“Only with Bobby Lee. Only, I think that I cheated a little. Your ability is what’s called, at least in theory, Electrical Symbiosis Exchange; the exchange of thought and memory through touch.” She accepted the second drink from the bartender, and this time she sipped the cold whiskey. She then looked at George and smiled. “I wasn’t under the whole time Bobby Lee was in possession of me. I was able to continue some of my work. Electrical Memory and Thought Exchange was a pet theory I developed in between assaults.”
George glanced at Jenny and shook his head.
“So,” she said as she raised her glass again, “you touched one of us in the room during the attack and got a bad vibe? Or maybe a sordid vision of one of our futures?”
George watched as Jenny slowly took a drink from her glass. She looked at him with the gentle eyes of someone who knew what true torment was. He also felt he could tell her the truth — the truth about a lot of things.
“When I was twelve years old, after my mother passed away after a long battle with cancer, my father put me on tour. You know, the daytime television circuit, Art Linkletter, Mike Douglass, shows like that. They would bring people out of the audience and I would take their hand and tell them the light side of where they had been, and sometimes where they were going. My father would insist, drill it into me, that under no circumstances was I to delve into the darker side of people and their nature. You know, marital affairs, things like that. He insisted it was all for fun.” He looked at Jenny and then just as quickly looked away. “Fun when we were on stage. Off stage, he was a driven man. Money was everything to him. On stage, loving and the pillar of fatherhood; off, he was cold as ice.”
“Is your father still alive?” Jenny asked, pushing her drink away.
“No, he died…alone and unloved.”
Jenny lowered her eyes. George wanted to tell the story, so she just let him venture forth without pushing him.
“I never really questioned my father,” he continued, “as to why there was never any physical contact between us. Oh, he would ruffle my hair on stage and act the part of the proud parent, but every time I tried to get close off the stage, he would be, like I said, cold. He would pat me on my head, at the most. That was as loving as the man ever got.”
Jennifer looked up and into the mirror over the bar. John Lonetree watched them as he sipped a glass of beer. He was watching with curious eyes, it was if he knew Jenny was there to witness George become completed, as if there was a cleansing going on. Jenny thought that maybe a little bit of John — and maybe even a bit of George — had rubbed off on her in the short time she had known them.
“One time, I had flubbed up pretty bad on a morning show in Minneapolis. Afterwards, he drank most of the day. When he came back to the hotel, I really saw who my father was for the first time. He slapped me around pretty good and told me that after my failure on the morning show, three other shows down the line had cancelled.” George drained the glass of milk and then shoved the glass away from him as if it was the bad memory. He rubbed a hand across his face.
“What happened, George?” she asked, draining her own glass.
“After he passed out, I went into his room and watched him sleep for the longest time. I saw his eyes moving underneath his lids, and that fascinated me like no other sight ever has — even to this day. He was dreaming and I knew it, even before I ever heard the theory of rapid eye movement. I knew that son of a bitch was having a nightmare. I couldn’t fathom what could scare this man who so terrified me. I was so curious that, for the first time I could ever remember, I placed my hands on him; one on top of his head, one on his face. I could feel his eyelids moving underneath my touch. The feeling continued to fascinate me beyond reason, even when I was shown what he was dreaming. I closed my eyes and I became him. I was inside of him when he went to visit my mother in the hospital. I was inside when she spoke her last words to him. I heard them with his ears, I saw myself with his memory of me. I heard her say to my father, ‘Love George, he needs you so.’ I wanted to cry, which at the time was at cross-purposes to invading my father.”
George closed his eyes, reliving the memory. Jenny saw the sadness, the terror, and the love for his mother in his eyes as they welled up with tears.
“I watched my father. He slowly took a white pillow from underneath my mother’s head and raised it up. I felt his hands as he placed the pillow over my mother’s face and pushed. It was like while I was inside of him, I was adding my weight to his bulk. We both pushed that pillow as hard as we could. I remember fighting inwardly against the despicable way my father felt as he murdered my mother. There was no peaceful decision to allow her to leave this life with what little dignity she had left. It was a selfish, cold blooded act to rid himself of a drain on time and resources. I screamed for him to stop. Then I could feel him, beneath my hands, becoming aware that I was invading his memories. I remember when his eyes popped open, but I still kept my hands where they were. I pressed as hard as the memory of my father pushing on that pillow — harder, and harder. I saw the panic in my father’s eyes as he realized that I knew. It was a trapped, animal look.”
Jennifer swallowed. She could not imagine what George had gone through, witnessing his mother’s murder at the hands of his very own father. She looked up with tears in her own eyes and saw the concern on Lonetree’s face in the bar’s mirror.
“My father gathered the strength to throw me off. He jumped from his bed and vomited. It was like pure evil was spewing forth from the man. It wasn’t guilt, it was that someone else knew what a coward he truly was.”
“What happened?” Jenny asked. George wiped his eyes with the palm of his right hand, as if he wanted to gouge out the vision from his memory.
“My father killed himself the next day without ever saying a word to me. He stepped off the street in Minneapolis into the path of a car. He died hating me for what I knew.”
“It wasn’t you who killed your mother, George, it was him. You need not feel guilty about anything.”
George laughed, and then slapped the bar with his open hand. He swiped the last of his tears away.
“My mother? No, I didn’t kill my mother. But I wished my father dead, and when I took his hand on that street that day, he didn’t even realize what I was doing. I thought about that small little step off the sidewalk, and that small push of thought ended up being just as physical as actually pushing him in front of that car. No, I didn’t kill my mother, but I killed that man who was my father. And you know what?”
Jenny sat silently, waiting.
“I wanted to do it. I had thought all night and all morning on just how it could be done, but I couldn’t find the answer, or the bravery. Not until the opportunity presented itself. Then I pushed my father with my thoughts as I reached out and took his hand that final time.”
They sat at the bar without speaking, George with his eyes heavy and Jenny with hers locked on the mirror, as if drawing strength from John, who still watched them from his table.
“I am sick and tired of death.” George looked at Jenny. “Do you understand?”
“George, I apologize for bothering you. I know what it’s like to have an ability you hate absolutely having. Whether you stay or go, we will respect any decision you make.”
Jenny slid off the barstool and squeezed George’s shoulder. She turned to leave him to think things through, but he quickly reached out and grabbed Jenny’s hand. John Lonetree stood and started forward, but she shook her head no. John, observant as ever, stopped and watched from the distance. George squeezed Jenny’s hand without looking at her.
“Don’t go into Summer Place. Leave the east coast and go anywhere but Pennsylvania. Hell, come away with me. Just don’t go into that fucking house.”