Smile

So if you meet me,
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
Use all your well learned politesse
Or I’ll lay your soul to waste

— Mick Jagger & Keith Richards

Michelle was talking, but Ben was only aware of the hum of the tires on the road. White noise—it made him uneasy.

“So anyway, I was telling Tammy not to buy that stuff, her kids will hate it, and—Ben?" She stopped as she saw the look on his face. "Are you listening? Ben? Is everything all right?"

He didn't feel all right. A billboard for a local liquor store was looming ahead. A girl in a tight black dress and short, spiky hair held a large glass of red wine. Her lipstick matched the murky liquid in the long-stemmed glass, and her smile made him want to stifle a moan. She gestured to him, inviting him to drink.

Ben felt like throwing up. He was about to pull the car over, but the rising tide of unease subsided as they passed the billboard.

“Ben!”

He swallowed hard, checked himself in the rear-view mirror and wiped sweat off his lip with the back of his hand. He conjured up a smile for his wife.

“Sorry Hon, felt kind of queasy for a minute. I guess those jalapeño poppers are sitting a little funny. What were you saying?”

***

Saturday morning, and Ben was walking through Home Depot, looking for weed trimmer line. He was humming along to a song playing from the ceiling speakers, something about "Burn out the day / Burn out the night." He was in a hurry to get some work done around the house so he and Joey could go for a bike ride. A moment later, he found the line and was heading back toward the registers when he passed the outdoor furniture section. In the middle, between a row of outdoor grills and an assortment of lawn mowers, sat a wooden picnic table.

Ben stopped and stared. Picnic table. It had been years. He never sat on them; he actually didn't like to think about the things. If they were at a park for a barbecue or a party, he’d always eat standing up or find a spot on the ground. Michelle would invite him to sit next to her, but he'd always find a reason not to. He’d wolf down his food and go for a walk or remember there was a phone call he had to make. Michelle had asked him about it; he said picnic tables brought back bad memories and he just couldn’t talk about it. She wanted to help, but there was really nothing she could do if he wouldn’t open up about it. He wished he could tell her; but how could he?

He looked down at his left foot, the pain of memory writing worry across his face. He didn't like feeling like this; he thought that chapter of his life was over. He took a deep breath, willing the bad feeling away.

“Are you interested in the table, sir?”

Ben jumped. It was a teenager, absently scratching his stomach under his bright orange vest and looking at Ben with a bored politeness laced with concern as he saw Ben’s worried face.

“No. Sorry.” Ben hurried on to pay and get out.

***

The Monday morning staff meeting was ending. People were brushing donut crumbs off their clothes and getting last refills of coffee to take back to their cubicles. Ben was standing at the edge of a small group of people who were huddled around a coworker as she went through her phone with photos of a recent trip to Europe.

“And here I was in front of this church—it’s really old—they’re all really old, actually, but they’re so beautiful . . . Oh, and here’s Jimmy, see? He’s pretending like he’s a statue?”

There were titters at Jimmy’s photographic hijinks. Ben was being polite, nodding and chuckling with everyone else while trying to remember if he had sent an email to a client, when the girl flipped to another photo that caught his eye.

“We were sooo drunk," she continued, "and I decided to take a quick swim.”

The photo showed her standing in a fountain, pants rolled up to her knees as she stood in the water, smiling and waving at the camera. A full moon was visible behind her. She kept talking, but Ben lost the thread; he could only stare at the picture, his mind suddenly blank. When she moved on to another photo he walked quickly out into the hallway, heading for the door, trying not to run. He was limping. The sole of his left foot hurt.

“You OK, Ben?” someone called after him. "Is he crying?"

***

He’d been with GE for five years, moving to Albany from Long Island to take a generous salary as a service contract manager for the company’s Power Systems division. He and Michelle had settled down in a suburb, and began the sort of life Ben had long anticipated.

He liked his work. Michelle had a part-time job with flexible hours. Their son, Joey, was a happy and healthy five-year-old. Ben was teaching him to fish, throw a ball, ride a bike—all the things a father should.

