<<< Back Table of Contents Next >>> 14 Imaginary Friend Timmins didn't mind the mental hospital that much. At least they let him paint. In fact, it was a relief to be away from his hometown. Although the patients were all on medication, they were more interesting to talk to than the people back home. They'd glimpsed the horror and tried to hang onto it, rather than smothering it in comfortable chairs, game shows and fatty foods. The average person tried to ignore everything that made him uneasy, the millions of victims, the signs impending collapse. That was real mental illness. After Anton had left home, reality had come crashing down on Timmins. He'd suddenly realized that the interconnectedness of all things, which was the source of everything beautiful in the world, didn't exist for most people. They saw only separate objects. Maybe that was why they talked about love and death so mechanically. "Making love" was a physical act. When someone died, he simply "passed on." To Timmins, such a life was unimaginably bleak. Yet to those around him, he was a crazy man or a freak. They would never join him where he was, and he could never go there. The gap was unbridgeable. This painful realization had precipitated his "madness." But wasn't this an inevitable part of coming of age? Growing up meant coming to terms with the human condition and its limits. As Anton liked to say, "Everyone in this room is guilty." Yet Anton had left him alone for so long that he'd been forced to evolve on his own. If Anton had been around, maybe he would have helped Timmins to handle his situation more gracefully. Becky had tried, but she hadn't known what she was doing. She'd tried to comfort him when he needed prodding. In the end he'd lost patience and come here, to the mental hospital. At the hospital, his art was treated as a form of therapy, a treatment for his "condition" rather than a disease. Of course it was neither. It was a communication from a mysterious source that would scar him if he failed to transmit its signal to the canvas. He couldn't expect the hospital staff to understand this, but their attitude was a marked improvement over what he'd known. In his hometown, his paintings had more than once been attacked by ignorant hands. The mental hospital felt like an island of enlightenment. At first it hadn't been that way. On his arrival he'd told his keepers, "Don't talk to me, I'm not here out of any sympathy for you freaks. Don't stare at me like I was a curiosity or a conversation piece." He'd been sullen, uncooperative, refusing medication and even food. At his first therapy session, he'd done his best to turn the tables and explain his position. "Let's not talk about these little problems. Why do we talk about these problems when the world we live in doesn't exist?" The therapist cleared his throat. "What leads you to say the world we live in doesn't exist?" "It's not so hard to figure out. Just read between the lines." "Lines? What lines?" "That's the problem, isn't it? You can't read the book if you can't see the lines. And you can't read between the lines if you can't find the lines on the page." "So what are these 'lines' you're talking about, in the world we live in that doesn't exist?" "Ordinary objects. You, me, the lamp, the tree. The story we think we're involved in, that we mistake for real." "And between the lines?" Timmins grinned. "Between the lines is another story." His therapist's name was Dr. Dan Boggert, but everyone called him Dr. Dan. He styled himself a progressive, and liked to pal around with his patients. He belonged to a controversial school of psychiatry that used focus groups and demographic profiling to interact with patients. It occurred to Timmins that he needed his patients' approval a little too much. Did it matter if they thought he was hip? Would he relate to them any better if he played BioWar, or listened to Underbelly? His knowledge of teen culture was better than Timmins' own, but it didn't extend to Anton and the Psychic Rangers. "They're all over the radio these days," Timmins told him. "They're what all the cool people are listening to, if you're into the latest trends." He saw Dr. Dan wince at being left out. "Their singer is my best friend from childhood, Anton Dupree. Are you sure you've never heard of him?" He knew that Dr. Dan would never believe he had a famous friend. Dr. Dan admitted his ignorance because he was convinced that the Psychic Rangers were a product of Timmins' overheated imagination. It was uncool not to know about something cool, but it was even more uncool to pretend to know about something that didn't exist. He invited Timmins to tell him more, scribbling on his notepad as Timmins described Anton's godlike attributes—his discipline, his stamina, his electromagnetism, his razor wit. For his part, Timmins realized that it wasn't as painful to talk about Anton as it had once been. He took this as a sign that Anton was on his way back to him, however long it might take. Dr. Dan congratulated himself on proving once again that he could relate to teenagers through pop culture. The story of the young rock star was a perfect window into Timmins' psyche. Anton's adventures were his own repressed fantasies. The traumas that had caused him to create an imaginary friend in