Tom Piccirilli - Frayed

Frayed

By Tom Piccirilli

Smashwords Edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press

Copyright 2011 by Tom Piccirilli

Copy-Edited by Neal Hock Cover Design by David Dodd

LICENSE NOTES:

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

OTHER CROSSROAD TITLES BY TOM PICCIRILLI:

NOVELS:

Short Ride to Nowhere

Nightjack

NOVELLAS:

All You Despise

Fuckin' Lie Down Already

Loss

The Fever Kill

The Nobody

The Last Deep Breath

UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOKS:

Nightjack Narrated by Chet Williamson

Buy Direct From Crossroad Press & Save

Try any title from CROSSROAD PRESS use the Coupon Code FIRSTBOOK for a one time 20% savings! We have a wide variety of eBook and Audiobook titles available. Find us at: http://store.crossroadpress.com

THE REASON FOR MURDER,

STONE THOUGHTS

THROWING SPARKS

Gray invited me up to the insane asylum hootenanny.

He said thered be lots of pretty girls, rich food, and non-alcoholic beer. Id been struggling with the middle of my novel before he went in the bin, and he figured correctly Id still be stuck dead in pretty much the same place now, six months later. Itll do you good, he told me over the phone, sounding happier than Id heard him in years.

I drove the hour north up the Thruway to the Clinic, expecting to see electrified fences topped with razor wire and gun-toting security guards all over the grounds. Or at the very least lots of burly orderlies in white, carrying truncheons, cans of mace. Grinning and waiting to catch some psychotic climbing down knotted sheets. But the skinny guy reading a supermarket tabloid in the booth at the gate just lifted the semaphore arm and waved me in. No second glance, no crows feet at his eyes.

At the front desk of the main building I gave my name. A tiny Asian nurse with reams of black hair spilling from beneath her little hat told me that Gray was located in dwelling #4. She handed me a detailed map and made a red X where I was to go. She smiled vacantly at me as if I was a lunatic, and I had the faint impression that the red X might be a booby trap, a pit laid out with sharpened bamboo stakes. It felt very easy to lose control of yourself in a mental hospital because you wouldnt have very far to travel to find a bed.

I walked over to Grays cottage. It really was a tiny cottage, one of four spaced directly in front of the Olympic-sized pool where several girls were swimming and laughing. They waved at me and I waved back.

The door was open and I stepped in. The place had a Hawaiian motif going, very much like a cabana. He had a large bar with five wooden stools, and there were coconuts, a mini-surfboard, and netting hanging in the corners of the room. The nets were full of papier mch lobsters with bright blue eyes and broad, smiling faces.

A large L-shaped sofa took up much of the room. Off to one side was an extremely clean kitchenette with a breakfast nook that had a freshly cut rose in a crystal vase sitting on the table. This is the home where you live every night in your dreams, where you are beloved and admired and respected for your talents, and they bow when they bring you the fruity drinks. The bedroom door hung ajar and I spotted the edge of a double bed overflowing with an absurd amount of extravagant pillows.

All in all, the cabana was about three times the size of my apartment in the city.

This is why men climb towers with high-powered rifles. This is why they go to war and learn to hack off ears. Because of this we beat our wives. Brutalize our children. Light ourselves on fire. Simply, small jealousies climb into the back of our skulls, one slimy trail after the other, until theyre so densely packed that your thoughts are like sparks thrown from a flint striking stone.

Gray sat on the couch facing away from me, typing on his laptop and absorbed by the process, an unsharpened pencil wedged between his even, white teeth. I stared over his shoulder and read the first two paragraphs of the story he was working on. The work was solid, poetic, and distinctive; everything my own writing wasnt anymore.

Hed lost weight and had a deep, rich tan, as if hed been digging ditches or graves. Maybe boxing in the outdoor rings the way he had in college. Hed dyed the gray out of his beard, had a sharp stylish haircut, and wore slick, new clothes that fit him well.

So it wasnt bedlam. No serpent pits, iron bars, or straightjackets. No rubber rooms or medieval torture devices designed to drive evil spirits from the lunatics. A loud splash outside was followed by the flutter of provocative giggles.

How do I get into this place? I asked.

He turned, looked up, and spit the pencil out. Just try to kill someone whos done you wrong, he told me. And be so conflicted about it that you make at least one fairly dramatic suicide attempt.

I can probably do that, I said.

I know you can.

It felt like he wanted to get into a serious talk right now, from the first minute, and start hashing out a few of our many unresolved issues, which probably wouldnt be the best thing to do. I steeled myself in case he came at meperhaps even wanting him to, willing him tobut he sat back, checked his screen, and corrected a typo. Since there were no doctors or attendants around keeping watch I had to be the one to act the most casual and anchored, which wasnt a good role for me.

You look great, I told him. How do you feel?

He had to think about it for a while. Clear-headed, he finally admitted. For the first time in a very long while. Some of the static seems to have faded, you know?

I stared out the window. A couple of gorgeous women went by in bikinis, holding froo-froo drinks and magazines. They looked over and caught me watching. They waved again, and I waved back again.

You sure this is really a mental hospital?

More like a preserve. You get to see the wildlife in its natural habitat.

A cabana is your natural habitat?

In the best of all possible worlds I suppose it would be.

He let out a laugh that wasnt a laugh. It was a sound I was familiar with, and there was a tinge of sorrow and hate in it. He was trying to tell me, or himself, something that he couldnt say aloud, so it just circled inside his chest for a time, hunting for a way to get out.

So this is it? The best world for you?

Better than Manhattan.

Well, yeah.

You still watering my plants? he asked, genuinely interested.

You only have one plant and its a cactus. Its pretty low-maintenance.

Unlike the rest of us.

He said it with that strained chuckle once more. He missed his digs. The harsh action of the street, the museums and bookstores, the overbearing weight of history, art, and literature laid across his shoulders, reminding him he was alive. His three ex-wives. The whores he met in the alleys, and the sweethearts he took to the theater. You could become addicted to dichotomy. The nuns and priests who guided his worship. Maybe even me. All the things that had sent him over the big edge in the first place.

I knew better than to ask him about his work. We often clashed on the approach and execution of the writing, the development of style, the procedure of publication. It had been our dream as kids, our passion as teenagers, and our downfall as adults.