Sabledrake Magazine
August, 2003
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The Ways of Magic, Pt. II & III
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The Vision
Copyright © 2003 by Madison
I ripped the words out of Deja’s cookbook.
She betrayed me; she purposely led me to believe she cared for me and that my genuine affection for her was reciprocated. I still had the neatly typed letters displayed on her colorful letterhead, with her delicious name signed at the bottom. Seeing her name in a beautiful, curving script, with an elegant and flirty touch to the ‘D’ and a long tail off the end of the ‘A’, curling into the stem of a flower. Just looking at her signature riddled my skin with goosebumps.
That was before I discovered she didn’t need me anymore.
All of her nonsense about the easiest way to make farfalle with roasted eggplant and her famous Caribbean Potato Salad was exhausting. Fool that I am, I realized no one in their right mind wants to eat a salad full of sugary yams mixed with acidic mayonnaise and above all, stuffed olives! (Unless of course that person was stoned, where in that case anything with a calorie count would suffice.)
I felt like an idiot. I believed her in and followed her chapter on “Lifestyle Rewards by Healthy Eating.” Now I laugh as the pages fall to the floor, symbolic of her words.
She lied to me, over and over again. She told me she cared that I wanted to become a Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian (I only know what that is from reading her book, I grew up like every other person in America: red meat and plenty of white sugar and dairy), and her advice that following a Vegan lifestyle was too harsh for someone with my blood sugar type.
She wrote, in her attentive and caring cursive how she admired my steadfast commitment to staying lean and healthy like her many followers, and even went on to send me ten complimentary recipes for my new commitment. I never realized I had a malfunction with my blood sugar until that second letter, but I wept with relief upon reading it for the forty-seventh time. Deja had saved my life.
I wept for days following that letter. Never before had someone cared so deeply for my well being. It was organic, just like Deja wanted my life to be. I slept with the letter close to my head, and read it aloud to Dodge every night after dinner. Dodge (where I found him, resting peacefully atop of a Dodge Caravan) was a beautiful bird, with feathers colored the shade of tropical seas and a flash of crimson down his breast. He could say my name and 14 other words, minus two unintelligible ones I was still trying to decipher.
I went for a check-up one week after I received her life-saving letter, and informed Dr. Melman of the potentially harmful oversight on his part. He ran some blood tests and informed me my blood sugar was normal, and not only was my Hemoglobin fine, my Myoglobin was “top-notch” as well.
He patted my knee and told me not to read every letter I got in the mail. Something about solicitations and sales pitches being misleading, but I didn’t listen.
I also chose not to let him know about my kinship with Deja, my new diet regimen, and most importantly, how she would never mislead me. Imagine! Deja misleading me for personal gain. The impossibility of that prospect was laughable.
But I remained silent. Dr. Melman couldn’t understand something that powerful. He was old and tired, and seemed to think I had an affinity for ripping out my own eyebrows and arm hair. Ridiculous as that sounds, the doctor was getting along in his age, and I couldn’t bear to argue with him.
The truth was, I suffered from a condition called Alopecia Areata, and my case was very rare as it only affected my eyebrows and arm hair. Dr. Melman always dismissed this and gave me a condescending, shame-on-you glare, which at times frustrated me, but I chose to ignore him. A brilliant leader once stated the best doctors are the patients themselves. Plus, the government paid for all of my medical bills; hearing Dr. Melman’s charlatan diagnoses took none of my personal money.
My love for Deja came about one afternoon very suddenly, like a case of the pox or even a fever. Today I’m told true love can’t be instantaneous; only infatuation can. Those that try to feed me this nonsense are ugly; and their souls are as dirty as their faces.
My day of providence took place at The Commons, a strip mall near my apartment, and I was there buying a frying pan in Kitchens n’ More, when I heard the most intense voice to my left. I slowly looked over and saw a vision. She was prettier than Eva Gonzalez, my favorite piece by Edouard Manet. That painting always moved me to tears; the young woman was Monet’s only student, and her beauty and innocence illustrated both a tender and maternal heart, along with a spark of cheekiness in her beautiful but arrogant eyes. I often fantasized she was my mother as a young woman. Of course that was only a fantast, as Manet died in 1883. Still, I dreamed.
The vision was speaking loudly now, excited about the topic. Her warmth and generosity with her presentation was moving, and she was looking right at me. My heart skipped one, then two times.