Ben went to bed early, ate right, and stayed in shape. He rarely went out after work with coworkers. He liked going home to his family instead—the comfortable routine of playing with Joey, dinner together, a house project or two, a little TV, then to bed. On weekends they’d hike in the Adirondacks or take a trip—New York, Boston, Montreal. Skiing in winter with lessons for Joey; camping in the summer with lots of time for hiking and lazy evenings around the campfire, roasting marshmallows. Work brought challenges that he met to his employer’s monetarily demonstrable satisfaction, and he was on track for a promotion. His marriage was as strong as ever. For Ben the future was a reasonably well-marked path in the sun.

Only once in a while did he feel a pang of disquiet, those odd ripples from his past; but he had never experienced a sustained unease until recently. When he tried to analyze it, he got anxious—as if the neat execution of his life was itself causing subconscious concern. He feared that he had somehow stumbled into the wrong fate and, when discovered, he would owe something back. With interest. That girl on the billboard. The picnic table. His coworker in the water, the moon behind her. And now the dreams. Like this morning.

He found himself standing by a pond, looking down at the water’s surface. It was night, and the water rippled from some disturbance that was just beyond his line of vision. If he would lift his head only a little, he’d see whatever was causing the disturbance.

But he was aware of the nature of the source of that disturbance, if only in a vague way. He knew that he knew and, more importantly, that he didn’t want to see it. He noticed the reflection of the full moon in the water and heard a voice. “Come in, Ben,” then something else he didn’t understand. His hands, especially his thumbs, began to ache.

When he awoke, his hands were clenched together, his thumbs pressing hard against his fingers. It was early; the sun wasn’t up yet. Michelle was sound asleep and Ben got quietly out of bed, heart still pounding.

A minute later he started the coffee maker and stared at the black liquid falling into the clear pot. He glanced out the kitchen window; it was still too dark to see. He turned the blinds so no one could see in, then put his head in his hands, holding back a sob.

She wanted him back. He had put all that behind him—never thought about it, never contemplated a return to that place or those thoughts. God. He didn't want the memory.

But there was no getting around it; he knew it was going on. He would have to let it seep back in, if only for a minute.

Oneonta. The pond in Neawha Park, the moonlight and sitting on a picnic table while she swam in the black water, a smile on her face as she gazed at him, gesturing for him to come in.

He hadn’t thought about her in years. A decade or more. For a long time it was the medication—it got him through the night without the dreams—and she slowly dissipated from his consciousness as his life progressed, work and family filling the void, and that awful past disintegrating in his head. Gone and forgotten, or so he had hoped.

He lifted his head, poured a cup of coffee and sat down. OK, he thought, fuck it. Let's do this. Stop pushing, let it come back. Then maybe she’ll go away for good.

***

Ben had met her when he was in college, during his freshman year at Hartwick. She was a townie, or so he assumed. He'd never seen her at school. Their relationship, such as it was, lasted only six weeks.

It was late October, 2:00 a.m. on a Saturday night, and the bars had just closed. He was on his way back to the dorm from a particularly zealous bout at the Dark Horse Tavern with his roommate, who had offered to split a cab home. But Ben declined, figuring a walk in the night air would clear his head a little. Plus, his roommate would probably have the cab stop to pick up beer; this way, Ben wouldn't have to chip in.

He took what he thought was a shortcut back to campus, through an industrial part of town. It was deserted but didn’t seem dangerous, other than being dimly lit. He carefully picked his way over broken sidewalks, past a scattering of abandoned-looking homes wedged between crumbling warehouses.

Suddenly he noticed a small neon sign in the corner of a window of one of the houses: “Filiae Obscura Luna”—whatever that meant.

Ben wasn't sure, but it seemed like a bar. He was fairly certain he'd taken this shortcut before, but he'd never seen that sign before. Then again, he'd never taken the shortcut sober; obviously he'd missed it.

Ben slowed as he approached the entrance. There were voices, music, more or less standard bar noise. He looked at his watch—2:15 a.m. All the bars were supposed to be closed by now, but maybe this was so out of the way they figured they could get away with it. On impulse he opened the door and stepped inside, figuring one more for the road wouldn’t hurt.

