Chapter Two Acta, non verba
Hjärnspöke…a Swedish term for an (often threatening) unreasonable belief based solely on one’s thoughts and feelings, a figment of the imagination, a bogeyman, a fantasy.
Can we trust the feeling of threat in our imagination?
Saturday
NYU Hospital, First Ave. 1:00 am
Still struggling to at least rise up on my elbows, I feel a shot of adrenaline as the shadow against the far wall across from me slowly unfolds like the xenomorph hiding in the Narcissus shuttlecraft at the end of Alien. I’m in shock enough to be unable to say anything while realizing this is a person—a man—who has hidden in the room for some time.
“What are you–who are you?” Mouth dry, I can barely speak. I have a surreal panic sensation while I reach for the call button to alert the nurses’ desk. Up through my previous discharge from the hospital, I hadn’t really thought more than abstractly the fact someone wanted me dead, but that becomes a real thing right now.
The man shrugs and moves closer. His features are muted in the unnatural light of the monitors in my room, making him ghost-like. Demon-like. Like the glimpse of Pazuzu in The Exorcist. In the panic, I still note details as Manny, my late mentor, taught me. He’s white, medium height, unruly brown hair on the longish side, below his ears. In his thirties. He’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt under a jacket. His right hand is bruised. “My name doesn’t matter to you, I’m sure. But it’s Aaron. In any case, you can’t call for help.”
The call button has no tension in my hand, and I look over and see the wire is cut, the frayed end hanging limply off the bed. The side table with a phone and another emergency alarm has been pushed out of my reach.
He smiles as if reading my mind. “I’ve been here a little over fifteen minutes. It takes less than a minute to kill someone. I could have killed you fifteen times. I can kill you before you call anyone. You need to put that phone down.”
I don’t move, staring at him. I don’t see a weapon on him, but I’m fairly helpless. He knows that. He picks up the bathrobe on my bed and folds it square. “The shape you’re in, I can just put this over your face and smother you. You can’t do anything about that.” He drops the robe on my chest and reaches for my hand with the phone.
I struggle to hold on but he’s able to take it out of my hand. He tosses the phone to a chair.
I have my eyes locked on his, in some hope of being able to control him through force of will. I can barely speak, I’m not sure why. I cannot scream as I should be able to. My mouth is moving like a fish out of water, gasping. I become aware that I’m afraid, which doesn’t happen often. Before I was shot, I’d be off this bed and on the floor knocking his legs out from under him–I’d like to think so, anyway. But I have this new sense of vulnerability, and consequently, a greater likelihood of people’s ability to hurt me. It was an open question of whether me and V or Tanner would win, up in Jersey. Right now, I don’t have much means to defend myself.
I manage make my voice louder, and angry, for what it’s worth. “What do you want?”
“You sound terrible, Gabriel. I’ve heard you talk before. In some videos on YouTube, on the radio. I wanted to get to know you. I wanted to see you again. You’re confident. You border on self-righteous, but I suppose that’s charming to some people. Your voice has changed from what happened to you. I know a lot about you now, but really it’s not the same. I wanted to know what seeing you up close would do for me.”
I’ve had stalkers before and this never goes well. Aaron casually lights a cigarette and keeps talking while drawing in smoke. Breaking the rules like that makes him scarier. “Life turns in an instant. You know that. One day you’re cock of the walk. Then in a minute–or less–you’re shot and practically dead. People think they can just prevent chaos by living right or whatever, but life doesn’t work that way. Think about a bug flying along in its life, and then being smashed on a windshield.”
“Why…” I start coughing, and fight it down. “Why did you want to see me?”
He inhales, holding the cigarette with his strangely bruised and swollen hand…I realize he’s punched something hard recently. He moves closer to the bed. Ash from the cigarette falls on me and my eyes follow it. I’m afraid he’s going to burn me. I’ve had worse happen to me, but flashing back on the torture this sends me into panic. I break into a sweat.
Aaron’s face changes; he draws his head back and to the side, much like a dog watching someone warily, about to growl. Then he glances down at the cigarette as if he just thought of it being a threat.
