Author's Notes: If I ever meet Tom Fontana, first I'm going to thank him for creating quality television like Oz. Then I'm gonna punch him in the mouth, because he has the suckiest timelines imaginable. Hey, motherfucker: *continuity.* Look it up. While it doesn't seem possible to me that everything that transpires in these two episodes happens in under a week (to Beecher and to the rest of the cast as well), it also really doesn't seem reasonable that Schillinger would just hang on to the kids indefinitely, so frankly I can't figure out *how* much time elapses between the kidnapping and Gary's funeral, or between Gary's murder and Holly's return, or, basically, anything else that happens on this show, so screw it. The lone specific mention of time we have in canon is Keller's comment in Grey Matter that Beecher hasn't been out of his cell for two solid days -- presumably, since the delivery of Gary's hand. I'm just telling you this so that you know I *tried* to hang with canon. If you find yourself thinking too hard about the time factor, take a stiff drink and just forge ahead. Christ knows that's what I did while writing this story. Hours and Days by Hth Day One, Hour One: Everything is Oz now. There used to be a world outside, someplace I would go back to if I could stay alive, just simply stay alive long enough. There used to be an outside, with bills to pay and salty movie popcorn and innocent flirtations with the Starbucks girls and children, soft golden giggling children with sticky candy mouths and tempers like their mother's, fast and screeching and then gone in a flash. Now my mind is full of children in pain, terrified and alone, and I remember those feelings, remember when the doors of Oz opened and shut behind me. They are in prison, they are in Oz, they are always somewhere just around the corner, and I can see the narration of my own suffering scrolled out across their images like subtitles. Trap and rape and insanity and savagery and the hope of rescue that rots you from inside worse than any of the rest of it.... The walls could come down. They might as well just disappear, because there is no world out there. Only tricks of language. Prisons of guilty men and prisons of innocent children. It's all Oz. It's all Oz. I've sentenced my own children to Oz. Death will feel just like this. I'll step through the door and discover I'm still in Oz, because the hell of hell is that there is nothing but hell. It will be familiar. Routine. Life sentence. No, more, more, more. The sentence of lives. So many lives, and at the same time, really just the one. They all live what I live. Everything I touch is condemned to the prison of my reality. It's spreading. It's everything. Soon there will be nothing but my mind, and Oz. And soon after that, there won't be any difference between them. It's all Oz. It's all Oz. It's all Oz. Holly.... Gary.... Day One, Hour Six: You talk to me as though you recognize me, and I talk back to you like a trained animal. Am I still your son? *Look! At! Me!* Do you know me, Dad? Do you see something -- an eyeball or elbow or the print of a finger or the tip of my tongue -- that has not been devoured yet, that is still your child and not the whore of Oz? Fathers and sons and children and sins, and are you in my world now, or are you still the giant of my childhood, the invincible one with the gentle voice, the teacher, the voice of God? Are you behind bars now, or can you save me? I talk a lot of bullshit about personal responsibility. Mandatory counseling, you see. I play my part. I click my heels. Can't you see that I'm being good? Get out, run while you can!!! And bring me back news from God, like you did when I was a little boy. Tell me what he wants from me. He's making a list, and checking it twice.... "Christopher" means "bearer of Christ." Maybe when Chris comes back to me, he'll bring some word from heaven. He's strong, you know. I feel so stretched, expansive, when I put my arms around his wide, strong shoulders. You have nothing to tell me, but you look at me like you think we're sharing something. Dad. Dad, your eyes are too soft to make me believe that you are where I am. I'm sorry. For myself, not for you. You should go. I talk to you, and I say good things. So brave, coping so well. Such a fucking liar. I'm sucking down madness now like I used to suck down Jack Daniels. I don't think you could handle me sober right now. When did I stop believing you could handle anything? Did my son *ever* believe I could handle anything? My fault, I say calmly. This is in me, and I will have to deal with it. Lies lies lies. This is everywhere. In me, from me, over me. What's wrong with me is wrong with the world. The world and I are symbiotic in our depravity. I am the chicken, life is the egg, and there is no point of entry, or of exit, from this feedback loop of imprisonment and punishment. Day One, Hour Ten: I am stronger than I used to be. Said tells me this, and I know that a different brain than the one I am carrying now has left me with instructions to trust Said and believe in him. I think that different brain knew more than my current one. I am stronger than I used to be. Said doesn't even register. I know who he is, but I look at him, and it isn't *him.