Borderlands Read online

  Three days ago I went to lunch with Ellen and John, two of my staff–two of my more dependable, less decadent and spineless assistants. My treat. I tried to be light and glib, tried to be a friend, tried to let them know how much I depend on them to keep the rest of those incorrigible reprobates in line, and what happened?

  I started swelling up. It was strange, because at first they just squinted at me and looked at each other nervously. Then I felt the pressure the crease between my cheeks and eyes, the tingling across my brow ridges. When John told me I looked as though I was having an allergic reaction, I reached up to the place where my face was supposed to be, and instead my fingertips hit this swollen, numbed surface, like a water-bloated mask.

  Once we got back everyone was all concerned because! looked so bad, and of course, when I finally looked in a mirror, I did look pretty bad. But when everyone started telling me to go home! or go see the company nurse! or go to the emergency room! –well, let's be honest. What would have happened if I had gone home? The place would have gone utterly to pieces, my staff would have degenerated into the free-spirited bunch of gypsies it threatens to become every time I shut my door or take a phone call or go to a meeting. And of course, Alan Wasserman, my own supervisor, would be taken off the hook through the knowledge that the man destined to replace him had screwed up somehow, which of course, I would have, had I left.

  Which I didn't.

  There was enough to do, of course, as there always is for anyone with vision, and I managed to map out my agenda far ahead of all foreseeable deadlines. I was in the office until 11 P.M., concentrating on the vision, not merely on my job, my image, but rather on the sheer joy and power of being the one who propels everything forward. I did not touch my face. I did not bargain for the unusual body odors that seemed to emit as the evening progressed. Oh, I fidgeted all over the place. I paced and paced the narrow confines of my office and I digressed–as I always tend to do–into fits of…vengeful reflection, I guess you'd call it. But! got the job done. Mine and a few other people's, in fact.

  I had to call the security guard, Moe, to bring up the elevator when I finally left. I guess the first real harbinger of the coming weekend's annoying chain of events was Moe's reaction when the elevator doors opened and he looked at me. In the moment before he recognized me he shuddered, crossed himself, and whimpered a quiet prayer.

  Was I so unrecognizable? When I got home I examined myself in the mirror–the facial edema and the peppered rash streaking across the creases between each individual swelling. I was sick. People get sick. People get well. So what?

  I felt fine. A few hours' sleep, and I'd be as good as new.

  And so it seemed. At first. The swelling was down in the morning–not gone, but at least a little relieved. I showered religiously, trying to get rid of that nagging, nasty odor, and ended up baptizing myself in Old Spice, just to make sure I didn't offend all of my timid so-called co-workers.

  I did all this for them. And then I went to work.

  When I rounded that final corner into my department, there they were, all six of them, just standing there, joking, laughing, sneering, talking about someone (I wonder who), and posing like a bunch of those unemployed New York ethnic types you always see in those blue jeans commercials. From the looks on their faces I could tell that they hadn't expected me to come in at all.

  It was a scene. Words were passed, on both sides. A crowd managed to gather. My boss's secretary, Margaret, was watching. Complaints began to ripple outward from our little department. Ellen began to cry. Someone threatened me. Someone on the other side of a bank of file cabinets heard that and began to applaud. Who? I've been giving that some thought, too…

  I ended up back in my office, pacing once again. I had the door shut so no one could hear the pounding in my head or on my face. I looked around at the clutter, at the crumpled kid's drawings I'd thumbtacked there years before, drawings I no longer seemed to recognize. Somehow my office, its clutter and even its geometry, no longer made any sense to me.

  I finally sat down. The moment I did there was a knock at my door. It was Alan, my boss, and Margaret. When they saw me, when they looked at my surroundings, they became shaken and unsettled.

  They were both conciliatory. They understood the long hours I put in, the enormous pressure I put myself under, but even I could get sick. So sick, in fact, that it was better that I just go home and take a couple of days off to recuperate. Margaret said she'd call Lisa, explain the situation, and tell her to expect me shortly. Alan wondered aloud why Lisa had even let me out the door.