“You’re scared of this; did someone threaten to burn you?” His tone of curiosity is disturbing.
I don’t answer. The panic then turns into something else; I go cold inside. I feel a presence in myself that stops being afraid of the cigarette and instead turns black with a desire to hurt this man.
He leans further down towards my face. “Where were you–when you were gone? When you disappeared last year? It wasn’t a publicity stunt like some people think. You’re arrogant, but you don’t pull stunts. You don’t need that attention.”
His eyes, a pale green color, flicker over me. The hairs on his unshaven face are a stark field on white flesh. I sense his desire to know. No one outside my circle other than a few intelligence officers knows about my kidnapping and torture. I’ve been newsworthy on occasion for good and bad reasons. My disappearance was public but not the reason why. Afterwards, no one cared, which is okay with me. But he does. I’m not telling this psychopath what happened.
The cigarette scent is overwhelming to me. I stopped smoking cold turkey after being shot. Underneath is another scent. Something with spice, maybe a cologne or aftershave. I’m sensitive to scents. Whatever his unique mental health issue is, that is part of the scent. Like an electrical burn.
“Who had you laid up?” His tone is mild and flat, as if he’s a social worker interviewing me. He continues as if I had said nothing. “You know, I’ve talked to Don Mathers. He had a lot of insight on you. I found out just what you did to him. It wasn’t in the news. Jesus, Gabriel, you practically destroyed him with your bare hands. How did that feel?”
My involvement with Don Mathers, a serial killer I fought in bloody physical combat, feels like a million years ago.
“What triggered you–what you did to Don? Was that maybe your true nature? You wouldn’t have won against him unless it was. You know, you have this image, the brand you present as an influencer would say, of an idealist working for social consciousness. I’m a nihilist, myself. I don’t give a fuck what happens to this world or the people in it. I’m curious if you are too, at heart–if you like fooling people to think you’re their sweet, sweet boy, and then you go fuck people up in the name of justice and enjoy it. And here you are, unable to prevent someone like me from killing you.”
But as our eyes are locked, with him in the advantage, a silence settles over us. I start to feel I’m my body for another realm. He and I meet in that realm somehow. I get a nebulous sense that he does not expect what he encounters.
My body trembles all over and I lift my head and stare at him, filled with rage, which finds some reservoir of energy. “Get out! Just get out!” It’s not a scream, but louder than expected.
He glances away for a second, a hesitation. Then angry, he makes a face and blows out smoke slowly and flicks the cigarette aside. He puts his hands on my legs and squeezes. I raise my hands in fists, and then he grabs my wrists. He brings his face close to mine but something has changed every so slightly. A faint hesitance I wouldn’t see if we weren’t so close. I can smell it.
Then he suddenly drops, gasping. Veronica has slipped into the room and come up behind him with a kidney punch, the same they used on Tanner. But he doesn’t go down the same way; he yanks on V’s shirt, pulling them down to the floor with them. Now the two are both out of my sight, and I can only hear a scuffle on the floor, with them both grunting.
I return to panic with a flood adrenaline and suddenly I’m able to shove myself up to a sitting position. My chest is on fire, but I do my best to scream for help.
Suddenly Aaron manages to slam Veronica into the rolling night table next to the bed. They in turn kick him hard enough that he gasps in serious pain. He then scrambles away toward the door. But he stops to look over his shoulder at me, and smiles slightly; a vampire who’s been driven away by a cross but will return at a better time. Then he’s out of the room.
Meanwhile Veronica hauls themself up, rumpled and red in the face. But okay. V checks me over, ignoring the attendants and nurses now rushing in. V is vibrating with fury, their speech rapid and clipped. “The security guard who was supposed to be outside your door is in a men’s room, unconscious. This guy knocked him out before he came inside.”
My mouth falls open, not feeling the medical people checking on me. I didn’t even know a security guard was there. Veronica then gets on the phone and refuses to leave my room as the police arrive, going down the list of people to call and let them know what happened. Joel, Danny, Geneva, Bob, my dad.
