Brainstorm Read online

  His head still ached and his stomach still threatened to empty its contents. But the longer he lay on the floor, the better he felt. He forced himself to stand. To look at the wall of urinals. They were still there. These hallucinatory urinals. He closed and opened his eyes several times in hopes that this vision would go away. No such luck.

  He had once read an article by a man who had suffered a schizoid episode. It had started with the man looking out his front window and seeing his wife come up the walkway and then enter the house. The only problem was, she had died two years earlier.

  So, he thought. Schizophrenia. That was just great. He was going to live out his days in some mental institution making reed baskets and drooling over his supper.

  “She’s got one hell-of-a set of pipes.”

  The door to the men’s room suddenly opened and two men came in. Along with them, Connie could hear the sound of a woman’s voice. Singing. As well as band music.

  ─ “You had your way. Now you must pay. I’m glad that you’re sorry now.” ─

  The men closed the door behind them so that the music became a background hum. They walked to the urinals without a glance at Connie.

  Karaoke already? he thought. That didn’t happen until the weekend.

  “You talked to Eddie?” one of the men asked

  “No. Not yet.”

  “I don’t like that he should be talking to the Jersey mob.”

  “Yeah. I don’t trust those guys.”

  Jesus! It was the same guys. The same suits. Here I go again, Connie told himself. Braced for whatever was going to happen next. He tried to flatten himself against one of the stall’s doors. Eventually entering the stall. As he did so. As the stall door remained open revealing him, one of the suits looked over his shoulder. Scanning the row of stalls, all of which were open. Ending on the one that Connie was in. The man looked in his direction. Connie braced himself. For what would come next.

  Crazy? Yes. He was going crazy.

  The man’s eyes swept passed him and went back to the urinal wall.

  Maybe this was like the man’s schizoid episode, he thought. He could see his dead wife. But she couldn’t see him because she wasn’t real.

  “Can’t be too careful,” the man said. “Keep this under your hat.”

  Connie stared at the backs of the men, not daring to breathe. Afraid to move or make a sound even though he thought all this was a mental breakdown illusion. It must be.

  “Some of the boys are getting up a little surprise for Eddie,” the man continued.

  “Yeah?” the other man said.

  “Yeah. A sort of birthday present.”

  “Oh yeah. Good. Well, you can count me in on the celebration.”

  “I figured as much.”

  Finished peeing, the two men turned around, walked past Connie and his open stall door ─ never looking his way ─ and left the room. The music and the singer’s voice entered and then left the room with the two men.

  ─ “I wandered around and finally found the somebody who. Could make me …” ─

  The door shut with a thud on the singer’s voice.

  Connie stared at the urinals. At the insides of all of the stalls. Think! He commanded himself. He didn’t know much about psychology. Had never been interested in any of the “ologies” except maybe geology. And that was only because of its chemistry. The way atoms and molecules sought out each other to form mineral compounds.

  He had no idea what it was like to be crazy. Was he now going to start talking to himself? (Hell, he already did that.) Develop some kind of facial twitch? Become a homicidal murderer because he felt paranoid all the time?

  He couldn’t answer these questions. And he hated that. Hated the uncertainty of the unanswerable. Life to him had always been a series of problems to solve. That’s what gave him energy and a kind of “life hope.” A feeling that if he solved away all the mysteries that came his way, his life would amount to something. Would allow him to reach some kind of nirvana. Not that he was religious. If he believed in a higher power, it was more existential than external. If there wasn’t a problem to solve, he would often create one.

  Like Evie. He had first met her at the company summer picnic just after he had joined the firm. There had been no problem about Evie. She had simply ignored him. But he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. Wanted to get to know her. And he set about solving the problem of how to get her to like him. Since every time he went up to her to start a conversation, she rudely walked away. It seemed his university reputation had preceded him. He had been famous for being a stand-offish loner, too stuck up with his own brilliance to be interested in anyone but himself. But in a few weeks, he was able to solve the Evie Problem. Reinventing himself as a wise-cracking sincere guy. Which he actually was. Having always hid his painful shyness behind an aloof cover.

