Delusions

Delusions

a novel

Neil Baker

AuthorHouse™

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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© 2012 Neil Baker. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 3/9/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4567-5400-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-5399-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011904881

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Artwork Drawings done by Neil Baker

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER 1

The mist had finally cleared by noon. Two Americans stood in silence at the foot of the sheltering pines of the Black Forest, enjoying the sun’s rays as the sun dried up the last of the morning dew. Above them blue jays and woodpeckers hopped from branch to branch pecking out their meal. From the top of the trees to the dark forest floor life stirred, crawled, and glided in quiet harmony with the earth.

One of the Americans, a woman in her early twenties with light auburn hair, watched a fir leaf, dry and rust-colored with age, take its fluttery plunge to the earth. It twirled and spun like a moth, first in one direction and then the other, until it finally came to rest upon a thousand others of its kind. A cuckoo cried mournfully in one of the darker gaps of the forest and the woman strained her eyes in a vain effort to pinpoint its location.

It had taken Tricia Long nearly three years of persuasion to convince Clifton that a summer’s vacation abroad would be well worth the cost and effort. And now after two weeks of traveling across Europe, Clifton could admit that his wife had been correct. So many times he had put the notion off, settling instead for a month’s relaxation in Miami Beach. Summer after summer was spent soaking up the heat and humidity, lounging by the poolside of his favorite resort, and inevitably burning in the process. But Europe was like a dream. For the first time in years he felt like a kid, carefree, exuberant, driving about from one city to the next, stopping and going as he pleased in their little rented Fiat.

They were staying in a campsite deep within the Black Forest. Before that they had spent their nights in pensions and inns, but when they reached Germany they decided to rough it and purchase a two-man tent. The first night it poured and the morning found them sleeping in puddles where their tent had leaked. After that, they had been ready to search out the nearest inn when the proprietress of the campsite, an elderly German woman, convinced them to stick it out.

A little rain hurts no people, she said. The sun will come out. You stay. You will never forget this place.

CHAPTER 2

The following two days proved that the old woman’s predictions were correct. The sun glared diamond-bright against a velvet-blue sky. The air was crisp and clean and seemed to be carrying all of earth’s origins in its scent. Every pathway winding deep into the forest beckoned to the adventurous simply by the way it gently sloped before one’s eyes, still and undisturbed. Fir trees with their slender straight trunks and their outspread branches towered high above the footpaths, rigid and transfixed, their bark either smooth, thin, and resinous, or thick, furrowed, and tinged with old age. This was the Schwartzwald where dark evergreens, rising from soil so free of underbrush in spots that one could be excused for wondering whether or not the government hired gardeners to keep it trimmed, massively carpeted the landscape.

Are you happy? Tricia asked her husband as they stood together beneath the trees.

Of course I am. That’s a ridiculous question.

No. What I mean is—are you really happy? Deep inside?

Clifton put his arm around Tricia and squeezed her close to him. Honey, believe me, I’m happier now than I’ve ever been in my entire life.

Oh, now you’re exaggerating.

No, not at all. I swear. This vacation has been really good for me.

Tricia lightly kissed her husband on the cheek I’m so glad. You know, as I look at you now, there’s something different about you.

Oh yeah. In what way?

Like you’re ten years younger. It’s strange, but it’s just as if you’ve gone back in time.

It must be this German air.

Well, I don’t know about that but whatever it is, I’m glad. Oh, Clifton. Don’t you just wish we could stay here forever?

Clifton laughed. I don’t know how long I would last in that tent but I’ll admit the idea does seem a bit intriguing.

You could open up a small business right here in the forest.

Oh, yeah, sure. And all my customers would be birds and chipmunks.

No, stupid. I don’t mean right here. I mean in the village.

And what would you propose I do?

You could sell something. I know! You could open up your own little food store.

Now I know you’re crazy. Could you see me with an apron on, stocking canned goods?

Tricia thought for a moment and then looked at Clifton naughtily out of the corner of her eye. I must admit, darling, the idea does seem a bit intriguing.

They both laughed and embraced one another.

Clifton nudged his wife. Hey, what do you say we go down to the village and pick up something for dinner?

That sounds like fun.

Should we take the car or do you want to walk?

It’s so pretty out, let’s walk this time.

Clifton made a sweeping gesture with his arm. As you wish, madame. Just lead the way.

