AFTER

BY

V. P.

I want to tell you, before this goes any further, that everything turns out right in the end. I get the girl, I fix all the problems. I solve the mystery, I answer the important questions. Everything turns out right in the end. I risk losing you here, I know. Good stories start with a hookan explosion, an accident, the middle of a tense scene, something to reel you in and hold you from the first. And for the record, there is an explosion, and there is an accident; theres a bit of love, a bit of drama, a bit of weight and moment. But thats not the point. Thats not whats important. And I dont want you to miss what is worrying about all that. So I want to let you know, from the beginning, that I turn out fine, I promise. And everyone who means anything turns out fine, too. Like I said, I get the girl. All injuries are healed, all conflicts are resolved. No suspense on that score, not even a little. Everything turns out right in the end, and the only questions left are not important. At least, not to me.

If you have a choice, avoid catastrophic car accidents. I know mine was not at all to my taste. I was drunk and high out of my mind, idly steering with my left hand while singingyelling, reallyalong with the radio, but the accident wasnt my fault. Part of me loves knowing that. It feels pure, satisfying. Liberating. This was something done to me by chance; I dont need to take the blame. No one needs to take the blame. Somehow, that knowledge is so pure, so satisfying. Without warning, my tire had burst, the sudden gunshot crack of it sounding up and down the nearly empty highway. I lost controlI could have done nothing differently, could not have avoided this, intoxicated or not and my car plunged down an embankment. Pieces of the accident stand out in my mind, frozen moments, clear vignettes. I remember a

scream, high and shrill. I remember lurching, rolling, rising, tumbling. I remember looking out my window and seeing signposts, trees, and streetlights upside down, sprouting from the sky; I remember not understanding at all. I remember the smell of gasoline. I remember the taste of blood. I remember sirens, I remember heat, I remember flame. I remember hands pulling at me. I remember a sound so huge it ended the world. And after that, nothing.

I woke in a hospital bed immediately seized by two things: an unasked and entirely too intimate acquaintance with all-consuming physical pain, and a single, driving compulsion to change my world. Everything goes; nothing stays, burned the thought in my mind. Everything goes; nothing stays. Time passedit must haveand while all else remained a fog, that single thought shone like a beacon calling ship-bound sailors to shore and home and hearth. That single thought pulled me through endless examinations, interminable physical therapy, and boundless pain. I knew none of this was my fault; I was not being punished. I would pass through this, and then everything goes, nothing stays. And one day, it was done. I walked out of that hospital for the last time, a bag slung over my shoulder. It contained everything I would take with me, I decided. The medical complex sprawled across a great hill; as I strode across the endless lots, I felt I had scaled the world. I walked through the sun and the sky. A bus station squatted at the main driveways end. I went to it, and I waited, summer light and summer heat all around me, waited to go just as far as whatever remained in my wallet could take me.

When I got to my new city, I changed lives as effortlessly as other men change clothes. Everything goes, nothing stays. I fell into a comfortable routine that required no thought. Work every morning, hauling crates around a dock. Covered in sweat, I never felt so clean. The other dock boys and I bantered with words so empty they were forgot almost before they were said. I was adrift, but in a pleasant way, like sailing across smooth waters in a boat made with your own hands, no shore in sight, content. I was always tired, but I never slept. It was work every morning, and the Ladder Pub and Patio every night. I never drank at the Ladderalcohol belonged to another life. Instead, I visited the Ladder to watch, to window shop. I knew everyone there and no one knew me. The patrons were my own serial, my own soap opera. Id sit at the bar, wreathed in the lurid light of jukeboxes and neon beer signs, and the folks scattered about the dim parlor around me were always the same, familiar like old shoes. I knew them all. I gave them names. The Divorce, tall and willowy and frail. She laughed too shrill and too loud at any joke or story, however awful, so long as it came from a man. Her eyes were sunken and dark, hiding themselves. She would not go home alone tonight, but she would be alone tomorrow. The Shitkicker, smoking an endless string of cigarettes, gray hair falling long and lank from his Stetson like a greasy curtain. Hed play Hank Williams on a jukebox and grab the nearest girl, willing or not, and spin her around about tables as though it were a dance floor, whooping all the while. His night would end earlyit always didand it was an even chance whether when he left it would be willing or not. The Kid, nearly bald, but with smooth, round baby cheeks and a childish, petulant set to his face. He had the foulest, sharpest tongue you ever heard, but he could be enormously kind, and understanding, and generousso long as you werent black or brown or, God help you, Democratic. The Ballerina, the Professor, the Disc Jockey, and on, and on, and on. I knew them all by names,

my names, and I loved them. I watched them, and I knew them as if they were parts of myself, and I never drank.

