M. Thomas Cooper

Part One: Paranoia

Even though I’m curled on the couch, deep under a heavy afghan, I felt as though I was being watched. Not by anyone particular, just being watched.

And as I lay here, listening to the birds sing outside my apartment in the early morning, the discomforting sensation grew. It was as if someone was standing directly behind the couch, hovering over me, breathing as shallowly as possible. Their muscles relaxed, yet tense—a jaguar prepared to spring upon its prey at any micro-second.

These paranoid thoughts caused my heart to race, and a hot nervousness to engulf my lazy, lounging body.

Then I heard something. Or at least I thought I did. It sounded like a shoe scuffing across a wooden floor. The shitty, mold culturing apartment had hard wood floors, except where I had haphazardly placed a few inexpensive throw rugs. It was a vain attempt at keeping the amorous and all too boisterous escapades of my downstairs neighbor, Julie and her boyfriend, Steve, from filtering up. But it was too early on a Saturday morning for their sex-capades.

Again I heard the slight scuff of a shoe across a wooden floor. Though, this time, it sounded less like a tennis shoe and more like high heels, or actually pumps. It was as if they had shifted and adjusted their weight for the lunge and pounce, the subsequent thrashing struggle. I was beginning to marinate in my own anxious sweat.

Quickly I rationalized it was a squirrel on the roof, a pinecone hitting the roof, a cat in the dumpster, the next-door neighbor making coffee, the ancient apartment pipes complaining, maybe even the theoretical ghost who haunted the building’s hallways.

Again there was the slight scuff! Now their weight was perfectly balanced. They were perfectly prepared. My heart was thumping well-over the recommended speed limit. And an all encompassing sweat had broken out on my forehead, under my arms, and on the bottom of my feet. Every pore on my body was wide open, including my eyes. And I attempted to wrap those to the other side of my skull.

Then, adding to my fear, there seemed to be something, someone reflected in the darkened television screen. The TV was a good fifteen feet away, so it was difficult to really tell if what looked like someone standing behind me was a strange shadow cast by the pizza box atop the television, or actually someone standing behind me.

I wanted to turn around and look. But what if there actually was someone there? What would I, should I do? Sure, I’d like to think I’d leap into the air, use the afghan as a distracting-shielding device, while I launched numerous Tai-Kwon-Do-Aikido-Jujitsu-Ninja moves on the intruder. However, in comparison to me, Woody Allen was an Atlas. Sure I’m a little taller, a little heavier, but Woody seemed to have an innate vindictive spirit and anger he could call upon. Me? I got angry if the thin, heroin boys at Mississippi Pizza skimped on the cheese and pepperoni on my Big Muddy Special, or… no, that was it. Give me double cheese, double pepperoni and I would give you global peace and understanding. Seriously.

For five minutes I stared at the television and its possible reflection of someone standing behind me. I was attempting to figure out how long I had until I sweated myself into oblivion, when the figure moved. They moved! There was no doubt. None. What looked like their arm was their arm. And they ever so slightly reached into their pocket. And they ever so gently removed something. And they ever so slowly returned to the same position as before. There was no doubt. I know what I saw. And I saw that. Yeah, sure I’ve done a little acid, a few mushrooms, countless bottles of wine and beer, but I wasn’t insane. The arm rose again! I had to turn around. I had to. I had to. I had to. But… then slowly… the thing in their hand creeped gradually over the back of the couch. What could it be?! What could it be?!

“Turn around! Turn around!” I shouted to myself; silently, in my head, of course.

Finally fear took over and I did—I turned around!

Instead of leaping off the couch, using the afghan as a shield, and kicking some serious ass, I simply stared dumbfounded and confused. My life was about to be taken and I simply sat there and stared. Instead of a crazed, killer ninja, or a deranged, dangle-eyed assassin, a slobbering three-headed alien, there, looming above me, was a very hairy, rather rotund, middle-aged man wearing of all ensembles a black Speedo, a black, push-up bra, and a gray wig.