the first place would appear in the story unfiltered by his conscious mind. By decoding the story, he would gain insight into Timmins' strange behavior as a child, the emotional withdrawal he'd experienced after family's death, and the ultimate breakdown that had brought him here. Timmins knew what was happening, and was happy to oblige. By convincing Dr. Dan that Anton was imaginary, he could protect Anton and himself from needless prying, without having to hold anything back. Truth would be his camouflage. As long as Dr. Dan continued to interpret the story as a subconscious invention, he would be led astray. Meanwhile, Timmins would get credit for cooperating, for making progress. To Dr. Dan, it made sense that Timmins would invent a hero like Anton as a way of compensating for his status as a social misfit. That was why dorky boys played fantasy role games, or dorky girls pasted the faces of teen idols into their lockers. In any case, he had logical proof that the tale was a fantasy. Timmins should never have known the color of Cynthia's hair, or the name of Vince's girlfriend. If he could describe things he'd never seen, then he must have invented them. The possibility that Anton and Timmins shared a telepathic bond never entered his mind. He began each session with a cheery, "So how's the young rock star?" before taking Timmins' psychic pulse based on the ups and downs of Anton's career. Before long he was supplying Timmins with canvas and paints, and encouraging him to paint scenes from Anton's life. At first Timmins refused, for the same reason he had in the past. He wanted Anton's future to be blank so Anton could fill it in on his own. Then he realized he could avoid this by sticking to scenes that had already happened. Why hadn't he thought of that before? His only problem was telling past from future. Most people made a sharp distinction between the two, but he was still learning. He would have to be careful. Painting Anton was a welcome change from the work he'd done before his breakdown, mostly portraits of high school classmates at their moment of death. One would die in an exploding airplane. Painting the expanding gases, trajectories of metal, and evaporating flesh had been a technical challenge. There would be a couple of suicides, a bizarre household accident, a cop killed in the line of duty. Most would end up in hospital beds looking lost. He'd even painted his own death in a sheet of flame, part of the final cataclysm that would end the world. He felt no panic about this, because he would be an old man by then, nothing more than a dry leaf. At that age it wouldn't matter if he died in an explosion or in his sleep. In a departure from his past obsession with filth and decay, he painted Anton in vibrant colors and a style that was almost cartoonlike. In a scene from their childhood, their bicycles leaned against a tree next to an old quarry filled with water. Anton was in the midst of a backflip as he dived in, naked. In other paintings he was visiting Trashtown with Kliff for the first time, performing at Club Omaha as women wrestled in a cage over his head, kissing the Colonel's ring in a tent under the stars, facing down an angry crowd in Nashville, passing the bottle with Sabrina in the cab of a white-paneled truck. Whenever Reinhold appeared, Timmins showed him as an indistinct blur, a shadow without features. Dr. Dan asked what the details meant in each scene, and Timmins said things like, "The drummer just ate a bad sandwich. That's why he looks green." Dr. Dan wrote in his notebook, "Drummer—bad sandwich. Is patient trying to 'digest' a subconscious trauma? Cultural references—cowboy boots, nose ring. Check brands of clothing." "What sorts of fashions are those guys wearing?" he said aloud. "You'd have to check the labels." "I can't. You didn't paint them." "Do you really want to know what's on the labels? They buy most of their clothes at thrift stores. This one says 'Dwimbell Feats, Clothier.' This one says 'JC Penney.' This one doesn't have a label. I guess it's been removed." To his credit, Dr. Dan began to appreciate Timmins' paintings on their own merits. The colors were lurid and sinister, the lighting strangely harsh, the textures impossibly detailed. The subject matter was ultrabohemian. He wondered if he had a new Van Gogh on his hands. If so, he didn't want to be the rigid man of science who, confronted with genius, condemns it as an abnormality. "Have you thought about an audience for these?" he offered. "You might find a market on the East Coast." "I did sell one once. I traded it for bread and oranges." Dr. Dan chuckled, unsure what to make of this. "I give them away. I leave them around." "You mean you abandon them?" Timmins shrugged. "Even these? They're very good." "These?" he laughed. "These are for Anton." "You mean you're saving them for your friend?" He didn't like it when Timmins talked about Anton as if he really existed. By encouraging him to paint Anton, he'd hoped that Timmins would come to accept Anton as nothing more than a cartoon superhero onto whom he projected the traits he most admired. Yet every so often there was a relapse, and he spoke of Anton as a real person. "He's coming soon, you know." Timmins' sense of Anton's return was getting stronger every day. He