V’s fury upsets me; from the conversation, V is taking on the blame for not being here. I want to plead with V to give themself a break–they’ve saved me several times including now. After dealing with the police, Veronica stays with me the rest of the night. I watch them move around the room quietly. V has a slight limp from being shot in the leg last Halloween–by the people trying to get to me. Their head was grazed too, and I can sometimes see the thin scar interrupting their brownish-auburn hair pinned in a topknot, decorated with ruby and cobalt streaks.
It turns out I’m okay, although still terrified and trembling, I realize I can sleep safely since V is there. Otherwise I could not. “I’ll make it up to you…” I mutter.
V shakes their head. “Just get better.”
Monday
Gotham Investigations, Horatio Street, 9:00 am
A new day, another day to be ambulatory, and I’m walking into our office. Gotham Investigations is on the 5th floor of a corner building on Horatio Street. We’ve renovated the offices. There’s plenty of plants and side tables, and a couple of noise machines. Through a door next to the counter one arrives in the hub, an open space with on the right a kitchenette in a niche, the bathroom with shower, and the coat closet. On the left are doors to a mini conference room that also had a Brooklyn mini-sleeper storage bed, and my office overlooking Horatio Street and the Reggie Fitzgerald Triangle (a tiny wedge of street greenery named for Reggie Fitzgerald, a gay activist and Village preservationist). V’s office is next to mine, overlooking West 4th Street. Then there are two mini-offices for Chris and Geneva, a mini-lab, and safe/storeroom. The hub itself had a couple of sofas, chairs, tables, TV, stereo, whiteboard, and corkboard for clue walls.
I love this office. What happened before…being abducted, doesn’t change that. Veronica was willing to change locations and they would have been justified to argue to do so by virtue of PTSD, but they agreed to stay. It’s our place. We of course have new security installed, including a steel-reinforced door. No one who shouldn’t be here is just going to walk in here any more.
Time for coffee, As I’m making a cup, Chris pokes their head out of their little office, with a vape. I’m not crazy about that. Both for Chris’s health and something about the…I don’t know, aesthetic. But I was a heavy smoker up to when I got shot, so I’m not a hypocrite.
Chris nods at me. “Hey, Danger Man.”
“Young Master Szala.”
“You all better?”
“According to my insurance.”
Chris is eyeing me after our greetings, and I feel my face redden. I don’t know that Joel told Chris why I had to be hospitalized; he wasn’t forbidden to do so. But still, it’s not something I’d share willingly. Chris doesn’t judge, but they do enjoy observing the absurdities that occur in our circle.
“About what happened, I wanted to talk to you about it,” Chris finally says.
I don’t really want to talk about it. But I nod and say, “Okay.”
Chris indicates I should go into their office. “I found some stuff online.”
“Online?” How on earth would anyone else know…
Chris glances at me before sitting in front of the three computers set up on the desk, one tower with two monitors and two laptops. “Are we…uh, maybe…well, what I’m talking about here, is what you were telling me the other day.”
“Oh!” I must look a little too relieved. “Nevermind me, my mind was somewhere else.”
I sit beside them on a footstool. Chris has a tiny smile as if understanding where else my mind may have been, but doesn’t go there.
“I figure that part of this has to be connected to your school, CUNY Midtown.”
“What now?” My head buzzes, like Chris is speaking a different language I can’t understand.
“You were talking about your uncle, and that he might have been murdered. I knew you’d want to look into it, and it has to have some connection to college. So I was looking to see what was going on during that time…”
And something shuts down with me internally. I was already feeling iffy since Chris mentioned Paradise, and I feel a gray fog take over. “Nah, you don’t have to do that.”
“But I think I’m onto something here—”
“I get it, I get it, but really, I just want to move on. I’ve been too much inside myself and I just want to…move on.”
Chris frowns at me. “It’s not just you, it’s your uncle.”
“My uncle?” I shake my head. “I can’t do anything about that. Whatever happened, I can’t do anything about it. He can’t be hurt anymore.”