* I don't know him. I struggle to follow my instructions. I struggle to keep it together. Ryan walks past me without looking at me, but his elbow jostles against my arm in a deliberate, friendly way. It knocks my apple juice over, but because of the tin foil sealed on top, it doesn't spill out onto the tray. He's gone again, moving into the crowd. I am stronger than I used to be. For some reason, I recognize Ryan. My eyes latch onto him as though he were the only living thing in a cafeteria full of ghosts. He reminds me of something -- someone. Myself. Another self. He reminds me of the beginning. Like a song I can only remember a few lines of, I think about the beginning. Ryan. Schillinger. The despair, the outrage. When despair and outrage were things that I felt come upon me, instead of things that keep me oiled and moving around, like blood or spinal fluid. I am stronger than I used to be. On the other hand. I was always stronger than I could have been. Stronger fucking stronger than he fucking expected me to fucking be. Smarter, too. I find Zabitz, way off on the fringes of the crowd, and I gather the tatters of my charm and my resourcefulness, and I put something into motion. This also reminds me of Ryan. I don't think I have much to say to Said anymore. Maybe I'm not as strong as I used to be. Day Two, Hour Two: I enjoy the morning news. Cruelly, like some of my friends enjoy murder. I enjoy it because it makes me feel superior. At least I *know* they're all fucked out there. The rest of the people watching the news, the free and easy among the brotherhood of man, they think they're watching the story of horrible things on television. What do they think they're living? I'm just sane enough not to believe in the boundaries between television and reality. It's all just Oz. Touch fast grab pull change shock move wrong space hell -- FUCK! DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME!-- My cheek grazes his fingers as I turn, and I know the temperature of his skin immediately, the print of his hands. My my my mine, my friend, mine. Love comes down to this, doesn't it. Everything is an institution, grey and standardized, one-size-fits-none and built to spec -- except the one you love. The one you love is unique. Irreplaceable. Unmistakable. I would know him by scent alone at the bottom of the sea, in my grave, in space and time. I fling my arms around him, and the words sift from my brain down into my soul. Mine. My friend. Solely this, solely himself, the equation having a value of Chris Keller and only Chris Keller. That's my message, I recognize. God speaking to me from the outside, saying, Most of life is for shit, it's just pain, and pain is boring and institutional. If you find one singular thing in all your born days, then you're lucky. Falling in love in Oz. That's singular. That's unique. Things that mar the surface are beautiful, I'm dimly and unreasonable convinced. A flaw is a fortune. There's a uniformity to hell on earth that makes every tiny rip and stain and scar a fucking gift, a treasure, something to wrap your sanity around for its shape. Sometimes there are little things that are not Oz. Cracks in the walls that let light in. Day Two, Hour Twenty: I have never seen him cry. I could tell him it's a delusion, born of guilt and conscience -- this is your *conscience,* this is what it feels like. Trust me. You'll get used to it.... After all, I know all about Hell. There's no fire and no torment; there's no anything. Nothing, nothing, nothing, day after day, except your memories of the world that used to be. But I don't want to talk about Hell. The smoke tastes foul at the back of my mouth, and so does the thought that I'm better off now than Holly and Gary are. I feel lighter and freer, just having Chris back in the pod; his moods, his jokes, the jagged shape of his logic -- he gives me something to look forward to, something outside of myself and my own pain to play off of. I take strength from him. They have no one. For the first time in weeks, I fail to hold back the baleful gaze of the future, our conqueror worm. I'm weakening, tired and clumsy from the ordeal. I think of my family, my parole, my re-entry into society as a fully -- I *think* -- reformed member thereof, and I can't picture it, but I believe at the moment that it exists, like heaven, like God. And on the follow-through, of course, it hurts. I worry about what he will become, without me. He is strong for *me.