David Wallace - Oblivion

‘And it is not possible that some of these hallucinations you feel as though you are experiencing might be auditory? That you are sometimes rasping or snoring and do not realize it because you are, as you put it, hallucinating?’

‘But I know when I am hallucinating. The photograph of your wife and daughter or perhaps conceivably stepdaughter or niece here on your desk — the daughter’s face is beginning ever so slightly to whirl and distend. That is a hallucination. I mean “hallucination” in the very broadest sense. These are not hallucinations which mimic reality or can be confused with it. Sometimes, for instance, trying to shave in the mirror, my visage will appear to have an extra eye in the center of my forehead, whose pupil is sometimes rotated or “set” on its “side” like a cat or nocturnal predator’s, or occasionally our Audrey’s chest on Parents’ Weekend at Bryn Mawr’s two breasts will go up and down in her sweater like pistons and her head is surrounded by a halo or, as it were, “nimbus” of animated Disney characters. When these hallucinations occur, I am able to say to myself, “Randall, you are hallucinating slightly due to chronic sleep deprivation compounded by discord and chronic stress.”’

‘But they must still be frightening. I know they would certainly frighten me.’

‘The point is that I know when I’m hallucinating and when I’m not, just as I also quite obviously know when I’m asleep or not.’) At which juncture an additional momentary, hallucinatory ‘flash’ or vision of our Audrey supine in a beached canoe and myself straining piston-like above her, my face whirling and beginning to distend as the tableau or Fata morgana shifts almost immediately back to the present day’s 19th Hole or ‘the Hole,’ with our Audrey — now 19 and burgeoned into full woman-hood or the ‘Age of consent’—in her familiar saffron bustier, ‘Capri’ style pants and white, elbow length gloves now moving smoothly or languidly among the tables, stools and chairs, languidly serving high-balls to wet men. Nor should one omit to add that Jack Vivien was now there, as well, at the window-side table in the 19th Hole with myself and Dr. Sipe, also with a beverage and seated on ‘Father’’s right or ‘off’ side. Jack Vivien wore none of the customary golfer’s jacket or visor, as well as appearing dry, unhurried and, as always, collected or unflustered, although he nevertheless still wore his spikes or ‘Golf shoes’ (the traditional shoe’s sole’s 0.5 inch steel or iron spikes being the culprit or component which conducts electricity with such ‘hair raising’ efficacy. The public course’s resident ‘Pro’ in Wilkes Barre, in my boyhood, for instance, was once struck and killed instantly by lightning, and my own Father had been in the trio of other golfers who had bravely remained in the open with the stricken lightning victim until a physician could be summoned and arrive, the ‘Pro’ lying prone and blackened and still holding the Twelfth hole’s flag [whose pole, or ‘pin,’ like traditional golfers’ spikes, was, in that era, still comprised of conductive metal] in his smoking fist.), and here the logistics of his entrance or ‘logic’ of the ‘coincidence’ which brought him, dry and, as it were, ‘bright eyed’ (Jack Vivien having bright or ‘expressive’ eyes in a markedly large, broad, if somewhat flat or immobile or ‘expressionless’ [with the exception of the animated, ‘thoughtful’ eyes] face, as well as a sharp, dark ‘Van Dyke’ style beard which served to compensate or de-emphasize the somewhat unusual qualities of his mouth’s size and position), to our table in ‘the Hole’ at this precise point in time is somewhat unclear and, in retrospect, contrived or, as it were, ‘suspicious.’ It is, for example, unlikely that Jack Vivien and Hope’s stepfather knew one another, as not only was ‘Father’ not a member of the Raritan Club and had played as a ‘Guest’ only once or twice prior to this time, but in reality Jack (or, more formally, ‘Chester’) Vivien served as a high ranking Employee Assistance executive at my own company (whose physical plant, or, ‘Nerve center’ was located in Elizabeth), a company which ‘Father’ had made rather a point, numerous times, of implying or characterizing as so ephemeral or unimportant to the region’s insurance industry as to have caused him never once to have encountered or ‘heard one word about’ it throughout his entire tenure at ‘The Rock.’ Nor did Hope’s stepfather appear to speak to, look at or in any way to acknowledge the presence of Jack Vivien (whom, through his role in the recent ‘snoring’ issue’s attempted resolution, I had gotten acquainted with rather well) as he got the thing finally alight and leaned back at a slight smoker’s angle in his ‘captain’s’ chair, smoking slowly and joining Jack Vivien (whose circumoral balbo or ‘Van Dyke’ was, admittedly, frankly and incongruously ‘merkin-esque’ or pudendal in appearance, I myself being far from the only person in Systems to remark this) in looking appraisingly at me as I covered first one eye and then the other (a well known ‘home-remedy’ for common optical illusions). It was clearly evident that ‘Father’ did not ‘approve of’ or like what he currently saw: an, as it were, ‘second string’ son-in-law with a mediocre Handicap and background in addition to a trivial or undistinguished career, one whose personal affairs were in disarray and appeared potentially ‘on the rocks’ over a conflict this trivial and absurd with a wife who was, herself, clearly merely suffering from either the ‘Empty nest’ syndrome, early symptoms of the climacteric or mere incubi or bad dreams (more clinically known as ‘Night terrors’), and yet could not manage to be assertive, assuasive or ‘man’ enough to convince her that these natural and de minimis causes were at their so-called ‘impasse’’s core, and who now seemed all too obviously to be working up the courage or ‘nerve’ to ask ‘Father’ himself to use his paternal influence or authority over Hope ( pace that he was, of course, when convenient, merely or ‘just’ her stepfather, and in his pale eyes was what sometimes looked or appeared to be the terrible stepfatherly knowledge of what our Audrey could have been to me, perhaps as Hope — as well as Vivian [as she had ‘hysterically’ claimed to have later been professionally helped to ‘Recover’ unconscious memories of] — had once served as or been to himself; and it was not at all difficult to conceive almost at will a low angle image or vision or nightmarish ‘shot’ of his prone face just above, engorged and straining, one well freckled right hand clamped tight over Hope or Vivian [the two of whom appear almost ‘interchangeably’ alike in childhood photos] beneath him’s open mouth, and his crushing weight thoroughly and terribly adult) to intercede in the conflict, though it was neither the old man’s ‘place’ nor remote intention to do so, as anyone with any discernment or ‘eyes with which to see’ should be capable of seeing.

