Belt Buckles & Pajamas Page 3

  He stirs. “Daphne, my lady. I am sorry, I have failed.”

  “Help me!” I shout again.

  “My lady!” he cries, with a final gasp, and then shoves me out of the way as the bolt strikes him full in the chest.

  I get up, looking up at the storm, swearing at it, cursing it for taking my protector. “Come on,” I scream. “I will rip you apart,” I threaten. “I have his strength now; he will shield me always, whether or not you have killed him! I am NOT helpless!”

  And just as suddenly as it struck the storm subsides, and I am left with Glen’s lifeless body, and I hold it and cry over it until once again darkness comes and I sleep.

  Nine: In Memoriam Of A Hero

  “He saved me,” I tell the others. We are at the cemetery, looking for his grave. “The least we can do” – Stuart nods at this, knowing what I must say – “is mark his grave.”

  Theodore looks at me. “So, you were in a dream with him when this happened? Like we were?”

  “No! Okay, yes, damn it, I admit it, I remember that dream with you and the aliens.” I need them to believe me about what happened to Glen, and I think they do, but God I don’t want to remember Theodore’s dream. I don’t want him to know what I am inside, like he knew in the dream. I start crying. That always gets him off my back.

  “Geez, Theodore,” Violet says, “cut her a break. Her great big strong hero just bit the big one on her and here you are talking about the wet dreams you shared with her.”

  “They weren’t wet dreams, Violet,” Theodore says, embarrassed.

  “Too bad, because let me tell you, she’s fun when you get her going, aren’t you sweetie?” Violet brushes my lips with her fingertips. I keep crying – it’s all I have against them, I can only hope it works.

  Stuart is rustling among the gravestones. “I don’t think he’s here. I checked all the numbers. None of them are new.”

  I stop crying. “He’s got to be here! Where else would they bury him?”

  Theodore looks straight up. “Maybe they took him.”

  “THEY?” Stuart asks, panicking.

  “Not YOUR they, idiot. The aliens. The ones in the ship,” he explains, pointing up at the sky.

  I look up. Clouds in the background, framed by a latticework of bare branches, most of their leaves already littering the grass around us. “We have to get him back, then,” I say. “It’s not right; he doesn’t deserve to be dissected by some alien creatures.”

  Theodore shakes his head. “None of us do, but what are you going to do?”

  “We’re going after him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I look at him, and suddenly don’t hate the little creep. “You’re the beacon, the source, the meaning of life and all that, right? So we’re going to dreamland together again, Theodore. The Guardian deserves a proper resting place, and we’re going to make sure he gets it.”

  Violet kisses number three seven dash four three three. “Just in case,” she says. Stuart giggles.

  Ten: Andie Gets All Professional

  We are all sitting in group again. At least all doesn’t include Doctor Martin this time. Sigh. It also doesn’t include Glen.

  “Okay, who’s first?” she asks for it seems the millionth time. “Come on, someone has to start and it isn’t going to be me today.”

  Violet sneers at her. “It sure isn’t going to be Glen either.”

  “Shut up,” I tell her.

  Andie looks at me. “Daphne? You want to talk about it?”

  I glare at Violet, mad she made me speak out loud. Andie keeps looking at me. I want to tell her about Glen, how he saved me, how I need her now since he is gone. But then I think about Glen taking that last bolt, sacrificing himself for me, and how those bastard alien creatures have sucked his body into some celestial void that only Theodore and I can retrieve it from and I decide maybe I better not. “No.”

  “Are you sure, because if not, it sounds like Violet can share something with us.”

  Violet smiles, licks her lips, “I can share all kinds of things, Andie dear.”

  “No!” I won’t let Violet turn Glen’s death into another excuse to show off. “It’s –” I pause, not wanting to discuss it, but knowing there is no way to hide it. I bite my lower lip and decide maybe a little bit of truth will get me through. “Well obviously Glen is gone. But I can’t tell you where. I’m going to bring him back.”