Tricia pushed herself up off the tree trunk, giggling like a little girl. She was dressed in a white summer blouse and cut-off blue jeans that clung snugly around her rear. For a moment Clifton visualized laying her right there in the forest.

Hey, good looking. Where do you think you’re going?

Oh, come on you nut. We’re going to the village.

Why don’t you come over here first?

What for?

Don’t ask questions. Just come over here.

OK. What is it now?

Clifton wrapped his arms around Tricia’s slim waist and brushed up against her. When was the last time you were laid in the Black Forest?

Why, if I remember correctly it was just last year by a tall, handsome German boy with blond hair and blue eyes.

Is that so?

Yes. That’s so.

Well, how would you like to do it this year with a tall, handsome American boy with black hair and green eyes?

Clifton. You can’t be serious.

Want to try me?

Clifton shoved his hand underneath Tricia’s shorts, bursting open the button.

Not here, Clifton. Are you crazy? We’ll be seen.

By whom? No one’s been by here all day. Slowly, he brought Tricia down to the ground.

You’re absolutely nuts. Can’t you wait ‘till we get back to the tent?

‘Fraid not.

Tricia looked down. Already Clifton was unzipping his pants.

Oh, Cliff. She tugged down on his undershorts and squeezed his firm buttocks as he slipped inside her.

CHAPTER 3

The name of the village was Waldprechtsweier, which neighbored the slightly larger town of Malsch. It was quaint and picturesque like something clipped out of a book of fairy tales. Farmhouses with their high-pitched thatched roofs were scattered along its outskirts, and once inside the heart of the village, one was surrounded by neat white cottages brightly arrayed with wooden cutout shutters, gingerbread decorations, and colorful flower boxes in every window. Small window framed markets ran alongside a miniature mill that worked in a leisurely manner, while the sun cast a golden hue upon everything the eye could see. Two or three of the villagers were dressed in somewhat regional costume, but most could have been easily mistaken for Americans.

Everywhere Clifton and Tricia were greeted by friendly smiles. There was a three-day festival being held in an open green field at the end of the village. From beneath a dome-like tent gay accordion music accompanied by bellowing bassoons sailed out into the fresh crisp air. Swirled vanilla ice cream cones and clouds of cotton candy were being sold outside at crude wooden stands, while inside the tent there was an endless supply of rich gingery German beer.

All around, people were celebrating, falling into drunken hymns and half-forgotten dance steps. Tricia and Clifton each bought a glass of beer and stood against the wall of the tent like two shy teenagers at their first party. They smiled self-consciously at the dancers passing by until suddenly they were wisped away by an unseen hand into a twirling circle of inebriated Germans. They were immediately caught up in the flurry of the dance, laughing helplessly at the suddenness of it all. Their beers kept spilling over the rims of their glasses as they tried to keep up, arm-in-arm, with the clumsy, intoxicated pace of their partners. At last Tricia managed to pull free and fall off into a corner of the tent. She sat there watching her husband interlocked between two pompous old men, and going around and around the circle without any promise of release in sight. She gulped down her beer, jumped back up to her feet, and maneuvered herself behind Clifton until she was able to wrap her arms around his neck and yank him loose from the circle. Together, they fell to the ground with Clifton’s beer pouring all over his shirt.

I don’t believe this! Clifton bellowed out.

Tricia was still laughing too hard to respond. She could feel the effects of her drink soaring to her head, boiling away the last bits of inhibition. She rolled over and kissed Clifton hard on the lips. I love you, she said.

Clifton pulled her away. That’s just great but I think it’d be wise if we left this place now before someone else grabs us. I’m soaked.

And I’m soused, Tricia said.

You have to be kidding.

No. I’m not. It was the beer. I drank all mine.

Clifton helped Tricia to her feet and together they limped out of the tent leaving the music and gaiety behind them.

After freshening up along a nearby stream they went into one of the small local groceries and picked up yogurt, a loaf of regional bread called weiss bread, frankfurters, and a can of small, round potatoes. Tricia was still a little dizzy from the beer and all the way back to the campsite she kept singing nonsense songs that popped into her head. The narrow cobblestone streets twisted through the village, carrying them uphill, closer and closer to the face of the forest.

Tricia sang:

"Cuckoo in cherry tree,

Come down and tell me

How many years I have to live.