More specifically, it had been Chester A. (or, ‘Jack’) Vivien — age: ‘Mid 50s,’ Handicap: ‘11,’ marital status: ‘Unknown,’ and the Director of Employee Assistance Programs for Advanced Data Capture (our company’s legal name)’s Elizabeth operations — to whose coveted, corner office I’d finally gone with my ‘hat in hand’ in order to confide the entire absurd, seemingly quotidian or banal, conjugal ‘snoring’ impasse, and its escalating impact on my marriage, health and ability to function productively in my Dept. within Systems. This had been the prior March. Though his résumé included an ‘advanced’ or Graduate degree in the field of industrial psychology from Cornell University (which is located in northern or ‘up-State’ New York), Jack Vivien was no mere counselor or ‘front line’ staff for Advanced Data Capture’s ‘E.A.P.’ (as it is often known) program, but rather had been deliberately hired away from Weyerhauser Paper, Inc.’s Brunswick operation several years prior in order to specifically manage and oversee the entire ‘E.A.P.’ program, and now served also as ‘Administrative liaison’ for the company’s P.P.O. Group Health Plan program, which evidently required considerable managerial and accounting expertise, as well. Jack Vivien and I had always gotten ‘on’ and enjoyed a mutual regard. We were frequently (when his chronic lower back condition permitted) in the same flight at company tournaments during warm weather months, and sometimes enjoyed light conversation together in the cart on Par 4s and\or 5s while waiting for other members of our foursome to locate an errant ball or ‘hole out’ on the hole’s green. More importantly, it was Jack Vivien who, in late March, had subsequently suggested or ‘Throw[n] out [the] idea [of]’ the reportedly highly respected Edmund R. and Meredith R. Darling Memorial Sleep Clinic, which, he said, was affiliated or ensconced within the teaching hospital affiliated with Rutgers University in ‘in-State’ Brunswick, as a possible option. It had also been Jack — as opposed to either of the supposedly ‘expert,’ professional Couple counselors I had gone to some lengths to consult or ‘see,’ in desperation, some months prior — who had made an almost immediate ‘impression’ by quickly ‘Cut[ting] to the chase’ and inquiring — somewhat ‘leadingly’ or ‘rhetorically,’ but without condescension or a sense of being patronized — whether I myself, on balance, would prefer to prevail or ‘win’ in the conflict and be vindicated as ‘innocent’ or ‘right,’ on one hand, or would rather instead have Hope and myself’s marriage back on track and to once more derive pleasure in one another’s company and affections and to resume its being possible to get enough uninterrupted sleep at night to be able to function effectively and feel more like ‘[my]self again.’