Year of the Rhinoceros

Chapter 22: The Needful One — Laney’s Death Dream — The Stone in Laney’s Head

M. B. Neff ~ 259 Chapter 22 The Needful One — Laney’s Death Dream — The Stone in Laney’s Head STARE INTO THE MIRROR. Look into your own eyes. See nothing there. Pinch your nose. Slap your face hard enough to make you wince. So what? What are you really? You don’t know, so give up. You are simply Elaine Dracos. Too damn bad. After the strange episode of Balzac Park, things get even stranger. You’re on hiatus, suspended from OWC for one more week, and Manny Eden won’t stop pestering you about Dr. Hammer. You tell him to back off, give you space—but you’re just delaying because you really have no intention of helping that poor bastard Hammer. It was a mistake to imagine it, even to tell Manny. It’s just not safe, and you’ve called Deejah Thoris and told her to cease and desist any dealings with Hammer . Only now, how to prevent Manny from realizing your hypocrisy? Also, how to prevent him from noticing how often you float and frown upon contact with earth? Are you falling in love with Gipper Boy? It appears his Chevalier-like tiptoe into your delicate heart valves has succeeded in pricking to life a trait you consider dangerous: an annoying state of “almost love.” Uncertain on how best to absorb your confusion, Manny convinced you of his potential as a crying shoulder (the least I can do, he says), and anchored himself to contain your various onsets. Does he deserve you? No! Regardless, you nickname him Daddy Boy, and in return, he dubs you, The Needful One. Each night, during the week of hiatus, his phone rings at three A.M., and when he answers you say something like, Daddy Boy, I woke up in a closet tonight, or, Daddy Boy, I woke up gasping for breath high above the earth tonight, or, Daddy Boy, I woke up on the Massacre Coast tonight, and 260 ~ Year of the Rhinoceros so on till he becomes exhausted from insomnia and threatens you with nullifying all relations. Whereupon you immediately rage over to his place to strike him about the head area with a blunt dose of your personal trauma regarding age, death, love, utopia, politics, the horror of your job, etc. till he gives in, and cushions you, and strokes your cheek like a Daddy Boy. He jokes with you, and you invite it. He cajoles you into believing you are simply passing through one of life’s “panic zones,” a kind of haunted house wherein the jackets of old hopes and illusions snag unexpectedly on the door knobs of new realities. No matter, he knows you must avoid a descent into madness in order to restore yourself. Of course, you do not believe this, not at all. * * * DOCTOR HAMMER WON’T RELINQUISH HIS GRIP. Deejah Thoris calls you at home and tells you Hammer is now dangling from San Jose with straining fingertips. Deejah kicked out once, twice, and an apology as he fell away, a sudden Wait! Please! before the connection dissolved over three thousand miles of copper and glass. However, you can’t be bothered with the details, for in the days which follow, Needful One, you dream recklessly of Instant Rub lotto wins, your ascension into Heaven, and swimming pool limousines. As a Nemesis-in-embryo you drowse in Manny’s arms, sheathing his fingertips, mutely apologizing for your earlier violence, and offering apology too for your bouts of life terror. You drive him from his place to your dollhouse Cape Cod in Falls Church, your face wet with tears as you lead him, sophomoric and awkward as a drunken boy through the gravel of your drive. And his illusions at this time, naturally, come fast and furious. See the girl with the Alps in her hair, you say, and there you are, his Needful One, eclipsing a moon mountain shoreline at dusk. You point and laugh at this poster photo taunting you from your bedroom wall: an M. B. Neff ~ 261 aroused and godlike sea-maquette of seraphic resolve, poised to ascend from the shore of La Punta Spartivento, Italy, 1982 . . . My immortal, partisan pose, you say, dosing your voice with fatalist sarcasm. But Manny Eden only pales and turns away. Is he jealous of your history? Who knows? Maybe the word “partisan” reminded him of that doomed whistleblower from...