Black Iris: Chapter Twenty-Three
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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I’ve got time to kill before my 2:30 p.m. appointment with the hypnotist, so I swing by the museum. My father isn’t here because he likes to go home for lunch, but if I happen to run into Gia, I might say hello. You know, just to be polite. While I’m at it, I might casually mention my session with Dr. Bell and all the progress I’ve made.
I find her in her usual spot near the rock garden. Weather permitting, she eats here every day at 12:45 p.m. on the dot, and by “weather permitting,” I mean anything but blizzards and tornadoes. Back in early July, I saw her out here during a thunderstorm, though I couldn’t say for sure if she stuck around once the heavy rain started. By then, I had fled the scene because a fence near the bush I crouch behind got struck by lightning.
The bush is close enough to the marble bench she’s sitting on that I can see the individual flakes of tuna between her crustless white bread. The fishy aroma provides a delicious contrast to her earthy perfume and pungent body odor. Her tolerance for harsh weather manifests in her wearing sleeveless dresses and open-toed shoes 300 days a year. My nose can find her from four blocks away, which may be part of why it’s been so hard to get her out of my head.
She takes a big gulp of sandwich, and I’m reminded of how good she was at deep throating. My dick would completely disappear. Sometimes while she was sucking me off, she would stick a finger or two in my asshole. It wasn’t my thing, but I never had the heart to tell her. Even towards the end when we were getting really nasty to each other, I didn’t throw that in her face. I think I deserve some credit for this.
As she gobbles the last bite, some tuna falls into her cleavage. She chooses to ignore it, but while she’s walking back towards the staff entrance, it shakes loose from her clothing and drops onto the lawn. Once I’m sure she’s gone, I scamper over and gobble it up.
***
Dr. Nehrashani’s office is located between a psychic and a new age boutique specializing in crystals and talismans. The waiting room is cold and gray like a garage, with two plastic lawn chairs, a small, empty table, and a rust-colored carpet. The receptionist is a middle-aged man who is better dressed than he should be for this environment.
While I’m waiting for the doctor, I check local media sites to see how they are covering Steve McCarthystein’s death. All the major outlets ignored the incident completely except for the Daily Squawk, which printed parts of the suicide note and referenced some of his recent cases that involved some questionable ethics and big payouts. There was no mention of me or my failed lawsuit.
A door opens down the hall.
“The movies make memory recovery seem simple, but the fact is it sometimes can take a few sessions before you start to open up that locked vault.”
“If you say so, Doctor. Anyway, I really want to know what happened to me that night, so I’m willing to give it another try.”
“Good to hear. Can you come back the same time next week?”
“That should work.”
“Excellent. See you then.”
A balding, chinless man with small round glasses passes through the waiting room on his way out of the office, followed by a tall, thin Indian man who looks like an Easter Island head.
“Snowball?” the Easter Island guy says.
“That’s me.” Like it could be anyone else.
“Welcome. I’m Dr. Nehrashani.” He doesn’t offer to shake my hand. “Come on back.”
Dr. Nehrashani’s office is just as bare-bones as the waiting area, with a desk in the far corner, a single wooden chair, and a couch that’s even nastier than mine. Unlike the outer office, this room has no air conditioning or fan, and the air is musty like a wool blanket that’s been stored in an attic for 30 years. There are no credentials on the wall, but there is that fucked-up poster of a kitten dangling from a tree branch with the caption “Hang in There.” I fucking hate that poster.
The doctor gestures towards the couch. “Please make yourself comfortable.”
“Should I lie down?”
“Not yet. I’m going to ask you a few questions first.”
“Ok.”
He throws open a spiral-bound notebook and clicks his pen. “So, what brings you here today?”
“I’m hoping to recover some lost memories.”
“And would these be recent memories or distant?”
“Recent, I guess. About two months ago.”
“Do you know the exact date and time?”
“I don’t know about the exact time, but I guess it was the first Friday night in July, and then it’s all blank until that Sunday morning.”
