Part 23 (1/2)

And he didn't have no pentagram on the palm of his hand, neither.

So much for Hollywood.

Once his search had exhausted every possible lead, slammed up against every conceivable wall, his mind simply shut down. Syd became zombielike, simultaneously distracted and stupefied, like he was perpetually tuned to a station that was off the air. By that time his welcome at Casa Kramer was pretty effectively worn out, and Tommy had asked Syd to leave. He did so without complaint.

The next stop was a room at the Y, where he stayed afloat doing odd jobs for Manpower and other menial employment agencies. As bad as the economy was, there was always grunt work for garbage men, moving men, general unskilled labor. It kept him marginally solvent, even as it reinforced his faltering self-image. He worked as much as he could, never said a word to anyone, and wandered the streets and slept in his spare time. He never went into the woods anymore, eschewing even parks for fear of waking the sleeping beast. Syd hid in a world of concrete and shadow. Blocking his memories. Shut off from his dreams.

Then one night he wandered into Big Danny's Deadbeat Bar & Grill. It was conveniently right around the corner, and it gave him everything he needed, including a surprisingly effective recipe for keeping things submerged. It called for lots of beer, but no hard liquor; a mind kept distracted, sedated, and numb; people he couldn't care less about; and absolutely zero point zero romance.

He'd found that beer worked best, as a control mechanism: carefully regulating the dosage of numb. Somewhere between nine and fifteen cold ones, he slipped into the dead zone. Any more than that, and it was anyone's guess. That was why Nora had always insisted upon Comfort: it took you over so fast, you never knew what hit you.

Numb was the ticket: freed of both his monster and his rational mind, it made circular thinking easier, and put him on an even intellectual keel with the rest of Big Danny's highbrow clientele. After a while, even his temper subsided: these people were simply too stupid to argue with.

As for s.e.xual abstinence, it was no longer a problem. The kind of females who frequented the bar were about as appealing as cheese mold. And by now, he was utterly terrified of women. Their effect on him. His reaction to them. Their power over him.

Nora had been his final lesson.

He had never gone back to Chameleon's again.

But now-sitting here with his eighth gla.s.s of Pabst, surrounded by burnouts and hopped-up human dregs-Syd felt the first stirrings of a s.h.i.+ft within him, like a tiny switch flicking at the back of his brain. Right in the vicinity of that long-forgotten itch.

Enough, it seemed to be saying.

Enough . . .

And that was when he felt the presence, stalking him from behind. The one and only Marc Pankowski, here to feed on his malaise. Syd had almost forgotten how evil he was: what a soul scavenger, what a parasite of sorrow. The simple fact that Marc was stalking him let him know how far he'd fallen, how totally screwed-up and vulnerable he must appear from the outside; and that was the most terrifying realization of all.

At that moment, his dread resurged. But with it, for the first time in ages, conviction. Suddenly, he was remembering something that Jules had said, way the h.e.l.l back in the post-Karen, pre-Nora days. A vintage piece of Jules-style wisdom, replaying once again behind his eyes. It was, quite naturally, on the subject of depression; and Syd couldn't help but wonder why he'd forgotten it so long.

Maybe it had just been waiting for the right moment to remind him.

Maybe that moment had finally come.

When the blues. .h.i.t you bad, Jules had said, sometimes you've just got to roll with 'em, just let life run its course. And if it knocks you down so hard that you can't get up, then sometimes you've just got to lay there and let it kick you around for a while. That's the way of the world, my man. Anybody who knows will understand.

But a lot of times, you'll wake up one day to find that the blues have wandered off to greener pastures, found some other fool to kick around; and that in fact, you've just been laying there kicking yourself for G.o.d only knows how long.

At that point, it's probably time to get up. Dust yourself off. And get on with your life.

Eighteen months, he realized now, was an adequate period of mourning: for Jules, for Nora, for the life that might have been. He did nothing to honor their memory by hiding in this hole: drinking himself stupid, slowly wasting away.

A year and a half.

Maybe that was actually long enough.

Then Syd looked up, and Marc Pankowski was there: Depression Incarnate, etched in living weasel-flesh. Suddenly, Syd was actually almost happy to see him.

It wasn't every day you got to face down your demons.