  I assured them that I could call Lisa myself. They proceeded to usher me out of there with expressions of measured distaste smeared uncomfortably across their faces. It was no better–in fact, it was worse–on the train ride home. Could I possibly look or smell so bad? Was my rage, my embarrassment, my humiliation, so obvious?

  The first thing I did when I entered my shabby little apartment was check the time. It was only 10:30 A.M. The next thing I did was examine my face in the bathroom mirror.

  I was almost unrecognizable. My cheeks, my lips, and neck were swollen and purple, shimmering and nearly translucent except for the red, peppery patches of rash scattered across my face. My bloodshot eyes were almost swollen shut. My forehead was a protruding field of pustules. Every time I opened my mouth, a stringy mass of mucus appeared, as thick as a finger and as long as my mouth could open to accommodate it.

  And there was that smell again.

  I lay down on the damp and crumpled bed sheets and fell into a restless, vision-laden sleep. I don't know how long that sleep lasted. I was not in a clock-watching frame of mind when I finally awoke to find my room veiled in a special kind of darkness that had nothing to do with the world outside my windows. I stumbled around the apartment, sometimes failing to recognize a wadded mass of my own clothes piled on a chair, or sometimes recognizing features in that luminous, deeply shadowed semidarkness that I should not have recognized at all. I looked into the bathroom mirror once with the hot fluorescent lights on, but the figure in that mirror was still draped in mist and shadow. All I could see clearly was a head, which was far too large—lopsided and edged with creases and nodules. When I leaned in close to decipher the features, darkness swallowed the entire face.

  I watched television—a Friday night lineup of sitcoms and cop shows. I was unable to follow the dialogue or the plot-lines, as though the events made no linear sense, as though I was hearing a familiar language I had never bothered to learn.

  I would occasionally run soft, fleshy palms over a bulbous, monstrous face, and open my mouth to let out a whimper or a whine. The sound that came out was a long, fluttering wheeze that rose in pitch and shaped itself into a fragile, beautiful melody before hissing away.

  The next thing I remember is the phone ringing. It was bright out. A quick look at my hands and feel of my face told me I was no longer swollen.

  It was Lisa.

  "Donald? Is everything all right? Margaret Schuman called me last night to ask how you were. I guess you haven't said anything to them about…us."

  "I…no, I haven't."

  "Well, don't worry. I didn't tell her, either. She says you left work sick yesterday morning. She made it seem as though you were…" She paused. How much would Margaret have dared tell my wife? Obviously my boss had put her up to this.

  "As though I was what?"

  "She seemed very concerned about you. Are you all right? You don't sound too good."

  "What the hell do you care, anyway?"

  "Listen, Donald. Are you so set on this? I mean, were things all that bad for you here? The kids miss you so much. Couldn't you even come home when you're sick?"

  "Home." The word came out as a long, bitter snort.

  "Oh, God, Donald. Please. Don't be so stubborn. We need you here. The kids need you. I need you. We can get you out of that stupid lease…

  "No."

  "Well, at least let me come over and visit you." />
  "Not a fucking chance, Lisa."

  "I thought maybe I could talk you into going to that party." "What fucking party?"

  There was a silence. She was losing it. How much longer could she actually hold out?

  "Alan's secretary, Margaret. Remember? She's having a party. The one you—"

  "Hey, look, sweetheart, I don't feel up to partying tonight. Why don't you just go there without me?"

  "Donald, they're your friends. Not mine. I couldn't go there without you."

  "Friends, are they? Just because I work with them? Don't make me laugh! They all hate my guts, do you know that? So you think they'd really invite me unless they thought it'd look too obvious or uncouth not to invite me? They're no better than you, you little pig. You and your fucking overstuffed little kids."

  I could feel the shudder of disgust over the phone. It thrilled me enormously.

  "Okay, Donald. We'll talk about this later. You know. I've put up with…Dammit! You love making me feel like a fool, don't you? What do you want me to do? Cry? Beg? Listen, Donald, let's not talk about it. If you need someone to talk to, just call your little friend, Margaret. Oh, and by the way, Donald, the kids could care less about you not being here. I don't think they'd even notice you're gone, except that you're not here to wake them up with your whiny little tirades at six in the morning." Click.