  He had solved the Evie Problem. (At least until now.) And now ─ he had another problem. How was he going to deal with going crazy?

  He ordered himself to think. How did his hallucinations relate to what was really going on his head? In his life? For, the amateur psychologist in him reasoned, like dreams, a schizophrenic’s illusions must have something to do with his real state of mind. Or his “crazy” state of mind.

  Mai Lin’s suicide? Had it started the dreams or was that a coincidence? Well her death was real. Others had seen it. But it still brought up the question of death. His death, maybe. Point one.

  The dream-girls’ cry for help. His cry for help. Maybe that was his sense that Evie didn’t love him. Or perhaps he had some kind of hidden medical problem. Point two.

  The men in suits. That was harder. He had to think about that. Maybe they had something to do with his unofficial Eureka station. The company suits hadn’t taken kindly to his refusal to speak at conferences. A possible point three.

  But there was something strange about the men’s suits, he realized. Now that he thought about it. They weren’t like the ones worn by the senior managers. They looked old fashioned. Like from some old Hollywood movie. And there was something else. Something that when he remembered it, brought back that eerie, nightmarish feeling. It was the men’s faces. Their lips. Their eyes. They were dark. Almost black. A sort of sooty grey. That reminded him of his nightmare. So maybe there was a connection in his crazed mind between these men and the dream girl.

  He added that insight to point three.

  Now he had three points. Three problems to solve. The Brinkley Problems, he would call them.

  Well, he thought, when he did see a psychologist (and too soon wouldn’t be too soon), the man or woman would have something to mull over. Better that then walking into the person’s office and simply saying, I’m going crazy. What can you do about it?

  So, he was crazy. But he was still thinking. And that made him feel a little better. Tomorrow, he’d take the afternoon off and find a psychologist.

  And tonight? He’d leave immediately and drive home. He didn’t feel drunk any longer. (Who would, he thought, after that episode?)

  He pushed the door to open it.

  The traffic would be light now, so even if he were a little drunk, it wouldn’t be too dangerous to drive. After all, if he was going crazy, he better try to act responsible. He didn’t want to be committed and locked up.

  He gave the door a shove, only it wouldn’t budge. In fact, he hurt his hand when it hit the door. He pushed it again. Hurt his hand again. It still didn’t open.

  Hell, he thought. There was someone on the other side trying to come in. “Hey!” he cried out. “I’m coming through.”

  He gave the door another push. Nothing happened except now his hand really throbbed.

  He took a deep breath trying to summon up some patience. Then he saw the reason for the immovable door. It now had a handle. And the latch of the handle seemed to be occupied inside a striker plate.

  Strange. Another schizoid illusion?

  However, crazy or not, he wanted to get out of the bathroom
. Get into his car and get away from here before he started acting crazy in front of the others. For now, keep this to himself and the doctor whom he would eventually see.

  He reached out a hand to turn the handle but it burned his hand. Then there were more jolts of memory. The dream-girl’s face. Her lips, dark and now half open as if she were speaking to him. “Hide,” she said with lips that remained closed. “Don’t’ trust nobody. You can’t be too careful.”

  The door swung open and with it, the jolt was gone. “Shit!” he muttered. Both for the jolt and what was in front of him. A room he had never seen before.

  In the center of what had been Eddie’s Speakeasy and Karaoke Bar was a large, oval bar counter. Inside the counter, two men in long sleeve shirts were serving drinks to several couples seated at the bar. Surrounding the bar were a number of tables. (There wasn’t a booth to be seen.) At the tables were either men and women in evening clothes ─ they looked like they were dressed for some Roaring Twenties costume party ─ or tough-looking men in suits. Like the two men he had imagined in the men’s room. In fact, everyone looked as if they were at some costume party. Everyone but him. (He even checked his own clothes to make sure.)

