Rewriting Singularity Ch. 12

The couch was lived-in. I like that about furniture-- one more thing I had in common with Hec, I presumed. We fidgeted our feet, scratched our crotches and chewed our lips. I took the lone candy cane from the box that sat between us and looked into Hec's eyes. Pete watched us both. Char had insisted we bring him down to watch us finish decorating the tree. I really think she wanted to pet his little birdy-beak. Char and Kate were long gone. Off baking Christmas cookies. I could smell them.

Mmmm, sugar cookies.

I-- we'd-- put off talking about my leaving. I thought of why I'd come here to this place, and why I wanted to stay. Besides great meals, fresh-baked cookies and salt-water taffy, I knew why. Two celestial galaxies collided in this bed and breakfast with a build-up of energy second only to the Big Bang. I wondered if my sitcom title Rewriting Singularity foreshadowed this cosmic expansion in my life called Hec Lodge.

"Want some?" I asked, poking the candy cane in his face. Hec shook his head no.

"I came here to write," I began. Hec nodded. "On that first day it happened, I lost my senses--" I hiccupped. "Yes, it was somewhere between you bending over to put logs in that fireplace and me picking my eyes up off the floor."

"It's true--" Hec leaned in closer to me-- eyes fixed on mine. "My ass is that distracting." The cellophane on the discarded candy cane box crackled and popped like my nerves as Hec shot me a devilish smile. "And I can prove it--" he continued, "my ass is in the Guinness Book of Records under most desirable body parts."

"Um, yeah," I said, unwrapping my candy cane. Where was I before I was distracted by his ass? Yes, why I was here and when I was leaving... "Like I said, I came here to write a pilot for a hit sitcom and--"

"--to get away."

"Yeah, to get away."

"And on your way to writing this sitcom my ass happened."

"Yes, your very distracting ass."

"And my distracting ass made you do things, crazy things."

"Yes, crazy things I've never done before."

"And now you're wondering just what my distracting ass has in store for your future?" Hec asked, smashing the candy cane box flat into the couch with his hand. I licked my lips thinking, Those hands! Crush me! Crush me, please!

"And what I want to know is--" he hesitated. One risqué comment coming up! "--just where my ass fits in the end?"

What at tease. Need a comeback. Something good. "Or what I'd like to fit in the end of your ass?" I blurted out.

Touché. Or should that be tushy?

I couldn't help myself. Blame it on 15 strands of twinkling lights, one phallic peppermint candy cane, and two perfect butt cheeks-- my primal brain took hold. I let the candy cane sag suggestively from the corner of my mouth as I squeezed my hand between the cushion and his ass. A tight fit but I still managed to wiggle my fingers.

"I thought you wanted to have a serious talk," he said, squirming on my hand.

"Who's the one that brought up all the ass talk?" I came back, pinching his left cheek.

"You did--" he jumped, "you said something about logs and a fire and me bending over, then you losing your balls."

"My eyeballs, not my balls." He had me-- literally. My hand was pinned as well as my mouth. So I sucked on the end of the cane, sticky peppermint drool dribbled out the side. Not sexy.

Hec lifted his ass, and I slipped my crippled hand out. I wiped the drool off my mouth with my Captain Hook's appendage. We sat there, both watching lights on the tree and the star at the top, me with my lame hand and him with his ravaged ass. Neither of us talked. I started to hum, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" when finally Hec got the hint, picked up the crushed candy cane box and twirled it around with his fingers.

Dizzy, I'm so Dizzy my head is spinning.

"Stay--"

My mouth opened. He said it, but for how long? For now? For Christmas? For-ever?

"Stay-- for Christmas."

Ok, maybe forever was a bit premature, but when galaxies collide they're hard to separate. It takes time-- billions and billions of years of time. Christmas wasn't that long.

But what the heck? Deck the halls, fa la la la la and all that rot. I'll take what I can get.

Pete twittered; he's saying: Don't take what you can get! Go for more! Chirp! Chirp! If you want it, here it is, come and get it-- tweet, tweet, tweet.

"I can stay for Christmas and--" I said, sucking on the end of the candy cane to a point. Or to make a point.

"And New Year's-- you have to stay for New Year's--"

"I could stay for New Year's and--"

"And if you're going to stay for New Year's, then you have to stay for Martin Luther King's birthday--"

"Of course! And--"

"And then Groundhog Day--"

"Without a doubt." I tapped the sticky peppermint tip against my lips.

"And Valentine's--" He watched my lips with the same intensity that a cat eyes a mouse before it pounces. "Oh, fuck," he mumbled. "Ok. How do I ask this?"

What an opening!

"Just ask," I said.

"Stay."

That's what I wanted to hear.

"I think I'll need more clothes." I smiled. Yes, forever. That'll be door number two.

Pete peeped.

"And bird seed."

