A Mirror of Before and After - CHAPTER IV - Part 2
By Frank Moore circa 1970s
“Would you make love with me?” I had to ask the question one night. My link with her was stronger and I was more willing to take the risk.
“I don’t think I can,” she said, turning whiter … whiter than usual. “I never did it before. Have you?”
“No.”
“I don’t know how to do it. I couldn’t stand the terrible pain. I’d shatter in pieces under the pain. Someone … I don’t remember who … told me about the pain making love is.”
“I wouldn’t hurt you. Do you believe that?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Really, I don’t know very much about sex,” I said. I just knew what I had read, seen in movies and in dirty pictures. I knew as much as the normal virgin who took sex education, talked to his mother (but not to his father) freely, went to a few college parties, and lived with Moe, who wasn’t a prude. I knew everything about sex, but really knew nothing about it … nothing about making love, I didn’t know even if I could make love. I thought that I must be able to since I could jack off. But I wasn’t sure. But not being sure, wanting to find out, wasn’t the reason why I felt pushed to make love, pushed hard by a red-hot branding iron. I know that I’d still be a man even if I couldn’t make love. But I was tired of being a lonely mirror. A lonely mirror can’t reflect clearly and truly. The loneliness coats the mirror and colors the reflection which could mislead or even kill the person who is looking into the mirror. The mirror was tired of people kissing their own images on its surface … not tired … the mirror wanted them to kiss their images, and finally love themselves. That was my purpose … to make them love themselves. But I wanted, needed, someone to kiss my face. That someone, a woman, would have to really see my face and love me before she could kiss me. I had never been really kissed in my life. I got henpecks, loud dramatic kinds and the kisses that you give your grandmother. But never a warm, real kiss. So I was a clouded mirror when I was around girls who I had fallen in love with in my head. That cloud kept me from just reflecting truly the images I loved most. I had to hold myself from exploding, breaking the image into dangerous pieces, cutting the beautiful face. I was trapped in my role, trying to do something with a clouded surface, and at the same time, trying to make myself seen by the girl … wishing for some way out … until it became so confusing that I had to leave and not come around again. I used to cry when this happened … one time for three days straight. And then I would go out again and play the mirror game … exposing myself and waiting for someone who could see me. There wasn’t time for bitterness.
“It really is important for you to make love, isn’t it?” Suzy asked. “Give me time … I am so afraid. Please don’t be sad. I do want to make you happy … maybe I can learn how to make love. Give me time.”
It wasn’t worth it, having Suzy fret over what she couldn’t do. I was beginning to see that she really could not make love, at least while she was in her own world. She would if she could; I knew, felt it. She would if there was time, because she was slowly opening up. But there was no time. I was leaving in less than a week. So I put my wantings away and tried to get her to tell me about her world. But the cloud was still there.
She opened more and more, brightening more each day she came to the store. Moe saw what was happening to her and kept saying, “When are you getting married?” Finally, the night came when tomorrow I had to fly to California.
“Why do you have to go away?” Suzy asked, looking sadly up at me.
“You know. I don’t want to leave … but I have to.”
“Why can’t you stay? This is why I don’t like your world. People are always going away just when I am getting warm. It hurts.”
“I wish there was a way that I could take you there.”
“I could hitch,” Suzy said, then thought about it, looking into the air. “If I was free to go, I would hitch.”
“Aren’t you free to go if you want?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The Past … a Curse.” Her saying this left me in chills. “Please don’t ask me questions.”
“But if you want to come, then you should be free to come … there is always a way. But I don’t like the idea of you hitching cross country. It’s dangerous.”
“But I hitch all the time,” Suzy said, surprised at my worrying. I could just see Suzy being raped by some bull-chested Southern redneck in a beat-up old Dodge behind some run-down gas station. I didn’t want to take the risk if we didn’t have to. but I always took risks when I was by myself … for myself. So why was I so afraid of letting Suzy take risks?
“If you want to come to California … I suppose hitching is all right. I would worry about you, until you showed up. But that is my problem. If you really want to, then do it. It’s OK if you don’t want to.”
“I want to, but I can’t,” Suzy said, asking for understanding with her eyes.
“Why?”
“I’ve already told you. I am under a curse. I cannot leave of my own free will.”
“What kind of curse?”
She just stared blankly into space. I was beginning to feel like I was in a horror movie. Why couldn’t it just be simple, without all these … things … what were they? … supernatural … creepy things being thrown at me?
“Why don’t you trust me?” I asked, jabbing my pointer at the letters.
“I trust you,” Suzy said, slowly moving her childlike finger over the board.
“No you don’t! If you did, you would let me in on your secrets.”
“How can I tell you when I don’t know what the curse is? I only know that I am under it and trapped here.”
“You are the only one who can break the curse by doing what you want to do … what you want … not what you are told by some voice. The voice is inside of you, but it isn’t really you. Listen to yourself, your real self.”
