Hitchers

CHAPTER 17

Corinne didn’t buy that I was possessed.

“But I had no control over my body. I was trapped inside myself, moved around like a puppet.” I said. “How could that be psychological?”

Corinne looked at me for a moment, as if considering. It flustered me that she didn’t look at all like a psychiatrist. She was in her early sixties, bleached-blonde hair and too much eye makeup. Abruptly she pulled a fat book off the shelf and flipped through the pages before setting the open book in my lap.

The heading was Dissociative Identity Disorder.

“What’s Dissociative Identity Disorder?”

“Read it,” Corinne said, walking to the window and peering into the naked grey branches.

I read until I got to the part where it said Dissociative Identity Disorder used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder.

I looked up. “You’re kidding me.”

Corinne turned from the window. “Why? The symptoms are consistent.”

I rubbed my eyeballs. “You’re saying I created a personality that represents my grandfather and set it loose inside myself, and it took on a life of its own?” Actually, it did fit the symptoms. It didn’t feel like that’s what was happening, but if I stepped outside myself, it made sense. “But what about the thousands of other Atlantans? We’re all doing the same thing at pretty much the same time?”

The escalating number of cases was hard to ignore. Every news station had a different estimate, and different talking heads speculating about the cause of the new epidemic.

Corinne gave me her kind smile. “Isn’t that more likely than your explanation—that you’ve all become possessed at pretty much the same time? The trauma must have triggered the epidemic.”

Corinne’s voice faded to a murmur. My hands were trembling, the snakes were crawling under my skin. It was happening again. My grandfather hadn’t left me. Crushing disappointment and curdling terror was mixed with just a tinge of satisfaction at the timing. Corinne could tell Grandpa he was a construct of my psyche.

Corinne noticed my quavering hands and stopped. “Finn, are you all right?”

“Finn’s on a little trip,” Grandpa said. He slapped his thighs and stood. “And I’m going home.” He looked around, grabbed my coat from the arm of a couch. “Hundred forty dollars an hour for this. You’ve got a lot of nerve, missy.”

Corinne tried to intercept Grandpa at the door. “Please, Mr. Darby. Stay for a few minutes. I’ll waive the fee if you’re concerned about it.” She seemed concerned that I was leaving, but maintained a professional calm.

Grandpa waved at her in disgust. “I don’t want what you’re selling even if you’re giving it away.” He brushed past her, slammed the door behind him.

Not again. My arms swung with a wide, unfamiliar arc as Grandpa crossed the parking lot. “Maybe we should pay your grandma a visit. Don’t you think, Finnegan?” He glanced at my watch. It was one thirty. Grandma’s place was maybe ten minutes away; it was possible he could make it, but if this spell was no longer than the last he wouldn’t have much time once he got there. Mick was waiting for me in the park; hopefully he’d guess what happened.

Grandpa drove like a demon escaping hell. He took the first turn too sharply, his quavering hands jerky on the wheel, and we bounced over the curb, just missing a stop sign. I felt like I was watching the scenery pass by on a screen, slightly removed from all of the sensations. I could hear, see, smell, but it was as if all of it was being piped in.

“You stole from me, the both of you. Well I’m gonna straighten you out, buddy boy.” The light ahead turned yellow, then red; Grandpa pressed the gas, flew through the light. I pondered what he’d just said. Grandpa had never been a violent man; he relied on his mouth to inflict the wounds. I hoped that hadn’t changed now that he’d spent time in a grave.

We pulled into Grandma’s driveway, stopped just short of the garage door with a hard jerk.

Grandma eyed us warily from behind the screen door.

“Hello, Frenchie.” That’s what he’d always called her—a not-so-affectionate nickname he chose because her grandfather had been French. Not waiting for an invitation Grandpa opened the door and pushed past Grandma into the living room.

Grandma hovered by the door, looking confused and scared. “Why would you call me that, Finn? I’m your grandma.”

“You’re a traitor is what you are.” Grandpa pointed a shaky finger at her. “I told you, no one gets Toy Shop. Not Finnegan, not anyone. How long was I in the grave before you cashed me in?” He grunted. “Not long.”

“This isn’t at all funny, Finn.” Her eyes darted around the room nervously, looking anywhere but at us. “I don’t appreciate this. Not one bit.”

“Don’t be stupid. I’m not Finn. It’s Tommy. Don’t you even know your own husband?”

Grandma was still clutching the door knob, as if hoping we couldn’t stay long.

Grandpa leaned in close to her. “Would you like to have your old Tommy back?”

Grandma looked up at us, all business despite the bald terror in her eyes. “That’s enough, Finn.”

“I ain’t Finn,” Grandpa hissed. “I’m your God damned husband.” He gripped Grandma’s shoulders, pulled her forward and kissed her tightly on the mouth. Grandma writhed with alarm, trying to pull away, and so did I.