-----------------------

"Maybe it's not reincarnation--" I said, typing away on my laptop. He sat beside me on the bed, reading what I'd just written. Me? I pecked away at the sitcom, but this whole room exuded a supernatural aura I could no longer ignore. I felt like some intangible agent lurked over my shoulder. I needed to determine what bound Henry to Hec and Johann to me. "I mean, Henry's here. I feel him. Hell, he wrote part of this sitcom-- or at least he did through you-- like he channels through you. How can he be here haunting this place if he's reincarnated as you?"

"I know, I've thought of that too-- it's just creepy-crawly thinking that someone else's spirit has wriggled into my brain. I keep wondering, why me?"

"I'd guess he identifies with you."

"Because I'm gay?" Hec asked.

"Partly," I said, leaning back on the headboard, "and because you both are a lot alike."

"Alike?"

"You both like wood."

"Ha, ha."

"You both are anal retentive."

"Double ha, ha."

"You both love incredibly handsome, ingenious men."

Hec hesitated.

"Oh, come on." I coughed into my hand. "You know it's true."

"Yeah, but you don't need to be so modest about it."

I grinned.

"Seriously, I know you're right-- but I've never thought he'd taken possession of my body."

"So a 19th century spirit knows word processing and can get around Bill Gates. I don't think spirits are computer-literate."

"Yeah, that's pretty farfetched--"

"About as farfetched as ghosts and pornographic beds." I sat up and put my hand on his knee. "But I guess Windows 07 is a lot like a Ouija board at times."

Then we noticed the LCD screen. One letter blinked, then two.

"Ho-ly fuck," Hec whispered.

My heart stopped.

Invisible hands clicked out the message, one chicken-peck at time:

R e a d J o h a n n ' s j o u r n a l .

I got goose bumps as my eye picked up another motion-- my head turned to the desk by the window where I left the journal. Pages fluttered then stopped.

Hec noticed too. "I guess this means we don't have to call an exorcist. I'm mean, I'm not possessed."

I nodded. "I think we better take his suggestion and read the journal."

Hec pulled the covers tighter around his legs. "So who's going to get the journal?"

Chicken.

What the hell-- I got up. After all, he's a friendly ghost. Like Casper.

I took careful steps across the floor. Yeah, a gay Casper-- Casper the Friendly Gay Ghost who carves in woodshop and plays in cyberspace.

I shivered. I'd heard of cold spots before-- I'd seen Poltergeist more times than I cared to admit, and I'd felt chills in this house, but until I walked through ice-berg central, I never consciously thought that I was walking through a spirit. I had that sense now and was faced with a psychological dimension that I'd never pondered.

I was walking through a being, something not of this world, something unknown.

I picked up the journal, thumb held to the spot Henry left open as I carried it back to the bed. I curled up next to Hec to get warm, then opened it.

"You've read it all?" I asked.

"Yes-- what I could decipher. The handwriting is next to impossible to read."

So like my own handwriting, I realized that this was why Henry prompted me to read with his message.

Smudged ink and scratched letters ran off the lines like a runaway freight train. One word jumped out at me, a word I knew Hec had already deciphered: Consumption. I understood now why Hec fretted, why he kept me in bed; why he worried over my every cough. Not that I would have this disease, vaccines prevented that, but not for Johann.

He took my hand and held it tight as I haltingly read aloud the words on the last page:

I know now where I must go. Although it pains me to part from Henry, it is a far, far better solution than the alternative. The telegram came from my parents today with the details, and I know they are correct as to where I should go to receive the best of care. My parents agree to this proper place, they say, where I will get proper care I require. Although my Henry says good food and fresh air are as abundant here in Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Michigan as on the shores of Saranac Lake near the Adirondacks, I tell him this is why, but alas, I know in my heart the real reason we must part. The learned Dr. Eleni warned that I may infect those nearest me, that I may infect my dear Henry, and that I cannot, could not bear. The good doctor Trudeau, whose sanatorium shall be my new home, lives with this terrible disease himself. He too has separated from those he loves, yet has hope for there are many who work with him at his sanatorium who are cured. Yes! Those who were once his patients now care for those who are ill! These people inspire me to live, to breathe, to hope for a tomorrow. I tell this to Henry. It gives him hope too. I leave him sadly in three days from our home. This I call home, although my home would be any square foot of space where Henry stood. I part knowing that these last years were all good years. I hope for the gift of more to come. I told Henry that I will keep these journals, that I will keep these blank books that were a gift from him, and that I will fill them with words and send them home. Each journal a record of my life, my thoughts, my heart, all I gladly fill and return as a gift to him. I told him this and he made me promise a day will come that I will return and follow, like my journals, back to him; my deepest hope is that I may keep that promise.

I closed the journal. I knew in my heart what the other journals held. I saw it in Hec's eyes. Maybe he couldn't read all the words, but what he could, he understood. Something separated them. I wondered if somewhere near the shores of Saranac Lake wandered another spirit, waiting too.