JANE GEORGE                       See Jane Write

     If Timothy-the-cheating-identity-thief had called Zachariah and Rod, “two bad men,” they must be truly bad. Zachariah was, however, confusing the hell out of me. Still on his knees, with his face now in his hands, he confessed to being tired.

     He rose, packed away the leftover Chinese food in the refrigerator, put down water for the cat, told me to take the bed -- the mattress on the floor -- and then switched off the overhead light.

     Having made my way to the unkempt bed in the dark, I kicked off Rod’s flip-flops and pulled the blankets around me as best I could. The sheets smelled spicy with Zachariah’s unwashed maleness. This situation I found myself in was not conducive to sleep. I heard Zachariah  sighing and turning, trying to get comfortable on the straight-backed Sixties vinyl couch. Those giant buttons had to hurt.

This was hopeless. Sleep in the same room as a killer? Breath the air he exhaled? Patterns played on the backs of my eyelids. They continued on in the blackness as I blinked. I lay on my back and watched the patterns swirl around.

Except for my single Timothy-induced psychedelic experience, the only times I’d previously experienced anything of this sort was when I’d had the flu. As I watched them I wondered, “Are they real?” I didn’t realize I’d spoken out loud until Zach answered me.

     “Are what real?”

     “The patterns in the dark,” I whispered.

     “Do you care?”

     “Yes.”

     “Well, they’re real for you. I can’t see them.” The vinyl farted as he shifted his weight again.

     “Sometimes, I wonder if anything is real?”

     Zachariah groaned. “You’re a child. Go to sleep.”

     He looked to be in his late twenties; I supposed he’d outgrown such musings, not that his life allowed him much room to muse.

     “It’s just --”

     “Is your present situation not real enough for you?” he barked. “Was what happened to Kelly not real enough for you? GO TO SLEEP.”

     Stung, I protested, “That wasn’t what I meant. I thought I might be viewing my “present situation” through romanticizing film noir lenses.”
     “Lenses?” His voice was sharp.

     “I c-can’t.” I choked with fear. “I can’t talk… to you. Kelly’s dead. I never did like her. But she shouldn’t be dead. She can’t be dead. Not really. This isn’t real! I can’t be here!” I dissolved into a fit of tears buffeted only by the swirling colors in the dark. With time my sobs became hiccups; my hiccups became silence.

     His voice husky with approaching sleep, he asked, “What did you mean then, about things being real?”  

“You really want to know?”

He groaned again, sighed and stretched, but with less hostility.

     “All right,” I ventured. “I meant sometimes I don’t think that I ever see things as they truly are. I feel like I’m always looking at the world through some kind of glasses, or lenses.”

     “How so?” My adjusted eyes saw Zach prop himself on his elbow.

     I took a breath, “All my experiences are colored somehow by my expectations. By visions of childhood. By movies or advertising. Something will remind me of something I’ve seen, then, pop, on go the lenses.

“I have Victoriana lenses: parasols, and roses, and cream-colored lace, bicycles built for two, beach bathing in ridiculous suits, striped ice cream parlor chairs. American West lenses: horns and suede fringe, purple mountain’s majesty, log homes, Navajo blankets. New York City in the Thirties lenses. San Francisco in the Forties lenses. Seventies Brady Bunch tract home lenses. I mean, what creates nostalgia? How can I be nostalgic for something I’ve never experienced? For instance, why do I like reproduction Nineteen-Fifties style diners? The more accurate the better! Would I even like the food if I wasn’t wearing the lenses?”

My thoughts were beyond stopping. Normally, I wouldn’t converse with a killer in the dark. "What causes this? Cell memory? Television? Past-life memory? Ralph Lauren and Walt Disney? I have so many lenses, sometimes I wear more than one at a time! Perfect relationship lenses. Perfect body lenses. Marriage and kids and a picket fence on a tree-lined street, baseball mitts on the lawn and bikes in the driveway lenses. Success lenses: law school, Beemers, square footage, huge slab of stone in my kitchen lenses.

“What would the world and my experience look like if I took them all off?  Can I take them off?  Would life be boring without...?” I ran out of breath.

     “I don’t follow you. I’ll think about it.”  He turned over once more, moaned, and said with finality, “I can’t do this.”  

     I was afraid to ask, but I did, “Do what?”

        "I can't sleep on this evil couch."