It was very dark, the only source of light provided by two neon beer signs behind the bar and a television tuned to an empty channel. The music was much louder inside—heavy metal, the darker sort, full of screams and snarled threats—and he could barely make out a few people sitting at the bar, some others at a table. He went to a spot by the taps and squinted at the labels. The place had an odd selection of beer; he didn’t recognize any of the names. The bartender, a young girl dressed like an apocalyptic biker, walked over, her head tilted as if puzzled by his arrival. She stopped in front of him and looked over his shoulder for a moment, nodded, then looked at him, apparently waiting for his order. He glanced behind him, but all he could see were three women sitting at the table, hunched in conversation. They never looked his way.

He ended up ordering some dark stuff that was very sweet and very strong, and moved away from the bar to get a sense of the place. He saw a couch in a far, murky corner of the room, and walked over slowly, suddenly self-conscious.

He sat down and took another swig of the beer, thinking he’d finish quickly and leave, come back with his friends some time and show them this strange place he found. Something made him look up and then he saw her, standing on the other side of the bar in front of a door he hadn’t noticed before. She was staring at him and smiling; but it was such an odd smile, almost gleeful, but hard at the same time. He turned away, wishing she would stop looking at him.

“I’m Shard,” she said. He could hear her voice from across the room, even above the rage of the music. That was odd.

Then she was next to him. She was very short, with black hair cut close and sticking out wildly in all directions, like a punk rocker caught in a tornado. Pale—very pale— blue eyes and wine-colored lipstick that accented the whiteness of her face. Black jeans, black boots, black t-shirt with some intricate design in bright red. She had silver rings on each finger; when she sat next to him, he noticed that most were skulls.

Ben couldn't remember talking to her, or finishing his beer. He didn't know how long he stayed at the bar. The next thing he knew, he was waking up in his bed, his head pounding. It took Ben a moment to realize that she was lying next to him. She was facing away, on her side, and she had a tattoo that impressed his friends when he told them about it later: giant bat wings that stretched across her shoulders and down her arms. It turned him on, despite the hangover. As he slid closer, pressing hard against her, he saw that she was awake, smiling. And waiting.

Ben blinked, his eyes stinging from staring at the coffee pot like it was some oracle carrying a divine message redolent with the aroma of fair-trade Colombian.

The pond. He had to go back to the pond, throw a rock in it, piss in it, dance around it. Prove she wasn’t there; never had been. He’d ignored the therapist when she told him to do that, years ago. Back then, she couldn’t have forced him back there at gunpoint, but now…

"It's time to go back."’

He couldn’t tell if the voice in his head was his or Shard’s.

***

Two hours later, Ben was standing at the door, saying goodbye to Michelle and Joey.

“There’s a frozen pizza in the fridge,” Michelle said. She was holding a suitcase. “I left a coupon for La Cantina on the table if you want to go out for dinner instead.”

“Pizza or Mexican. Got it,” Ben said, opening the door for Joey as he struggled to drag his Batman suitcase out the door to the car. “I can help with that, you know.”

“No Daddy, I got it,” Joey said, and twisted his shoulders to keep Ben away.

“OK, kid, it’s all yours.” He looked at Michelle, who smiled back at him.

“Come on, Joeyboy,” she said. “We’ve got a drive ahead of us. Grandma is so excited to see you.”

“Grandma!” Joey replied, and dragged his suitcase faster.

“See you tomorrow afternoon,” Michelle said, kissing Ben on the cheek. She stared at him for a moment, concern on her face.

“You OK, honey? You've been . . .off lately." Ben shrugged.

"Why don’t you call Danny and Sue, see if they’ll have you over for dinner tonight?” Michelle asked.

“Yeah, maybe I will. I’ll give them a call this afternoon, see what they're doing.”

Michelle nodded. “OK. Say bye-bye to Daddy, Joey.”

“Bye-bye Daddy,” Joey said, without looking back. He had crawled into the back seat of the car and was struggling to pull the suitcase in after him.

“Bye Joey. Listen to your mother. Don’t let your grandmother buy you too many toys.”

“Toys!” Joey shouted, and with a final tug, he hauled Batman into the back seat.