knew it would be a disorienting blow when his "imaginary friend" showed up in the flesh. Perhaps Dr. Dan would get angry, feeling he'd been tricked. Yet he welcomed this. The affair was growing tiresome. It was time to get everything out in the open. "That's funny. He hasn't called." "He'll call. He won't just show up." "He doesn't seem like the type to make an appointment. Didn't you tell me he likes tossing molotov cocktails into crowds? I figured he'd just storm in here and bust you out." "Did I say I want to leave?" "You don't?" It was a touchy subject. "You'll be eighteen in a couple of months. After that, we can only keep you if you want to stay. If you want to leave, I'll have to let you go. I'm not saying it would be good for you, but you can function in society. You're not a danger to yourself or others. That's what I'm supposed to determine, legally speaking." Compared to what Timmins was used to, it was a ringing endorsement. "But where would I go? There's nothing out there for me." He'd given no thought to how he would make it in the world without anyone to look after him. He knew about laundromats, bus transfers and bank machines, but he had a way of forgetting important details in a crunch. The more he had to keep track of, the more likely he was to miss something. The thought made him panicky. He hadn't even realized he would be able to leave the hospital once he turned eighteen. He thought about renting a storefront in Des Moines and putting his canvasses in the window. He could live there behind a curtain, and see who dropped in. But how would he support himself? Trading paintings for food only worked now and then. He couldn't see his grandmother paying for such an experiment, and college was out of the question because he'd dropped out of high school. The only alternative seemed to be returning to life under her care, but the stuffy atmosphere around her had helped to drive him crazy in the first place. "Who controls the money once I turn eighteen?" he asked Dr. Dan. "You should take that up with your grandmother, or ask to see the legal papers. But my impression is that she keeps control until you're twenty-one." He felt a twinge of injured pride. Once again, he would have to put off the day when he could start to make his own decisions. Perhaps it was just as well. He didn't like the thought of being dirty and disoriented. When he imagined himself in a storefront with no kitchen or shower, sleeping on the floor and eating beans from a can, the romance of independent living began to wear off. He wanted alternatives to the situation he was in, but he didn't have the energy to go looking for them just yet. "I'll stay here a while longer if my grandmother's willing to pay for it. Is that what she wants me to do?" "She thinks you should join the Army." He laughed out loud. "Those people are killers! They'll shoot me before I get out of boot camp. Besides, they don't take crazy people in the military." "No one's crazy around here. You know that's not a word we use for your condition. But you're right, you're not the military type. Granger maybe, but it wouldn't do you any good." Granger was a fellow patient, a football player who'd bobbled a touchdown pass with his girlfriend watching, and had suffered from nervous tremors ever since. He made a reassuring gesture. "I talked her out of it, but she still thinks you need some looking after. She thinks you should be eased into the world gradually, and I'm inclined to agree. Besides, we need to get to the bottom of the Anton material." His latest theory made Kliff the "change agent" of Timmins' psychic drama, with Anton as the soul in transformation and Reinhold as the goal of that transformation, a state of total mastery. He was trying to figure out what to do with Sabrina Lee, a shapeshifting female who'd made her way into the story a while back. In another year or two, there would be enough material for him to publish a case study. He hoped it would make his reputation for a groundbreaking new theory of schizophrenia. He would be invited on TV to deconstruct the personalities of famous people, and he would expose the insecure creature inside each glamorous shell. The Boggert Theory would become a household name like PlayStation or Madonna, and like the others it would be enshrined in the Boggert Index of Cultural Indicators, the scale he used to monitor the social adjustment of his patients. By a miracle of circular logic, awareness of the Boggert Theory would become a requirement of sanity itself. The flattering voices of TV announcers droned in his ear. "The first psychiatrist so famous, he's in our subconscious. You're crazy if you haven't heard of him, Dr. Dan Boggert!" Both of them had an interest in Timmins remaining where he was for a while longer. Timmins knew that he was still developing and would need time. Meanwhile he wanted to be left alone to paint. Dr. Dan wanted to uncover the rest of the Anton story so he could complete his theory of the case. Once the roots of Timmins' trauma were exposed, his fantasies of Anton would all dry up. At that point, Dr. Dan would use product placement techniques based on Timmins' demographic profile to help him establish brand loyalties, a niche market identity, and a sense of belonging to the broader consumer