  Click. Hmmm. The bitch! I'd give her a while to reevaluate it all. See where you stand in a week, Lisa! I collapsed back on the bed. I found myself thinking about Margaret. So young and sweet and unattached. Suddenly a power surged through me, emerging between my legs and bringing on a ferocious erection. Without my freeing it or coaxing it, I ejaculated in a series of painful spasms, doubling me up, sending convulsive chills through me, unhinging me from the illusions surrounding me for just a few instants, depositing me somewhere fundamental and very real. At least, that's what I think happened.

  I fell back into the sheets.

  I awoke several times throughout that day, though there's no way of being sure how many times I actually did get up and how many times I merely dreamt that I got out of bed. In retrospect I suppose it's possible that I had no dreams whatsoever, and that even my most demented, impossible fits of wakefulness were real events, in spite of the fact that my image in the mirror was inconceivably distorted and my apartment had taken on an almost tropical, primeval appearance, rotting away beneath plant growths that resembled nothing so much as the face in the mirror.

  And yet there were times when I'd awaken–almost afraid to open my eyes, and find that the apartment was just as it had been all morning and that my image in the mirror was as it had always been. A little pale and more haggard and unshaven than usual…but it was me. Within minutes of rising, going to the bathroom, drinking some water, pacing and trying to piece together thoughts, I'd flop back on the sheets and plunge back into that dreadful, purposeful sleep.

  When I woke up at 8:30 P.M., however, I knew that I was really awake, decisively awake. I took a long shower with some sinus-clearing deodorant soap. I got dressed and prepared myself for Margaret's party. Everything seemed clear–my mind, my vision, the geography of my apartment. I wasn't in the least bit swollen.

  The only thing that nagged at me was my appetite. I was ravenous. I made bacon and microwave popcorn for dinner and still, I was unappeased. Suddenly, the cockroaches and centipedes scurrying from one hiding place to another attracted me enormously, and with startling, uncharacteristic reflexes, I was able to snatch at them and gobble them down. I could barely taste them, but I got enormous satisfaction from the feel of their living bodies thrashing about in my mouth.

  It was 10:30 by the time I got myself out of the apartment and onto an el train. As I rode toward Rogers Park I began thinking about Margaret, about Ellen and John, all the people who'd witnessed my disciplinary seizure the day before, all of whom would be at this party now, no doubt describing that scene in sidesplitting detail for the benefit of those poor souls who'd missed it.

  I looked out the window at the cluttered stretch of night passing me by, tempted just to wander the streets and soak in all that sweet, autumnal darkness. Alone.

  I don't know who let me in. There weren't more than twenty people there, and it didn't take long to spot her. Margaret smiled when she saw me. I measured that smile, the glimmering, feather-lashed eyes. Until Lisa mentioned it I'd never taken Margaret's beauty…personally. Now…well, it's hard to describe. So I'll describe her, instead: thick black shoulder-length hair, big brown eyes, a little pug of a nose. Her nipples were riding prominently beneath a tight cotton shirt. She wore a short skirt, beneath which long, tanned legs strode toward me. Her voice betrayed no contempt for me. She did not ask about my wife. She gave me a warm, close-range greeting and took my jacket. I watched the dance of her ass and thighs as she retreated and felt the saliva surge through my mouth and over my lips.

  I looked up to see if anyone had seen. There was Russell, our college part-timer, looking at me. He nodded. Russell was the one person I knew at this party who hadn't witnessed the scene at work, so I went up to him with the most convincing life-of-the-party smile I could stretch out of that troubled face of mine.

  He talked my ear off and I just listened, numbed by the tawdry, monotonous, and otherwise wholly invented details of his life. I just shut up and took it. And drank. Suddenly I had an enormous capacity for alcohol. I attempted to drink away the sound of Russell's voice, to silence all that stupid, politically correct Third Worldish music throbbing and scratching out of the speakers, trying to dull at least a little bit of the luminescence of Margaret's skin beneath her clothes. But there wasn't enough alcohol in all of Rogers Park to redirect me.