“I see. And what was the last thing you remember before the gap in your memory?”
“I was at this bar, and — ”
“Which bar?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes. Every detail matters.”
“It was a place called The Top Hat and Monocle down near City Hall Plaza.”
He nods. “Ok, go on.”
“So, I met this woman. I don’t remember her name, but I’ve been referring to her as Queenie in my head. We were hanging out, having a few drinks, and really hitting it off. Then I kind of remember walking somewhere with her, and that’s it. Next thing I knew, I was waking up with a painful erection that wouldn’t go away and I ended up in the hospital. The doctor said I’d been erect for at least 24 hours straight.”
He squints. “Priapism?”
“Yep.”
“Fascinating.”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
“Since then, have you had any issues? Physical or mental anguish? PTSD, that sort of thing?”
“Well, I have died twice since then.”
“Mhmm. Have you noticed any other changes?”
He’s not asking me to explain about my deaths. Interesting.
“What do you mean by ‘changes?’”
“Sometimes when people experience extreme trauma, it manifests in unexpected ways. Obsessive-compulsive behavior, moodiness, depression, dulled or heightened senses. Sometimes they experience what’s known as synesthesia, where one sensory stimulation triggers a response from one of the other senses.”
It’s not lost on me that he seems to be fishing for very specific answers. I wonder how many of Dr. Bell’s patients he’s seen and how many of them have experienced this type of memory loss.
“Actually, I have both obsessive-compulsive behavior and synesthesia. With the obsessive compulsiveness, I can’t stop drawing flowers. I’m practically doing it in my sleep now.”
“I see. Is there anything else you can think of?”
“Nope, that’s about it.”
“Then let’s get started.” He closes his notebook. “Have you ever been hypnotized before?”
“No.”
“Well, I assure you it’s completely painless. Please lie down on the couch.”
I do as I’m told.
He leans over me, dangling a gold watch over my face by its chain. His breath is dirty like he’s been eating leaves out of a puddle. Beads of sweat bubble out of the manhole-sized pores on his nose.
“Now I’m going to count backwards from 687. By the time I get to 432, you’ll be asleep. I will then wander around your mind until I find what we are looking for. When I’m back from my journey, I will snap my fingers, and you will awaken. Hopefully, the memories will have been restored at that point. Are you ready?”
I nod.
“Here we go: 687, 686, 685…”
As the watch swings, I track it with my eyes like I tracked the mice in my apartment. Instead of drifting off to sleep, my heart speeds up, and my ears go back. When he gets to 681, I swat the watch out of his hand, then leap off the couch to pounce on it where it lands.
“What the — ”
I carry it back to him with my teeth and drop it at his feet. “Sorry about that.”
He wipes the watch clean on his khakis, then scrutinizes it for damage. “This is a $2,000 watch. More than that, it’s a family heirloom. Please don’t do that again.”
“I said I was sorry. Jeez.”
“Take five deep breaths. Once you’re calm, we’ll give this another try.”
After five rounds of nadi shodhana, I lie back down and fold my paws on my stomach. “Ok, I’m ready.”
“I can see that you practice yoga,” Dr. Nehrashani says. “Very good.”
As soon as the golden disk is swinging in front of my nose again, the calmness is gone, and I’m back in attack mode. I try focusing on the numbers, but it doesn’t help. I try counting mold spots on the ceiling, but that doesn’t work either. I open and close my hands rapidly in an attempt to burn off excess energy, but that only gets the blood boiling faster. This time, I only make it to 683 before I swat the watch across the room. It hits the desk with a ding. Nehrashani goes after it, but I beat him there. There’s a brief scuffle before I finally get ahold of myself and let him have his precious heirloom. Or what’s left of it.
“You idiot! Look what you’ve done.”
The chain is snapped in the middle, the cover is hanging by one screw, and the glass on the watch face is cracked. At least it’s still ticking.
