Chapter 10
Q: What was it that happened once?
A: The what that happened once is, not was, a connection in Grin that severed many previous bonds.
Q: Can you tell me how it felt, when what happened happened once?
A: Yes. What happened once felt like a breaking and a joining, like sliding into a warm darkness and leaving behind a cold, cold fluorescent buzzing.
Q: Was what happened once, then, erotic?
A: What happened once was erotic.
Q: Did what happened once happen in a bed?
A: Not as one might presume. But, yes, what happened once happened, in a way, in a bed.
Q: Is what happened once a dalliance?
A: I cannot say because I cannot know. In any case, I feel no shame in confessing what happened once, nor any need to seek penance.
Q: When was it that what happened once happened to happen again?
A: What happened once happened to happen again in the dream within a dream within a dream.
Q: What was that tertiary dream in which what happened once happened to happen again?
A: The answer is long. Q: Are you sure you want to hear it?
A: Yes. Q: Will you tell me how what happened once happened again, as if your dream were a story?
A: Yes.
——- The first thing Grin noticed was that he was watching himself. The second thing he noticed was that he was no longer in the midst of a lethal game of cat and mouse. The third thing Grin noticed was that the note which was in his pocket was gone. The fourth thing he noticed was the woman with whom he shared his body. The fifth thing Grin noticed was that the two were hanging precariously off the edge of a skyscraper, in a window washer lift. The sixth thing he noticed was the man above Grin and the woman, who watched the two copulate with a grim satisfaction.
The seventh thing Grin noticed was that he was looking up at the man. The eighth thing he noticed was that this day was too pleasant to die. The ninth thing Grin noticed was that the woman was crying while she rode him. The tenth thing he noticed was that Grin loved her so much that her safety was the only thing that mattered to Grin. The eleventh thing Grin noticed was the other man nodding to his friends, who held fireaxes. The twelfth thing he noticed was the incredible frailness of his being, the emptiness of his stomach, the smallness of his body. ——–
Grin wakes up in a blown-out building lit by fires in oildrums. He raises his head, feels dizzy, falls back on a pillow.
“Whoah—steady now. You’ve had quite a fall.”
Grin tries to figure out who is speaking. He can’t. He accepts that someone is speaking.
“Am I where I am?” Grin asks, confused.
“What a sensible thing to ask!” replies the voice. “No, you are not where you are. You are where you were to will be.”
“How did I get to where I will be?” Grin asks without missing a beat.
“My, you’re very lucid for one who is between selves,” the voice replies. Grin notices, for the first time, that he recognizes the voice. He then realizes that he has no idea to whom this voice belongs. Without lifting his head, he turns to see if he can discern who owns the voice which speaks. Grin sees only a silhouette at the foot of his bed.
“I know you,” Grin says.
“No you don’t,” the voice replies.
“But I recognize you,” Grin says in return.
“Yes, but to know and to recognize are very different things.”
“How can one recognize a voice which he does not know?” Grin asks.
“Grin, you will know me. You recognize what is to be. But you do not know yet,” the voice tells him, with a strong note of compassion.
“I recognize what is to be.” Grin repeats these words in an effort to know them.
“Very good,” the voice tells Grin.
“Voice,” Grin says, with as much specificty as he can, “I think I need your help.”
“Yes, you do.” The voice sounds sad.
“Why are you sad?” Grin asks.
“Because you are not were to have needed my help yet,” the voice says, with stifled sobs interrupting.
“Stop,” Grin says. “Do not cry for what is yet to have not been.”
Grin notices the aborted sobs stop.
“Can you send me back to what was once?” Grin asks.
“Yes,” the voice responds, “but it means you will not be where you are supposed to will be for a very long time.”
“I have no need of time, and neither does what is supposed to be,” Grin says.
“And that, Grin, is why I will help you fix this interruption,” the voice responds.
“Send me back, please, to before that what was never to have been.”
“I cannot until you understand why it never was supposed to be.”
“I already know,” Grin says, with conviction.
“Are you sure?” the voice asks.
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me?”
“Yes.”
“What then?”
“No. I will not tell you. But I can.”
“How am I supposed to trust you, Grin?” the voice asks.