In April,

The cuckoo shews his bill;

In May,

He sings all day;

In June,

He alters his tune;

In July,

Away he’ll fly;

Come August,

Away he must."

CHAPTER 4

They prepared their meal on a portable camping stove underneath a dying velvet sky, and ate in hungry silence. The scent of sizzling frankfurters rose into the air, mingling with the aroma of a dozen campfires. Throughout the campground people were busy preparing dinner. In the majority of cases it was the husband who cooked the meals, while the wives set the picnic tables and the children played badminton on the grassy lots or dirt driveways. Occasionally, one could hear an abrupt burst of song that descended into silence as quickly as it had emerged. Crows scavenged the ground and cawed out at the humans in a useless attempt at territoriality.

Moths arose out of their shadowy hiding places and attacked the air in a haphazard manner while a misty stillness penetrated deeply into the bordering Black Forest, carrying with it all the myths and superstitions of thousands of years past.

*   *   *

Tricia snuggled her hands underneath the thick collar of her turtleneck sweater. They had finished their meal and were seated around their small campfire.

Who does it better than anyone else? Tricia asked.

Does what better?

Come on. You know. She gave Clifton a childish grin.

Oh, that. Well, I don’t know. Between me and that blonde German boy I guess you’re going to have to decide.

Well, let me see. I definitely like your style. Although the subtlety which was demonstrated by the German lad was…

Tricia felt something sharp hit her nose. Clifton was throwing pebbles at her. She crawled around the fire and curled up against him.

Hold me, she said.

Clifton put his arm around Tricia.

Do you miss America? Tricia asked.

Hardly, Clifton said.

It’s funny. I don’t either. You’d think being so far away in a strange land you’d miss it just a little bit but it isn’t so.

Tricia placed the tip of her second finger on Clifton’s nose, a gesture she made whenever she got the good of him in a debate or simple conversation. And to think I had to beg you to come over here. You’re so afraid of change. God forbid the whole world will collapse if there’s a slight shift in routine.

Now you know that isn’t true. Just look at me. We haven’t stuck to a schedule in weeks and do you see me falling apart?

No. I’ll admit you’ve adjusted beautifully since we’ve been abroad.

Well, it nice to get away from all the tension. It’s given me a whole new attitude about things.

If that’s really true, Tricia said, biting her lip, then let me ask you something.

Go ahead.

What do you say we have a baby?

Clifton’s expression became ominously still. The only thing that moved were the dying flames of the fire flashing in his green eyes.

I knew it, Tricia said. You’ll never change. I’m sorry I even brought it up.

So am I, Clifton said. You know just how to ruin a perfectly good mood.

And what about me? You don’t think after all these years…

Trish. I suggest you drop it. I don’t want to go into it now.

Okay. But when will you want to? In a year? Two years? Five years? Or do you never want to? You know, Clifton, we can’t go on blaming ourselves because of Matthew’s accident.

Tricia looked off disgustedly into the darkness of the night.

Clifton squeezed her. Look, you’ve just got to give me time. Come on. Let’s not argue.

Yeah, I know. Sorry.

How about a kiss?

She pecked his lips.

Hey, I don’t mean a tap. I mean a kiss.

This time she fell into both his arms and a long tender kiss.

Clifton groaned deeply. That’s nice.

Tricia stretched herself out on the cold ground, laying her head on Clifton’s lap. Look at the stars. God, they’re beautiful. Did you know stars are the ones that twinkle?

No. I didn’t know that.

Yes. It’s true. I learned that in grammar school. Planets don’t twinkle.

Well, I’ll be.

Oh, you’re making fun.

No. I’m not. That’s interesting.

Tricia crossed her arms against her chest and closed her eyes.

Tired? Clifton asked.

No. Just thinking. How much time do we have left?

Just a little bit over two weeks.

I hope it goes by slowly. Wouldn’t it be great if we could suspend time and spend one eternal day in Europe? Think of all you would see. And you would never age. You could just remain the same forever.

Now who’s the one who’s fighting change?

Well, maybe. Anyway, it was just a thought.