“Sorry. I thought I had it under control, but — ”
“Get out!” He points a shaky finger at the door. “Now!”
He doesn’t realize how lucky he is that only the watch got mangled. I may not be able to catch a mouse right now, but my claws are still razors, and my hunting instinct still gets turned on like a light switch when I see something move.
As I’m heading down the hall, I hear Dr. Nehrashani’s voice: “It didn’t work. I told you when we started this, not everyone can be hypnotized. We’ll just have to think of something else.”
I pause at the reception desk. “You assholes better not charge me for this session. I was only in there for 15 minutes, and he didn’t do what he said he was going to do.”
The receptionist stiffens in his chair and puts a nervous hand on his phone. “Please leave the premises immediately before I call the police.”
I peel a Hamilton from my wallet and slam it down in front of him. “That’s for the doctor’s watch.”
I’m out the door before he can bring the receiver to his ear.
***
Dr. Nehrashani and Dr. Bell are two heads on the same body that’s part tree trunk and part alligator. I don’t remember exactly what Dr. Bell looks like, so her face is kind of blurry. Her eyes are closed, and she’s not really participating in what’s happening. She might actually be sleeping because there’s a saw cutting through a log in the thought balloon above her head. Meanwhile, Dr. Nehrashani’s eyes are black and white spirals twisting in opposite directions as he counts backwards from 432. Only he’s not really counting, he’s just repeating the number 432 over and over. He then pulls up my shirt and paints an “X” on my chest before coming at me with a shovel. I roll out of the way at the last second, and Steve McCarthystein gets impaled instead. Flowers pour out of the wound, and the Nehrashani/Bell Therapist Monster stomps them into the ground. I manage to snag one before it gets crushed. As I attempt to flee, Nehrashani’s mouth opens, and locusts fly out shooting lasers from their eyes. I wake up before they hit me.
It’s 4:30 a.m., and there’s no way I’ll be able to fall back to sleep. I drink some milk that’s two days past its expiration date. It tastes like cottage cheese and makes my stomach gurgle.
Lincoln is asleep on the rug. I poke him, but he just groans and drags himself into the kitchen to get away from me.
Donuts would really hit the spot right now, and the baker at Noelle’s gives me free day-olds if I get there before 5:00 a.m. The problem is it’s pouring outside.
I try another blind contour drawing of the flower inside my head, this time using my weaker hand. Like the one I did in Dr. Bell’s office, all the lines are where they’re supposed to be, although they’re a little less steady. I tape it to the refrigerator.
Eight drawings later, it’s 10:30 a.m. The black outside is now yellow-gray, the sky is still pissing, and I’m still wide awake. I open my laptop and check the news. As I’m scrolling on the Daily Squawk homepage, I come across a breaking story:
Area Man Mauled By Bear
Early this morning, the remains of 33-year-old shoe salesman Louis Gadd were found at the Kibble Zoo in the enclosure of a nine-year-old grizzly bear named Cletus. The body was discovered by custodian Rick Vulmer at 7:30 a.m., just an hour before the zoo was set to open. Gadd was naked and severely mangled, but police were able to identify him by his Kibble College class ring which had his full name engraved on the band.
Security footage revealed that Gadd climbed a tree to get over the 12-foot-high brick wall at the perimeter of the zoo and then stacked trash cans like steps in order to scale the bars surrounding the bear’s enclosure. At this time, it is unclear what motivated Gadd to do this, though the theory is that he was sleepwalking.
His sister Gina, with whom Gadd was currently living, insists her brother had no history of sleepwalking, though she confesses that he hasn’t been himself since his divorce eight months ago.
Zoo president Craig Beck has gone on record to say that Cletus is not to be blamed for the incident and will not be euthanized.
I click on the thumbnail of the photo of Gadd and realize he’s the chinless man with the receding hairline I saw at Dr. Nehrashani’s office. I guess it’s a good thing that I can’t be hypnotized.