  Andie smiles tenderly. “Daphne, you don’t have –”

  “It’s okay, I know I don’t need him. I’m not HELPLESS anymore. But I owe it to him, to give him a proper burial. To give him my last regards. He was a hero, you know.”

  “I know he was, Daphne. And it sounds like you are doing right by him. Just let me know if I can help – while you aren’t helpless, that doesn’t mean you have to do everything alone.”

  Theodore pipes in, surprisingly cheerful. “It’s okay, Andie. I’ll be with her.”

  Stuart giggles.

  “That should be a riot,” Violet offers. “A regular freak show.”

  “Shut up,” I tell Violet for the second time ever. She looks hurt. I’ve never hurt her before – she’s probably faking. Surely I don’t have the power to crack her indomitable spirit.

  Andie looks at Violet. “Violet, I think we need to have a serious discussion.”

  “I don’t do serious.”

  “I mean it. What happened with Doctor Martin, well, we just can’t have a repeat of that. Don’t you understand? He’ll order you to undergo further treatments and I won’t be able to stop him.”

  “I kind of liked it,” Violet purrs in response. “It felt… tingly. Sort of like a super charged vibrator. I think I came five times.”

  “Another dose and you won’t feel anything. No tingles, no cumming, no nothing. You have to behave yourself around him. If you cross him again, if you force him to administer additional treatments, well I’m afraid I won’t be able to reach you again.”

  “Oh Andie, I knew you liked me, I just knew it! Now, how about we kiss and make up?” Violet leans in close to Andie, her lips slightly parted, exhaling her warm breath on the doctor’s pearly white skin.

  “Stop it!” Andie says, pushing Violet back. Sam steps closer, but Andie waves him away. I can tell he is disappointed; he liked it when he had to pull Violet off of Doctor Martin. I think he copped a feel.

  Violet pouts. “Was it something I said?”

  Andie glares. “Violet, we have talked about this. I am being completely candid. You have to respect other people’s personal space. Just as other people have to respect yours. It’s a two way street, but you have to cooperate. No more throwing yourself at people. No more grabbing. No more uninvited kissing. Actually, no more kissing, invited or not. Not while you are here.”

  “Not even little butterfly kisses?” she asks, and I can’t help but laugh. Stuart giggles, even Theodore smiles. Andie doesn’t.

  “No.”

  Violet sits back, arms crossed, little schoolgirl forbidden to play. “Fine.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I know, I know. Lay off already.”

  Eleven: The Search For Glen

  Sleep, sleep, sleep. If I can go to sleep then I can go with Theodore and find Glen. Sleep, sleep, sleep, I repeat the mantra. It’s weird, trying to fall asleep with Theodore instead of Violet. She’s so soft and clingy and comfy and he’s – well, he’s not any of that. I’m worried that Sam or Kareem will find us out but Violet promised she would take care of us, that we wouldn’t be discovered. I knew she cared about me, I’m sorry I hurt her at group today.

  “Be quiet, Daphne, I can’t think if you are that loud in my head,” Theodore tells me, but it is with my mind that I hear him and I know we crossed over into the dream world.

  “Sorry, Theodore, but you know we made it, don’t you?”

  “Oh, I guess we did. Okay what now?” he asks.

  “What the hell do you mean what now? You’re the beacon, these are your fr
iggin’ aliens, why are you asking me?”

  “Ouch!”

  “Sorry I forgot. I didn’t mean to attack like that. I just forget that we are linked and you are hearing all this,” and then my apology turns too loud as the circular pattern of my thinking about what Theodore is hearing me think escalates and I can’t help but thinking at him, “Stop! I don’t want you in my head. Get out! Get out! Get out!”

  Theodore reels away, I feel our connection fading; he is almost gone when I call him back. “Theodore, please, I’m sorry, please I need you.”

  “Really?” he asks in his little boy voice. “I thought you wanted me out.” Grrrr, he can be such a baby. “I heard that.”

  “Come on, I just can’t handle too much, okay? I do need you, you have to help me find Glen, I can’t do it without you.”