A few hours later Ben was heading west, towards Oneonta. The sun was shining overhead as I-88 wound its way through the valleys towards the city. The colors are gorgeous, Ben thought as he looked at the trees in flaming red, yellow and orange, burning out their life energies in preparation for winter. He promised himself that he’d take Michelle and Joey for a ride next weekend. Old farms dotting the landscape were the only counterpoint to the raucous autumn scenery, rotted hulks that once were barns, their tilted silos threatening to crash down altogether, giant tottering monuments to a dead past.

He reached for the radio, ran up and down the dial. “Abracadabra,” a Steve Miller song, flowed from the speakers. He quickly turned it off and drove the rest of the way in silence, his mind blank, recording only the white lines that tracked the road underneath his wheels.

As he approached the city he turned off the highway and took a back road the rest of the way.

He wanted to take his time getting there, think about it for a minute. He needed to do this right, do it carefully, and do it once—and never, fucking ever, come back again.

Ben decided to start small—not the pond, not right away. The Bobcat Inn would be a good place to start; they had gone there for drinks on their first real date. Shard chose the place because she knew the bartender.

“I only go where my friends are,” she had told him.

It had been an old-timey hotel, a two-story wooden structure with 38 rooms, a lobby with a huge stone fireplace, and a wraparound porch on the second floor that had once overlooked a field leading to the Susquehanna river.

He had followed her to the bar in the basement, a small room with only four tables. A group of women sat around one table in the back. The bartender was a young girl dressed in similar style to the one in the place where he met Shard: black leather, spiky jewelry, and dark makeup. She would only look at Shard, even though he ordered the drinks. They drank—Shard insisted on red wine—and Shard went to the bar after that, bringing back round after round. He got very drunk. He didn’t know how she couldn’t have been worse—she was 20, 25 pounds lighter than him—but he couldn’t remember getting home, so she must have helped him.

But he had woken up alone. The only evidence of her previous night’s stay were the two sticky wine glasses lying on the other side of the bed. His body hurt, mostly where he expected, but also, inexplicably, on the sole of his left foot. He couldn’t think of why it hurt there, but just thinking hurt, so he went back to sleep.

But now, as he approached the place where the old hotel used to be, he saw that it was gone. In its place sat a squat Day's Inn, its concrete blocks painted a bright yellow. Beyond the hotel, a broad stretch of asphalt replaced the field, serving as the parking lot for a Wal-Mart. The river was hidden behind a dirty orange plastic fence.

Ben turned the engine off, closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to bring it back. Nothing. He was in this spot, 20 years ago, with Shard. This very place. Nothing. No fear. Good, he told himself, feeling as if he’d won some measure of victory.

He started the car and headed for the center of town, passing the turn for Neawha park. He’d get to that later. Everything in its time. Suddenly he felt a weird sensation, a slight pulling almost. Not bad, just odd. He wondered if the trip was a good idea after all; maybe he was getting sick. He certainly felt strange, near the center of something strong. That tugging sensation bothered him.

To the right he saw the where the movie theater used to be; boarded up now, broken glass and grimy plastic cups strewn behind the glass double front doors, their handles wrapped together with rusted chain. The sign on the marquee read, “Neawha: Converging the Lines of Fate” and for a moment he felt as if he were falling. That was bad, that sign. It made no sense; it seemed offensive. He sped up, trying not to notice that pulling sensation again.

He continued down Main Street, recognizing little. The town had changed.

Except Zafir’s. There it was, on the corner of State and Main, the dirty chrome exterior fitting in just as badly with the rest of the street’s commercial denizens as before. Even the dingy sign swinging in the wind above the door was the same—an ancient red and white hollow plastic square, the interior bulb long since burned out and forgotten.

Shard insisted they go there one night for dinner. The owner, an older woman with a buzz cut and a scowl for everyone except Shard, let them bring Shard’s homemade wine as long as they sat in the back and poured it into cups. They stayed for hours, Shard using up all of Ben’s money on the jukebox, dancing to the music—heavy metal again, black metal, totally out of place for the joint, although Ben thought it was kind of ironically cool. But near the end of the night, when everyone had left, the owner shut the door and turned down the lights, then cranked the music even louder and began to dance with Shard, the two of them hurtling around in a circle, their faces stretched in some inner joy that seemed, somehow, obscene.