Chris is staring at me, and in a way, I don’t blame him. I’m almost two people; one in a fog that is growing thicker and grayer, and the other speaking for me with a sharp steel edge.
“No, man, you’re haunted about this. You told me.”
“Forget what I told you. I was just tired, that’s all. I was just talking shit.”
Chris continues to protest, and I reflexively reach in my pocket for cigarettes not there. Fuck. Why did I give them up? ‘Cause you were shot, jackass. You have PTSD. You are having PTSD right-fucking-now.
I don’t even make out the words Chris is saying now. I interrupt. “Chris, I love you. I really do. But I need to support Veronica and our cases. I can’t indulge in my own cold case unit.”
For a second, anger flashes over their face. They’ve clearly gone to a lot of effort, and are rightly proud of their ability to find things, and I just abruptly shut that down.
I don’t like to be rude. My mom would be cross with me if she was here. Thinking of her makes me think of Dom, and panic overwhelms me.
“I’m sorry. You are truly the best, Chris. But I can’t.”
I turn and grab my bag to leave.
“Hey! Wait, I didn’t mean to upset you! I thought you wanted–”
“I’m good,” I yell. “You’re good. We’re all good. I fucked up some, and I’m sorry about that. But I’ve got an acupuncture appointment.”
Chris is probably staring at my back as I hustle out the door and let it slam behind me. I rush across Horatio Street and past some temporary elephant sculptures to the triangle and take a breath. I need a cigarette, but I can fight that down. I have an acupuncturist, but that isn’t where I’m going.
Monday
Canal Street 10:00 am
Chinatown, a half-hour later. I did manage to text to see if Chiang would be able to see me, since he isn’t inclined to answer the door if one just shows up. (Although he has for me, I’ll admit). Zihou Chiang is my mentor, perhaps I should say one of them. The difference is Chiang knows the worst of me. He teaches Kung Fu and also the martial art of Baguazhang. Such a studio is sometimes called a kwoon or in Japanese dojo, but Chiang calls it by an old fashioned term, daochang, meaning “platform of awakening” or sometimes, sanctuary. I’ve seen the term explained as meaning a place of ceremony for the dead, and if so, I wonder which Chiang really means when he says it. A place of ceremony for the dead seems fitting for me.
Chiang trained me in Baguazhang, useful for fighting more than one person, and eventually advised me in ethical philosophy. We have had our disagreements and our mutual respect but he went to great effort on my behalf when I needed a way out from a torture-induced mindfuck. I’m eternally grateful for his efforts and care, and yet it was also overwhelming. A person tried to turn me into a would-be killer named Ryan (my actual middle name). After coming back to my senses, I felt a certain hollowness at times. Even a sense of shame from this happening, although it was not my fault.
Then I got shot and other things–surviving–took precedence. I have not yet really determined what has changed, if anything has changed, with me. One night, when I was flipping channels while unable to sleep, I ran across a movie: The Secrets We Keep. I knew this to be an adaptation of Death and the Maiden. The confrontation and gaslighting of a torturer and victim made me break down and cry, and then feel stone cold, and then afraid the man who tortured me would come back, though I knew he was dead.
Chiang taught martial arts in New York for over a decade, after a much different life in Hong Kong and a few other places; I’m pretty sure he was in intelligence work. As of late he has limited teaching martial arts, but graciously made an exception for Veronica at my request. That’s important to me, as Veronica did suffer because of me and the chaos that surrounds me.
Having shown up with short notice, and shaking uncontrollably, he’s generous enough to allow me in his studio. He puts me through some kind of all-over test of my reactions and my mental state. He has me sit on a mat, gives me a weighted blanket and tea, and recommends some herbs and increasing the visits with my acupuncturist a few blocks away. I don’t know if acupuncture works, but it does keep me quiet for awhile; that’s probably why he prescribes it. The woman who treats me insists I remain quiet and not think during the procedure.
