An Excerpt from Gary Bolick’s A WALKING SHADOW

Doctor Malcom Lowenstein stepped out of his aging Volvo and immediately shielded his eyes, the early afternoon sun seemed particularly harsh today. Turning to read the marquis at The Rio, he chuckled then spat out his last mouthful of coffee.

‘Set your watch, no your calendar, ‘ he thought, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the whole damned week, backwards and forward: Penn and Teller. Oh, wait something new, a guest appearance by David Copperfield. Slamming his door, the handle remained in his right hand, “Perfect.”

From the moment he woke up, he had begun to dread this particular session. ‘But why this one?’ he asked himself. Procrastinating most of the day, he suddenly realized that he would be hard pressed to call his old professor, Doctor Matthew Whitlock, for a consult. As he walked quickly across the parking lot and hurriedly unlocked his office door, he dropped his briefcase sending his notes swirling in the wind. After quickly gathering up his notes, Lowenstein checked his watch, realizing that it was too late to make the call. His next patient would be there in less than fifteen minutes.

‘Well, I’ll do it anyway, the hypnosis, nothing else has seemed to work. Still, it would have been nice to bounce it off of Doctor Whitlock. I’m stumped, but oddly intrigued, even a little excited by this one.’

Jonas Bellingham Ayre, Jonas, J.B. he still was not sure which name the patient preferred. A mix of PTSD and a mild or perhaps severe case of dissociative identity disorder; or not. Yes, that is what made him anxious and edgy and he had to admit, interested. It, he, was actually breaking up the monotony. Looking back up at the The Rio marquis, “Yep, still Penn and Teller.”

He was in uncharted waters with Jonas. It was the most excited he had been since his graduate work at Johns Hopkins. Still, he was objective enough to realize that this one had him over a barrel.

As he settled in and began to scan his notes, the doorbell chimed, Jonas had arrived.

Since Dr. Lowenstein only saw Jonas during the six months he was in in from the desert, the first session back was always a little awkward. Their last session had been contentious, devolving into more of a philosophical argument than actual therapy. Dr. Lowenstein had blamed himself. He realized that it was up to him as the psychologist to keep it above board, objective, but there was something about this particular patient that unnerved him. He had welcomed the six-month respite, but now found himself anxious again.

‘Damn it, I really wanted to talk to Doctor Whitlock. Get his input on why this guy is getting under my skin. Or is he?’ Lowenstein mused. ‘Why do I feel so challenged by him? Why am I questioning myself? No, don’t go there, not now, not enough time. Deal with your own issues, later. OK, OK. Showtime, Lowenstein. Showtime.’

“Jonas, so good to see you. Nice tan. I trust desert life is treating you well. Fine, fine. OK. Since it’s been six months, and you know as well as I do, the last session created more questions than it answered, I thought we’d start fresh. I’ve had great success in breaking down barriers and unlocking doors with hypnosis. If you’re up for it, we can try it.”

Jonas shrugged and said, “I guess at this point, what could it hurt. Seems nothing else has worked. Fine.”

Dr. Lowenstein turned the lights off, then switched on a small table lamp, then turned on a CD player. A nonstop loop of the tide, ocean waves crashing, began to fill the air.

“OK, Jonas, make yourself comfortable. Remember the breathing exercises I taught you. Let’s start with those now. Good. Now, close your eyes. Listen to the water, count down from a hundred while you continue to breathe, good. Long, easy breaths. Good. Keep counting and walk back to a place where you really felt safe for the first time. Breathe. Good. Breathe . . .

“Jonas? Jonas! You OK out there? No, don’t open the door. The movie’s about to start. Grownups, dear. Only for grown-ups and well, we’ve had this conversation before. Your brother and sister are older. They can watch. Now be a dear and play with the dominoes. After a while, we’ll all . . . never mind, sorry, the movie’s starting.”

Jonas Bellingham Ayre, eleven years old, turned away from glass paneled door and gazed out through the windows of the glassed-in back porch. For a moment, he felt relieved as he stared up and into the fire, the red, orange, and yellow fire that seemed to have overtaken the maple, oak and hickory trees surrounding the house. Looking out made it, yes, suddenly, it was much easier to breathe; his mind wonderfully clear. He was soaring, as he watched the brisk October breeze bend and twist, turning the treetops into a living paint store of colors.

Calm and centered, happy, but alone, Jonas now marveled at how in one quick turn away from the door he was freed. Freed and soaring, his eyes hovering easily among the branches, leaping from one to the other. But most of all this warm, calm feeling seemed to whisper to him that he was no longer alone, isolated. Was this an answer?

‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘looking out there, the rules don’t seem to be so . . . lonely and hateful, it’s possible to feel carried, as though bound up in someone’s arms, someone who just doesn’t ever want to let go. Being here, then, I’m not worrying about being in there. I-’

From the adjoining room, the den, the family room, laughter exploded. Jonas, J.B. to everyone except his mother, turned quickly away from the windows and the flaming tufts of leaves and stared hard at the glass-paned door of their room. Low and piercing the descending sun burned brightly, showering the glass with a reflected mixture of yellow, hot-gold and J.B.’s face, fluttering. Three separate screens displaying three different views of what he felt cloistered up inside on the porch and out there; there where the trees burned, the wind swirled, and birds hung drifting on any and every updraft they chose.