As he passed by he saw that it was empty inside, long since abandoned. There was a piece of paper taped to the bottom corner of the front window; it looked as if it had been crumpled and smoothed flat again. Ben slowed and squinted at it. It looked—almost—like it said, “Welcome, Ben.” Another surge in his stomach, violent this time. He slammed on the brakes. Horns blared behind him and he accelerated, pulling over a little farther down the street. He needed to get his focus back. There’s no way it said that. It’s what he thought he saw from a moving car, ten feet away. He needed to get going; do what he needed to do and then get home. He took his phone out of his pocket; he’d call Dan and Sue, see if maybe he could come over later and watch a movie.

But the phone didn’t work. “No service,” the screen said. That was bullshit; this town had cell phone service like any other. He threw the phone on the passenger seat and pulled back into traffic.

Ben drove another quarter mile down the road and took a left onto River Street, then pulled into the parking lot adjacent to what used to be a dance bar that Shard had dragged him to.

He had hated it. But she insisted on going there, so Ben sulked in a corner and watched her dance, alternating between concern that some guy would start dancing with her and he’d have to step in, and satisfaction that this beautiful girl would eventually come back to him.

But he never saw any other guys there to worry about; it was all girls, all dancing frenetically to the screaming voices, shrieking guitars and cracking drums, waving their hands in intricate patterns and drinking red wine. No one looked at him directly, but they all seemed to smirk whenever he passed by. If it weren’t for the fact that Shard had promised to go back to his place after, he would have left without her.

The club was gone. The parking lot was full; but the second floor, where the club had been, had been converted into office space.

The sunlight was beginning to fade, and he checked his watch. Five thirty. He wanted to get going soon, see the pond, throw the stupid fucking rock or whatever idiot idea was in his head when he left home, then get back to Albany. Ben put the car into gear and headed for the park.

Neawha Park hadn't changed. Same minor-league baseball stadium, same playground equipment—he remembered riding the seesaw with Shard after she’d smoked some clove cigarettes mixed with weed. He had refused for fear of getting caught, smoking like that out in the open. He had felt foolish on the seesaw.

He came around to a small pond surrounded by freshly mowed grass. There was a parking lot, and on the strip of grass between the asphalt and the water’s edge sat a weathered picnic table.

Probably the same table, he thought, and almost stopped and turned around right there.

But instead, Ben parked the car in the middle of the lot, in front of the table, and turned on the radio. There was only static at first; then suddenly, “Every Breath You Take” by the Police erupted from the speakers. It unnerved him and he turned it down. He didn’t like this song; Shard had once said this was his song, from her to him, and that he’d always remember her when it played. She was so serious when she said it, leveling her dark stare at him as she reached out and touched his chest.

Jesus, this is too much. He reached behind him and grabbed a brown paper bag from the back seat, grimacing as he lifted it over. It held a bottle of red wine that he’d picked it up on the way home the other night. It was an unusual thing for him to do, since he didn’t drink that often—and only beer when he did. He had just sort of stopped on impulse, bought the bottle, thrown it in the car and forgotten about it. Until now.

It took half the bottle for the sun to set, most of the rest for the darkness to fully settle in. Ben glanced at the rearview mirror when he heard a car. A police cruiser passed by, slowing as it neared his car, and then moving on. One of the things he’d always loved about this park is that it was open after dark, until about 10:00. And after that bottle of red, he knew he’d have to wait a while before driving home. Maybe stop for a quick burger and fries—and coffee—before getting back on the highway. Albany’s bright lights would be welcome.

He’d been sitting in the car too long. His left leg had fallen asleep, the pins and needles especially sharp on his sole. He opened the door and swung himself out of the car onto the pavement, shaking his leg and stamping his foot as he looked around. The moon was just starting to appear over the top of a distant hill. The wine had seeped into his blood and he was getting tired, but Ben wanted to do this while the buzz was at its peak. It was the only way he’d be able to get in the right frame of mind: to remember, to accept, to forget again. Then home, as fast as he could go.

