Читать книгу Black Mad Wheel - Josh Malerman, Josh Malerman - Страница 11

I wouldn’t do that if I were you …

Fissures, cracks, clefts, canyons.

And it’s not just in his bones.

Philip is trying to make connections.

It’s midday and sunlight penetrates the unit’s one window. A blond nurse, Delores, administers a shot and even this contact, needle to skin, is something.

Philip feels frighteningly alone.

There was Secretary Mull walking into the bar, Doug’s Den. There was the sound. There was …

But in a way, there was nothing after the sound. As if, once Philip got out of the booth and gathered the Danes, reality eroded, the daily ticks and tacks, the hum of existence, the unheard sound of the planet spinning, all of it was replaced … with the sound.

“Radio?”

Delores is asking him if he wants to listen to an afternoon drama. The concept is so far from what Philip is thinking about that it almost feels like she doesn’t mean what she asks.

He doesn’t respond.

Instead, he’s sensing a change.

Was it the shot? It must be. The sensation of being stuck, paralyzed, unable to bend a finger, is lessening. Pieces are being put back together, the picture the puzzle makes …

There was Mull. There was agreeing to go listen to the sound … there was Africa …

Yes, Philip almost feels able to turn his head, to lift his hands, to speak easily. But when he tries, he discovers he still can’t.

And yet, things are changing.

Connections.

I wouldn’t do that if I were you …

That’s a big one. The “who” in “who said that?” Philip remembers the words, even remembers the voice, but can’t place where he heard the warning.

Was it in the desert? Was it in Detroit?

And “wouldn’t do” what?

“I’ll put it on,” Delores says, out of Philip’s field of view. “And you tell me if it’s too loud.”

Philip isn’t listening to her. He’s making connections. His bones, his body, his brain …

For the first time in his life, Philip’s identity is at stake. Maybe he’d acted too cool for his own good, before the Namib Desert, before the hoofprints in the sand. Maybe all the things that he thought meant something don’t mean anything after all. Maybe Detroit was a fantasy land, Wonderland, where he was a hero, where he was a star, where he walked the streets and nodded to some people and ignored others, too cool, the man in the band, the man in the army, the soldier musician who flirted without words, who awed the younger piano players, the young men weighing the options of war.

How many locals joined the army because of the Danes?

The radio is playing, two voices, back and forth. A husband and a wife? A husband and a mistress? Even this, the roles of the voices he hears, even these are suffering from some sort of identity breakdown, an erosion, who is who, who did what, who took the Danes and where did they take them?

Who said what?

I wouldn’t do that if I were you …

He must have groaned, must have made a sound, because Delores is suddenly beside him, placing a hand on his forehead.

“Are you okay?”

But what kind of question is this?

The unnecessary answer is no.

He thinks of the nurse from the night before. Ellen. Was that her name? She seemed to emerge from the shadows of the unit, the shadows of his injury, his thoughts, the space between his connections.

What else might rise from those regions?

Has he ever been this scared before?

Identity.

And yet, the shot, the medicine is doing something profound. Philip knows enough about drugs to know that this isn’t like getting high. This isn’t a pill to relax you or a joint to set your thoughts aflame. This is the gradual easing of bones, muscle, and skin into preformed foam, a return …

To what?

To normal.

Or a better normal. Yes, Philip thinks, seeing a window, a sliver of hope for a calmer day, a reality in which he might move again.

Might make connections.

“Is it always this cold in the summer?”

Philip said that. And his voice was splintered wood.

Because she hesitates to respond, Philip knows Delores is surprised to hear him speak.

“Would you like me to close the window?”

“No,” Philip says, still staring to where the wall meets the ceiling. “Just … strange weather.”

“Well,” Delores says. And before she says what she’s about to say, Philip knows he’s fooled her. “Nobody said Iowa was reasonable.”

Iowa.

“Iowa,” he repeats.

And he can see her now, her features in his field of vision. She’s brought a hand to her lips, as if questioning herself, debating quickly whether or not she was supposed to tell him where he was.

“I’ll close the window partway.”

She crosses by the foot of the cot. As Philip hears the window sliding half shut, he’s making connections. Bodily. And in mind.

Iowa.

It isn’t just that he’s fooled Delores into telling him their location; he’s gotten her to show him that whether or not Iowa was a secret, there are secrets in here.

Things kept from him. The look on her face tells him so.

As his body mends, stitching itself together, temporarily or not, Philip wonders at his new identity, his new scared self, how the hospital has secrets, and how he must keep secrets of his own. And he thinks of his former self, too, an aloof drunk in Detroit, a musician soldier who once believed that a man was defined by how much awe he struck in others.

But exactly when did that mind-set change? Was it when Secretary Mull opened the door to the bar? Was it when Sergeant Lovejoy pointed to the prints in the desert and said “this way”?

Was it when someone warned him, in a voice he still can’t place, the only detail he can’t remember from the desert?

I wouldn’t do that if I were you …

As Delores passes by the foot of the cot again, Philip is almost able to shake his head no.

No. Not those times. Not those places.

It happened when he was with his best friends. In a place he felt more comfortable than any other in the city. At a time when he felt on top of the world.

Philip changed forever, got unconnected, the first time he listened to the sound.