  And something else, he realized. There wasn’t a song note to be heard that resembled the usual blast of background rock music. Instead, in a far corner of the room, on a bandstand, was a band. In front of the band. a woman. The tune she sang and those from the band were soft and swinging. Not amplified to jet-take-offs decibels.

  ─ “I’ll see you in my dreams, hold you in my dreams. Someone took you out of my arms. Still, I feel the thrill of your charms …”

  He didn’t have any mental acuity to utter another “shit.” He couldn’t decide what to do. Go back inside the men’s room to wait out the episode? Or …?

  He turned around to close the door to the bathroom. More for something to do than a decision he had made. But when he did. As he reached for the knob, it wasn’t there. The door was oscillating slightly. Like it had just been pushed open.

  He waited until it had completely stopped moving. Gave it a very tentative push. And watched it oscillate again.

  Okay, he said to himself. Crazy is what crazy does. He was going to turn around and …?

  He did turn around. Expecting he didn’t know what.

  The “what” turned out to be the sudden roar of a place full of people all talking at once. Together with the boom-boom music of the Karaoke bar. There were the booths. All the people he knew. The TV screens with their endless sporting events. Everything that was known as Eddie’s Speakeasy and Karaoke Bar. The noise level of both struck his senses so violently, he nearly fell over. Back in a familiar world.

  If he was going crazy. Had gone crazy. At least he was on a patch of sanity for the moment.

  Those were last cogent thoughts he would have for a while. For along with the smack to his hearing came the rush of drunkenness. Like a cuff to his head, he was again drunk out of his mind. Blotto.

  6

  His head was spinning. Upstream. Not with the current.

  It had been a battle. Getting Marlene to convince him to let Vicky drive him home. Somewhere in the corner of his drunken brain, he had convinced himself that he should remain alone. In case. In case he had another episode. But since as soon as he had reached his booth he was having trouble standing upright without any help, he eventually gave in.

  Vince and Pavani, another team member, helped him outside and to his car. Vicky followed. On reluctant feet. She would have refused and taken a cab home. Was about to when she saw how drunk he was. No one on the team lived across the bridge. And Marlene didn’t think anyone in the bar lived across the bridge either. Except Vicky and Connie.

  She had taken the keys to his car that Marlene had liberated from Connie’s front pocket. And ─ like a kid being forced to visit an aged, cranky relative ─ had gotten into the front seat of Connie’s car.

  “You going to be all right, honey?” Marlene asked, leaning into the driver’s window. “All right to drive?”

  Vicky could have said no. But it was obvious to everyone she was sober. She had had only one beer. Drank barely half of it.

  “Sure.”

  “Give me a call when you get the unfortunate home.” Marlene handed Vicky her business card. “Phone my cell.”

  “What if he never wakes up? How will I know where he lives?” Or a bigger worry: How would she get him into his apartment?

  “Good question. Get off the bridge at the first off ramp and call me. I’ll check with Evie. She knows where he lives.”

  Vicky started the car. “Okay.”

  “Don’t worry, honey. I can see one of his eyes open. He’ll be okay.”

  Vicky looked at the half-closed eye. She started the car. “Okay. I guess. I’ll call you.” She put the car in gear and slowly drove out of the lot.

  Strange was how she felt. Driving Connie Brinkley home on her first day on the job.

  Connie felt strange, too. He wasn’t used to being this inebriated. Not since those first years of university. Usually, he suffered nothing more than a pleasant, inhibition-free buzz during the after-work gab sessions as he and his team members dissected the coding problems they had had that day and then dissected their dissections. Then gossiped.

  For the next few blocks, his eyes alternated between half open and closed. He wasn’t so drunk that he didn’t know where he was. Or who was driving him. Wasn’t so drunk that he couldn’t make the decision to keep his mouth shut. The less that came out of it, the better. Especially if he started seeing or hearing those schizoid happenings. He didn’t want her to report anything about him other than he was drunk.