I nod along as he explains what to do. I have a good memory, like Nero Wolfe’s Archie Goodwin, whom I named my cat after. Post being shot, it’s a little harder for me to concentrate and write things down. After a couple minutes, he stops speaking. I glance up at him. He’s contemplating me.
“You’re having a panic attack. Somehow you’re functioning through it, but I know that look. I worked with people….” Chiang goes back to his little kitchen, and I can see he’s still eyeing me in the studio mirror as he fusses around. He is dressed in jeans and a loose shirt, and has his hair pulled back in a ponytail. I’m dressed similarly, but no ponytail. Not yet, anyway. Still growing out.
I lie down on the mat, pulling the blanket closer. I imagine being out in space. Darkness, quiet, solitude. Floating with just stars. Maybe some comet flashing a million miles away…
“Drink this.”
I draw in breath and open my eyes. He’s holding a larger cup toward me. I sit up and drink, and grimace at the taste.
“It’s sake. Just drink.”
It’s perfectly fine sake, but it feels like drinking a cup full of lemon juice. But the effect works, shaking me out of my feelings. I shiver deeply and sigh.
“You’ve been through a lot, but you’re doing better than anyone should expect. What do you think?”
I shake my head. “I feel like I’m waiting for another shoe to drop. I was literally another person for a bit. It did something to me, it had to. At least, that’s the way I feel. I’m waiting for it to come in dreams or a mental breakdown. Something.”
“The human body and mind are remarkably resilient. If not no one would have made it this far for about 200,000 years or so. What happened that you needed to come over?”
I hesitate, then because I feel it’s always better to tell him, I explain what went on in the office.
He thinks about it. “When you fought with me, that time you walked out–you were able to look at me. That was anger, and anger works with you. I’ve never known you not to face anyone. I have never seen you have fear about confronting others. You have fear, but not to make you turn away. Right now I don’t know what I see. I can’t say it’s fear. It isn’t anger. It’s some liminal emotion. Do you think you are still another person? That Ryan will return, or rise up through you like a, what was it, the xenomorph in Alien? Maybe I’ll see it and turn you away? Or if you listen to ideas about what happened to you or your uncle it will cause some disruption in the universe?”
I shrug an inch or so. It feels enormous.
“You were not Ryan very long, and even in capture, you gave yourself means to end that torture and end the mind control. Like a hacker, you left the backdoor open for Veronica and myself and your father to get through to you. That was all you. You were never really Ryan.”
“But I wasn’t me, either.”
“Gabriel, people get head injuries or brain tumors and become a completely different person. It’s part of the nature of being human. In your case, it was torture. I’ve seen that too, or at least what it does. ”
“The stuff you know and have done that you don’t tell me about?”
His turn to shrug. “My past won’t offer much to you. It’s not a map to the land of the Immortals. It’s not a power to time travel or become part of the yamabushi. I’m just a man caught between two cultures. My parents were healthcare workers in the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth hospitals in Hong Kong. I was raised pretty well and educated overseas. In the UK mostly, because university wasn’t much available in Hong Kong. Then I was recruited for an intelligence agency at a time when it seemed romantic. Christopher Lee did that, you know. I liked the idea of being behind the scenes where realpolitik was going on. And after some years of this and that, I managed to ‘retire’ before Hong Kong was given back to the People’s Republic.”
“What about what you learned that wasn’t intelligence-based skills?”
“The more mystical stuff? Family members. Experience I wasn’t interested in when I was young. Bruce Lee from my parents’ time and Jackie Chan or Chow Yun-fat from my youth, even Christopher Lee had more influence. You’d be surprised at how I didn’t care about history, tradition, or philosophy when I was in my twenties, and in the thick of my career. Later on, I realized there’s more to life and some I will never, ever, know about but still I need to get in touch with it in a small way. For you, the physical wasn’t the problem. You need to heal. You were in a different land, and that land attached the qi of the dead to you.”
“I don’t know how to heal.” He already knows I’ve seen my uncle and my mom. He believes in my experience resolutely, which is why I can be honest about it. Only Veronica also really believes it happened. Everyone else is humoring me–I was hallucinating from lack of oxygen, or some such Skeptic Society forced logic.
