Dark On my tenth birthday, my parents threw me what they thought was the equivalent of the Macy's Thanksgiving parade. My entire class was invited. I was massively bored through the entire event; kids screeching at bruised knees; the oohing and aahing that came as I unwrapped my gifts (which mainly consisted of inanities like wind-up cars, G.I. Joe action figures, and cheaply made squirt guns); the nauseating birthday cake that later gave me heartburn and left me throwing up in the upstairs bathroom for a total of thirteen minutes. It was a tiring affair. Midway through the celebration, I saw a man standing on the outskirts of my backyard. He was dressed all in black and was wearing a tailormade fedora, also black. It disquieted me, and I stared at him with a mixture of trepidation and fright. He wiggled his fingers at me in a sardonic manner and grinned at me, displaying blackened teeth caked with disease. I thought that if I was directly in front of him I would see maggots squirming through his hair and worms slithering through his ears in some type of mad dance. He pointed at me. I looked back at him. He said something that I didn't quite catch. Hey Mom, I said in a wavering voice, Who's that weird looking guy over there? She looked over. The guy, surprise surprise, was gone. Who? she asked with a wide, fake smile. Uh, no one, I said. I was just kidding around. Ha. Ha. I had an odd dream that night -- I was running down a hallway and the guy was chasing me shouting in a loud baritone. I kept running and he kept gaining until he finally caught up to me and placed his hands around my throat. I struggled. He placed a hand on my forehead and I suddenly woke up, stifling a scream against my pillow and tasting acidic, sour bile in the back of my throat. I had a headache that was intensifying with each breath I took. I moaned and pressed my fingers against my skull in a futile attempt to still the migraine that made my head feel as if there was a symphony orchestra practicing inside of it. I thought better of going in to tell my mother because she would ask why my head had suddenly started aching so I tried to ignore the pain and pass back off into non-contented slumber. I stayed awake that entire night and dragged through the next day as if I were living my nightmare over again.
That was thirteen years ago.
My parents are both dead now. I'm sad about it, but I've realized that life works that way. You live, you die. Someday, I'm going to die, and the cycle will begin anew as soon as my body hits the packed dirt of the freshly dug grave. I live in an apartment in a dead-end street with two whores living downstairs, a drug-dealer next to me, and some guy upstairs has apparently taken an interest in wearing high-heels and earrings. That's his deal. My apartment isn't much; a kitchen that I barely use; a "den", I guess you could call it, that consists of a chessboard and a small television with the control knob broken off, and a bedroom. There's a bed in there, logically, and a dresser containing my small selection of clothing, and my typewriter. It's an antique -- you know, the ones you pop a piece of paper into and the keys that flip up. I live alone and rarely go outside because I find that ninety percent of the population grates on me, with their "Hey, let's go out and get laid" and "There's a big party at so-and-so's, we're going to get really drunk and have a lot of fun" and their subtle insecurities that they repress. So I rarely go out. It's a lot easier to live in this world if you ignore the bad people and don't search for the good. Just wait. You'll find them. On May 16th, I was at my editor's building with a bundle of papers ready for submission. Editorials, stuff like that. I was sitting in the waiting room and happened to glance out the window. I saw a guy across the street. Dressed all in black. Tailormade black fedora. He waved at me. I could see him a bit more clearly than when I was ten; his face, his entire body, was pale. He was wearing sunglasses. He smiled and waved. I got up in a rush and hurried out and across the street and threw a right hook into his pasty-white jaw. I blinked and stood over him, my breath coming out in white puffs, my face beet-red, hands shaking. I looked down and realized that I had punched a small guy in a brown overcoat with a handlebar mustache. His glasses lay on the ground next to him. He was snivelling and whining to me, saying Please, take my wallet, take my money, don't hurt me. People were looking at me in shocked disgust. I picked up his glasses and apologized and gave him a ten dollar bill. Sorry, man, I thought you were somebody else. He backed away from me warily and threatened to tell the cops so I backed into Stills' office and sat down, my heart racing. I put my head between my knees. Five seconds later, I felt the beginnings of another headache creeping into my skull. I groaned softly and the secretary, who had dyed blonde hair and contact lenses, asked me if I