She spoke about the harshness of red meats and excessive dairies, the evil of processed foods, and the demons that dwelled within refined sugars. Though her words were frightening, the severity was softened by her deep voice, her long black hair that shone under the fluorescent lights, and her rosy cheeks. I believed her. Someone this beautiful and flawless could only be speaking the truth.
Suddenly I felt so ashamed I wanted to vomit. I had come here to buy a frying pan for making hamburgers tonight. I hadn’t ever owned a frying pan, and felt it was time to make my own burgers. I wanted to cry.
She saw me holding the sinful pan in my left hand, and looked disappointed. I cast my eyes down to my feet and stared at the floor, waiting for it to open and engulf me, purging my soul into the belly of Hell, where are the deceased who dined on dead mammal carcasses and the fruits of its udders were now dwelling. I held my breath, and felt my bladder loosen. The floor remained solid and unwavering, revealing no omen of an eternity among cannibals.
I had to find a bathroom. My underwear was slightly damp from my recent scare. But I loathed leaving her, this Morning Glory amidst a dawn of waste.
I sucked in my breath and fingered my backpack. I wondered if she needed a friend. Not a friend in the romantic sense, of course not like that, but in the generalized I’d-like-to-grab-a-cup-of-coffee-do-you-want-to-join-me sense. I refused to desire sharing something as intimate and special as a meal, such as lunch or dare I even think it, dinner.
Oh dear now The Vision was stepping off the elevated stairs, trouncing my reverie, and walking to me. I looked frantically through my peripheral vision for a place to put the frying pan. If she saw it, the chance of losing our summit would surely ensue.
Then I stopped: Vegetarians and-what was the other one she kept mentioning- Vegans use frying pans, don’t they? Wasn’t she just demonstrating how to sauté peppers with something called tempeh? Perfect. I am buying this lightweight, non-stick frying pan for tempeh and peppers.
Like she would even ask, I chided myself. My whole life my existence had been noted only by eternal awkwardness and bad timing; an inopportune cough, a moment of gastrointestinal weakness, a nervous laugh 10 seconds after the joke or quip, and horror of all horrors, my credit card being declined in the middle of a department store during a holiday rush. My endless, useless mutterings of “excuse me's” and “oh I’m sorry's" were unseen, my feet permanent floor mats for shoes.
The worst was in the winter, when everyone’s galoshes were sopping with the filth of parking lot slush, my own shoes inadvertently added to that crowded club of filthy boots, but my face and voice were unnoticed.
Yet, when the clerk would speak the dreaded “I‘m sorry, you card has been declined”, the entire store grew quiet, every creature that ventured out to buy their children the latest toy would stare at me, as if my very existence was a mixture of depravity and freakishness. I would burn to flames in humiliation, mumble another useless apology to the clerk, and shuffle out of line, sans any Christmas gifts.
That part was ok; I had no one to buy for except Dodge and myself. The sea of faces that never noticed me before now seemed to be glued to my very being, and for a moment, I felt like a celebrity. They were all wondering who was I? Why in the world would I have the nerve to go to a crowded store with a maxed out card? I would become the center of dinner conversation that night. I would be the topic of conversation all across the state, in homes I had never been to, out of mouths of people I had never met! Me, little old me, was now famous and talked about. The excitement of that prospect was dizzying, and I began to find a way to repeat it.
That day of realization began my spree of shopping with stolen credit cards. I never intended to keep anything; stealing was a sin. It was the 8th holy commandment. Sister Gertrude had beat my knuckles black, blue and eventually green with her ruler in the third grade when I used Michael Essney’s eraser without asking him. He told her I stole it, which was absurd, I was going to give it back once the landscapes of fires and bloodied severed hands were erased from my religion questions, but being little more than a dirty ward of the state, Sister believed Michael Mr. Fancy Pants from a real family over me.
From that day on, I was never tempted to steal, not even to take the sugars from caddies at diner tables. That was also the last day I had been whipped in front of my classmates. When she was done degrading me with her hateful wooden ruler with the razor’s edge, I vomited on her habit. I was able to instantaneously vomit at any given moment, and not the piddley bile or watery throw-up that spewed from the mouth of a timid purger. It was always the full meal I had just eaten, seemingly gallons of it.
She never whipped me again, no matter what I did.