Overwhelmed with disbelief and confusion I couldn’t move. There was too much incongruous information spilling into my brain for it to shift into basic survival instincts, fight or flee.

Before I could check if he was wearing high heels, stilettos, pumps, or ask why so much garish lipstick and rouge, he injected me with a turquoise serum from the thing in his hand—a high-tech, silver gun-syringe.

Instantly cold, cloudy water surged in and drowned me.

                                     ***

Even though I’m curled on the couch, deep under a heavy afghan, I felt as though I was being watched. Not by anyone particular, just being watched.

And as I lay here, listening to the birds sing outside in the early morning, the discomforting sensation grew. It was as if someone was standing directly behind the couch, hovering over me, breathing as shallowly as possible. Their muscles relaxed, yet tense—a jaguar ready to pounce.

Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait!

I’d done this before. I’d done this before? Yes. I’d gradually woken beneath an afghan, then shuffle, pumps, profuse sweating, garish rouge, silver gun-syringe? Yes. A dream? Maybe. But I was sure I’d done this before, whether in my mind, or actually, was yet to be determined.

Flinging my eyes open, I peered at the television. There was nothing reflected—not even the pizza box. Again I tried to wrap my eyes around my head and through my skull. Still, it didn’t work. I listened as hard as I could. There were only the annoying birds singing. Nothing else.

Without any pre-amble I turned around. Nothing. Just an empty apartment. Just the same old shit cluttering up my world—a dozen dog-eared books, litter of a dozen fast food containers, an old Zenith, a dented Xbox, wrinkled mounds of clothes, and a half-dozen rejection letters in various states of destruction claiming my manuscript, 42, to be intriguing but, unfortunately, not meeting their current publishing needs. However, they wished me the best of luck with my career and… blah-blah-blah blah.

Discouraged and disappointed, both with my world and the lack of a ruddy-eyed stalker/a bald, crazed killer/a cute, black-clad ninja girl, I laid back down and stared at the ceiling.

Looking at the old, dusty cobwebs undulating on the ceiling I attempted to discern if the incongruity of a hairy, middle-aged man in a black Speedo and push-up bra with Tammy Baker make-up and wig injecting me with a turquoise serum was plausible, or simply some demented extension of my subconscious. I tried finding a third alternative, because neither of the first two comforted me much, when the phone rang and scared the bejeezus out of me.

Using a chipped and well abused hockey stick (a leftover of my youthful and very bygone street hockey days) I pulled the phone within reach.

“Hello?” There was no answer. There was, however, an odd click-clicking. It was as if someone was attempting to fax something, or make a call from another phone. “Hello?” Again silence. “Hello?” I hung up, and began pondering an illusive thought in the sparse, back reaches of my mind. The thought, not fully formed, curiously enough had to do with Agent Mulder and bees.

Immediately the phone rang again. And, again, the bejeezus was scared out of me. Thankfully, it didn’t affect my underwear.

Now, understandably, I’m a little skeptical about answering the phone. It always seemed there was a solicitor of dubious intent after a “no-one-on-the-line” call. And it invariably tended to be some young woman with an all too alluring voice—because they knew exactly who lived here, a desolate and, quite often, desperate bachelor. And they also knew exactly how much easier it was for a man to buy something when a young woman with an alluring voice was selling.

It seemed there were occasions when chatting with a young woman were necessary and beneficial, because I’d already picked up.

“Hell—” I didn’t add an “o.” Instead I slammed the receiver down in a panic. I was abducted and brainwashed! They, whomever they are, obviously the bad guys, were now calling. The clicks on the line were in a coded sequence. They would trigger a behavioral response mechanism inside me. My response would be their secret mission—assassinate a high-ranking, foreign official, drive a suicide bomb into an embassy, vote for the new social security plan, or purchase a mixed case of Tupperware.