was all right. I asked her for some Tylenol and she gave me two yellow tablets which I took. They took the edge off of the migraine but it was still pounding away. She looked visibly disturbed. Mr. Stills will be finished in a few moments, she said. I thanked her and absently looked out the window again. The guy was back. He was rubbing his jaw and staring at me. He mimed a punch and grinned, revealing that he had still not discovered the toothbrush. I looked down and closed my eyes and glared back out through the window. Why me? I asked the ceiling. Stills finished masturbating or talking to his stuffed animals or whatever the hell he does in his office and finally let me in. He was impressed with my articles and indicated so with a slight nod. I left with a slight bounce in my step and with the agonizing grinding in my head toned down a notch. All memories of the guy in black bounced away. On my walk home, I passed by a bum lying in a puddle of his own waste who grinned at me with decaying teeth. That brought the memory of the dark man back and I increased my walking speed. When I got home my headache had returned with a vengeance and I threw up into my bathroom sink. I wiped my mouth and noticed my teeth were chattering. My sleep that night was erratic. I woke up periodically with a feeling of intense dread, shivering. My dreams were filled of black hats and silent laughter. I woke up in a cold sweat and felt like I was being watched. I got up and microwaved some Jiffy-Pop then threw it out because I didn't feel I could keep anything down. As I stood near the garbage can I heard a shrill, nearly incoherent voice screeching in my ears You are the deliverer, you are the deliverer. What the hell? I thought in a daze. What the fuck is a deliverer? This sounds like a cheap fucking horror movie, like Halloween XX .
I couldn't get back to sleep that night. At eight A.M. I got a phone call from somebody who thinks that he's my friend so I bullshitted with him for awhile about nothing and agreed to meet him for breakfast at ten A.M. I got myself ready and when I looked in the mirror saw that my eye was bleeding. , I clapped my right hand to it and felt a deep thrum eminating from the other eye, as if something was locked within. I shut both eyes hard and screamed in the empty, enclosed bathroom. I began shaking and fell to my knees. I opened my eyes and got up again and there was no blood. None at all. I blinked a few times and then I brushed my teeth. At 9:30 I walked out of my apartment and began the short commute to the breakfast club I had agreed to meet my friend at. I was exceedingly nervous; I felt that at any moment, a car might come rushing out to end my life or someone would knife me in the back. But I arrived at the breakfast diner with no apparent death, and saw my friend sitting in a booth. He waved me over. We exchanged small talk for a little while and eventually got onto the subject of why my writing had been so dark and...moody. I shrugged modestly and said that I was having some problems at home. Jeffrey looked worried and asked me what sort of problems I was having. I replied that I had been thinking about my childhood a lot and I dodged the next question, which was Why are you thinking about your childhood? by saying that my childhood was unhappy. Which, technically, it was. I glanced out the window and was greeted with a pallid, grinning face that had now become horrifyingly familiar. I shrieked and threw my coffee cup at him with a fierce backhand lob. Jeffrey looked at me with an expression of horror and dismay and I returned the look. Look! I screeched, pointing out the window in terror. At what? he asked quietly, pursing his lips. I looked out and saw a white-haired janitor staring at me with an expression of fear. I thought I saw a spider, I said meekly. He looked at me warily and suggested sardonically that I should perhaps see a psychiatrist to assuage my fear of spiders. I nodded sagely and said Good idea, Jeff, I think I'll do just that. I excused myself and left. I realized that I didn't know what day it was so I asked a passerby who looked at me with disdain and replied that it was Sunday. I said Thanks, pal, and he sniffed and left with an air of self-righteousness. I looked after him stonily. Sundays were holy days, so the dim vestiges of religion that I still possessed told me to go visit my parents' graves. I called a cab and directed him to Oak Hill Cemetary, where my parents were buried. He nodded and I arrived there. I feeling of something inexplicable overtook me as I approached my parents' headstones. I can't exactly explain it; it wasn't fear, or sadness. Every step I took thudded in my ears. I reached the tombstones and was seized by a sudden impulse to kneel. I did so and bowed my head. Hi guys, I said softly, half to myself. I haven't been to see you in a while; sorry. It's not that I don't miss you; I just don't know what to say anymore. Anyway, I guess I need some advice. How