Last Man Standing

29

Web drove down the street to his mother’s home. He still didn’t know what the hell to do with it. To sell it would require him to fix it up and he would have to do that himself, since his bank account wouldn’t allow the convenience of hiring professionals to do it. And yet he had no desire to tighten one hinge or replace one shingle on the place.

Web was here because it had occurred to him that if he was going to be staying out at the farm for a while he would need some clothes. He didn’t want to go back to his own home right now. The reporters were probably still staking it out. However, he kept some clothes at his mom’s house too. He also wanted to return the box containing much of Harry Sullivan’s life to the attic. Being constantly on the move now, Web didn’t want to chance losing it. He also wasn’t sure what to do about his father. Should he call the main prison? Was that the place to get reacquainted with his old man? Yet chances were, at his age, Harry Sullivan was going to die in prison. This might be Web’s only shot. It was funny how almost being blown to bits by a bomb in a phone made you reorder your priorities.

His musings about his father stopped when his phone rang. It was Claire, and she sounded nervous yet determined.

“I’ve been giving our sessions a lot of thought, Web. I think we need to change tactics somewhat. I’m curious about a few things and I think they can be better addressed in a different sort of way.”

“Well, that’s incredibly vague, Claire. What exactly are you talking about?”

“From our discussions so far, Web, it seems to me that many of your issues stem from your relationship with your mother and stepfather. During our last session you told me that you had grown up in your mother’s house and that you had recently inherited it from her.”

“So?”

“And you also mentioned that you would never consider living there. Also that your stepfather died there.”

“Again, so what?”

“I think there might be something else there. You remember I said I listen for cues from my patients? Well, I’m getting a big one from you here.”

“What does an old house have to do with my issues?”

“It’s not the house, Web, it’s what might have happened in the house.”

He persisted. “What might have happened in the house other than my stepfather kicking the bucket that has anything to do with me?”

“Only you know that.”

“And I’m telling you that’s all I know. And I really don’t see how my freezing in an alley has anything to do with my growing up in that house. That was a long time ago.”

“You’d be amazed, Web, at how long the mind can keep something under wraps until it erupts one day. Your encounter with the little boy in the alley could have triggered something from your past.”

“Well, I’m telling you I don’t know what that is.”

“If I’m right, you do know, Web, only your conscious mind doesn’t realize it.”

He rolled his eyes. “What kind of psychobabble crap is that?”

In response Claire said, “Web, I’d like to hypnotize you.”

He was stunned. “No.”

“It really could help us get somewhere.”

“How can making me bark like a dog while I’m unconscious help?”

“Being in a hypnotic state is a form of enhanced consciousness, Web. You’ll be aware of everything going on around you. You will be in complete control. I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to.”

“It won’t help.”

“You can’t know that. It can allow you to address some issues you ordinarily would be inhibited from doing.”

“There are some things in my head maybe I don’t want to figure out.”

“You never know, Web, until you try. Please think about it. Please.”

“Look, Claire, I’m sure you’ve got lots of crazy people to help. Why don’t you think about them for a while.” He clicked off.

Web pulled his car into the driveway, went inside, packed a duffel of clothes and then hesitated at the bottom of the attic stairs, holding the Harry Sullivan box under one arm. This really shouldn’t be so hard, he told himself. An attic was an attic. Though he had told Claire otherwise, there was something about this house that had rattled him somewhere deep in his soul. Yet he reached up, gripped the cord and pulled down the stairs.

When he got to the attic, he put the box down and reached for the light cord but then drew his hand back. He looked to the various corners, seeking out threats, an endeavor that was now more instinct than habit. He drew his gaze across the plywood floor and then to all the blackened shapes of his family’s bleak history, in the form of clothes racks, piles of books, heaps of junk left to rot. The stack of burgundy-colored rug remnants near the stairway held his attention. They were tightly rolled and bound with tape. He picked one up. It was heavy and very hard, stiff as it was with both cold and age. The remnants matched the rug on the floor below and Web wondered why his mother had kept them.

Off to the side there once had been a large pile of clothes. Now the space was empty. Web had sometimes come up here, pulled the attic door closed after him and hidden under the clothes pile during his stepfather’s many rampages. His stepfather had also kept his stash of drugs and special liquor up here too, because he feared his wife getting her hands on them. He would stumble up here in the middle of the night, already wasted, and seek out additional means to do his mind further damage. It was the early seventies, the country still digging itself out from Vietnam, and people like his stepfather, who had never taken up arms for his country or for any other cause, used the general angst and indifference of the times as an excuse to live life on a perpetual high. Part of the attic floor was also over the ceiling of Web’s bedroom. When he was young and in bed, Web would hear his stepfather’s footsteps overhead as the man sought out his mood-altering substances. Young Web would be terrified that Stockton might come crashing down through the ceiling, to land on top of him, and beat the hell out of him. A cobra in your bed, kill or be killed. When Stockton did beat him Web would have gone to his mother, but most of the time she was not there to console him. She often took long drives at night and came home in the morning, hours after Web had dressed and fed himself and rushed off to school so he wouldn’t have to confront the old man across the breakfast table. The creak of steps still bothered him to this day. He closed his eyes and breathed in the chilly air, and in his mind that old, vanished pile of clothes rose high into the air. And then right on cue there was a slash of red and then sounds flooded him that made Web open his eyes and rush back down the stairs and close the attic door. He had had this vision a thousand times and could never figure it out. He had gotten to the point where he didn’t want to decipher it, but for now, for some reason, he felt like he was closer to its true meaning than ever before.

He sat in the Mercury and pulled out his cell phone and the piece of paper Big F had given him the night before. He checked his watch. It was right at the time the paper said to call. He punched in the numbers and the phone was immediately answered. He was given a set of instructions and then the line went dead. At least they were an efficient bunch. Well, he was going to have a busy night.

As he drove off, he paraphrased the immortal words of TOC:

“Web London to the rest of the human race, nobody has control.”