“Because to trust is to believe in the absence of knowledge,” Grin says. “You’ve answered your own question. I will see you again soon.”
There is a shuffling of feet and a moving of fabric. Grin sees the silhouette rise, approach him. For one moment, he makes out a pair of eyes who he knows will call up the moon and reverse the tide.
“I will always love you, Li,” Grin says, as the eyes and face which frames them blur into a static that becomes a rush of memories and a movement of light backwards into a single point of brightness inside a deep blue darkness by a pole on a street blocked off by concrete barriers placed by a man whose face is painted white whose friends carry fireaxes which ravage a car parked at the foot of the concrete barriers.
Grin is sitting behind the steering wheel of a car. The car is surrounded by men who shake the car, men who hit the car with axes. Grin swallows down the fear rising in his throat. Grin remembers what is to will be. Grin opens the door of the car.
He steps out, feels the loose gravel crunch underneath his rubber soles. The men with fireaxes step back, raise their tools as weapons, prepare to pounce.
Grin breathes in the sweet night air, smells honeysuckle, says to anyone who will hear, “Tonight is too pleasing an evening to die. If you were anyone but who you are, wouldn’t you all agree?”
Grin hears the shuffling of unsure feet. He hears one voice among the many speak. “What do you want, fucker?”
Grin opens his eyes, looks to his left—opposite from the voice who spoke. “I want to speak with the man who has a face painted white.”
“What do you want with Gr—”
“Shut up, will you, Bruce?” another voice interrupts. After a second, the second voice speaks again. “What do you want with THE BOSS?”
“That’s for him to know,” Grin says. His confidence shakes the confidence of others.
“Hold on,” Bruce says. He pulls out a cell phone and holds down a button. He brings the phone to his ear, waiting. After a few seconds, Grin hears a tinny voice bridge the short distance between the phone and Bruce’s ear. Bruce converses,
“Yeah, there’s someone here to see THE BOSS. . . . No, I don’t know why. . . . I don’t know. . . . He’s unarmed” putting his hand over the receiver, he says, “Benny, pat him down,” then lowers his hand. “Yeah, he’s harmless. . . . No. . . . Why? Fuck you. . . . Shut up and open the god-damned door, will you?”
Bruce speaks to Grin, “We’re going to escort you in. If you do anything funny, we’re cutting off all your parts from least to most painful.”
Grin tells Bruce, “I’m going to save your life tonight.”
Bruce swallows, forces a laugh. “Listen to this guy,” he says.
The troupe escorts Grin past the concrete barriers, through a rusty iron door that swivels shut behind him, to a room filled with hovering lights. A man sits in a chair in the middle of the room, bent over a desk. He writes profusely. His hand is a blur. His face is painted white. He looks up, meet’s Grin’s eyes. A moment of recognition flashes across both faces.
“What are you doing here?” the man with the white painted face asks.
“What are you doing there?” Grin responds.
“Writing,” the man says. “Bruce, is this the guy you said needed to see me?”
“Yeah, BOSS,” Bruce says, eager to please.
“Benny, Bradley, take Bruce over to the pillarbox,” the man with the white-painted face says.
“But, BOSS!,” Bruce objects.
“Brucey, you’re done,” THE BOSS says. “It’s your turn to be fun.”
“That’s a shitty rhyme,” Grin says.
THE BOSS turns to face Grin. “And what do you know?”
“I know how this all plays out, Grin,” Grin says to THE BOSS.
“What did you call me?” THE BOSS says.
“You and all ears here heard me call you by your real name, Grin,” Grin tells himself.
“Listen, bud, I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m going to show you who I am,” THE BOSS says. “Bruce, it’s your turn!”
“BOSS!” Bruce pleads. Nonetheless, Benny and Bradley tie Bruce to a vertical wooden beam. They ties Bruce’s arms behind the beam, secure the two halves of a box around his feet.
THE BOSS gets up from his seat, picks up a saw, heads over to Bruce. He turns to face Grin, says, “I think it’s time you see what you’re messing with,” and—without turning his eyes away from Grin, places the saw on the top of Bruce’s head.