culture. Timmins' recovery would prove the relationship between consumerism and mental health. As Timmins had predicted, Anton called a few weeks later. He insisted on speaking to Timmins, but the switchboard operator put him through to Dr. Dan instead. The psychiatrist didn't know what to think. Possibly Timmins had arranged some kind of prank. The caller announced that he would be passing through town in about a week. He had a free day for seeing Timmins, and wanted to spend as much time as possible with his friend. He seemed to think he had an automatic right to this. Dr. Dan explained that as Timmins' therapist he had the authority to approve or reject visits. "I'll allow it if it's in the best interests of the patient. If it upsets him or disrupts his recovery, it won't happen." Timmins' high school friend Becky had come to visit several times, and that had gone well. On the other hand, he'd learned to protect Timmins from his grandmother as much as possible. "It won't upset him. Are you kidding?" There was no anger in Anton's voice, only impatience, but then his voice rose. "Are you saying you might refuse?" Dr. Dan used a soothing tone. He would talk to Timmins, decide what was best, and have an answer when Anton arrived. "I'm not inclined to block the patient's wishes. He's shown good judgment in managing his recovery so far. He knows how to keep away from situations that might get him in trouble." Then he remembered he was speaking to someone who claimed to be a character in Timmins' imagination, and his voice became stern. "To be honest, Mr. Dupree, this is a complication I wasn't expecting. Until I've reflected on how this might affect our friend's recovery, I can't say what's best for him. He's been projecting his innermost fantasies onto an imaginary friend he calls 'Anton.' I'm not sure he's ready to meet another Anton, one who might not live up to his expectations." Anton was beginning to get a sense of what was happening. He stifled a chuckle and reassured Dr. Dan, "We grew up together, didn't he tell you? I'm the most familiar thing in the world to him." When Timmins got the news that Anton was coming, he was unsurprised. Again Dr. Dan suspected a prank, but the excitement in Timmins' eyes was genuine. What worried Dr. Dan was the possibility that the prankster wasn't a friend, but someone who was taking advantage of Timmins for malicious reasons. If so, that person knew him well enough to be aware of his fantasy life, and had somehow persuaded him Anton was on the way. Now he was attempting to impersonate Anton. It would be interesting to see what Timmins would do when he came face to face with the false Anton. What would it take to convince him that the man he was dealing with was a fake? His clothes, his mannerisms, his taste in movies? Or would he accept him as real no matter what? "What if it isn't the right guy?" Dr. Dan prodded. "What if it isn't your Anton?" "You mean there's an impostor out there? Doctor, you're completely nuts." When Anton showed up looking like the young man in the paintings, Dr. Dan wondered if he'd lost it as Timmins had said. Anton wore a colorful Hawaiian shirt over a white sleeveless shirt. His hair fell almost to his shoulders, and when it swung over his eyes he tossed it away. He had on a necklace that Dr. Dan recognized from several of the paintings, with a collection of totems or charms. According to Timmins, Anton had made the necklace himself, starting when he was at Trashtown. The objects represented important transitions in his life. Dr. Dan had found it useful for decoding the symbolic meaning of Anton's adventures. Now it turned out to be a real necklace on a real person. Dr. Dan's mind was already at work trying to salvage what he could of his theory. Clearly Anton existed, and he was someone Timmins knew well. But the rest of the story had to be imaginary, especially Anton's adventures as a rock star. Timmins must have had fantasies of leaving home that he'd displaced onto Anton as a result of the accident. His sense of guilt at his parents' death had kept him from breaking away as other young men do. The question was why he'd chosen Anton as his surrogate. It was imperative that Dr. Dan understand this. They went into his office for a talk. "Do you know Timmins well? He calls himself Timmins, I suppose you know that." "Of course. That's his name. I gave him that name." "You named him Timmins?" With a puzzled expression, Dr. Dan made a note in a folder. "You've known him a long time, then?" "Since we were babies." The thought made him giggle. "You knew him at the time of the accident to his family?" Anton's anger flashed. "Why all the questions?" Sensing Dr. Dan's discomfort he pushed on. "Who put him here? How long has he been here?" "Hold on, Mr. Dupree. Timmins is happy here. This is a humanitarian institution, as you can see. He's free to leave when he turns eighteen, but he's decided to stay." Anton was skeptical. "Do you let him paint?" "Of course, and that's why we need to talk." He kneaded his hands together uncomfortably. "Every painting he makes is of you. Or the way he imagines you, I should say. He seems to think you're some kind of rock star. To be honest, I asked him to paint you—to paint his fantasies, rather, and they were all about you." He was