Jonas listened as the laughter continued, and then began to move his eyes from one pane to another. From the top right to the bottom left, up and then diagonally down, the reflecting panes burned, wrestled and combined with the incoming light creating an awkward, long and searing face. Yes, his own riddled with a new angst, a hard, chilling discovery that fear and laughter are twins. Or rather, one person with a Janus-like face: loneliness and elation, both now whispering, fracturing what once was never to be thought of as strange.

‘Nothing fits, now,’ he thought, ‘in between, but not able to touch either.’

More laughter, the reflecting panes still ablaze. The sun was descending as the volume on the television grew louder. Looking out through the glass, the wind was dead, the birds had all disappeared, the fire extinguished and the voice that so often offered comfort and solace was mute. Gone.

From deep within his own protective pocket, the vault where he could always retreat and find some manner of connection, J.B. now felt and heard a new, whispering taunt that was trying desperately to find a foothold, issue a reassuring word. Disappeared, exited out with the lights leaving nothing but the memory, or rather a shadow of what once felt natural.

Here, adrift, then? Where, now?

This house, his home? When just ten feet away, hovering behind the glass this world’s inhabitants, family?

“No, no dear, don’t touch. No, especially, not me. Run along now. First hand me that bottle and the pack of Winstons there on the table. OK, go.”

Suddenly more desert than two-story Victorian, turning the glass-lined walls of the protruding porch into an unbounded Mojave, a treeless, waterless plain that now, strangely, began to seem natural and inviting. What had always seemed a suggestion:

“Don’t be silly, Jonas. It’s not a real person or voice. It’s just something we, I mean, all people do. Children have imaginary friends. Grownups reason with themselves. It’s not actually a person or voice. Well, you remember PINOCCHIO? The cricket? Jiminy Cricket. Yes, dear, sort of like that. Go on, now, leave mother alone.”

Something like that became J.B’s newly discovered voice of reason, age eleven, watching the fires burn outside while the laughter through door, burned even hotter inside. A whisper to reassure him that with the separation he was finally free, unfettered, unconnected and yes, a twin of his former self, cast out.

“See? See it, J.B., Jonas, you choose. It always seems to fall down running back and forth between fear and laughter. So, mount up. I had to. Ride, son. See? Three glass panes, all with something and nothing similar to teach you. By the seat of your pants, it all falls apart, then each day asks you to put it all back, right again, up there, pick one or take all three. But don’t worry J.B. relax and breathe. It’s hard at first, but soon you’ll want to stay here. Yes, right here, with me, with us. There? Through that, or any other door? No matter where, now. It’ll never change ’cause you’ll always carry it with you. Here, there, anywhere. See it? I know, it’s hard, now, son, hard. No looking back, still, you choose.”

J.B. turned away from the door and stared back out through the glass, tried to pick up the last remnants of the fire. ‘Funny, only when I look inside, into the den, away from the trees do I hear him or it or whatever that is. It’s gone, now.’

Turning back to the door,

“Simple, now. Simple, but lonely, but don’t worry, now son. We’ll make it”

J.B. closed his eyes and searched. ‘Yes! Him!’ he thought, ‘a mixture of mine and Leander’s voice. It sounded like me, but older, calmer like an echo up and out of a well. And, yes, that was Uncle Lee.’

“Leander? Not in my house, ever again!” Mrs. Ayre screamed at her husband. “Never!”

Uncle Lee, always angering the others with his version of, “The unvarnished truth. Embarrassing, ain’t it? J.B.? Shoot, only one of you I give a damn about. Come on, son, let’s go fishing.”

‘Yes, of course it had to be his voice,’ J.B. thought, smiling.

“Jonas! You’re so quiet.”

J.B. turned, and looked at the door, hesitated, almost laughed, and then ran to the door. Turning the doorknob, he stopped.

“Now who said anything about coming in here now? Are you OK?”

“Yes.”

“Excuse me!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Looking up and out of the glassed-in porch, the sun had descended below the trees. No fire now, only silhouettes, shadows of what they once were−fading. J.B. turned on the overhead light and noticed that, again, the three-paned door now displayed a mixture of reflections both from the porch, the den and now his own face and the large, jet-black trees looming up behind him.

Looking around the porch, into the den, out into the woods, J.B. now felt as though he was standing back, viewing each and every object at a distance. No longer did he see or have the focus or centered eyes from just a moment ago. It all seemed to be seen from the backseat of the Ford, the Fairlane station wagon. It’s all like watching a drive-in movie. Shaking his head, he thought he heard the whispering again, but realized that it was his brother Stephen and his sister Dee talking to his mom and dad.

So, yes, J.B. what’ll it be? I’ve got your back. Always have, always will. No, don’t worry, it’s confusing. A very confusing place. Just like when you sneaked in to watch your sister shower. I remember. All hell broke loose. Chip off your Uncle Lee’s block. Your daddy and momma seemed real concerned. Me? I laughed, took another long drink. Toasted your manhood, and mine.

Funny and lonely all at the same time, isn’t it? But you’ve always had an inkling and notion of all this. It’s your place, son. Been expectin’ it, been watchin’ you. So, here I am. I know, it hits you when least expect it. Me, well someday I’ll get to that, tell you when and how I found it. The place, where you are now. The place where the world disappears and all you can do is move on, bluster through and then the next step is to put the pieces back in some order. After they’re in place, you smile and call it a life. Right now, let’s just say it’s like that line of dominoes and all the hours spent standing them up. Winding and curving, trying to square the circle, but always back to Spiral Jetty, your favorite, mine, too.

That’s good, son. Real good. Out there alone on the floor of the sunroom, it, your water, finally broke. Alone, son, alone . . . and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men . . . well, you get the picture, chief.