Now if we were at Chameleon's, Syd found himself thinking, it would probably be time for the ol' ”Band Gambit.” He'd try to guess what I thought of the tunes, feed me back precisely what I wanted to hear. The mere act of thinking blew dust off Syd's brain. He felt himself starting to smile.

But if there's no music playing, he mused, what will Marc try to use? Syd did a quick mental inventory. Good ol' Messrs. Hunk and Weed were still having angry words, at the far end of the bar; that might be good for a Pirates reference. Beyond that, Syd got a little fuzzy. This bar is smokin'? This dive really sucks?

It was hard to imagine. Marc took a seat beside him, his mouth already beginning to open. Syd braced himself, did a little psychic drum roll. It was the moment of truth.

”I hate the f.u.c.king 'Love Connection,'” Marc said.

Syd laughed, a single hard bark of absurd comprehension.

It was all so very casual: as if they were good friends, or the most perfect of strangers. Marc had that way of insinuating himself: a remarkable confidence that came from being ahead of the game because he was making it up on the spot.

Syd said nothing, let him play his hand.

Marc reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a pack of smokes, offered one to Syd. Marlboro Lights. Syd declined. ”You didn't quit smoking,” Marc said. It was nearly a question. To which Syd pulled out his pack of unfiltered Camels. Marc smiled, showing little yellow teeth. ”I was gonna say. You always have a cigarette in your hand.”

Marc paused to light one up, Syd watched him, waited. If Marc noticed Syd's watchfulness, he gave nothing away. He was used to fielding att.i.tude. It was part of his job description.

On the tube, a vacuous blonde Malibu Barbie described the intimate details of her ”love connection” with the grinning goob to her left. Marc grimaced and shook his head, as if the sight physically pained him. ”Jesus G.o.d,” he moaned. ”Look at the rack on that b.i.t.c.h. Can you imagine getting your hands on something like that?”

Syd looked at the blonde, did the inevitable comparison. Now it was Syd's turn to look physically pained.

”Oh, man, I'm sorry.” Marc really looked it, too. Very slick. It was a measure of how good he was that he'd cut straight to the core of Syd's pain in less than thirty seconds. ”Oh, s.h.i.+t. You're still thinking about her, huh? I didn't know, man. I really didn't. I'm sorry.”

And it wasn't just the manipulation Syd minded-wasn't just the fact that the b.u.t.tons were still there to be pushed. It was the presumption of intimacy: the bogus, unclean transition from stories pa.s.sed on the rumor mill to deeply shared personal experience. He knew that Marc had never even seen Nora, much less watched them together. That Marc should feel free to yank on those chains triggered something in him. Something he hadn't felt in a long, long time.

It was clear that Marc saw it; his big show of contrition kicked into overdrive. ”Hey, whoa, man. Lemme buy you a drink,” he said at once, didn't even wait for Syd to respond. ”Danny! Hey, Danny! Set up my buddy here!”

Syd watched the bartender lumber toward him, fought down the urge to laugh. He didn't want a beer off this guy. He didn't want another drink at all. What he wanted, more than anything, was just to get the h.e.l.l out of this place. He felt, all at once, both unhinged and hyperclear, as if suddenly awakening from a dream. He looked around the bar, at all those bleary-eyed faces, and he thought MY G.o.d WHAT AM I DOING HERE?

And through it all burned the image of Nora: the woman who had so undone his life and reduced him to this. In that moment he wished: if only he could take back those seconds, excise them strategically from his life-from the moment she first stepped through the door and her eyes found his face. And that sly smile beguiled him.

And she walked right up and said . . .

”Holy s.h.i.+t.” Syd paused for a moment, stunned, while a little light bulb went off over his head. ”Holy s.h.i.+T.” Putting together a vision out of intuition and dime-store magic.

”You know what?” he said, addressing Marc for the first time. He clapped one hand on Marc's shoulder, and Marc visibly contracted, as though flinching in advance.

But Syd only smiled. ”I would like a drink, now that ya mention it,” he said, in deadly earnest. ”But beer's not what I need.”

Then he turned to Danny and said, ”Dan, muh man. I need my brain back.

”Make me a Hemorrhaging Brain.”

”Huh?” Big Dan said, utterly clueless. ”Whuzzat?”