He walked slowly, unsteadily, to the picnic table and sat down on the top, his feet on the seat, facing the water. Waiting for it to come—the Thing, the Reason He Was Here. No point denying it any longer, and he would bear whatever fate awaited him with the apathetic ignorance of the intoxicated.

The sensation had changed again, and was now a sort of neutral buoyancy, as if he’d floated to the right level. A wave of dizziness eased him down on his back. He closed his eyes and felt himself drift back.

It would be their last night together. They had begun the evening with a movie, some slasher flick he had never heard of and thought sounded gross. It wasn’t at the theater; it was in the basement of someone’s house. The room was already dark and the small crowd quiet when he and Shard arrived, whispering and making way for them as they found two seats in the middle. Someone handed him a glass of wine as the movie started. Shard held his hand throughout, squeezing it during the more graphic scenes; but when he turned to comfort her, he was surprised by the look of enjoyment on her face. When the movie ended he thought they’d go, but instead everyone cleared the chairs, lit candles, and began dancing to the same odd, vicious metal he'd heard before.

Jesus Christ, hurry up, he had thought to himself. He had never spoken to any of the people in the place; it was the same crowd that had been at the dance bar. Freaks. He had first thought the metal was cool, unexpected as it was with all these girls around, but now it was getting on his nerves. He was starting to dream the stuff, especially on the nights Shard stayed over—the screaming, guttural, unintelligible lyrics, all over-the-top-horror-show, and he would wake up sweating, his heart pounding.

She had been dancing with some of the other women in the back; despite his general irritation, it captivated him. They danced harder and faster to the groans and heavy guitars, the threatening, pleading voices. People kept handing him glasses of wine as the girls shed their clothes, the room getting hotter, the music louder, Ben drunker.

Then he had woken up, found himself lying on a picnic table by a pond. He sat up and looked around. It was still dark, and his head hurt. So did his left foot, a lot, and he started to take off his sneaker to see what caused it.

“Ben.” Her voice behind him. He spun around.

She was standing at the water’s edge, barefoot, wearing a long black leather coat. The full moon sat low in the sky, just above the hills behind her. He looked around again and recognized his surroundings: Neawha Park, in the middle of town.

“Shard.” It came out in a croak. He must’ve had more of the wine than he thought; his head was really pounding. He wanted a glass of water. “Shard, I’m thirsty; do you have some water?”

“In a minute Ben. Right now, I want you to come over here.” She was smiling and somehow it was terrible. Her eyes. They were eager, hungry for something—something that was his, something he should never, never give up. No one should ask him, no one should ever seek it. For a moment he felt like crying.

But suddenly, he was so tired. He wanted to go back to sleep, but she called him again. “Ben, Ben, come here.” Then something happened that he didn’t understand. She stopped smiling for a moment, clenched her hands into fists, and started muttering in a low voice. It sounded like Latin, and the sound turned to color and seeped into his head.

When he awoke again, he was still on the table. “Ben.” Shard’s voice. “Ben, come in. It’s so warm, Ben.“ He lifted his head and saw her in the middle off the pond, inviting him in. She was naked, waist-deep in the shallow water, her hair slicked back, and she was smiling. She waved, the ropey muscles in her arms just visible in the faint light. He had never noticed them before.

“Come on, Ben, it’s so warm. The lights behind you, they reflect on the water. Oh, it’s time Ben, it’s time. Please, Ben, please.”

He sat up. He didn’t feel like crying anymore. Tired, but that was OK. He was very calm—maybe a bit too calm. For example, he had just noticed the four women standing behind him, dressed in black leather and boots, each one chanting and holding a small book before them. Now another violent clench of fear, subdued only by a wave of dizziness. Dizziness and a resurgent placidity.

“Ben!” She called again. “Ben, come. Come now.”

He was halfway to the water before he even realized he was walking barefoot toward the pond. His left foot hurt. Note to self, he thought. I have to deal with that one of these days.

He must have taken his clothes off, too. He was cold, standing knee-deep in the water. “That’s so good, Ben,” he heard Shard say. “Just keep coming.”