  His relief, his acceptance pours over me, threatening to push me out, to drown me. “Control, Theodore,” I plead. I have to have control I tell him. He pulls back only a little this time, so we are linked but not submerged within each other, so I can at least pretend that he isn’t privy to every little thought I have about Glen about Stuart about Theodore about Violet about Andie.

  Theodore calls out. To them. He activates his beacon-ness. I feel the tug of the otherworldly from him. The unnatural strangeness of being, the alien, the foreign, the outside. I hold onto all that I am, I latch onto the thought that there are others like me. Lovers like Violet. Angels like Andie. Heroes like Glen.

  Theodore becomes a vortex, a black hole pulling in the universe around him. I am drawn to his center, to his strangeness, to alien incarnate, and disappear.

  It is all bright again. The creatures surround me. I look for Theodore but he isn’t with me. Oh God, Theodore where are you I can’t be alone not with them not with these aliens!

  Serenity washes over me. I feel calm, peace, love and acceptance. I recognize the feelings that had emanated from Theodore and I look around expectantly but he isn’t there. The creatures move closer and I realize they are the source of these feelings and I try to push it away, try to reject them, but the essence that is Theodore refuses to let me.

  I feel, rather than hear by mind or ears, what Theodore says to me: “Accept this union, Daphne, become one with us. You are not alone, you need never be alone. Be one with us, join this union.”

  “No!” I tell him – them. “I am not one of you, I will not be undone, I am ME! I am Daphne!”

  “We are not aliens, Daphne. Look at us.” I keep eyes closed, I try to shut out the voice but it is within me and cannot be silenced. “LOOK AT US!”

  I am forced to open my eyes and the sight shocks me. Glen and Theodore are standing there – Glen, standing! – where the creatures had been. And Kareem and Andie and my third grade teacher and the guy who delivered our newspaper which Dad hid behind no don’t think about that and Melissa is there and the President and the people from the bus stop and… and everybody. And they aren’t creatures, they aren’t aliens, they are people.

  “That’s what I’m saying,” Theodore says, and all the rest of the people fade back to the now gray background. The bright light is gone, and Theodore is smiling – I don’t know if I have ever seen him smile, but here he is smiling! “It’s all good now, Daphne. I have been absorbed into the great wash of humanity, this divine continuum of which we are all a part. That is the great message, my lady,” – (I knew he called me that because he was as much a part of Glen as he was of me now) – “that we are all together, regardless of our own solitude, irrespective of our loneliness, there is always the commonality of spirit with which we all have our part. The fabric of time is interwoven in your thread as well as all those you meet. Do not be afraid of the others, my lady, for they are you and you are they. Love them, and let them love you.”

  “But Glen –”

  “Glen is fine, and the kiss Violet bestowed upon the marker of an unknown soul in the cemetery just as surely landed on his forehead. You have made your journey; you have paid your respects. Rest well, and wake knowing you are part of the greater whole, that there is no outside, that you are always inside the soul of the cosmos.”

  Then they all fade way, and I am left with a feeling of belonging. I close my eyes and I sleep. Without any scary dreams. Or scary real things.

  Twelve: In Which No One Dies That We Know Of

  The breakfast table is almost empty now. Me, Violet, Stuart. We can hardly sustain an argument with just three of us. Violet gets up, walks over to the table with the weirdoes. Good God, we aren’t that desperate for amusement, are we?

  “Hey, Shy Boy, what’s up?” Violet leans over the poor sap. He doesn’t have a chance. Thirty seconds later he is sitting with us, sipping his white milk and trying not to make eye contact. Violet is the only one who calls him Shy Boy. The rest of us really don’t call him anything – he wouldn’t answer even if we did. Rumor has it that he killed three people. Hard to believe, all he does here is sit and drool. I have never heard him say a word. I question whether he is going to improve the breakfast table conversation.

  Pet Shop is next. His real name is Herbert but we all call him Pet Shop. He isn’t very funny but the invisible talking animals that follow him everywhere are hilarious. Violet asked him once if they did any tricks, and if so she would like to borrow a couple for the night, but Pet Shop didn’t get the joke. He also didn’t let her borrow any of them. She got over it.