“But I am not real. I don’t exist.”
“Cut that out! You are feeling so you are real.”
“But I can’t feel anything. I can’t because I don’t exist.” Tears were running silently down her face.
“If you don’t feel, why are you crying?”
“Because I hurt. All I can feel in this world is pain. I want to shatter. Right now!”
“Why do you hurt?”
“Because I am hurting you … making you sad. I don’t want you to be sad. But I can’t help it.”
“Do you love me?”
“Yes … I think so. But that’s impossible because I don’t exist. I can’t love …. Why does that make you sad?”
“Because I love you and I don’t …” I was lost in words again. Lost in the ball of sadness inside of me again. I felt like hitting that cameo face to prove to her her realness. I wished I could shake her so hard that the shell would break. She just sat there, not feeling her own tears, wondering why I felt sad … wondering what she had done. I had to calm down.
“If you don’t really exist … I know you do exist, but what I know doesn’t matter right now … reality doesn’t matter. You don’t exist. You love me and want to go to California with me … or at any case, you think so. But you don’t exist, so you can’t want anything or love anyone … Now, am I real?”
“You are the realest person I have met in this world.”
“Since you are not real, nothing can matter to you. But I am real, and things do matter to me. Little things, like knowing you are OK. I want you to come out. You can stay at my apartment as long as you want. Or you can roam the streets if you want … at least, it is warm there.”
“I want to … I would … but the curse.”
“Why don’t you just trust me? I studied magic … the real magic. There is no curse, no spell, that can trap a person who truly believes in himself. Also, one person can release another from under a spell if he believes in himself and if the enchanted person believes strongly enough in his friend. If you believe in me enough to come, then the curse will be broken. Believe in me. Do that much for me.”
I didn’t know where that came from. It was just one of those things that popped into my head. At times when I had just thrown what I thought was my last punch, the punch that didn’t quite do the job, one of these things would come to me and I would follow it blindly, no matter how weird it sounded. This magic thing sounded freaky. But it had a true ring. And I could see that it struck Suzy. “Will you trust me that much?”
“I will hitch as soon as I can.”
Moe came over, his bare chest sweating in the heat. “What are you two loons jabbering about?” he asked.
“Suzy is hitching to San Bernardino,” I said.
“What for? For this mutation?” Moe waved his head towards me. “You have shit for brains! But that isn’t any of my business. Why not fly with him instead of hitching?”
For a long time, Suzy just sat there, trying to decide if she could talk to Moe through the board. She never talked to him before, except through hand motions. She finally pointed out. “How? I haven’t any money.”
“I’d be stupid not to notice. I’ll make a package deal … Tell you what I’m going to do, my little chickens. I’ll send you both on the jet tomorrow.”
“Cut that out …. You’re in the red now. You even tricked me into paying my way out here. If I had known how broke you were then, I wouldn’t have come here in the first place. I feel like I am sponging off of you. Just see if I come here again until I can pay my way,” I said.
“Oh, dry up, prune face! Who said I was broke? Have you seen my books? The fact is that I have five months back wages that I haven’t collected. Bet you didn’t know I had two silent partners who agreed before we opened the store to pay me $200 a month. I just put the money right back into the store. But legally, I would have a thousand even if the store sinks right now, which it won’t. So, it is no skin off my back to send you two lovenicks back to where you belong.” Moe ran out of breath, but caught it and went on raving, “But even if I were bankrupt, I have the right to give my last dollar to you if I want to without having to listen to your feeling guilty, asshole. If it would ease your small mind, you can pay me back with ten dollars a month.”
“I’ll do that,” I said.
“I’m sure you will,” Moe laughed ironically, but with a certain respect somewhere down deep. “Sexy Suzy, are you up for flying?”
“I could never fly. I am afraid of airplanes and heights,” Suzy said.
“I don’t blame you … airplanes look too big to go up in the air. But they do stay up in the air … most of the time. Flying is almost as much fun as …”
“But I am still afraid,” Suzy said.
“If you let fear run your life … let it keep you from going where you want and doing what you want … you are not free. Fear is only in your head, and you are the master of your own head … well, ain’t you” Moe could have been a preacher, a rabbi, if he believed in God.
Suzy just sat there in silence.
“Do you want to go?” Moe asked.
“Yes,” Suzy said.
“Is there anyone who would keep you here?”
“No. I have no one.”
“Then you are flying?”
“Maybe,” Suzy said. For the first time, I felt a note of mischief in her, something that was always hidden by her sadness and gloom. Although I didn’t like the maybe answer, this new feeling told me that the mirror was getting results.
Moe walked from us towards the back room saying, “If you two ever make up your minds, you know where to find me.”
“Does he really mean it … about paying my way? Can he afford it?” Suzy asked me.
“If you knew him better, you wouldn’t ask such sane questions. Of course he meant it … and of course, he can’t afford it. But if you don’t take him up on it, he will be insulted. You’d be lucky to get him to call you shithead months afterwards. But I’ll pay him back even if I have to trick him into taking my checks.”