still wringing his hands. "I thought I should warn you. It might be a little alarming to see yourself in all those situations I find highly imaginative, myself. I've been trying to decide on the right approach. Is it better for you to go along and say you recognize yourself in some of the scenes, or—" Anton laughed. He understood now what was happening. The poor man was under the delusion that his entire career was an invention of Timmins' subconscious mind. He said, "I know how to handle it. He's done this to me before." "Okay then!" Dr. Dan laughed too, nervously. "You know each other. You grew up together, and he wants to see you. I'll take you to him, but I thought I should warn you that he has a lot of theories about where you've been, and what you've been doing, that may not correspond to reality. Just do what you think is best. Play along or try to correct him, whatever's best." He coughed and rearranged his hands, folding them on the desk in front of him. "On a professional level, though, I should ask you. Has he always had these fantasies about you? Did he have them when you were growing up? Did he think you were a rock star then?" Anton was amused by the man's discomfort, but he didn't want to get sidetracked. He was impatient to see Timmins. "When we were growing up, he thought I was a kid he rode bicycles with. Later he thought I was an athlete, or a bass player or a model student. But he never thought I was a rock star. I guess that came later. We haven't seen each other in a couple of years, you know." Dr. Dan looked glum. His theory wasn't working out as he'd hoped. Apparently, the rock star motif hadn't developed until many years after the accident. Yet there had to be a reason for it. If he could only get Anton to open up, some clue might emerge. He cleared his throat. "Your friend Timmins has been through a lot since you last saw him." "I know that." "When he first came here, he was so withdrawn he could barely speak. He'd almost forgotten how to take care of himself." "I remember." "If these things aren't treated, they get worse over time. The loss of his entire family caused Timmins to have a psychotic break. Studies show that a survivor of a hostage crisis, or a terrorist bombing, often feels enormous guilt at being spared when others lost their lives. In your friend's case, this went untreated for several years." "He was working through it in his art, but people thought it was scary and weird." "Painting isn't treatment, at least not in itself. By the time his grandmother brought him here, he was impossible to look after. His state of mind worried her, because she thought he'd lost the will to live." "I don't blame him! He was choking to death in that house." "Exactly. She made his condition worse. Over time, though, since he got here, he's made an excellent recovery. When he said he was a painter, I asked him if he wanted to paint as a form of therapy. He jumped at the chance, and it turns out that his work is quite good—except for its fixation on you, of course. I'm not an art critic, but I think he could make something of himself." "So you're a fan." Knowing this relaxed him a bit. "Maybe it crosses the boundaries of professional ethics because he's my patient, but you bet I'm a fan. Timmins is a very good painter. It's refreshing to have a patient like him, because some of the ones I've worked with over the years...." He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head. "You do what you can for them, but you know they aren't coming back. Timmins hasn't had it easy—" He looked at Anton sharply. "He never expected it to be easy." "But he's a quiet fighter. There's something about him that won't give up." Anton's eyes vibrated and he looked down. "You mean a lot to him," Dr. Dan found himself saying. "You give him strength." His head was full of reminiscences of everything he and Timmins had experienced together. "I think you should take me to him now." Dr. Dan stood up and opened the door of his office. Between two wings of the building was an inner courtyard with benches and paths. Timmins stood at the fountain, listening for voices in the water. As soon as Anton appeared in the doorway, he looked up and their eyes met. Anton felt a hand on his back and heard Dr. Dan's retreating footsteps. He stepped into the garden with its pebbles, sparrows and sun. Timmins hadn't moved, but stood and watched him without blinking. Anton also remained still, for how long he couldn't say. They sat together on a bench under an old oak. "You know the Virgin of Guadalupe?" said Timmins. "Sure, I know it." "I made a painting of her." "In the usual style?" He made a wry grimace. "Sort of." "Can I see it?" "I'll bring it out here. This is where I painted it." "Why didn't you just leave it here?" "I wanted to see it in my room." He went to get the painting. A few minutes later he was back. He set the painting against the tree, and they looked at it together. "I think you should use more yellow," Anton said. "I didn't use much yellow, it's true." "It would be nice to see it with the yellow, that's all." "I could put more yellow in it, but it wouldn't be the same painting. If you want more yellow, why don't you paint one yourself?" "You've got a point, but I can't do everything." They gave each other a long