  So, everything was good for him. For the present. He’d keep his craziness to himself. And for now, thank goodness, all he saw when he opened his eyes, was the blurry landscape out of the windshield. And the occasional glance ─ not so blurry ─ of the girl driving the car. Who, also thankfully, was keeping quiet.

  He shifted in his seat. The seatbelt was binding and uncomfortable.

  “Are you okay?” she asked when she heard his movements.

  He wasn’t going to talk but a “yeah” mumbled out of his mouth. With his “yeah,” he became a little less drunk. And with his “yeah,” he thought about his craziness. Considered it for several blocks.

  “You ever have bad dreams? Nightmares?”

  “What?” She was surprised by his voice. She had thought he gone back to sleep. “Nightmares. No. Never.”

  “Oh.”

  Another block went by.

  “Do you?” she asked.

  Now that was leading question. A loaded question, he thought. He remembered the dream-girl’s warning. His schizophrenic better half’s warning. “Don’t trust nobody.” But his mind ─ still a little drunk ─ didn’t take the warning seriously. And besides, Evie was his better half. Would be if they could ever get together again.

  “No,” he said after another block had passed by.

  They drove in silence until they went up the ramp to the freeway.

  “Vicky, isn’t it?”

  She had been glancing at him from time to time and had thought he was asleep. Again, she was startled by his voice. “What? Yes.”

  “Short for Victoria.”

  “No. Just Vicky.”

  “Just Vicky. No kidding. Your parents must’ve had a dull imagination.”

  She wrinkled her nose in annoyance. “What? That wasn’t a very nice thing to say about my folks.”

  He closed his eyes and pretended to have fallen asleep again. Only this time, he did fall asleep. A deep sleep. Then after a few minutes, he was awakened by a voice inside a dream saying something to him. Something he couldn’t quite understand. “What?” he asked as if he were talking in his dream.

  “About my parents.”

  It took him a moment to fully awake. “What about your parents?”

  “That wasn’t a very nice thing to say about them. You hardly knew them.�
�

  “Your parents.”

  “Yes.”

  He remembered what he had said, and the memory actually made him feel better. He wasn’t that out of it that he didn’t know what was happening. “Well. If you want me to take it back, I will. Makes no difference to me. Either way.”

  She didn’t answer him. There was no sense in arguing with a drunk. He probably wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning. But she did relax a bit. At least he seemed to be awake enough to tell her where he lived.

  They drove in silence until they began to cross the bridge. Vicky glanced at Connie. “Where do I get off after the bridge?” She saw that his eyes were shut. She hummed a note of resignation.

  He heard the note. He wasn’t asleep. “Turn off on Ridgemount Valley Road. It’s three or four off-ramps after the bridge.”

  “Okay.”

  “Go left when you get off. Then it’s only a few miles more.”

  He seemed sober enough to her. She was glad of that. She couldn’t picture herself trying to get his drunken self into his building. Didn’t want to picture it. Her father had been a drinker. She knew all about their drunken ways.

  “You make a habit of getting drunk?” she asked, thinking about her father.

  He wasn’t so drunk not to notice the censure in her voice. “Only when I’m driven home.”

  She bristled at the bristle in his voice. This was not what she had imagined Connie, Conrad Brinkley was like.

  He didn’t think there was anything more to say so he closed his eyes again. Actually, they closed on their own. He may not have been dead drunk any longer, but he was dead tired. Too tired now to worry about falling into nightmare dream land. He had reached the pinnacle of exhaustion. All he wanted ─ and damn what may ─ was to slide down the other side until he hit something that resembled real sleep.

  “Wake me when you turn onto Ridgemount.”

  She was still burning from annoyance. “And what if you don’t wake up?”

  “Then call the morgue.”

  She hummed another note of irritation. Dimmed her rear-view mirror because the car behind her had its high beams on. And vowed not to give him a glance until they arrived at his apartment. A vow she broke every few minutes.