Tracking Time

Thirteen

Maslow heard the sound of a barking dog and opened his eyes. He saw very little. He tried to move. But his whole body was stiff and aching. A hammer pounded in his head. The light now was gray, the smell of pond scum was overwhelming. He knew for sure it was pond scum when a bullfrog hopped over his face with a wet splat, spiking his heart with terror. Other creatures were alive in here, too. He could hear their movements around him. Things that he knew would start eating him as soon as he died.

Now he heard a dog and prayed that someone had come looking for him. He didn't want to die.

"Here, I'm here." When he opened his mouth to scream, all that came out was a soft moan. He couldn't seem to get his voice up to full volume.

He tried to move his fingers and his mouth, but pain was all he felt. He didn't know how long he had been here. He was aware that he'd felt sicker before, that he'd fallen asleep. He'd awakened, then dozed some more.

Maslow was irritated by his weakness. He couldn't seem to rally enough energy to get himself going. Through a haze that felt like a bad drunk, Maslow knew he was not dead. Chloe was not talking to him. Nor was he trapped on the drying rack in the linen closet in the Cape Cod house that was long gone from his life. He knew his fantasy that Chloe was still alive and ten years old in Massachusetts was only a fantasy.

He was not a child and not a sixteen-year-old, drunk for the first time. He was not twenty-five and knocked out on the street after trying to help someone in a bar fight. He was not an intern in ER. He was way past all that. He was a psychiatrist now, a candidate at the Psychoanalytic Institute. He remembered his class on personality disorders the night before. He remembered his session at his Central Park West office with Allegra and how upset she'd been because he'd told her it was normal for a child to have loving feelings for a father, even if the father abused her. But that was about it.

He couldn't remember anything after coming home and getting ready for his jog. If he had not gone for the jog, he could be dreaming. But the creatures crawling on him were no dream. He was not where he was supposed to be. He was in terrible pain. He couldn't move at all. Something had happened to him. And if he didn't do something about it soon, he might well die.

His brain worked slowly. He was a doctor. He should be able to figure out what was wrong with him. He heard the barking of a dog and other noises he couldn't identify. The persistent roar troubled him. He knew he should be familiar with the sound. He struggled to remember what it was. A roar just like it occurred every few minutes night and day all year around. What was it?

Roar, vibration, then quiet for a while. He should be able to identify it, get some clue to where he was. He tried to distract himself from his fear of the dark and the creatures scurrying around there. He was in a hole. Definitely a hole. His breath caught in his throat. A hole of some kind.

He heard people shouting. He didn't know if the shouting was real, or just the sounds of people in his memory. His voice wouldn't work to call back to them. Was he paralyzed? It hit him suddenly that the roar was the subway under Central Park West. He was underground. Yes, in a hole close enough to hear the subway.

But he could breathe, so there must be air coming in from somewhere. It was dark, but not always totally dark. He knew he had to get up, get out of there, but he couldn't seem to get going. His hips and legs wouldn't move. He didn't know why. Suddenly he was eye to eye with a rat. His heart almost stopped with terror. The rat scurried over him, and he couldn't do a thing about it. The sound of the barking dog faded. He closed his eyes and prayed. Come back. Please, God, come back.