I had only used the stolen cards to get attention. I always wore a wig, black cap pulled low over fledgling brows ravaged by a lifetime of Alopecia, a dark sweatshirt, and would wait patiently for my moment. The clerk would see the flashing message and scream “SECURITY!” and I would flash her a smile and leave, running lightning-fast out of the store, shedding my ensemble (but never my gloves) as I ran, grinning ear-to-ear.
Those nights I knew I would not be eating alone again; I would be at the dinner table of families in the whole state, including the 6’oclock news. Of course I never really ate alone, I had the eternally faithful company of my chirping friend.
Except for one perplexity: I never could remember how I came into possession of all those cards and wallets! It really was quite bewildering, and at times my urgency to search my memory would hinder my ability to complete my mission. Thankfully, I always came out on top.
Of course I had to put an end to that spree, as I was dubbed a name by the newspapers, “The Masked Shoplifter” (personally I thought they could have done much better that that, and I even fancied writing a letter of irritation to the simple-minded reporter who coined such an insipidly dull and unspectacular name, but I stopped, remembering all of the serial killers caught after cat and mouse was played with the very same tool. So I instead chose to rest peacefully in my anonymity, basking in the glow that I was finally recognized.
That was two years ago. Little has happened in the time since, outside of my job as a gift-wrapper. Until today. The Vision was now only three feet away from me. I was frozen to the floor. I prayed my weakened bladder would not burst, felt tears come to my eyes as I pictured the horror of it happening. Then I realized my tears were for her beauty. She was now two feet closer, and her warmth radiated into me. I felt whole.
One foot. “Are you ok?”
I blinked and stepped aside so she could better see whom she was talking to. But her concerned gaze followed my reluctant steps. I cleared my throat. “Who are you speaking to?”
She smiled softly. “You. You’re crying. Are you ok?” She asked again. I hadn’t realized I was crying. I lifted a trembling hand to my cheek, felt wetness and another tear sliding out of my bottom lid. The heat on my skin from the tears must have been frigid compared to the sunshine of her heart.
I wiped them away. “What’s your name?” I asked, boldly, surprising myself. In my whole life I had asked only two people that very question: The first and last time anyone ever tossed me the kickball at recess, and the second time was at my first cognitive therapy session with Dr. Fiedlink.
“Deja. Like Déjà vu.” She hurried on, seeing my brows rise. “I know, it’s different. It’s French.” She explained. I was suddenly filled with an intense hatred for the French for causing her such a lifetime of misery having to explain herself and justify a name she did not choose for demeaning her intelligence and worth.
“I’m sorry.” I offered, wanting to embrace her and tell her it would be ok.
She laughed, a soft, lilting laugh that sounded ironic, as her appearance was that of a strong, earthy woman. “Don’t be. I like my name. It was my grandmother’s.”
My hatred subsided. Now that she was a breath’s distance away, I could truly study her. Her hair was long and oddly, not as shiny as when I first spotted her, but very lustrous. It was in long separated sections, I believe they are referred to as “Dreadlocks”. Her healthy, rosy face was splotchy and somewhat dry. The poor thing must be exhausted. Her stocky build was clothed by a stunning array of long skirts and sashes, and canvas sandals covered her unpainted toes. I thought I got a whiff of foot odor, but immediately dismissed the notion and shamed myself for even thinking it was her.
“Well, nice to meet you. I gotta run out for a minute and grab a smoke or two-I got another presentation in about-“she glanced at her cell phone“-fuck! Ten minutes. See ya.”
She started to walk away, and inside I screamed and begged her to stay, to please talk to me. My knees trembled and I again felt my bladder softening. I thought I would die if Deja didn’t come back.
Heaven of hosts were upon me today. She turned around. “Hey, don’t use that brand of skillet. It really sucks. Use that one over there, next my display. And grab a card while you’re there. My web address is on it along with my address if you have any questions. I love meeting new followers.” She winked and walked away. My bladder succumbed to the pressure in a euphoric flow of relief and joy.
I spent the next three months writing her letters, raving about her book “Deja Fu”, asking her advice how to prepare lima bean biscuits, hominy, tofu burgers, and granola bread. Food normally I wouldn’t walk near before meeting Deja, but the once-cardboard taste of tofu now melted in my mouth with the same delectable ease as real beef or chicken did. Soy and veggie cheese melted on salt-free tortilla chips with fava beans and zucchini was more scrumptious than the now carnivorous mounds of beef and cheddar I used to feast on every Friday night at, no pun ever recognized, TGI Friday’s.