does one tell if his sanity is leaving him? I think I'm going insane, mom, dad. Something's finally snapped and I don't know why it's happening to me, of all people, but it's happening and I need to know how to stop it. The graves were silent. The wind blew around me, whistling. It was suddenly frigid. I zipped my jacket and groped for a cigarette. I cupped my hands and lit it and when I looked back up, the dark man was there. We looked at each other for a long while. Finally I spoke, and my voice was cracked and dry. Who are you? I said. His sunglasses were off and his eyes were pale blue and somehow soothing. Why are you following me? Doing this to me? Tell me! I shouted, a sudden wave of anger shooting through me. He stood, unmoving, then finally spoke. In a baritone. Because you are the deliverer, he said in a voice that reeked of hopelessness, of lost dreams. I was shaking. Deliverer of what? I screamed. Deliverer of life. Yourself. What the fuck does that mean? I asked in a screaming, yelping voice. You created me, he said softly. His voice was almost tender. I didn't create you, I said in what I hoped was a level voice. You did, young one, he said. Many people have created me. I am following you because you know. You know. If I created you, I said slowly, I can uncreate you. I shut my eyes tightly. When I reopened them, I saw that he was gone. I wasn't surprised at all. So I walked back, hailed a cab, and went home. Four doses of Nytol later, I had fallen into a dreamless sleep that seemed to have no end until I woke up. I woke up to the sun glaring down into my eyes. I blinked sleepily and pondered what had happened the afternoon before. Whoever this guy was, he wasn't any manifestation. He was real. And in a frenzy of thought, I realized that he could be killed. I called Jeffrey and told him that my house had been robbed. He responded with the expected Oh my God, was anything valuable taken. I grinned softly at his stupidity and asked him if he had some type of weapon I could use in case the robber came back. He said that Yes, he had a small pistol that he indeed had a permit for. I asked him politely if I may borrow the pistol for a week or so, just to put my mind at ease. He said Sure, no problem. Just don't kill anybody. I chuckled humorlessly along with him. He drove to my apartment and handed me a nasty-looking revolver. It was an antique -- one of the old six-shooters. Jeffrey handed me a blank and stated that I perhaps should get used to the feel of the gun. I loaded it, surprisingly without any trouble at all. I pointed the gunsight at the couch and pulled the trigger. The feeling was overwhelming; the smell of burnt gunpowder filled the room. The fact that I now held the power to take any life that I wished was intoxicating. Jeffrey was looking at me oddly. I looked back at him. Do you have any real bullets for this thing? I inquired. Yeah, he said in a slightly off-balance voice. Six shots. I doubt that you'll need to use them. I smiled inwardly.
That afternoon, I began to have second thoughts. I scheduled an appointment with the psychologist that I had seen ever since I was ten years old. He was sixty now, but still remembered me. He had me lay down on a faded black leather couch. The psychologist had brown hair that was mostly fading into grayness, and beard stubble that looked like it had been shaved haphazardly. He was smiling at me complacently. Clear your mind, he said in a soft, lilting voice. Think of happy thoughts. And then I could fly to fucking Never-Never Land, you goddamn shrink, I thought. But nevertheless, I tried my best to think of any possible happy thoughts. When that failed, I thought of sleeping and that worked well. He began to ask me questions. What are you feeling now? he asked. Tired, I said. Enclosed. What is enclosing you? People are. Everybody. It's too confined in this world. Why is it too confined? Mainly because people are subconsciously evil. Unkind. What people? The dark man. Who is the dark man? I don't know. He is following me. I think he hates me. Why? Because I know what people really are. Do you have any idea who the dark man might be? I think it might be the Devil. Do you believe in God? No. Then why do you believe in the Devil? Because he hates me. Do you know how to stop the Devil? I think so. Am I the Devil? I don't know. Maybe. All people are evil. You will wake up now, he said. The voice seemed to come from far away. I opened my eyes and felt refreshed, at ease. I felt as if nothing could hurt me. I thanked the psychologist and left the room, feeling as if I'd made some type of breakthrough. There was no dark man, he had been a manifestation, he was gone now. As I had finished that thought, I saw the dark man sitting atop the roof of a building. He waved at me. I screamed and ran down an alley and cowered there among the trash and filth for two hours. When I came back, the dark man was gone. I hailed a cab, swallowed six Nytol, and was out for the count.