look. Finally Timmins looked away and said, "Do you want to see what I'm doing in the chapel?" He pointed to a small, one-room structure at the end of the garden, overgrown by trees. Originally the hospital had been an old folks' home, and the chapel had been used for funerals. Since then it had fallen into disrepair. Timmins had made so many paintings that they no longer fit in his room, so Dr. Dan had suggested hanging them in the chapel. They walked there together, leaving the Virgin in the yard. "The Virgin isn't typical for me," Timmins said as they walked. "I painted her because I knew you were coming, and because I wanted to try something new. I knew you'd want the yellow, but I left it out anyway." He held the door open to let Anton go first. Anton's head spun at the sight of a hundred canvasses, all featuring him. Dr. Dan had been right. It was disorienting to see himself over and over, in every possible situation. The paintings occupied all the available wall space, and more were propped against the altar and central columns. Their colors were saturated and rich, and they had one thing in common. The scenes were familiar to him because he had been there. He exhaled sharply. "I didn't know you were this good." "You didn't?" "I guess I did, but—" He shook his head to clear it. "They're so real." "Maybe you could help with something, since you're here. I've tried to avoid painting things that will happen in the future, but I need to know how I'm doing. Could you tell me which of these events you remember, and which ones haven't happened yet?" They fell to studying the paintings in detail. "Those are my boots, the ones I threw out last year. I drew that design on them when I got bored during my first tour. And those are the books I had on my desk last winter. Western Lands, Story of the Eye. And here I am working in Deb's Diner. There's Kliff in the window! He's about to walk in. Very clever." He turned to Timmins. "Is it harder to see the future than the past?" "Not really. It's like going down to come up again." That wasn't helpful, but he didn't pursue it. "And this one?" He was staring at a closeup of his face. His eyes were half closed, teeth bared in a grimace of pleasure. "Oh, that! You were having sex." "You bastard." "I didn't watch. I just liked the expression, so I painted it." "Can you choose any angle you want, and freeze the action for as long as you want?" "Not as long as I want. Sometimes I have to go to the toilet." Next to the erotic grimace was a somber gray painting, out of keeping with the bold colors of the others. It showed Anton seated at the edge of a metal cot. His posture was tense and expectant, and in some way defeated. On the wall above him was a patch of sun from an unseen window, crossed by the shadows of bars. "What's that? I don't remember that." "You mean this hasn't happened yet?" Anton shook his head. "Oops. It's nothing, really. Once it's over, you'll end up blocking most of it out anyway." "It must not be too pleasant, if I'm going to block it out." "It'll only last a few days." "Is it far in the future?" Timmins seemed to calculate. "Two or three years." "Avoidable?" "Not really. That's why I try not to paint the future. People say, 'I can change that,' but they don't realize that their efforts are part of the equation. The future is like quicksand. The more you struggle, the more you get sucked in. It's usually better not to know." "Thanks a lot." "Sorry, it was an innocent mistake. I got my directions crossed. Anyway, if it has to happen, what does it matter if it's happened already, or if it's still to come?" Despite the discomfort it caused him, Anton was glad that Timmins was using him in his paintings. It might have been the reason that Timmins had recovered his confidence in himself. He was no longer struggling in the dark, he was participating in Anton's adventures. He was the dreamer and Anton was living the dream, the way it was supposed to be. Even so, Anton was happy to get out of the chapel. When Timmins suggested he take some of the paintings back with him to Portland, he had to laugh. "I lived through it once already. I don't need reminders!" Timmins had expected this, and Anton's next remark didn't surprise him either. "Why don't you come to Portland yourself? I could hook you up with an exhibition. Even without your talent, those paintings would get attention because I'm such a star." Timmins looked at his feet. "You know me, I can't go anywhere because I'm crazy." "That's just the thing. You're crazy with other people, but not with me." "I don't think Portland is right for me. Iowa is what I know." "The people here think you're beyond redemption." "They'll understand if we give them time." Hadn't they had this conversation long ago? "While you're waiting for that to happen, what will you do? Stay here at the hospital?" "I'm stuck with that, unless—" "If you say the word, I'll pull a few strings and we'll walk out of here today." He was thinking of calling Sabrina, who was on her way to Minneapolis with the band. They would lean on Timmins' trust fund advisor, or offer a bribe to Dr. Dan. If all else failed, they would simply take Timmins away in the middle of the night. On second thought, he didn't want to owe Sabrina any favors, and he recoiled at the thought of