* Before, he wasted it all on predation and excess, and I hate the thought of damning him to this place alone. He preserved my sanity here; I shore up his defenses against his addictions. I put my arms around him and feel the motion of his crying. Damn it, Chris. A lifetime full of people I could have taken care of but didn't, and now I have you, and I would if I could but I just fucking can't. I just have to hope you'll take care of yourself as a favor to me. I drop the lies, just for a moment, and bond him to me with the truth, shared ritualistically between us, like the body and blood of Christ. There is nothing for us in this life but Oz. There is nothing for you and me in this life but Oz. He likes it when I tell him the truth. Especially when it's painful. The truth is that I am obsessed with the afterlife now, every bit as much as he is. Maybe he's picking it up from me, somehow? Maybe it's just another way that my mental landscape is spreading outward, everything being sucked into the gravitational orbit of my story.... I will never have justice from Vern Schillinger, in this life. I will never see pure joy on my children's faces again, in this life. And in this life...to think of all the things Chris and I won't ever have.... It's enough to make *anyone* obsessed, isn't it? There is nothing but Oz. What *else* am I supposed to fill my days and nights thinking about? What else but the chance of something else that could come after? Day Three, Hour Six: One thing she won't do. There's *always* just one thing that's too hard to do, I think nastily. Until the second thing comes along, and the third, and the next, and the next. Don't tell me about cowardice. Don't fucking do it. I *know.* I'm an expert. I didn't think it would work, anyway. Sometimes I'm so fucking ineffective, I wonder if I'm even here at all. If I exist, metaphysically solid enough to touch and affect my surroundings. Maybe I'm some strange inside-out ghost, all corporeality and lacking any kind of inner solidity that would let me really connect to anything around me. How interesting. Yeah, either that, or I'm *everything.* Jesus fucking Christ, Beecher. How many more hours a day do you think you could possibly devote to thinking about yourself? Day Three, Hour Twelve: NOBODY IS LISTENING TO ME! The fucking INSANITY of it all, it fucking *floors* me! I'm handing you this case, I'm *telling* you how to find my children, and you look at me with those hooded, satisfied eyes and you babble at me about my past with Chris, as if you fucking know more about it than I do because you passed some civil service exam and got a badge!!! Nobody listens, I might as well be in the hole, I might as well be behind stone walls forty feet thick, screaming without witnesses. I might as well be on my hands and knees with Schillinger fucking me bored and careless up the ass, *again.* He is, isn't he? He's *fucking* me, he's going to *fuck* me with this, he's going to get away with this and I'm going to lose my mind and my future and he's going to smile at me with those watery eyes and I'm going to KILL HIM and I'll be executed for it and everyone will stand around scratching their heads wondering why I would do such a thing. I can't scream it loud enough, I can't parse it down logically enough, I can't seem to make anyone understand what he's like, even when everything I have left in this world is at stake. Bastard, you son of a whore, how do you *do* this? How do you win every every fucking time every time and nothing I can do about it locked up imprisoned by the rules of your game can't get out can't make myself heard can't hurt you back -- how are you the ONLY FREE MAN IN THE WORLD anymore? I *hate* you. I hate you so much that I understand why animals chew their own limbs off to get out of traps. I would mutilate myself with teeth and bare hands and do it with a smile on my face if it would break this spell you've laid over the world. If it would *hurt you* somehow, Vern, you bastard. I hate you. Somebody make them SHUT UP about Chris. Just tell me you're not going to do anything for my children and then go away. Don't waste my time with these ridiculous questions, this sham of an investigation. I think of the way Chris likes to lay his hand on my cheek, gazing down on me in the dark with only his thumb moving, stroking gently back and forth under my eye. If they could see him when he's like that. If they understood what those peaceful moments mean in lives like ours. Chris is a fucking lunatic, of course. I *know* that. But he's never had peace like he has with me, and he wouldn't risk it for no good reason. What the hell would he *get* out of a stunt like this, anyway? Do you think he's some kind of -- of virus -- of *thing* that just kills and destroys out of...what...