The next day was Tuesday. For some reason, I found that I could not get out of my bed. I hadn't done any work for a long time; I just hadn't had the initiative. My editor had left frequent messages on my answering machine, but his calls went unanswered. My life was falling apart; all because of this goddamn dark man. I had to stop him, but how? I didn't know. I recalled the psychologist's words; the man was the Devil. My mind told me the most obvious place to go for refuge would be a church. So, again summoning up my childhood memories, I went to my old church. It took about twenty minutes to get there. As I walked in, a flock of memories assaulted me. Me at ten years of age. My father raping my mother repeatedly. My mother beating me. My father beating me. My sister...her lying dead, a pool of blood; her eyes uncaring, unfeeling, just dead eyes. My father standing there, holding his walking stick. Get the shovel, he said in a raspy nicotine-coated voice. I said no and ran into my room and shut myself in there, the door locked. Him pounding on it, breaking it down. Hitting me with that fucking stick. Me screaming, my mom stabbing him in the small of his back, him croaking and falling and dying and her cutting her own throat from ear to ear and dying next to him and me screaming, screaming, until a neighbor finally heard and called an ambulance, but who gave a shit, because they were all dead, and I couldn't do anything about it, and my father was a drunken bastard and my mother was spineless. But my sister...why my sister? Why Emily? Why did people have to hurt each other? Why are they all dead? Why not me? Why? Me getting shuffled around foster homes like some human deck of cards, me being beaten by my foster parents, ridiculed by my foster siblings. That was when I started seeing the dark man. Was he real? Why? Why was he coming back now? I shut the memories out and closed my eyes. The dark man stared at me from behind the altar. The rest of the church was deserted. So you came, the dark man said in his timeless voice. I came, I said. And I know who you are. Do you? he said. Who am I? You're what people keep in their hearts, locked in a little box. You're what people tell themselves not to be. You're what people really want themselves to be. And I'm going to kill you. I pulled the revolver from my jacket and aimed it at him. He was in my sights. I know what I can deliver, now, I said softly. And I pulled the trigger. The shot was deafening. My head began throbbing, and I shut my eyes, screaming against the agony. When I reopened them, I saw a still form lying by the altar. Got you, you bastard, I rasped. I staggered towards him, the smoking gun still in my right hand. I knelt besides him. I am the deliverer, I shouted above the still form. It was then that I realized that the dark man was wearing a priest's robe. I turned the body. It was then that I realized that the dark man looking a lot like the priest that had served this church since my childhood. And it was then that I realized that it was the priest that I had now killed. I put the gun away and left. I felt empty, confused.
That was ten hours ago.
So now my parents are dead, my sister is dead, and my priest is dead. I'm alive. The dark man is still out there. I'm going to sleep now, and when I wake up, he'll be there, and I'll be ready for him. I have my gun, I have my own faith. He'll be gone.
***
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." The priest was emotionless. Jeffrey was crying softly. Mr. Stills, his editor, walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "I know he was your friend, Jeffrey. But he's in a better place." "He was so confused," said Jeffrey in a cracked voice. "His career was taking off. Then he said that a robber..." he stopped, at a loss. "He wasn't happy. You know that." "But why? Why end it all?" "I don't know. He...he was dark. You know that. His entire world was dark. He might have been depressed." "His childhood. It must have been his childhood. He said it was unhappy." "Whatever it is, nobody can hurt him anymore." Jeffrey looked at the freshly dug earth. "I guess so." He looked up, and saw an odd looking old man standing about forty yards down. "Who's that?" Stills looked. "Don't know. An old friend?' Jeffrey looked at the man. He was dressed all in black, with a fedora. "Maybe he was." The dark man waved and turned around. And then he was gone. Copyright Jerry Kimbrough, 1998 |
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