“Do you have to go tomorrow? Couldn’t you wait for a few more days?”
“My first class is Monday morning, the day after tomorrow. So, I have to go.”
“Do you believe that I want to go with you? I’ll even fly with you.” Suzy shivered at the thought of flying, licked her lips nervously, and went on, “I will fly with you if you wait for a few days.”
“I do know that you want to go. But how long do you want me to wait?”
“I don’t know … it depends on how long it takes to do what I have to do. But you can’t wait. You have things to do too. I’ll hitch when I have done the things. Sometime … maybe.”
“I hate it when you answer ‘maybe’ and ‘sometime’. Those two words don’t exist, neither do ‘fear’ and ‘can’t’. They don’t exist in the language. Are you coming … yes, or no?”
“Maybe,” Suzy said stubbornly, sad that she couldn’t say anything else. She thought for a long while, then said, “I will come soon. Soon.”
“Promise?”
“I can’t promise. But I will come soon.” Suzy thought for a minute, and then asked, “If I tell you something, you won’t tell anyone?”
“No.”
“Promise?”
“I promise … I can promise things because I know I can do what I want,” I said.
“I escaped from a mental hospital in New York a year ago. I ran away from home when I was seventeen after my parents tried to kill me. They tried many times to do it. So, I ran away. We lived in the country in West Virginia. I just walked away. I got to New York, but the police picked me up. I couldn’t talk then either, and I didn’t have any I.D. They couldn’t find out who I was or where I came from. So, they called me Suzy and put me into the hospital.”
“What is your real name?”
“I can’t remember. It isn’t important, is it?”
“Not to me. But you should have some I.D. so when the cops stop you, they won’t bother you … unless you are carrying grass.”
“They never pick me up,” Suzy said, “They can’t catch me again. Never again.”
“But you were caught that first time, weren’t you?” I asked.
“Yes. But I escaped from the hospital after a year and came here. Since then, I have been protected by the voices. So, if I don’t disobey the voices, the policemen can’t catch me. That is why I can’t fly with you tomorrow. There is one more thing I have to do … people are depending on me. I can’t let them down.”
“What do you have to do?” I asked, thinking it was likely to be some kind of dope deal in which she was letting herself be used as the go-between. She had guts to live like she did … no, it was foolishness, which was almost like having guts except it was mixed with fear. A deadly combination.
“One of my friends is in a mental hospital near Baltimore. I have to go tomorrow and stay overnight to help him escape.”
“How?” I felt like I was asking a calm, but mad, scientist how he was going to blow up the world.
“The same way I did. Walk out.”
“Simple.”
“Yes. But he needs me to do it.”
“I need you too … free and safe. If you do it, they will put you in there, too.”
“They can’t do that, because I am protected … Why won’t you believe that?” Suzy asked, wondering why I couldn’t accept simple facts.
“Come to California instead.”
She looked shocked, disappointed at me, “Leave him there? Don’t ask me not to do what I have to do.”
It wasn’t any good trying to argue logically with her, telling her the reasons why her mission was impossible and why it was dangerous. The reasons just didn’t exist in her world. Why was she afraid of everything except what was the most dangerous? The thought ran through my mind that she was just making the whole thing up as an excuse not to fly with me. But it was too far out to be an excuse. Suzy would just walk into the hospital without a plan, a plot, in her head, and walk out with her friend. It was so insane that it might have worked. It was her life and I wasn’t her mother; but the risks that she was taking gave me a clammy feeling. I made her write down Moe’s name and the store’s phone number to put in her little handbag … just in case.
“Stop worrying about me.” Suzy gave a little laugh … a silent giggle. Did she really laugh? A warm feeling spread over inside of my body, replacing the cold dread. She really laughed … it wasn’t my imagination. It was a pin prick laugh that most people wouldn’t have noticed. Suzy had not been smiling two weeks before. I don’t know why she laughed … maybe because of how funny I look worrying so much. But the laugh released me from worry, letting me go home with something even if Suzy might never come. I still wanted her to come and would be sad if she didn’t come. But the feeling that we were in right then was all that mattered … for right then.
“I will come after I help my friend,” Suzy said.
When we told this to Moe, he just said, “I’ll ship her C.O.D. in a week to you.”
Suzy stayed that night after we had a party, eating the carry-out egg rolls and some chicken shit from the Peking Restaurant next door. Suzy was sitting on the chair … cross-legged, rocking back and forth as she ate with her fingers. Smiling. Happy. I wished that this was the last picture I had of her. But the next morning she stood in the rain, watching Moe put me into the car. Moe tried to push her in after me, but she had to do her mission. She just stood there, crying in the rain. This is the last time that I will see her. She will never come out. She will stay under the Curse, getting caught or trapped. She was still standing there, staring after us, as we made the U-turn and headed for the airport. This is the last time I will see her.