One night at the Ladder, as I sat at the bar and watched everything Id seen before, a mild voice beside me said, You wont find it sitting here, you know. I turned. The speakers skin was bone white, his hair mirrored silver, and both glowed faintly, like burnished things. His eyes held secrets I would kill not to know. I stared, and I couldnt speak. Everything had the insubstantiality of a dream; I was weightless, and I was drifting, drifting. He moved closer, and the trance broke. His hair was dirty blonde, not silver; his tanned face sported tawny scruff, and a cigarette lolled from his mouth, oozing smoke round his head. Confusion filled me, and embarrassment. I hadnt slept in so long, I was seeing things. Im sor I stopped, coughed, cleared my throat. I hadnt talked in so long. Im sorry, I dont know what you mean. What youre looking for, the man continued, still mild. He was college-aged, I saw now, probably no older than me. Without asking, he sat next to me at the bar. I come here every night, I see you. Youre looking for one thing or the other. Whatever you want, you wont find it just sitting here. Hey, you an alcoholic? What? No. Wait, who ar Relax, just a question. The stranger flashed a smile. You never get anything. Guess Ill have to drink for both of us. He lifted a hand, made a V with his fingers, waved it at bartender Jaketwo of my usual, if you please, theres a good man, I imagined the gesture saidthen squinted at me a moment. He swept hair from his forehead and eyes and did not seem to notice it settle back in exactly the same place. You remind me of my friend, he said.

Yeah, you remind me of my friend, he said. Ill tell you a story, he said. And so he did:

My friend Johnny, he was a lazy fuck. Trust fund baby, born into a life with no need to work, no need to do, no need to be. Boozed and rolled and tweaked his way through every religious boarding school on the eastern seaboard. Single-handedly buoyed the local abortion industry wherever he went. He was a mean fuck, too. Took a lead pipe to some kid once for leaning on his car. Burned another guys house to the ground for fucking a girl hed been done with for a year. Wasnt a bad guy, though. Thats the thing: just had too much energy, not enough purpose. It all just rattled around in him like ball bearings in a tin can, and the noise drove him mad. One day, his dad, he has enough. Twenty years of absentee-parenting guilt eating at him, so he goes and does the Big Gesture to redeem himselfwhat his dead wife would have wanted, he told himself. Went too far, but they always do: told my friend he could either join the Army for a couple of years and straighten out, or lose the trust fund and be broke. Basically a your-money-or-your-life deal. So no surprise, my friend, he chooses money. He joins the Army. Definitely a big old shock for that friend o mine. He limps through Basic, wishing he were dead. Cries himself to sleep at nighthell, cries himself awake of a morning. Eventually gets shipped off to Afghanistan to fight the good fight against those who dont have the good fortune of being born on the right hemisphere. Blazing hot days there in the desert, heat like you wouldnt fucking believe. Boiled my friends brain in his head, I think, but I dont know that he even noticed. He definitely noticed the IED that blew him half to Hell, though. Wonder what he thought when he woke at the infirmary, all wrecked and ruined. He got sent home, and he healed up pretty good, you know, as well as you can from that sort of thing. Grew back skin and bone and muscle, but turns out, you cant grow back your right hand. Yeah, cant get that motherfucker

back, no matter what you do, Johnny boy, can you? He was different after, different like night and day, life and death. Quiet, muted. Like a faded watercolor. His friends didnt know him when he came back, and not just because of the scars. It was something else, something inside. You get blown half to Hell, and after it all, you dont know which half is walking and talking now on Earth. Years pass. His dad dies, and old Johnny, he cant stand the sight of that money now, so he sells off everything and gives it away. Settles down in a quiet little town, gets a quiet little job, knocks up a quiet little woman, has quiet little kids. And every weekend, he pops off to the quiet little pub and has a quiet little drink. And you know, hes doing good by all accounts, people think; hes accepted his life and all thats in it, butand this is the kick, herehe learned how to write, he learned how to drive, he learned how to jerk off, he learned how to do everything with his left hand, even one last day learned how to hold a gun, learned to point it at his old sinners head and pull the trigger But every time he went for his drink, he never thought, never remembered, and hed reach out his right arm and knock the glass all over with his stump. Yeah. You remind me of my friend. Anyway, they call me Sam. Nice to meet you.

