it is a name. Written in the margin of a page is today's name, today's assassination target. It says, Carl Streator.

Helen closes the grimoire and says, «You understand.»

The police scanner says a code seven-two.

I ask if she's coming to see me, tonight, in the Gartoller house. Standing in the doorway to her office, I say I can't wait to be with her again. I need her.

And Helen smiles and says, «That's the idea.»

In the outer office, Mona catches me around the wrist. She picks up her purse and loops the strap over her shoulder, yelling, «Helen, I'm going out for lunch.» To me, she says, «We need to talk, but outside.» She unlocks the door to let us out.

In the parking lot, standing next to my car, Mona shakes her head, saying, «You have no idea what's happening, do you?»

I'm in love. So kill me.

«With Helen?» she says. She snaps her fingers in my face and says, «You're not in love.» She sighs and says, «You ever hear of a love spell?»

For whatever reason, Nash screwing dead women comes to mind.

«Helen's found a spell to trap you,» Mona says. «You're in her power. You don't really love her.»

I don't?

Mona stares into my eyes and says, «When was the last time you thought about burning the grimoire?» She points at the ground and says, «This? What you call love? It's just her way of dominating you.»

A car drives up and parks, and inside is Oyster. He just shakes the hair back off his eyes, and sits behind the steering wheel, watching us. The shattered blond hair exploded in every direction. Two deep parallel lines, slash scars, run across each cheek. Dark red war paint.

His cell phone rings, and Oyster answers it, «Doland, Dimms and Dorn, Attorneys-at-Law.»

The big power grab.

But I love Helen.

«No,» Mona says. She glances at Oyster. «You just think you do. She's tricked you.»

But it's love.

«I've known Helen a lot longer than you have,» Mona says. She folds her arms and looks at her wristwatch. «It's not love. It's a beautiful, sweet spell, but she's making you into her slave.»

Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When they had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving them an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave.

Athena was telling them to fall in love.

Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy.

Between television and radio and Helen Hoover Boyle's magic spells, I don't know what I really want anymore. If I even believe myself, I don't know.

That night, Helen drives us to the antique store, the big warehouse where she's mutilated so much furniture. It's dark and closed, but she presses her hand over a lock and says a quick poem, and the door swings open. No burglar alarms sound. Nothing. We're wandering deep into the maze of furniture, the dark disconnected chandeliers hanging above us. Moonlight glows in through the skylights.

«See how easy,» Helen says. «We can do anything. »

No, I say, she can do anything.

Helen says, «You still love me?»

If she wants me to. I don't know. If she says so.

Helen looks up at the looming chandeliers, the hanging cages of gilt and crystal, and she says, «Got time for a quickie?»

And I say, it's not like I have a choice.

I don't know the difference between what I want and what I'm trained to want.

I can't tell what I really want and what I've been tricked into wanting.

What I'm talking about is free will. Do we have it, or does God dictate and script everything we do and say and want? Do we have free will, or do the mass media and our culture control us, our desires and actions, from the moment we're born? Do I have it, or is my mind under the control of Helen's spell?

Standing in front of a Regency armoire of burled walnut with a huge mirror of beveled glass in the door, Helen strokes the carved scrolls and garlands and says, «Become immortal with me.»

Like this furniture, traveling through life after life, watching everyone who loves us die. Parasites. These armoires. Helen and I, the cockroaches of our culture.

Scarred across the mirrored door is an old gouged slash from her diamond ring. From back when she hated this immortal junk.

Imagine immortality, where even a marriage of fifty years would feel like a one-night stand. Imagine seeing trends and fashions blur past you. Imagine the world more crowded and desperate every century. Imagine changing religions, homes, diets, careers, until none of them have any real value. Imagine traveling the world until you're bored with every square inch. Imagine your emotions, your loves and hates and rivalries and victories, played out again and again until life is nothing more than a melodramatic soap opera. Until you regard the birth and death of other people with no more emotion than the wilted cut flowers you throw away.

I tell Helen, I think we're immortal already.

She says, «I have the power.» She snaps open her purse and fishes out a sheet of folded paper, she shakes the paper open and says, «Do you know about “scrying”?»

I don't know what I know. I don't know what's true. I doubt I really know anything. I say, tell me.

Helen slips a silk scarf from around her neck and wipes the dust off the huge mirrored door of the armoire. The Regency armoire with inlaid olive-wood carvings and Second Empire fire-gilded hardware, according to the index card taped to it. She says, «Witches spread oil on a mirror, then they say a spell, and they can read the future in the mirror.»

The future, I say, great. Cheatgrass. Kudzu. The Nile perch.