The phone rang again. Bejeezus fled in fright and didn’t even close the front door as it/he/she escaped. I, immovable, began filling with the thick liquid of panic and fear. The viscous liquids rose up from my toes and oozed from my mouth, eyes, and ears.

Hastily I glanced around looking for an appropriate escape route. The phone rang. And again, inexplicably, I answered. And again I hung up, in one swift movement. I began throwing miscellaneous items into my black messenger bag. The phone again began ringing, and ringing, and ringing.

Briefly, through the blinds, I took a quick glimpse out the window to check the weather. Then I scooped up an appropriate jacket and dash out the door, the phone calling my name, over and over and over.

                                    ***

By the time I reached the front steps, three floors below, I was out of breath. I trudged slowly along, and was barely held up by the dirty, gray walls of the building. My palm wiped a clean, translucent smear along the wall’s expanse.

In front of me, at the front door, a shadow loomed in the doorway. As quickly as possible I turned and began trudging for the back door. A banging and clambering rose. It echoed and filled the desolate foyer. A voice accompanied the shaking glass and wood, “Hey! Open up, ya damn fool!” More banging. “For the love of donuts, open the door!” Suddenly my feet slowed. I turned around and squinted down the dusty corridor to the shadow filling the front door. The awkward, gangly flailing of limbs seemed remotely familiar.

“O’Rourke?” I asked.

“Yeah, ya dumb ass, open up!” It should be known O’Rourke believed extraterrestrials lived among us (though only fed on human flesh twice a year—when he would not disclose), Las Vegas was paradise on earth, and Gore Vidal was a Spanish bullfighting term. The point was, for him to call me a ‘dumb ass’ was like a duck calling a goose fowl. Or something similar to that.

O’Rourke was a part-time cabbie/courier, who one night saved me from an ignominious fate at the hands of a pack of overzealous teenagers prepared to teach me one way, or the other, about the beneficial aspects of letting Anarchy into my life. He, of course, was once again wearing his stupid Moscow Rules T-shirt.

“Hey, you going to let me in, or stand there gaping like a great, giant, gaping gaper?” He wore that shirt so often I’d memorized its precepts:

1. Assume Nothing.
2. Never go against your gut.
3. Everyone was potentially under opposition control.
4. Don’t look back; you are never completely alone.
5. Go with the flow; blend in.
6. Vary your pattern, stay within your cover.
7. Lull them into a sense of complacency.
8. Don’t harass the opposition.
9. Pick the time and place for action.
10. Keep your options open.

“O’Rourke? What are you doing here?” I asked, slowly slinking my way to the front door.

“I thought we were going to go see National Treasure?”

“At the Laurelhurst?” The Laurelhurst was a defunct movie theatre and a pub. It showed second run movies and poured cheap, uneventful beer. O’Rourke and I were pretty much regulars.

“Yeah, freakazoid. Now open up.” But something was distinctly wrong. Or, was wrong. Wrong because time suddenly seemed like a bowling ball in an elephant’s mouth—curious, and all too significant.

“The… the matinee?” I asked dubiously, my mind wondering if elephants bite.

“Yeah.”

“The Sunday matinee?” I asked befuddled, and enormously confused.

O’Rourke looked aimlessly around, as if for Elvis, and back at me, “Uh, yeah. Duh.”

“But if it’s Sunday, what happened to Saturday?”

“How should I know? Now let me in, ya fuck.” Outside the sun leaned distinctly toward mid-afternoon, not morning. Unsure I opened the door. O’Rourke walked in as I walked out.

Outside there wasn’t the sharp, crisp cold of morning, but the dull warmth of a spring afternoon. Overhead the birds still sang. I kept walking down the path to the sidewalk where I quizzically gazed about.

“Hey,” O’Rourke asked exiting the building, following, “what’s your damage?” I didn’t answer, but kept walking, hoping to stumble into an answer somewhere before being run over by traffic.