Someone nearby switched on a radio and a steady stream of German ripped through the quiet night air. It was completely incomprehensible to them. They guessed it to be the news broadcast, for the voice kept dipping and pausing in spots as American newscasters do. After awhile the voice ceased and in its place a lively polka was played. The clapping of hands along with the music was heard as it appeared that others, further off in the distance, were listening to the same station. Around them they heard German voices, low and mellow to the ear, and it made them feel strange to be the only English-speaking people. Their fire was no more than a few wisps of smoke and since neither of them had the energy to refuel it, they gazed toward other flares crackling in the cool night.

One in particular illuminated the figures of a family. One could easily make out the mother and father and two small children, a boy and a girl. The boy was holding a stick in the flames, and his face was glowing behind the dancing limbs of fire. Clifton couldn’t take his eyes off the child. He was fascinated by the blaze and how it distorted the boy’s features, fusing them together one moment and setting them back the next. The little girl came over and tried to take the stick from him but the boy repeatedly shoved her away, until she was finally scolded by her mother and was motioned to sit down. Instead she ran over to her father who provided the necessary sanctuary.

Clifton glanced back at the boy. Either it was an illusion or he was devilishly smiling into the fire, bearing all his little white teeth. Clifton squinted and strained his eyes as best he could. The boy’s figure seemed to be rippling, like a mirage, from behind the flames, and it appeared as though a thick black beard had sprouted all over his face. Of course it was the play of lights and shadows but to Clifton’s mind the child resembled a wolf, or worse, a demon, and it was now staring straight at him, marking him out in the darkness as though he had just been caught doing a terrible deed.

Cliff?

What?

You’re trembling. Are you cold?

Oh, just a little I guess.

You were staring so hard at that family over there.

Oh, I was just thinking… a person sure doesn’t get much privacy around here.

No, but it makes it sort of cozy that way, don’t you think?

Clifton shrugged his shoulders and glanced back in the direction of the little boy. He now had his back to him and was facing the fire.

What do you say we get to sleep?

That sounds good to me, Tricia said.

They left the fire to die on its own, and together they crawled into their tiny pup tent where there was barely enough room to zip open one’s sleeping bag. Clifton wished they had brought a larger tent but he had promised himself he wouldn’t complain. This was the one Tricia wanted and he didn’t want to spoil it for her. When he was finally settled down in his sleeping bag he leaned over to kiss Tricia goodnight but found she was already asleep. It never took her long once her head hit the pillow. He lay back down and stared up into the blackness of the tent. There were certain images in his mind which kept beckoning to him like little crying kittens. A dark bedroom with a bed unslept in for two years, a glass paperweight atop a stack of dusty papers on a writing table built for a child, a green-shaded lamp in the shape of a prowling dinosaur. They all formed a composite picture of a lost innocence, a grave compliment to a short-lived existence.

Clifton was lying. He told himself exactly what he wanted to hear. Really, to be having a conversation with himself at this hour of the night only served to rekindle his past with some sense of hope. He had rooted and sorted his way through the earlier parts of his life, experiencing disappointment upon disappointment. In his first year of college (which, incidentally, also happened to be his last), English had been his major, with an emphasis on literature. He had fancied himself as some sort of writer at the time due to the fact that he had managed to wiggle an A in creative writing during his senior year in high school. His teacher had said that Clifton’s short story, A Mind for the Masses, had a tinge of Hemingwayesque order to it, and that with a little practice and experience he might someday make a fine writer. When this was told to him he believed that being a writer might assure him of a higher life. Yes, during that first year of college he had decided to take her advice and nurture the voice of his own mind speaking from within, from his own depths, where there was more than just a body in nature. Where there was a soul that was also him, in all his entirety.

But college requirements were different than that of high school. What had left a dynamic impression upon his senior high school creative writing instructor had hardly garnished a nod from his college professor. Indeed, the same exact story, A Mind for the Masses, which had held him in such high esteem with his high school teacher was, in turn, passed on to his college professor, with the expectation that the praise for his writing talents would continue. But this had hardly been the case. His highly valued ‘A’ was reduced to a ‘C-’ from his college professor. ‘This is a ridiculous premise for a short story,’ he wrote on the last page of his manuscript. ‘Your main character is ill-defined and weighed down with clichés. Furthermore, I gathered what you meant to be regarded as funny egoism on the part of your main character, Harold, was hardly funny at all. In fact, if your intention was to cast a Thurberian glow in Harold, you barely managed to raise a spark of humor. I suggest you best fashion yourself as an unborn voice that has yet to find its peep, rather than basing your talents on the masters who have managed to soar on their own merits. Incidentally, that bit about Harold owning a pair of atypical shoes was a poor allusion to the state of his mind. What do shoes have to do with consciousness? I’m afraid that the eccentricity of your ideas be put underfoot, at least, that is, until you have learned to wear the proper sole!’

