Porochista Khakpour - The Last Illusion

“Of course — it’s my birthday! Happy birthday to me!” Zal hooted loudly.

Hendricks took his keys from him and let him in.

The inside of the apartment was a wreck, as he expected, but a worse wreck than he imagined, given Zal’s appearance: crumpled newspapers all over the floor, something that looked like sunflower seed covering the couch, empty bottles of beer and wine, and bulbless lamps. The place was dark, completely dark.

“What do you do for light, son?”

“I don’t,” Zal muttered as he lay on his couch. “Cake time?”

“Cake time,” Hendricks agreed, still depressed, feeling his way to the bathroom light. “When did you start drinking, Zal?”

“I don’t drink!” Zal shouted.

“Okay, okay,” Hendricks muttered. “Where is Asiya?”

“Dead,” Zal snapped.

“Dead?!”

Zal made a barking sound, cleared his throat, and said finally, “We broke up.”

Hendricks could not help but be wide-eyed at that. “Really?”

“Another cause for celebration!” Zal said, applauding.

Hendricks remained silent. “Any matches, Zal?”

“I don’t want light!”

“For the cake, Zal, for the cake,” he said. “I wanted to sing you ‘Happy Birthday.’”

It was then that Zal burst into tears, horrible endless tears, the ones he hadn’t bothered to shed for months and months. They had been so bottled up, he hadn’t even known how badly they’d wanted to come out. He cried and he cried and he cried in his father’s arms.

“Don’t worry, son, you’re back with your father, you’ll be okay,” Hendricks cooed, rocking him. “And we’re going to my house for a little while. Let’s gather what you need in a moment.”

When Zal finally stopped crying, he had one question: “Why do you think I can cry so easily, but can’t smile?”

Hendricks tried to tip his head back so his own tears wouldn’t fall out — for Zal, that night especially, he had to be strong. “I don’t think anyone knows, Zal,” he said. “But if it’s going to happen to anyone, it’s gonna be you.”

Neither Hendricks nor Zal told Rhodes about their reunion. For Zal, Rhodes was still a part of a past he didn’t want to face, but for Hendricks it was purely too risky — he couldn’t have another professional tell him that what he was doing was bad for his own child. On this, there was nothing to do but follow his heart.

So Zal stayed with him, in a semi-permanent manner, constantly saying that the next day he’d leave, but when the day would come, there would be no sign of any change. Zal would still be lying on the sofa, eating and eating and eating — Hendricks was determined to get the boy to gain weight, so he filled his home with Zal’s favorite foods, at least the favorites he knew of — and watching television, never wanting to go out, never wanting to do anything really.

It occurred to Hendricks that Zal might be depressed and that he would have to call Rhodes if this was the case, but he refused to accept it fully. Hendricks was back to the mind-set of the decade before: he told himself all his boy needed was his father.

And Hendricks, of course, needed him, too. He began to take up a Zal-like existence — they spent their days together in pajamas, buried in junk food, entranced by talk shows. Once in a while Hendricks got them both to take a walk or go out for a meal, but aside from that, they were like roommates dorm-bound over spring break while the rest of the world celebrated blue skies and perfect temperatures.

One day in early April, Hendricks got a call from, of all people, Asiya.

Zal was, as usual, on the couch just a few feet away, and Hendricks was determined not to let Zal know who it was.

“Oh, hello,” Hendricks said, trying to sound casual, and then in a lowered voice, “How did you get this number?”

“You’re listed,” Asiya sighed. “Anyway, I’m sorry to call you out of the blue — I know we don’t know each other very well and that it’s been quite a while.”

“Right, we don’t, and yes, it has.”

“Right, so I had to call because I tried to call Zal and his phone was disconnected and his cell has been off for weeks, it seems like, and I went by his place and no one was there, at two different times. I don’t know if you know, but we’ve broken up. .”

“Oh, I know,” muttered Hendricks, keeping his eye on the oblivious Zal.

“Oh, so you two are talking now?”

“Yes. Can I help you with something?” he said, trying and failing to hide his irritation.

“Well, I just need to talk to him,” she said, trying her hardest to sound sweet and sane. “I mean, it’s just about a small matter, and yet an important one. It’s nothing big, but I think he should know. . about a friend of his. . a good friend. .”

“Um, I don’t think he’s around.”

That did it. Zal, as if telepathically charged — either that or he was an expert spy — darted upright. “Who?! Me?”

Hendricks sighed. “Hold on,” he said gruffly to Asiya, then put his hand over the receiver and said, wearily, to Zal, “It’s your old girlfriend. I don’t know what she wants. Something about a friend. . but, Zal, I can tell her you don’t want to talk, you know.”

Hendricks and Zal had barely discussed Asiya, so Hendricks had assumed things were pretty bad. Wishful thinking, he thought as he saw a strange look in Zal’s eyes, the look people on TV took on when they played the hypnotized, a dreamy faraway look that suddenly manifested itself in an outstretched hand.

“Really, Zal?” Hendricks whispered, holding the receiver like it was a dead mouse, like it was actually her, the worst thing he could wish on his son at that moment.

Zal nodded slowly.

Hendricks slowly passed the phone to him and did the only thing he knew to be right: he walked away and locked himself in his bedroom and put his fingers in his ears, should anything get to him. It wasn’t just Zal’s privacy; in some ways he simply just did not want to know, did not want to think Zal was anything but that little boy of just a few years ago who was all his.

Zal, meanwhile, for a moment felt catatonic. He held the phone to his ear and just listened for her breathing.

He didn’t hear a thing, as if she were holding it.

He breathed heavily to send her a sign.

She bit: “Zal, you there?”

“Hello,” he said, trying to sound almost computerized with professionalism.

She thought he sounded funny. “Hi, Zal, you okay?”

“Yes. I am. Are you?”

“Yes,” she said, and sighed. “Happy belated birthday. I tried to call then, but your phone was off.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Well, how are you?”

“I am. .” and Zal thought about how best to put it, “alive, for the most part.”

Asiya paused and then said, “Me, too.”

There was some silence.

“So why did you call?” Zal eventually asked.

“I miss you,” she said.

He said nothing.

“You don’t, Zal?”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t miss me?”

Zal paused. There was so much politics involved in that simple question — that much he knew, that much he had learned about relationships. “I do in some ways. In some ways, I don’t.”

She sighed heavily. “I thought so. Well. .”

Zal could tell there was more. “Is that all?”

“No.”

“Okay, what then?”

“Please don’t hang up on me.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“You could.”

“It’s true. But I won’t. Why would I?”

“Because,” she said, sounding whimperish. “Because I could annoy you.”

“Hmm. Well, it’s less likely since we haven’t talked for a while.”