The only sour note in my new diet of was the absence of Deja. I set a place for her every Thursday night, without fail, hoping that maybe one of my written invitations would get to her in time. I hadn’t wanted to intrude upon her weekend plans, instead settling for a weeknight. Her PO Box was only 58.6 miles from my apartment. Not a far ride. I had been there 17 times already. I would travel the world for her.
I had gone to a printer and had them print up fifty calligraphy dinner invites, with the date and time slots blank. I began to develop a complex that my hand-written, generic invites had offended someone of her stature. The invites were beautiful, embossed with 24-carat gold piping on the letters and inside the envelopes. 50 of them cost $300 dollars, half my savings account, but I didn’t; care. Deja was lonely like me, and needed a friend. I would sell my soul for her if she asked.
So far I had sent 27 of the fifty. She hadn’t written back in over six months. The letters stopped one day very abruptly, and I was worried something had happened to her, until I called her home and found out she was alive and very well. Her number was not listed, but her website provided an answering service for her business.
I posed as a representative from the March of Dimes Foundation and left a heartfelt message that Mr. Jerry Lewis wanted her to appear this coming Labor Day on his telethon. Her assistant called back the next day, and quite befuddled, asked haltingly if it was the March of Dimes, or the Muscular Dystrophy Association that Mr. Lewis sponsored.
I immediately noticed my blunder, and felt a pang of overwhelming guilt at using the cover of such noteworthy organizations to obtain some information. I had shared a room with another foster child who had Bells Palsy for 8 years, and we grew quite cordial. I was not one to make fun of the disabled, and couldn’t figure out why I had exploited them this time. But I forgave myself; Deja was in need of my help just as much as the children in these organizations were.
I apologized to her assistant, making up some excuse about being stressed, and did some digging. To my anguish and confusion, Deja had not been out of town at all, was not overly worked, and upon hanging up, I realized that the only reason she hadn’t responded was out an oversight.
She obviously liked me, as she personally pointed out her own cookware for me to buy, and she gave me her address!!! The woman needed me, and I had to get through to her.
A week later I sent her tickets to La Boheme, with the address of a cocktail lounge two blocks from the theatre I would be waiting at. “A Night For The Best of Friends”, the themed invite read.
Normally I would never venture out to a show or a cocktail lounge for heaven’s sakes, making my monthly trip to the A&P was taxing enough. But this night was for Deja, not for me. I needed to be strong. I hadn’t received her RSVP, which was perplexing, as I had included my home number, three email addresses, my home address and PO Box address. She had plenty of ways to get back to me; she must have forgotten.
That Saturday, I waited nervously in the lounge of Clara’s, an upscale cocktail lounge for the swanky and elite, and paced nervously. I was dressed in new, expensive attire perfect for the opera, and just had my hair trimmed. Not to mention a manicure. I looked and felt as if I belonged in her circle of friends.
Gagging on my gin martini (I hated Gin, only alcohol I really liked was Coors Light, but a gin martini seemed so Deja-ish), when I saw a tall man with gray hair and a dark black suit striding towards me. He was holding a large envelope in his even larger right hand. It was evening, but he had sunglasses on.
My heart stopped. Dear God Deja has died, and he is delivering the death certificate for me to see. No that’s silly. It had to be a hand-delivered apology for missing the show, and an invitation to come to her home for a dinner party she was throwing. My bladder felt week with anticipation, but I refused to give in this time.
He shouted my name. People in the lounge looked at me. I was only 5’4, but I felt even shorter.
“Yes?” I asked.
The tall man looked at me in confusion, and repeated my name.
I nodded.
“Consider yourself served.” He slapped the papers in my hand and strode away, quickly.
I looked down at the papers. Slowly opened them. Blinked, then read again. It was a summons to appear in court. Dear Deja thought I was stalking her!
I looked up. The room and the faces in the room were spinning out of control; like scenes from the perspective of a gyrating horse on a carousel; only blurred images and faint echoes of laughter mocking me, teasing me. I wet myself and fainted.
**
These days I spend my time in a hospital, mostly in a cold room full of freaks and criminals, people accused of horrific crimes like stalking people, abusing loved ones, talking to people no one else can see.