And somehow from that night until a long, long time after, Sam and I were inseparable.

Time passedit must haveand I still drifted, but no longer without aim. I was heading somewhere, and Sam with me, captain and passenger, and maybe I didnt know where, but I knew it was worth getting to. I was in no hurry. The journey was as important as the destination, maybe more so. I knew that somehow. The city opened to us. Sam knew everyone and everywhere. Little bistros down obscure side streets, garishly lit pool halls, quiet riverside parks. Theater ushers waved us in when they saw him, tickets or not. Matres dhtel waved us in when they saw him, on the list or not. Everywhere welcomed us. Strangers spilled their secrets to us. We ran all over the town. And we laughed, and laughed, and just couldnt stop laughing. I began to know that kind of happiness which is in the between of things. Do you know that people are always exactly what they seem? Sam said one day, as we soaked out winters chill in a strangers hot tub, steam rising up all around us. Theres no mystery to them. All that they are is writ huge on their faces; problem is, most never learn to read. You should never have to ask what a person is. Say I cant read then, I replied, lazily slapping some buzzing, flying thing away from my bare arm. But maybe I can learn. Show me. What are you? And Sam smiled, and said nothing. What are you? I asked one day as we sat astride steel beams high above the street in an unfinished building, all of the city below us. And Sam smiled, and said nothing. What are you? I asked one day as we strode through the city park, an arboreal island in a sea of downtown glass and steel and stone. Cold sunlight trickled through ice-wreathed branches stretched up over our heads, and the hum of traffic sounded a world away. And Sam smiled, and said nothing. What are you? I asked one day over the overwhelming roar of band and crowd, a soda held

high, odd in the sea of beers raised aloft by everyone else. The sound of everything around us shattered the night, but I know he heard. He always heard. And Sam smiled, and said nothing. He said nothing for a long time, no matter how or when I asked, even to the very end.

One gray, frozen afternoon, the course of my drifting changed. I realized my destination. I always should have known it would be a girl. Sam saw her first. We were walking down a boulevard on our way to a show, one steaming kabob in his hand, another in mine, and I noticed him staring off somewhere across the street. I turned. Lilith was the most beautiful thing Id ever seen. Snowflakes glistened briefly in the black of her hair like little diamonds, melting away almost instantly. The summer sky shone in her eyes, brilliant and blue. A flush touched her skin and lips; I imagined not the ruddiness of cold, but that of running and doing and being. You just gonna stand there? said Sam, cutting through my thoughts. I realized I had stopped walking. No no, Im not. And I didnt. I headed straight for the bench Lilith now sat. We never made it to the show.

Time passedit must have. Sun blazed through the Ladders tall, arched windows, washing everything in yellow-white. Lilith laughed, sitting there next to me at the bar, and the sound of it filled my mind until I completely forgot the joke. I could just see Sam out of the corner of my eye, and beneath his smile hunched something

unreadable. I swear, its true, Lilith continued, sipping something rose-colored out of a fluted glass. I worked on that farm for years. Sometimes, I still cant believe Im in the city now. Its foreign to me. You know, she said, theres something special about the connection with life there at the farm. Its nothing like here. Youre not joined to the process at all here. Meat, milk, cheeseit all just appears for you, out of nowhere, ex nihilo. Me, I always knew my dinner by name. Two drinks came sliding down the bar, a club soda stopping in front of me, something pale and golden for Lilith. Sam sketched a salute, and went back to talking with the Kid several stools down. Everything tasted better, too, she said, a finger tracing idle circles in spilled wine. Cleaner, righter. I dont know. One day in the city, she continued, I saw protesters outside a supermarket. They carried posters proclaiming, Chickens are friends, not food, Cows are friends, not food, Pigs are friends not food. She looked at me, tilted her head, poked out her cheek a little with her tongue, considering. Friends, not food, they said, and I went to myself, Why not both? She smiled and, after a pause, excused herself, touching my shoulder lightly as she passed by me. I turned, and Sam stood there close enough to touch. You good? he asked. I nodded. This what you want? I nodded. Liliths a nice girl, he said. Ill leave you to it, then, he said. Good luck, he said. Sam slipped away through the never-changing crowd, and Lilith came back to me, laughter in her eyes, and sunlight all around her.