Timmins in her hands. He was letting his desires get in the way of his judgment. He'd vowed to protect Timmins from anything having to do with Reinhold. In fact, nothing about his Portland lifestyle would be good for Timmins. They didn't have the same needs, or belong in the same world. Timmins tried to reassure him. "I'm happy enough where I am. I just don't want to stay here forever. What I need is a place of my own. The trouble is, I can't afford it. My grandmother controls the money until I'm twenty-one." "Have you forgotten I'm rich?" He lit up with excitement. "I'll buy you a house right now, wherever you want. Here in Iowa, or anyplace else. You'll have your independence, and I'll come to visit whenever I'm around." Timmins knew that he wouldn't come visit until it was already too late, but he was relieved that Anton was finally catching up with his plan. "I've already found the place. In a quiet spot along the river, a few miles from our hometown. A white house on the side of a hill, with fields around it and some large trees. We rode our bikes there a few times when we were kids. I showed it to you once in a dream, remember? "Oh, right! I wasn't sure if that was a real house, or some kind of symbol." "It's a real house and a symbol." "You still can't tell the difference, can you?" Timmins glowered. "Is it for sale?" "It will be in a few months. The lady who lives there has to die first." They agreed that Timmins would send a signal when the time came. Because Becky had taken an interest in Timmins, Anton would wire her the money and ask her to handle the transaction. She would help Timmins move in, and check on him from time to time after that. He apologized for not doing any of this himself, but Iowa no longer felt real to him. It represented the past, and he hated to return to the past. "My life's gotten complicated," he said with a touch of pride. The air around them was troubled with unsaid thoughts. He kicked the dirt with his foot. "To be honest, what I get from success is pretty meaningless. People come up to me at parties, and they want some kind of relationship. But they have nothing to say. How can I be friends with someone based on that? One pointless conversation? I know who my friends are. Why do I have to be friends with people who aren't my friends?" Timmins was relieved to hear this, because Anton had always known how to attract confident and interesting people. To compete, all Timmins to offer was the trust they'd built in their first days, when no one had noticed Anton yet. It pleased him to know that Anton still needed that. Yet he wondered if their friendship had gotten so obvious that Anton took it for granted. Soon Anton would be chasing his star once again, leaving Timmins behind. And what was Timmins without Anton? An empty shell. They went into the main building, where the patients were waiting to be given their medication. Anton grimaced as Timmins swallowed his own pills. "They don't affect me," he explained. "We're on separate tracks. They've got their job to do, and I've got mine." He took Anton to his room and showed him one last painting. It was a self portrait outside the same white farm house he'd shown Anton in a dream. He stood barefoot among clumps of freshly turned soil, wearing overalls and a John Deere cap. Recognizing the scene, Anton grinned. "I'll see you there, it's a promise." They went back to the garden which was now almost dark. The painting of the Virgin was still there, propped under a tree. "You should take this," Timmins said, "even if you don't want the others. I painted it for you as a gift. You can add the yellow later if you want." "You know I won't do that." He put the painting under his arm. As his thin form sliced the shadows, he watched himself walking away through Timmins' eyes. He found Dr. Dan waiting near the entrance. They walked onto the front steps and exchanged a few words. He thanked Dr. Dan for his efforts, and explained their plan to buy a house within a few months. "Becky Simms will handle the arrangements. I think you know her. Please help her with whatever she needs." They shook hands and he walked to his rental car. As he was propping the Virgin on the back seat, he remembered that he had a few copies of Extreme Liberties with him. He took one, returned to Dr. Dan, and signed it with a flourish. "You should know about this album if you care about the latest trends." There was a crunch of gravel as he cut off down the drive, and soon he was racing toward the horizon at precarious speed. As his taillights flickered and vanished, Dr. Dan flipped through the little booklet that came with the CD. Most of the images were from Anton's latest session with Périne. There were scenes of what might have been oral or anal penetration, but he couldn't be sure because they were so artfully done. They might have been flowers, or gumdrops and cookies. So this was what teenagers thought was cool? He didn't know what to make of it. Overnight, Anton had gone from being the private fantasy of one of his patients, to the rebel hero of a generation. He felt blindsided, out of touch. If Anton was as big as he seemed, he would be obliged to add him to the Boggert Index. He shuddered to think of it. His whole system would explode! <<< Back Table of Contents Next >>>