As I tried for the first time to get away from the outside world rather than struggling toward it, Grandpa receded. I felt the tingle of waking, surged back into my body, felt my lips on my grandmother’s, my hands clutching her loose shoulders.

I leapt back, shouting in dismay as Grandma hid her face in her hands.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I babbled. “It really is Grandpa. He’s inside me and I can’t get him out.”

Grandma hobbled away from me, toward the kitchen, where she always went to get away from Grandpa when he was alive.

I wanted to hide under the couch. Instead I sat on it, resisting the urge to pull myself into a ball. The sound of clanking pots emerged from the kitchen.

I opened my mouth to say something. It took all of my willpower to get words out. “Grandma, it really is him. I swear to you.”

Sounds of rattling silverware, clinking glasses. Was she having a dinner party I didn’t know about?

“Grandma, I’m scared to death.”

“Tommy died. I watched them put him in the ground.”

I threw my hands in the air in frustration. “All I know is he’s inside me. He takes over, and when he does I’m trapped inside.” It sounded preposterous when I said it out loud, like one of those people who went on Oprah claiming they’d been abducted by aliens.

The faucet went on. Sounds of a pot filling.

“It’s him. It really is,” I said impotently.

She was out of sight, her words half-drowned by the running water, but I was sure she said, “I know it is.” The cacophony went on. I wondered what she could possibly be cooking. Surely it wasn’t for me. I only wanted to get out of there, and wondered as the moments stretched if I should slip out.

The sounds stopped abruptly. “Can he hear me now?” Grandma asked.

“Yes.”

She appeared in the doorway, her eyes squinted with rage that I instinctively knew was not directed at me. “You haven’t kissed me in fifty years. What makes you think I’d want you to now?” As she disappeared back into her kitchen, I slipped out, stunned and embarrassed that Grandma, of all people, would reveal something so intimate in front of me.

Grandma’s greatest fear had always been making a scene—standing out in a way that might make the neighbors frown and tisk. For sixty years she’d been married to a man whose specialty was making a scene. When I think about it, my grandparents had been remarkably incompatible. Grandpa lived to stand out, whether through his accomplishments or through blunt pronouncements delivered at high volume. Grandma spent her life doing everything she could to stifle him. He was making quite a scene now, and I didn’t think Grandma was going to be able to keep him at bay.

Just before I closed the door, she added, “Leave me alone, or I’ll tell them a few things. Don’t think I won’t.”

I almost went back in to ask what she meant by that, but I desperately needed to get out of there. My lips tasted of menthol Chap Stick.

I slammed the car door and, trembling, hugged my shoulders and rocked. He wasn’t going away. Some part of me had known it, had sensed him peering through my eyes, waiting.

I called Mick. He’d guessed why I stranded him and was in a cab on his way home.

“So that’s not the end of it.” Mick sounded profoundly disappointed. “Guess my turn’s coming.”

Is that how it would go? If so, everyone else who had the voice would follow. It was hard to imagine hundreds of thousands of people being dragged around Atlanta by the dead.

As I drove I fumbled through the compartment between the seats, desperately looking for gum or mints, but there was nothing. I wiped at my lips with my shirt sleeve.

The anger, the disdain that burned right through Grandma’s fear at being face to face with her dead husband, shocked me, even if it didn’t surprise me. I hadn’t been there when Grandpa died, but Mom had recounted the scene at Grandpa’s death bed. Grandpa kept repeating, “This is miserable,” as one by one his family sat beside him to say goodbye and pay respects. When it was Grandma’s turn, Grandpa glanced at her, rolled his eyes in disgust, and turned away. It was clear in that pivotal moment that Grandpa despised Grandma, that he had stayed married to her only because people of his generation did not divorce.

People from my grandparents’ generation ridiculed my generation for our reliance on therapists, our namby-pamby navel-gazing, but it was astonishing to me that a couple could be as dysfunctional as my grandparents and never seek help.

When Grandpa had first taken control, he’d spoken directly to me, knowing I could hear. Now I felt the urge to reciprocate. I inhaled to speak, feeling vaguely moronic, but pushed on.

“What will it take, Grandpa? What do I have to do to get you out of me?” I paused, as if expecting him to answer, but this wasn’t that sort of conversation. It was more like the conversations NASA used to have with astronauts when they were on the moon—one side talked for a while, then waited half a day for a reply.

“I was wrong, okay? Is that what you want to hear? I shouldn’t have resurrected Toy Shop.” Again I paused, waiting. Maybe that’s all he wanted; maybe he’d leave me alone if I apologized. “Okay?”

Who was I kidding? Grandpa wasn’t going to give up his foothold on a second life without a fight to the death. Shouldn’t I at least try to negotiate, though? Weren’t you always obligated to attempt diplomacy when the alternative was war? I had an uneasy sense that this was already war, and that the worst was yet to come.