To me, that experience is an indication that I can cut through some of the journeyman processes in life and get to what will really help.
Chiang is thoughtful. “I’ll always be honest with you, xuéshēng, even if it isn’t a good idea. You went through too much at the time. You saw your uncle and mother, but the rules in the other world are different from here. Feelings are different–more intense. You uncle may not be a Hungry Ghost; he was loved and you respect him. But he is angry, like Onryo.”
He calls me xuéshēng, student, to remind me to listen to him. But I still mouth off. “Onryo are Japanese.”
“And you are not Chinese or Japanese. Nor are you a Korean shaman, a mudang or baksu, in touch with the ghost world. However, the idea applies to all spirits. It’s not like one type of ghost only works with one ethnicity. My father was half-Japanese; his father was part of the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. That was a detriment to me due to China and Japan’s contentious history, so I was haunted by the real world.”
“And you know the feeling of being an outsider.”
“Of course. There are plenty of ways to feel divided. Like being mainland vs. Hong Kong native, or being of a different nationality or ethnicity. It led me to intelligence work, the same as it did for you and private investigation. As it did for your friend Maxim and the Tertullians. Being gay was part of it too, especially for older generations like him and me. If you aren’t embraced by society, if you feel you must hide and you develop a particular set of skills. Those work well with taking on new masks and identities with others.”
“Did you work for China or the UK?”
He pauses for a moment, but I’m encouraged by him responding. “The UK. I grew up with them as colonial governance. My family were all British Overseas Territories citizens, and so, British citizens. By about 1997, when the handover was upcoming, I didn’t feel I could continue. The British government wanted me there but I was in some danger from the Mainland Government. It felt like a good time to move on. I traveled to Japan, to my grandfather’s home. I went to India, Malaysia, even Tibet. I did a few favors for traveling money. I didn’t find any place that felt like “home.” Then I thought New York would be a sufficient distance away from my past…”
I’m nodding along as he puts his cup down in mid-sentence. He meets my eyes, and I can tell he’s exhausted from saying that much about himself. “…until you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I never wanted to revive those skills. I did so when you were abducted and brainwashed. I hoped that would be the end of it, but in reality, the door was opened and allowed space for demons to slip in.”
“I’m sorry about being a catalyst for that.”
“Don’t be. I don’t ever regret helping others, even if it paves the road to Hell.”
“I hope trying to heal doesn’t lead to Hell, even if I don’t know how to heal.”
He shrugs lightly. “Then help someone. That is cathartic. You’re similar to me in some ways. But consider that your uncle, in this world, wouldn’t ask you to hunt down these people. He asked from the other world, where perspectives are different. That should give you pause as to whether you should attempt pursuing this.”
“Is there something I should be doing to protect myself?”
He picks up his cup. “I can coach you in meditation to remember who you are, and to keep Ryan out. Don’t allow anything to invoke Ryan; he’s not a real person and he may not accept that. He may try to push you off-balance in order to take control. You have to watch out for a skewed perspective.”
“All right. I can do that, I think.”
“You’ll have to, in order to take care of whatever unfinished business you have.”
“I can’t worry about that right now.”
“Are you sure, Gabriel? Pushing it away as forcefully as you did speaks to some part of you wanting to do something.”
I start to answer and realize I can’t.
“You reacted to the idea of looking into what happened with you and your uncle. Why so?”
“I don’t know. I just thought it was best to leave it alone. I’m afraid of what I might find. I should look for who shot me, but I can’t even do that. I’m just tired of it all.”
“I can understand that. But someone else may be looking in some way. If someone else does, and you are not prepared, you may have to deal with it on their terms.”
“So what are you saying? That I have to look into this…thing with Dom, if someone killed him, even if I don’t want to?”
“Something’s there. I don’t know what. It may turn out to be nothing, but some effort has to be made. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not being mystical. It’s psychological. You didn’t know; you feel guilty. That’s Ryan. Look into it, you don’t need to feel guilty anymore.”
Tuesday