I fell into a comfortable routine, Lilith every morning, and Lilith every night. We ranged the whole city, and everything old was new again. We danced were there was no music, ran through streets laughing while no one chased us. Endless summer days surrounded us. I was always tired, but I never slept. Of a night, I would just lay there, watching her, watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she dreamed whatever beauty dreams of. I was full, I was content. Sam had vanished from my life, and I did not notice. I drifted, but I was home, loosely moored, rocking about gently in my own harbor. I knew I had arrived. I could not conceive a world where this, all this, just this, could not be my destination. And we laughed, and we laughed, and just couldnt stop laughing. We laughed our way all through hot days and warm nights; the sun scattered itself all in her hair; the moon gleamed in her deep eyes; and always, I knew happiness. I was whole. I was done.

Time passedit must have. Clouds chased each other across the summer sky, puffs of white lost in soaring blue. Lilith and I lay across a blanket, the picked-over remains of a picnic all around us. I was full, I was content. I wondered idly where thoughts go to die. Sam once told me everyone is exactly what he seems, I said. That their thoughts and lives write themselves all over their faces, waiting to be read. That you should never have to ask what a person is. Mm? Lilith murmured. She stretched her arms out, and lay covered in sun and beauty. She

turned and looked at me, the color of sky in her eyes. Did you believe him? I reached out with my left hand, ran my fingers through the grass, brushed hair from her eyes. Say I cant read, then, she said, and rested her cheeck on one tanned arm there in the grass. But maybe I can learn. Show me. What are you? And I smiled, and said nothing. What are you? she said one day as we rode the ferry, sliding through wind and water and warmth, gulls floating above us, hanging there like little beaked clouds. And I smiled, and said nothing. What are you? she said one day as we strode through a wonderland meadow of flowers nodding in the breeze, all gold and purple and white. Motes danced in rays of sun, and pollen tickled our noses. And I smiled, and said nothing. What are you? she said one day, the credits scrolling across a screen as big as life in the drivethrough, rows and rows of cars gleaming in the summer light. And I smiled, and said nothing. What are you? she said one day, mountain wind whipping her hair all around into a sable tempest, houses tiny as ant hills scattered below us, broad lakes now of a scale with puddles below us, the whole earth and everything in it from beginning to end below us. And I smiled. I smiled, there at the top of the world. And I said, I dont know. She looked at me. Just looked at me, and a shadow passed across the sun, across the world. Where did you come from? I dont know. She looked at me, just looked at me. What city is this? I dont know. Who is your father? I dont know.

She looked at me, just looked at me. What is your name? I dont know. I just dont know. Her gaze held pity, soft and terrible. She reached a hand to my cheek, but I stepped back. I think, she said, every word slow and clear, her eyes fixed on mine as shadows ate the afternoon, that its past time you spoke with Sam, and found out.

I hunted Sam for an age. Winter raged around me as I strode dark streets. Snowdrifts sucked at my feet, trying to pull them into the cold and the wet. Icy drizzle slicked my coat, freezing it stiff. And wherever I looked, I could find Sam at none of his old haunts. None one even remembered him. Bartenders at private clubs wed danced at a hundred times had not seen Sam, not for a while, not ever. Baristas at coffee shops wed passed the midnight hours away at a thousand times had not seen Sam, not for a while, not ever. Everywhere I went, my descriptions of Sam drew only blank stares and apologies. It seemed to me then that nothing could be more natural than, if Sam did not want to be found, that the whole city should have forgot him. I wondered if I would forget, too. But I didnt. I decided to waitfor what, I was not sure. So I went to the Ladder, sat in that rainbow glow of neon signs and jukebox lights, ordered a club soda from bartender Jake, and waited. I watched as the Divorce snared an endless string of victims, who in turn made victims of her and I watched as the Kid spat his endless filthy jokes; and I watched as the Shitkicker twirled endless successions of girls around what had never been a dance floor, Hank Williams blaring and echoing off everything all around. I watched, and I waited. I think I waited a very long time.