Then he was standing next to her, and she was staring directly into his eyes. She had that predatory smile, and he just wanted to beg her to stop, to not look at him like that, to plead with her, anything, anything, to make her stop. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that the entire pond was surrounded by chanting women. They were looking at him and smiling too, and he almost fainted.

“Ben,” Shard said softly, and her eyes rolled in up into her head and she lunged forward, wrapping her legs around him. “You’ll come back someday, Ben.” But her voice was different now—deeper, coarse, and filled with a gleeful fury that made him weep.

She grabbed his head in her hands, chanting, holding his face to hers, and he was looking into the whites of her eyes, and then he was staring into the moon. He should look away, he was doing something wrong and bad, he had to look away, he just had to look away. But he couldn’t.

Then he was standing alone in the middle of the pond, freezing. The chanting had stopped; the women were gone. His arms were so tired, as were his hands. His thumbs felt stiff. There was something wrong, and he pondered this as he slowly walked out of the water.

Shard.

Her smile.

Her neck.

And his thumbs; they hurt.

The rest was a blur. The police had found him wandering the park, naked, and had taken him in, arrested him for lewdness, disorderly conduct and a few other things. He became increasingly agitated, then broke down, crying, saying over and over again he was sorry. It took an escorted trip to the hospital’s mental health unit and sedatives to get the confession out of him, and the next day he sat in a cell, numb.

But they couldn’t find her body. The pond was dragged and State Police divers searched it thoroughly. In the end, the police seemed more angry that he hadn’t actually strangled and drowned anyone, wasting all their time. His parents got a lawyer, who took care of the charges, while he took the rest of the semester off, stayed at home, and visited a therapist for the next four months.

When he came back the next fall, he was different. Quiet, he kept to himself and tried to focus on school. He tried to find her. He didn’t know where she lived; none of his friends had ever met her. The bartender at the Bobcat Inn was gone and the person behind the desk said the girl had quit months ago. The woman at Zafir’s at first pretended she didn’t know him; when he persisted, she just smiled at him and held out her hands in a choking motion. He ran out of the diner and threw up on the street.

He tried to find the bar where he had first met her, but after an hour of walking the streets where he thought it was, he gave up. The few houses he found, scattered among empty, decaying warehouses, were long since abandoned. He didn’t know the location of place where they saw the movie. The club was still there, but it had the usual college crowd. Not hers.

As the weeks went by, he began missing class, hanging around the Bobcat Inn and the dance bar waiting to see if she’d come back—until his friends said something to his parents. They made him transfer out of Oneonta, go to community college back home on the Island. And back to the therapist, of course. She had found significance in Shard’s bat-wing tattoo, telling him, “She was your demon, Ben. You were drinking too much; they found traces of narcotics and hallucinogens and whatever else you were taking. Can’t you see Ben, you were just visualizing your own destruction?” Eventually he agreed that Shard never existed.

But he didn't tell the therapist or anyone else about the other thing. Instead he decided to ignore the tattoo on the sole of his left foot that he had found the morning he awoke in his cell: the intricate design, a series of circles within circles,a weave of snakes, outstretched arms, black stars and odd numbers. At its center, a baby with bat wings, smiling. A few years later he went to a tattoo parlor and had it filled in; now it was just an indelible black spot on his sole. But it had taken him a few tries to find a place; the tattoo artist at the first joint he went to took one look and refused to touch it. She gasped and threw him out, in fact.

So had the second. But eventually he found a biker joint with a disinterested inkrat who just shrugged and did the job.

And he went on with his life. Graduated with a degree in Business Management and moved to California. Got a job; met Michelle. Married, moved back East—first to Long Island, then Albany. Joey. Stability, Order and Contentment.

***

Until now. Things were still owed, it seemed.

“OK,” he said, “I’m back, Shard.” He lifted the wine to his mouth and finished what was left in the bottle.

Then he stood, took off his clothes, and walked into the water, directly to the center of the pond. He stopped and looked down into the moon’s reflection. He saw Shard’s smile, and he felt drawn into the light. There was the sound of chanting; he didn’t know how long it had been going on, but it was growing louder. He didn’t bother to look up; instead he leaned forward into the reflection, farther and farther still, a smile growing on his face, until Shard’s smile and the moon and the water became his world.