  We still had one chair left but no one was willing to sit in that one. Damn Melissa. Even absent, she kept her claims.

  Shy Boy has an old AM/FM radio with an earplug that he uses to listen to ball games. Stuart asks Shy Boy if he could hear anyone from the outside on it. Shy Boy clutches his radio tightly. That’s as much of an answer as we get from him.

  “Probably getting brainwashed right now,” Stuart states. “You know they can transmit commands over FM radio waves. It’s how they convinced people to use fluoride.”

  I lean over and look at the radio. Shy Boy didn’t flinch, but he didn’t offer me the earplug either. I saw it was on AM but decided to let Stuart figure that out on his own. I’m sure he has some other government mind control theory for AM.

  Apparently, Pet Shop’s menagerie has other thoughts on the matter. “Video killed the radio stars,” one of them states loudly. Well, Pet Shop says it but it doesn’t sound like him so we know it is one of his animals.

  Stuart nods his assent.

  “Ah, ya stupid hedgehog, what the ‘ell do ya know about it, ya ignorant rodent.” I guess the animals are not living in complete political harmony.

  “The cow jumped over the moon.”

  “What?” exclaims Stuart, “there’s been another launch? Damn them and their secret satellites. Come on, we only have a few hours to tin foil the showers.”

  Violet laughs. “See, Daphne, we can still have entertainment, even without the super hero and the Martian.”

  She gave a mischievous grin. “I might even get a peep out of Shy Boy.”

  I look to see why she thinks she can make him say anything and am well, not actually surprised or shocked, to see she has her leg stretched out under the table. She is rubbing her sole across the front of Shy Boy’s pants. He sits there with a glazed look on his face, rocking back and forth with the motion of her foot.

  “You better quit that, you know if you get caught you’re in big trouble,” I tell her. “Don’t forget your promise to Andie.”

  “I didn’t promise anything about not sticking my foot under the table. It’s not my fault Shy Boy happens to be sitting there, is it? And anyway, look at the poor boy, he’s in heaven.”

  I have to admit Shy Boy does look better than I have ever seen him. The earplug has slipped from its place; I can almost hear the tinny broadcast of the football game from where I am sitting. He must be nearly deaf to be playing it that loud. He sits and rocks against Violet’s foot for a couple minutes before he lets loose in his pants. Violet smiles at him, pulls her foot back and leans across the t
able.

  “I wanted to thank you for joining our table, Shy Boy. But it’s got to stay our little secret okay? Can’t tell anybody – not Doctor Martin or Andie or Sam or anybody. Now go clean up and we will see you at lunch.”

  Shy Boy gets up and walks off toward the hallway that leads to the rooms.

  “He didn’t peep, but he sure did pop,” I tell Violet.

  She smiles. “Don’t be jealous, love, we’ll have time later, I promise.”

  “I’m not jealous. You’re just going to get in trouble if you keep violating personal spaces. That’s what Andie said.”

  Violet stares at me. I guess I hurt her again.

  “Fine, if that’s the way you want. Enjoy your nice cold bed.”

  “Violet, don’t be that way.”

  She licks her lips. “Okay, sweetie, I was just teasing; you know I’ll be there tonight. You know I’ll always be there for you.”

  “Lean on me,” intones the invisible hedgehog.

  Thirteen: Group Therapy With The New Group

  “I see we have some new faces today.” Andie is such the friggin’ student of the obvious. But she is so nice about it. And she smells like coffee again.

  Violet takes over the conversation. She’s been doing that a lot lately, ever since Glen… Well, since there’s been no one to keep her in line.

  “Well, I had to get somebody to fill up the space with Glen and Theodore off traipsing around in Never-Never land, didn’t I?” she asks Andie. “I mean, God, we have to have something to talk about other than my libido and Stuart’s conspiracies. So I invited Shy Boy and Pet Shop to give us some new topics of discussion.”

  Andie smiles at Violet’s recruits. “Well, Herbert, how are you today?”

  Pet Shop beams back at her. How could anyone not smile at her? God, she is so… NOT Doctor Martin.