In Laymon's Terms

He leaned over like a Moslem at prayer and placed his forehead against the sidewalk. Softly, he rubbed his cheek against the rough surface and cooed. Anyone else might have laughed. I could not. More than empathy, there was a similarity of pain. I no longer wished to leave. I ignored the muscles of my right calf as they began to twitch in anticipation of a fast run.

“It was one of those days when everything went wrong, you know?”

Didn’t I, though. I’d survived a thousand days like that. The day after tripping through the pulsating halls of Forever Never Land where I was God and God was me and my spleen was splashed across the sky. Each of those days had been a drop from the glory of divinity into the malicious depravity of humanity.

“Emily, my wife, awoke late for work. So late, she didn’t even have time to take Jericho to the sitters. When she left, I was still mostly asleep. Hell, I’d only been home for a few hours. A business trip, you know?”

A giggle escaped the man. Stifling the sound with the back of a hand, he stood. He picked up the fallen stepladder and set it back into place. There were only five steps, but as he ascended each, it looked like he left a small piece of his unsteadiness behind, until with his feet perched upon the next to the top step, he rose to his full height and his face turned beatifically sane.

“I can feel him here. Right here,” he said, holding a hand out into the air. “A part of him is in the pavement, but that’s only his sad part—the part that felt the pain. It was as if his soul paused while his body bounced. The rest of him is here. Sometimes, when I’m standing up here, I can see him. Especially in the mornings, because that’s when it happened. Yes, in the mornings when there’s nobody else around and all is silent. Sometimes,” the word was almost garbled in a sob, “he speaks to me.”

The man and the ladder and his son and the story suddenly coalesced and the reality of it all drove me to my knees. Heaviness filled my heart and moved outwards, locking my body in a breathless grip.

I’d heard enough.

Too much.

I wanted to stand and run. Like a bad trip, however, I was locked within the progression of events.

A door opened in the building and a woman skipped down the stairs, a briefcase in one hand and a newspaper in the other. She sidestepped the ladder, her gaze sailing across our spectacle. My mouth and hands were unable to work so I reached out with my mind and begged her to free me. She paused as if she’d actually heard my pathetic psychic plea, then shook her head and continued on her way.

It seemed that our world was only meant for two.

I tried to ignore the man when he started speaking again.

I tried to blot out his existence with happy memories, but I had none.

As he spoke of his dead son, I remembered my own.

“Days like this, I can almost hear him laugh. Jericho had the most wonderful laugh, but then I suppose all sons do.”

Yes, I thought. All of them do. Right up until the point where they discover their father is a beast.

“I used to be a day trader, watching the computer as if it were a crystal ball. I was good at it, too. Sure, I made some small mistakes, but by the end of each week I was far enough ahead they were forgotten. Sometimes, while feeding Little Jerry and watching the numbers slide by. I’d jab his cheek with a spoonful of food. Instead of being irritated, the fool kid would laugh at me. It was as if he understood my embarrassment. To get me back on track, he’d yell, ‘Crash’.”

Every molecule of my body cringed at the word.

Crash.

It was one of the few words in the English language that sounded just like the event it stood for. A split-second impact, the crunch of metal, the shattering of glass, the screams of the dying, all woven together in the incredible static hiss of a Crash.

“We used to play the old landing of the plane game with me making motor sounds and swooping in with a full spoon. For a while, it was the only way he would eat.”

Motor, swoop, land.

Motor, swoop, land.

“When I wasn’t paying attention and the spoon missed his mouth, I’d smile and tell him that Daddy crashed. Pretty soon, even that was a game. He’d beg me to do it, yelling, ‘Daddy Crash’.”

Oh, God, please let this stop. Of all of the streets in the city, why had I chosen to walk this one?

“I felt so cool when he said that. So in charge.”

Didn’t I know it? Drugs could make you feel that way. Like an earthbound God, your every movement was an attempt at release, because you know that if you were ever freed, you could become part of existence itself.