Heybuddy. Time passedit must haveand I looked up from my drink. Bartender Jakes eyes met mine from across the bar, and I had the feeling that I had long overstayed my welcome. Call for you, he said gruffly, and placed an ancient-looking rotary phone on the bar top. Without another word, he vanished through a door into the back. I realized suddenly the Ladder was now empty. I grabbed the phone with my left hand, lifted it to my ear, asked, Hello? I thought we were done, said Sam, his voice coming out crackly and tinny through the receiver. I dont understand. Course you dont. Youre the most aggressively ignorant guy in the world. Jesusonly you could make this complicated. Literally the easiest thing in the world, and you make it hard, he said. Only you could fuck this up, he said. Jesus, he said. Im sorry. I closed my eyes and leaned back against the bar.. Silence stretched between us. Look, said Sam, his tone a shade softer, you go up the Ladder, or you go down. Thats the way it works: up or down. You dont just fucking hang out. You dont fucking squat. We need to finish this for good, he said. Meet me at the end of Machon Drive, room 505, he said. Click.

A winter twilight painted the world in blues and blacks and cold winds lashed at me as I stood before a vast dark building. It sprawled around me, left, right, forward, hunched there like a thing

enormous and dead. Great gothic windows looked out from nothing onto nothing. From the address I had expected an apartment complex or perhaps a hotel, but this was an asylum masquerading as a hospital. Silent ambulances and overturned gurneys dotted the almost empty parking lot, scattered like forgotten toys. I saw no sign of life, but I knew others had been here before: Graffiti lay everywhere abundantly. Gabe was here, writ on a hanging fence. Cass was here, set on cracked pavement. Zach and Raf were here, etched on an ambulance door. Mike was here, scribbled on several spilled-over trash cans. Ana was here, scratched out across a parking attendant station. Sach was here, stenciled on benches. And scrawled in blood-red over the massive main doors, marring a gigantic sign emblazoned MACHON COUNTY HOSPITAL, marched endless lines of Sam I am I am I am I am I am I am I am I am I am I am. I passed under the sign and entered. My steps echoed down empty hallway after empty hallway as I searched for room 505. I saw no working lamps on the walls or florescents in the ceiling, but a gentle twilight glow suffused everything. It was enough to find my way. Counting doors, endless doors. When I found the one marked 505, I looked around but never back, and pushed it open. I found myself in a completely normal hospital room, which in this place was jarring and strange. Five-oh-five was brightly lit, clean, white. A bed stood in a corner, and in the chair next to it slouched Sam, smoke from his cigarette curling up past a red no-smoking sign. He turned to look at me, his expression unreadable. He gestured toward the bed, and for the first time I noticed someone lying there. Tubes and wires tethered him to IVs and machines around the bed. Go on, now, Sam said. I stepped closer to the bed and looked down at who rested there. I had never seen him before, I was sure of that. He was thin, gaunt really; he looked hard used, and left to waste away. Scars slashed across his face and bare chest. He may have been handsome once, young once, but he had aged beyond his years now. I studied his face, noted fine, whispy features; it was the sort of face that looked like it

might break if it laughed too hard, crumple if it felt too much. His eyes were closed. Uncut black hair streaked with premature gray spread across his pillow. White gauze wrapped the upper half of his head, crimson seeping through it. But that was not his only wound, just the newest: my eyes flicked downward, and I saw a rounded stump was all that remained of his right hand. What are you? I whispered to him. But it was a needless question, because I never had to ask what a person was. I always knew. That perfect knowledge you usually only get in nightmares seized me. You gaze into the mirror and you see something indescribably horrible in the perfectly normal; you gaze into the mirror, and nothing is wrong, everything is wrong. I looked down, and knew I was looking at myself. I don't understand, I said. How? I said I don't understand, I said. I turned, and Sam stood next to me, close enough to touch. His eyes gleamed like polished stones. Dont ask me to explain this. Do you have any idea how perverse that would be? I dont understand, I said. Perverse, he repeated, and took a pull from his cigarette. Smoke slipped from his mouth and seethed thick around his face for a moment like a thunderhead. It would be perverseunseemlylike asking a cow the best way to grill a ribeye. Dont ask me, friend. Dont ask the dream to explain itself to the dreamer. The room shifted, rippled, lurched; the colors of the room bled, sterile steel grays and ivory whites running together like watercolors spilled on pavement. Only Sam remained clear, sharp. Stay with me, Johnny. Focus, Johnny. Johnny.