*habit*? You'd think the same thing about me if you read my file. A man's file doesn't say shit about him. *Live* with someone for a little while; that's the only way to know. I've lived with Vern, and I've lived with Chris, and I am the only one here who knows what's going on. And they won't listen. They look at me with involved, intrigued expressions, and it's some sick fucking joke, because they have no intention of listening to me, any more than anyone has listened to me since I came here. My children will die. I'm exhausted. I don't know what to think anymore. Or how. I'm losing strength, fast. Something has to give. Day Three, Hour Sixteen: PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN There has to be a point -- doesn't there? -- when the sound of my own screaming will drown out everything, will flood the world, will kill us all. I have to be *destroyed,* I have to be *annihilated,* because I can't step away from this and I can't pass on to someplace else and I can't feel anything but shame and pain and loss and I won't ever, ever again. I would love whatever god or man could make me stop existing, right now. In my last seconds, I would love him completely, with a devotion that would make Said's love for Allah and Chris' love for me look frail and pathetic.... This time they will all fucking hear me, they will listen to the sound of my voice, and they will believe this, if they don't believe anything else I ever say. They will believe that this hurts. Day Four, Hour One: I hear my name. I can't move. I'm so close, just on the verge of numbness. If I sit...if I just...don't...move... I hear my name, but I stay strong, and I rebuff the meaning of it while I let the sound wash over me. I am not that person; I do not identify with the numbers and letters and the name, it's nothing to me. The only way to stop this corruption, this inexorable process of everything falling in on top of itself, sucked in by my strange, imperialistic hellOzhell -- is to stop thinking, stop shoving my consciousness further and further out. Pull in. Pull back. I am the antichrist. They all suffer because of me. I have to be strong. I have to stanch this at the source. I hear Chris' voice, defending me. It makes me feel like his lover. Damn it. Back up. Seal over that. I am not -- anything. I am stationary, silent, unresponsive, selfless. I have to end this, all of it.... My hypnotic breathing is the last piece of me that reflects any kind of conscious motive. My body still wants to live. That is to be worked on later.... Day Five, Hour Fourteen: .... Day Five, Hour Eighteen: I wake up, and my throat is already liquid with screams. It's so comfortable now, the noisy whitewater river of rebellion that my body keeps producing, long after my mind has gone weak and passive and quivering under the strain. "Toby, Toby," Chris is saying urgently, his hand moving from my hip up my waist. For a moment I think he's in bed with me, but he's not. He's standing on his bunk, I'm lying in mine. "Hey, Toby, wake up. You're dreaming." I shove his hand away. Hands hands hands. By what fucking right does this man have hands at all, when my little boy who never did anything to hurt anyone in his life...? Out of all the people I've ever cared about in my life, I think that Chris is the only one who ever reaped better than he sowed. The luck of the damned, I guess that's what they call it, and only the good die young. "Don't touch me." "You're *dreaming,*" he says again, as if I were arguing about that. "Sorry I woke you up," I say, and I don't really mean that, and I'm sure it shows. In the darkness, I can see him cock his head slightly, the way he does when he's trying to figure something out, but his expression is mostly shadows. "Well...it's okay. I was just worried about you." Damn him. He probably was. He's taking this kind of hard himself, actually. Like it had something to do with him, like he has anything at all to do with my family, my life outside of Oz. I hate him for blurring the lines, Oz and not-Oz, for keeping me from understanding where the walls are. And I love him for...for... I don't know what for. I don't know. I don't even remember a time when I ever knew. I guess because he seems to be listening when I scream. He hears me. "Sorry," I say again, and this time I do mean it. "Don't you worry about me." He sounds so strong. I reach out to touch him, lay my hand on his chest, and my thumb brushes-- WHY THE FUCK DOES EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE HAVE TO BE FLAWED? *Why* are there scars over everything, violence patched up time after time after time but never the same again, leaving skin behind that never matches, things are never the same as they were before, you can't count on anything (it's all Oz, it's all Oz) and is *this* all I'm here for now, is this the meaning of life? Pain and hurt and too fucking strong to just die and too scared to take our punishment like men, do little babies have to die because we won't do it for them, and *why* are we chipped away piece by piece like this before God eats us alive? Why am I branded and why does he have this motherfucking ugly scar and *why does my son only have one hand?