This is a place where words like “obsessive compulsivitys”, and phrases like “General Adaption Syndrome”, “Social Perception”, and “Psychopathological Functioning”, and the most common, “Bipolar Disorder” arise frequently. All are used and tossed about causally by doctors who try to mask their egos by abandoning lab coats and spectacles, in favor of khaki pants, starched tee shirts and contact lenses.
I am to write my emotions down as I feel them during group. I’m told frequently I ride high on manic episodes, and crash low into fits of severe depression. They don’t know I have smoked marijuana before and that I know what “high” feels like, which is nothing like my life.
I am convinced that these doctors are insane and in need of therapy, and this is confirmed every time my monthly inkblot sessions come up. Every time they show me a picture of spotted ink, I see the same thing: Deja ripping my invite into shreds, the spots of ink on the corners of the page are the tears of paper from the invitations, and I am convinced I am the inauspicious subject of a social experiment concocted by the Parochial orphanage I was raised in.
I am saddened more and more everyday, particularly when the slot next to my name on the visiting list sign-in sheet remains empty. My insides feel tired and empty, like Nothing lives there now.
Recently I was informed I would be placed on a different medication, Thorazine, as my current daily cocktail of Lithium and Depakote was not helping. They already upped the milligrams from 500 to 1000, and I now feel as if my feet are planted like street posts in cement. I try to inform them they are incorrect, hoping my languid speech is persuasive, but realize it comes out not calmly, but slurred and incoherent.
They now speak of a Dissociatiave Identity Disorder. They tell me I do not nor ever have suffered from Alopecia, but rather I have been plucking my body hairs out purposely, which is symptomatic of my disorder.
I am hopelessly frightened, as I am being told I live with another human being inside my mind. They refer to him as “Paul”, and ask me everyday if Paul is with us. This is not therapy, I tell them tearfully; this is torture.
I no longer swallow my nightly dosage of Xanax, as sleep comes easily to me, however I try to stay awake as the nightmares that plague my slumber are as lurid and grisly as a horrific scene from a film that causes those who have seen it shudder intently, years after the images flashed before their eyes. I am losing myself everyday, yet I have no energy to relay this to the doctors. I can only smile lazily and mourn internally for the day when I would have a real friend, someone as sweet and understanding as Deja was, before the demons got to her.
Reverend “Shane”, as he told me to call him, prays with me three times a week, clasping my unresponsive hands in his firm and supportive ones; his gold wedding bans teases my naked finger. I envy his wife. I envy him. They must be so happy to have each other, he doesn’t need all the drugs I do, and he isn’t told he has an evil man living inside of him who takes all his body hair.
Sometimes he asks me if Paul is here today, and I still don’t know who or where this Paul fellow is. Today Shane asks me what I need payer for, and I ask him, trying to control the slack in my tongue and form my vowels succinctly, to pray for the medication to stop working, that I can go home to my apartment and Dodge.
They told me when I was initially brought here by my Social Worker, that Dodge had died; I hadn’t fed him in over a month as I had been living on the street outside Deja’s home. I loved Dodge; he was my only friend. I wept when I though of him scrounging for bird feed on the bottom of his cage, but then consoled myself with the realization I was once again being lied to.
Shane squeezes my hands and smiles warmly. “Today we pray for Him to work His grace in your life. Today we will pray for that.”
I looked at him suddenly, noting a different tone. He had tears in his eyes. I opened my mouth, but words were not forming.
He knew. “This is a good day. Today you asked me out loud what you need, and today I see your face for the first time.”
I tried to smile, but it was too tiresome. I only held my gaze for a movement, hoping he would understand. He did. We prayed and he held a gold cross tightly between his hands. My thought wandered from him and why he cared, to my skin bare above my eyes from Paul’s evil harassment, the purple Jell-O I had vomited from lunch, my nightmare of a nothingness swallowing me as I tried to flee, and of Deja.
I wished her well, but knew I may never see her again, as the doctors and this place must have lied to her as well, so she could not come and see me. And I thought of Dodge. I grew excited and shifty in my seat, thinking of petting those cerulean feathers once again, hearing him screech my name.
I lowered my eyes and a lone tear dropped to the pale yellow linoleum floor, making a small splash. The droplet spattered and landed on the outer sole Shane’s shoe. I listened to the heartfelt, faithful murmuring of the good Reverend, fancied I knew what he was speaking of, and to whom he was speaking, and I smiled. I believe I may sleep tonight, and I may wake tomorrow free of the nothing that haunts my soul.
**