Needless to say, Clifton’s grand figure of himself as a writer had been shattered with the mighty blow of his professor’s pen. At first, he slithered to the back of the class, and it had only been a week after that that his presence as an undergraduate creative writing student had been forever lost from the classroom. His absence was hardly noted, and it was simple enough for his instructor to turn a ‘C-’ into an ‘F’, a grade belonging to a face he could not recall. Clifton spent the latter part of that month haunting the college library. Unfortunately, his fever of failure as a writer had spread to his other classes as well, and his credits soon submerged below the surface of record. The library aisles, on the other hand, absorbed the ghost of his mindless prowl past the shelves of silent, rigid books, the letters of their titles eyeing him like offensive predators. Each time he taunted a book from the shelf his heart would bleed, and the little bits of his soul would drown in anonymity. Soon enough, not even his shoes touched the campus.

After that, Clifton’s mental disciplines had languished in the seat of his depression, a depression that was typically preoccupied with bus stop benches. Simply, he withdrew to the backseat of a nameless destination on wheels. The cracks on the floor, the sound of exhaust, became his tutors of education. That, and perhaps a yellowing paperback, once a stranded survivor in the shadows of a used bookstore landscape.

But the very tools of rejection have a way of resurrecting the soul from obscurity. For in fact it was that very paperback in the hands of its wayward traveler that had caught Tricia’s attention in that dark year.

Oh, you like Betsy Smith? How strange. I thought that men who even bother to read were only attracted to themes of war or sportsmanship. You’ve got to be quite the exception.

Clifton was barely comprehending the words on the page, more or less the author of those words. This was simply a ten-cent book whose immediate destination was the trash. Used bookstores, they hold onto the words even as they stare into dust. But even a used bookstore draws its line of salvation. If not sold for ten-cents, then words cannot be spared for the sake of space. Yes, mere dreams of the mind can be tossed into dead piles, like the dead and forgotten.

"Did you happen to catch the movie, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn? If you say yes then it’s worth a date."

As a matter of fact, I did, Clifton said, breaking into the silence of his self-appointed exile. Even his voice had a bounce to it that was altogether flat and unused for so long. I really liked watching Peggy Ann Garner. In fact, you look a little like her.

That was it, their romance was sealed.

Two months into their relationship, Clifton was certain that Tricia should be his bride. Prior to this, Tricia had encouraged Clifton to become a psychologist, since his aptitude for listening was so acute and his ability to respond to her daily little problems so effective. Clifton even began to regard psychology as a protective magic against the hassles of living. It served as a way to ward off others’ penetration into his own soul. Tricia felt that he could combine his literary talents into the same field and perhaps come to create a career as both psychologist and author. Up until then, Clifton’s investigation into psychology had been conducted on a solely personal level—that is, he dove into the psychology section of the nearest used bookstore. Therein he briefed himself on the theories of Freud, Maslow, and Jung. He got a taste of everything from the id to self-actualization, to reincarnation and cosmic consciousness. His readings certainly wet his appetite for stimulating thought; but, unfortunately, he still held a moronic fear of the college system. He felt mutilated by his first year rejections and was certain that any continuance into the academic process would further bring on mindful clubbings and beatings. He couldn’t help but think that all professors spat on him for his incompetence and immaturity. How he would hate to be exposed in such a manner before Tricia. She might reconsider her hand in marriage and, worse yet, pity him for his lacking capabilities. And should he fail as miserably at his second attempt at college as he had in his first, his GPA would become his RIP, if he were lucky. At least by staying clear of instructors’ sharp evaluations he would remain forever steadfast as an intellectual hero, in Tricia’s eyes. So he convinced her that by his wits alone they could survive. Love and devotion covered a lot of miles when it came to marriage, he was certain of it. Why should he allow professors to stand in as discriminating in-laws on his path to happiness, or, in Maslow’s terms, self-actualization? Perhaps he could freelance as a gifted counselor who defied all avenues of conventional thinking, and was able to attract clients by his insights alone. Deep down inside however Clifton thought who are you fooling? No one would ever take you