* I push him, and he almost loses his balance, except for the grip he has on the metal frame of my bunk; he uses that to pull himself back and steady. "Go back to sleep, Chris," I growl. "You want--?" I don't want anything from you. I want you to leave me alone. I want you to be whole. I want my son to be whole. *I* want to be whole. "Get. Away." Go away, go away, go away, I can't keep *feeling* things, I don't have the strength. Just let me stop. "Okay," he says, a little tightly. Chris isn't the politically correct type; he knows that I'm screwed up right now, not quite myself, but that doesn't mean he has to be happy about it. I guess I should find it endearing that he's put up with this much craziness out of me at all. When it comes to anyone else, Chris doesn't really overlook mistakes. I don't find it endearing. Right now, I really just don't care. Day Five, Hour Twenty-One: I wake up from another nightmare, and this time I'm as alone as a man can be in Oz. By the sound of Chris' breathing, I can tell he's awake, but this time he doesn't say anything to me, and I don't say anything to him. Day Six, Hour Five: It feels good, finally, not to cry. I guess I'm over my silence- sound issues. I can just sit here, in the middle of a common room full of people going about their boring, constricted little lives, and just be. Be bereaved. Be in pain. Be grieving. It's easy. It's quiet, a comfortable quiet, like waking up before your alarm goes off and lying in bed looking out your window, not really happy because you're never happy, what with hating your job and your wife always being angry with you for something you should have done but haven't and your headache because the hangover seems to have become perpetual -- but still, at least, with no responsibilities for the next fifteen minutes, and no need to think up an excuse for your inactivity. It feels like that. Chris is winning his chess game, and he keeps looking at me and grinning. I manage to smile back, which for some reason seems to make him feel guilty, and he looks quickly back down at the board. He hasn't said much since I came back from Glynn's office. He just gave me an expectant look, and I said, "Yeah. It's what I thought," and then he frowned and twisted that saint's medal roughly back and forth between his fingers until I said, "You better stop that; you're going to break the chain," and then he looked down at it like he'd never seen it before, and let go of it. Then he hugged me roughly, and turned away, and we stood there in the pod for a few minutes. It's really strange. I'm finally starting to feel like a human being again, finally able to cope with my own emotions, and it's like he's starting to fall apart. I don't think Chris has ever really known a child who died before. It seems to bother him. I suppose I practiced on Kathy. "I have to get out of here," I told him, and it's funny how your expectations diminish over time, how once I would have said that and meant *out of Oz, back to my real life,* and now I just mean, *out of the pod, a change of scenery.* So here we are, almost normal. It's not like I wasn't, before this began, a man who'd suffered losses and endured grief. And now I am still. Things don't change as much as we think they do. I don't know whether that's good or bad anymore. But I do know that it takes less out of you than railing against the world. For the first time in a week, I'm not exhausted, body and soul. For the first time, I can start to think about saving up a little strength for the funeral. Day Seven, Hour Three: He's looking at me strangely, almost like he's not sure that he knows me. *It's just a tie, Chris,* I want to say, but I think I've forgotten how to joke. He's never seen me in a suit before. Looking in the mirror, I know how he feels; it's hard to remember that *I've* ever seen me in a suit before, and it does make a difference. It does change me somehow. I wonder what Chris used to wear, before Oz. I always assumed, pretty much the same things he wears now. But that doesn't make it true. I really wouldn't know for sure. There are so many things I don't know about him. He's looking at me like I'm more than half a stranger, and the strange thing is that the Tobias Beecher in the suit and tie, the one staring at me from the mirror...doesn't know what to make of Chris, either. But I love him, don't I? Of course I love him. How can you *not* love the one who shares your space, takes your problems on his own shoulders, listens to you when everyone thinks you're insane, touches you with kindness when you hate yourself so much even you can't stand being attached to your own skin? How could I not love him, in Oz? Outside of Oz? Outside of Oz I probably could walk right past him a hundred times and never see him there, just another human obstacle on the streets of New York. Hell, maybe I did walk right past him a hundred times. Maybe I shared a subway car with him, stood in line behind him to buy liquor and cigarettes. Looking at him now, the way he leans so easily against the wall, one foot pulled up, I can't stop the rush of pleasure I get from letting my eyes linger on his stomach, his shoulders, his mouth. But before Oz, I never noticed that kind of thing. Even when I first met Chris, I didn't notice; he had to drag me to awareness, train me quite deliberately to look at him and see the potential for satisfaction, let alone to see his beauty. I think. I can't...quite