Bruce sobs like a little child. After all, Bruce is still a little child. After all, all people are still little children.
Grin sighs. “This is very unbecoming, Grin,” he says to THE BOSS.
“Stop calling me that,” THE BOSS says, as he starts to saw into Bruce’s skull. Bruce screams.
“Grin, stop.” Grin says this to THE BOSS.
“Who are you talking to?” THE BOSS says with a chuckle, sawing gently to and fro, to and fro.
“In the name of the Wind—in the name of the second chord of the song you will never ever forget—in the name of Li, who is so many things to as many people—in the name of your mask, painted onto your face—in the name of the child, who cries like a child—in the name of the realm that is to become the real—in the name of the name of the name of the name you know but have tried so hard to erase—stop.”
Grin closes his eyes, opens them again. He sees his hand moving to and fro, to and fro, grinding an axe slowly into a man’s skull. He screams, lifts the blade straight up. Blood pours out of the man’s head. Grin swipes the axe, held in his right hand, straight through his left arm. His left hand falls to the floor. Grin’s arm pours blood out in a river. Grin closes his eyes, opens them again.
Grin sees THE BOSS on the ground, holding the stump of his left arm. Bruce’s head is covered in blood, but his eyes are still open and he is still screaming. The faces of so many men are frozen in terror. And in the midst of this terror, a woman walks into the room.
Grin meets here eyes. THE BOSS looks between the two. “So this is what this is all about,” THE BOSS says with a chuckle. “Well, I have a plan for you two.”
“We’ve all seen the end of that road, Grin,” Grin says to THE BOSS.
“S T O P C A L L I N G M E T H A T G O D – D A M N E D , R I D I C U L O U S N A M E ! ! !” THE BOSS, whose face is painted white, screams.
“Aria, before you speak,” Grin says to the woman standing in the midst of men, “I need to ask you not to speak. I need to ask you to wait to speak. Save your agency for a better moment than this,” he says.
- – -
- – -
- – -
“No,” Aria says. “This is the beginning of the what is to be, and I will not let you treat me like a one-winged angel.”
Grin cries a bit. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to protect you.”
“From what?” Aria asks.
“From me,” Grin says with a sob.
“P A Y A T T E N T I O N T O M E ! ! ! ! ” THE BOSS screams.
“No,” both Grin and Aria say.
“Bruce,” THE BOSS says, “you want to stay around a bit more?”
Bruce sobs. “Yeah, BOSS.”
“Then take these two to the lift.”
“Yeah, BOSS.”
Grin and Aria feel hands wrap around them. The bodies behind the hands push them over into a lift on the side of a skyscraper. The bodies behind the hands lower the lift three stories.”
THE BOSS walks over to the edge of the skyscraper. He looks down. It is day. “Now fuck,” he says. “Fuck, you two, or I’m going to cut the ropes.”
Grin and Aria look at each other. Grin feels sadness and sorrow, love and recognition. “I will save this moment,” Grin says.
Aria, whose agency Grin cannot control, says, “Everything begins to end here.”
“Look,” Grin says, pleading, “this isn’t the end of the middle yet.”
“I don’t know,” Aria says. “It feels like an end to me.”
“We’re not meant for each other,” Grin cries. He cries becuase he loves Aria.
Aria says nothing.
“This isn’t the way it was to will be,” Grin says. He closes his eyes. He remembers why he cut the ropes. He remembers why he first painted his face white. He remembers why he laughed the first time he severed a cord. He remembers why he needs to cry.
He pulls up on the rope. He severs all ties and pulls up on the rope. He pulls pulls pulls pulls. The rope he pulls falls loose. He still pulls. He closes his eyes and pulls. Pulling, he screams with all the agony of his years pent up into one moment of defiance of Time. He pulls Time backwards, he pulls Tomorrow backwards, he pulls until the moment ceases.
He opens his eyes. Aria looks at him. The two are in the basket of a hot air balloon. Aria looks around, confused. “What happ—”
“This is the beginning of the middle,” Grin says. “There’s a lot left to do.”
Q: What does any of this nonsense mean?
A: I don’t know. But you asked to know how what happened once happened to happen again. That is how, and how it will be.