JOHNNY. Everything snapped back to focus. I realized at some point that I had sat on the floor, knees pulled up to my chest; I did not remember moving. Christ, Johnny, said Sam, disgust writ large on his face. He flipped dirty blonde hair out of his eyes. Stop it. Dont be so weak. I said nothing for a long time, and then: How long have I been sleeping, Sam? Like I said, perverse. Tell me. You figure it out. I pulled my thoughts together. Since the accident? Shooting yourself in the head? said Sam, and crouched down in front of me, his twilit eyes fixed on mine. Hell of a thing to call accident. Youre wrong, I shot back, suddenly angry. I remember. I remember like it was yesterday. I had an accidentit wasnt my faultI had a car accident, I was on my way to see Lilith, wasnt I, the accident was my second chance, it wasnt my fault, it was no ones fault, I changed everything, only now Im dreaming and I need to wake up andI remember, you see, like it was yesterday. Fire and light The sun blazing in a vast desert ... a huge sound, an explosion An IED rips through rock and metal and flesh, a roar rolls across the sand I remember . I lowered my head. Sam hissed out a sigh. Johnny boy, youre a piece of work. Too much imagination, not enough sense. A dream this thorough? Christ. And for what?

Sam paused, and for a moment I thought he was going to reach out for me. I dont know why. You had a hard run of it, he went on, Ill hand you that much. Thats why I gave you to the between of things for a while. Think of it as a cosmic mea culpathe only one youre like to get, cause HE sure as hell isnt handing them out. But its like I told you, Johnny, the Ladder goes up, and the Ladder goes down. Up, down, whichever you want, but you gotta go somewhere. You gotta choose. So stop fucking around, okay? I looked up again. What are you? I wanted to ask, and bury knowledge in ignorance. But the time for that was over. I never had to ask, I knew. Whats it gonna be, you old sinner? Samael said, endless folds of white robes and great masses of silver hair shedding a radiance all about him. Up and in, or down and out, Johnny? Samael said, now standing, gripping two ancient swords covered in gilt and scrolls and script. Gotta choose, fucker, gotta choose, Samael said, his eyes holding eternities, his nine wings stretching up and around and over, black, light-eating, huge. I rose. I took a step toward the bed, looked down on myself. I made a choice. I always knew youd tread the way of cowards, whispered Samaels voice, but he was gone. And there was a great light, and there was a great darkness. And after that, nothing.

The story ends here. It is, after all, a storya dream I had once, the strangest and realest I ever had then or since. I woke in my own bed, warm and safe and whole, next to my wife Lilith. I didnt wake her then, but I remember just looking at her, watching her sleep, watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she dreamed whatever beauty dreams of. I was full, I was content. I told her everything over breakfast in the morning as she glided across the kitchen, a goddess in a terrycloth robe. She smiled a radiant smile as I described her dream counterpart, and laughed, and kissed me, and set out toast, jam, juice. I reached out with my right hand, and knocked everything in my glass all over the table. She smiled and wiped the table without a word. That afternoon, I briefly sketched everything I remembered from the night before in a notebook that I keep for thoughts and dreams, set it aside, and went on to live my life. I had no shortage of things to do. I manage a little bookstore called Fifth Heaven, owned once by my father and my fathers father before him. Liliths pregnanttwins, the doctors say, a girl and a boyand were busy searching out a new, bigger house for our growing family. Time passedit must haveand yet, as much as I had in life to do and to be, I still remembered that one dream in that one notebook. So here I am on this radiant summers day, reclining against a great oak in the backyard, sunlight dripping from leaves all around me. I have made of my hasty sketch a full story, set down everything I know and remember. It took longer than I expected; my left hand is full of cramps; but now its done. And just as I promised at the beginning, everything turned out fine in the end. I got the girl. I got the girl, and all the chief mysteries are solved, and all injuries are healed. The important questions are answered, every one. Now, let the dream be well and truly forgot, and live only in these pages, unremembered. Everything goes, nothing stays. I got the girl, and the only questions left are not important. At least, not to me.