remember, anymore, what I first thought when I met him, when they told me this was the man who would be sharing my life indefinitely. I didn't see -- did I? I remember that I didn't want things to change, I remember *that* vividly. Things changed. I knew they would, and they did. I just didn't expect they would change in the *way* they did -- did I? I had no reason to love him, then. But on the other hand, I still don't, do I? Have reasons. I always had *reasons* to love, before Chris; even my children, the closest thing I used to know to a pure and simple love -- well, you love them because they're your children, don't you? Evolution in action -- care for your offspring, protect them with your life, give them the best of everything so that they'll grow strong and carry on your DNA. With Chris -- there's never been a good reason. He's lied, Christ, more lies than I could ever count up. He's hurt me in almost every way. He's been selfish, and the fact that he's been selfless, too -- does it cancel out, or does it just pile up, layer after layer of conflicted motives, forming a pattern that's complicated and mesmerizing? He's been the bane of my existence, but he's been good to me, too. Oz would be a darker place without him, and that's the uniqueness of Chris Keller. In the mirror, a lawyer stares back at me, dressed in the sedate blue uniform of the professional classes. God -- who was I, before Oz? Miserable, but vain. Angry, but desperate to please. Polite, but selfish. Successful, but drunk. Married, but lonely. I could have been any one of fifty men my age that I knew -- privileged and discontented, too stupid and passive to entertain any serious thoughts of changing my own destiny, because after all, what would the neighbors say? What would my father say? Christ, I was *boring.* No wonder I didn't want to get out of bed in the morning and repeat the same day again and again, going through the motions of business and socialization with the same automated friendliness and greed. I bet that before Oz, hardly a day went by that Chris didn't wake up and wonder what was going to happen to him next. He got here through a life of risk and dare and chance. Of course, he ruined more lives than I did, on the way. Statistically speaking. No fifty men that I ever knew were like Chris. *No one* that I've ever known was like Chris. If I need a reason to love him, can't it just be that? It's not noble, it's not moral, but there it sits. I love him because he's different, because he's a thing that, unlike practically everything else I've ever known, I won't be able to go out and buy a replacement for after he's gone. Holly. Harry. Gary. Chris. Everything else, I can simply replace, once I'm free again. He's looking at me strangely, as though I'm not the Toby he knows. I don't blame him; I don't like this suit, I don't like the man I was. I'm not crazy about the man I am, either, but at least he's *distinctive.* At least he's not some fucking xerox copy of generic upper-Manhattan over-privileged misery. No one else has been through what I have been through now, and no one else is what I have become. I want him to love me for that. But for some reason, even though he gives me what I want.... I can't believe it. I never distinguished myself, did I? All my life, they told me I would be special, so smart and so talented and so blessed, and I wasn't special at all, I was boring, and now I'm just the sum of what other, stronger forces have made of me -- addictions and obsessions, Vern Schillinger and Chris Keller. I feel used and tired, like a victim, like some sick toymaker God's creation. "You're lying," I tell him, and he looks struck, at a loss for words. I just want to get out. I just want to go to the funeral, and I walk away. Who am I to inspire the single, irreplaceable, unique love of someone's life? I feel like nothing. I feel like everyone in the world can see it written across me, and they all watch me as I cross the common room to be escorted out of Oz, and I know what they're all thinking. He's broken. He's helpless. We've seen a million just like him, and nobody misses them when they're gone. The only thing I want anymore is one chance, one single fucking chance, to do something that matters. Something unique. Day Seven, Hour Five: pain pain pain pain He was my son. It should have been as simple as that. I was bigger and stronger; he would live longer and carry on the threads of us. So fucking simple. I let you down, Gary. I wasn't stronger, just big and dangerous. I killed a child. I killed somebody's child. Not just once. I just want to do something right. I want to do something to make this right. Gary, I was big. I tucked you in. I scrambled your eggs. I clothed you and taught you and I should have carried through. I should have raised you, and instead I disappeared. In the end, what did I do to distinguish myself from all the rest of the world for you? How was I your father? I didn't keep you safe. I brought you into Oz. He was my baby. I let him down. Day Seven, Hour Six: He has the name, rattling around inside that greasy skull of his. I'm smart and he's a moron, but he knows the one thing I need to know, the only thing that can settle this chaos in my mind. He knows, and he's squirming like a nightcrawler under a rock, pissing around, giving me nothing, and I've almost given up on ever knowing what Eli Zabitz knows. Maybe it would be for the best. When he says *Vern,* I'll know it's finally true -- that there is no way out, that things never change. The sun never sets on Vern's fucking influence, and I'm behind the walls, losing my cohesion and turning into pieces and parts of what used to pass for a man. I hate him. I hate him almost as much as I hate myself for being so powerless against him, for having to stand uselessly by while the world is eaten by my nightmares and Vern Schillinger prospers and grows old and is never, never, never punished for any of the things he's done. Always reaping better than he sows, him and-- --and Chris and Chris and Chris my Chris my friend Three volleys go off in my mind from the cannon of Zabitz' words. I think, Well, this is new and unexpected. I really just didn't see this one coming. I think, No no no no no, I *need* him, I'm going to go fucking crazy without him, blind and crazy in the darkness. I think, Thank God. I think, Yes. Because I can *hurt* Chris. I know I can. It's really almost...almost too easy. Sweetly, seductively, gorgeously...easy...to hurt a man who loves you, compared to the one who hates you.... No -- *no,* because I don't want to hurt Chris, because I want to love him, what we have is singular and miraculous and no one else has ever shared what we do, not here, not like this. He's the single most remarkable thing in my otherwise banal and miserable and hellishly routine life, the one recognizable gift of an indifferent God. I don't want to hurt him. How could he want to hurt me? He couldn't. I couldn't.... But it would be easy surprisingly easy. Comparatively. Day Seven, Hour Nine: One small, sane piece of my mind is looking at this man, this cheap-suited asshole that I never liked to begin with, and saying, *You want answers? From him?* I think I'm losing it. I shouldn't trust this man, he was never trying to help me, he wouldn't even fucking listen. All he wanted to do was hurt Chris. I shouldn't trust Zabitz, I don't even know him. I shouldn't-- --trust-- Who can I trust? Tell me who the fuck I can *trust.* Who doesn't have an agenda here, who would want me to be well, who would try to do the right thing for my sake? He...yes...wouldn't...? Yes. Wouldn't...? *Guys like Keller,* the cheap suit says, and I try to say no, you're wrong, there are no guys like Keller. He's different. *they kill,* he says, and I want to say I know, but everybody kills when they have to. I kill. I kill children. But Keller's different. *for sport,* he says. I have no answer for that. He likes to play chess. He likes wrestling, but he thinks basketball is boring, he thinks all team sports are boring, actually, although he knows enough about the important teams to make that all- important New York small talk. I mean, I know this man. I know that he claims to be a Mets fan, but really he could give a fuck. I know that he once made ten thousand dollars betting on a greyhound race, fixed up his bike with it, and the rest got stolen by a hooker. He was seventeen. I know he hates applesauce, likes Survivor, lies to make me feel special, hasn't really smiled since my son died. I know he's opportunistic and greedy and self-centered, and I know he's too lazy to hurt anyone, if there's nothing in it for him. What could he possibly stand to gain by hurting me? I know that he's always been a hole in my life, a breach in my control, a thing that I couldn't predict and that would not let me rest easy. Chris. It's just possible to believe... If you try. Just possible to believe that he could be this thing I never saw coming. This monster. He might. Just possibly. Be. The source. The last free man in the world, the one who makes all this happen, the bearer of my gravedigger God and my chaos Christ. And I wouldn't need anyone else to hurt him for me. I could do it. Just like before. He's vain and complacent, he thinks I worship the ground he walks on. He would never see. It would be over before anyone could stop it. One chance, one single thing that I could truly do, beginning to middle to end, and there would be no force to use it or twist it or change it or stop it. Just me. Just us. I could kill him. Vern was always stronger than I was. He underestimated me, yes. But he could afford to. Chris was so strong, once. I was afraid of him, and fascinated, too. But he trusts me now, and the thing about trust is...you can only be as strong as the other person is loyal. It would be so easy. And then I would have done a thing that can't be undone. One thing that matters. Something unique. Day Seven, Hour Thirteen: "If I ever find out who killed Gary...what should I do?" "I think you should whack him. I'll help you."