  Eventually the crowd thinned. The music settled into an innocuous New Age drone. My drinking at least put me in a calmer, less hysterical frame of mind. I sat alone and watched the party wind down, and for a brief time all desires, fears, and obsessions sat dormant within me.

  When Margaret sat down next to me I looked up to find that I'd been dozing on the couch and that we were alone. There was no music. The lights were brighter. As she talked I watched the skirt ride up her thighs, I saw glimmers and hints of the treasures puckering in those shadows between her legs, and heard them calling out to me. I looked at that thee, so inviting, so young, so unlike wizened, sharp-edged Lisa.

  She asked about Lisa in a way I thought counterproductive to all the momentum we were stirring. I explained our situation. That seemed to interest her. Didn't it? She asked about my health, made diplomatic remarks about my tantrum at work the day before, and all the while, kept rubbing those thighs together.

  When she touched my forehead with the back of her hand I grabbed her wrist. I pulled the hand down across my face, kissing it. I pulled her toward me, I moved my hand up those clenched thighs and onto the lace of her panties, I took in the warmth of that form that was suddenly, inexplicably fighting me.

  She jumped to her feet, cursing.

  "Donald, Donald, you…"She rolled her eyes to the ceiling, shut them, and then rubbed the back of that same hand across her own forehead.

  "You're looking very sick, Donald. Why don't you go home before there's trouble?"

  "I want you," I said, in a voice so deep and resonant that I barely recognized it.

  She stalked away, talking about our respective jobs, about women, about men, cops, and all that.

  I was behind her. She led me into the kitchen and I began pleading or yelling or crying or at least something that was meant to be persuasive.

  There followed, then, several explosive, disconnected moments during which I heard two distinct sets of screams, felt my hands close around her forearms, and saw her kitchen recede into a fog out of which there emerged a cramped, choking mass of vegetation, all rising before me, swelling and hissing.

  There was a cold slicing sound, a surge of heat through my chest, and an explosion of light. The kitchen fell back into focus.

  She was standing no more tha
n three feet from me, her eyes bulging in horror—at my face, at my chest. In her hand was a large carving knife, dripping blood and thick with a reddish-brown mass that should have just plopped onto the floor, but instead seemed to pull itself up onto the blade, cling there, and then inch its way toward the handle.

  Margaret, her shirt torn, her left forearm gouged and bleeding, looked from my chest to the knife, which she promptly dropped, and then at my face. She turned away screaming and melted to the floor, sobbing.

  I ran out of the apartment, clutching at my chest, groping about my midsection, searching for a bleeding cavity, but my hand remained dry. I felt no pain. When the inner lobby door slammed behind me I realized I'd forgotten my jacket. I grabbed at the door. Locked. I couldn't have gone back anyway. I examined my chest in the lobby light.

  It didn't look right. It wasn't ruptured, or even damaged, but it did not look right; it didn't look like me.

  Through the glass door I could see only darkness and my own reflection. My face had swollen up again. I stared deep into that transparent reflection, trying to see at least a glimmer of my eyes within the deep pits there, but my brows and cheeks buried them. It was only sight itself that assured me that I still even had eyes.

  I staggered, whimpering, down the alleys for I don't know how long, amusing dogs into howling fits. An occasional hand to my face told me I was too horrifying to dare stand on the street under the full glare of a streetlight. I sat down in a nook between two apartment buildings, shielded behind a dumpster, trying to recollect myself, to reconstitute myself.

  Perhaps I slept, because I jerked into consciousness with a sudden jolt. I stood up and felt my face. Although I did feel a deep cut beneath my left eye, I was no longer swollen. My fingers told me what a look in a car windshield confirmed: I was my own, recognizable self again.

  Trying not to think of the implications of what had happened at Margaret's, I marched over to the Howard el station and got on a southbound B train. I got some strange looks from my fellow passengers, but this wretched late-night refuse didn't bother me at all. I ignored them, dismissed them.