On/Off - A Jekyll and Hyde Story Read online

  “Lets talk about this. That is a wide range of art forms. Would anyone say that sculpting is the same as writing?” He waited a beat. “What about film? Is film the same as writing? You can use both to tell a story, make things up, make people get caught up in a love affair, or a thriller…”

  He started walking down the aisle, looking from student to student.

  “Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel before any of our fathers’ fathers were born. Why? Food? Rent? Sure. He was on commission. Was he creating propaganda for the church? Certainly. But what is it that was he trying to say? Why is it that that ceiling, with the fancy paint job, stands out as one of the marvels of artistic creation?”

  Ryan looked around, then whipped his head towards Jamie.

  “What is it? Why did he paint it? Why not just write something on a scroll and hammer it up to the ceiling?”

  The class laughed.

  “You think it’s funny, but really, why is a painting the accepted medium for that message? And why is it that that church, with that image, has withstood the tests of time?” He put his hands in his pockets and stood up straight. “Is it because Michelangelo had something utterly unique to express? Maybe.” He spun on his heal and walked back to the front. “Is it that he did it better than anyone else before him? Quite possibly. In fact, lets go out on a limb—absolutely! No one could have done it better. But did Michelangelo ever write anything?”

  Ryan pointed to a boy in the front row, who looked around and shrugged his shoulders.

  “The history books tells us Michelangelo was also a poet. But do any of you know any of his pieces?” He pointed at Kelli. “You, Ms.-?”

  “Petronio.”

  “Please recite that famous poem by Michelangelo.”

  Kelli felt her face getting red. “Uh, I don’t know one-”

  Ryan stared at her incredulously. “You don’t know one.”

  He started back up the aisle, once again stopping beside Jamie, staring into his eyes intently.

  “What about you? You must know it.”

  Jamie smiled. “I don’t.”

  The professor again stood there, stone silent. Then he spun around again, throwing up his arms.

  “I don’t know it either! He must have written pure shit!” The class laughed. “But damn, talk about some fucking great paintings! And I hear he made a couple of decent sculptures as well. So that’s another question, why did he choose paintings for some pieces, and sculpture for others? I dunno, but when you see them, they just make sense.”

  The room was quiet. Someone coughed gently. Ryan stood in the aisle for a beat, then walked up to the front of the room.

  “So that’s the point of this class. We will discuss the choices behind each form of media. Each medium has its own inherent message, each idea in our heads needs a different way to take flight, and each of our minds works in a different way. Consider what you’re thinking right now, consider the words that have spouted out from my mouth, traveled through the air, into your ears, and been absorbed by your brains -- hopefully. I’m using speech now, but I could write it down.” He motioned to Kelli. “Or Ms. Petronio here could make a film about it. And every form would add its own elements to the message. And what exactly is the message? Am I just some stuffed shirt, full of shit, spouting out here like a smart ass? Yeah, pretty much. But I’ve got a point, you’ll see.”

  Ryan looked around the room, enjoying their confused faces. This was the best part of the quarter.

  “So, my little media masters. Here is your assignment. I want you to think about what you study, and what you consider yourselves to be; writers, photographers, cartoonists, whatever. Think about your medium, and what your life purpose is. What is it that makes your mind unique?” He pulled a hand out of his pocket, stabbing at the air with a finger. “For some of you, this will be harder than for others. Do what it takes to get in the necessary place. If you’ve got some pot, smoke it. If you’ve got the means, get drunk this weekend. I’m sure you or someone you know has a black light in their rooms. Drink. Smoke. Stare up at some glow in the dark stars under a blacklight. Let’s get deep and get heavy. I’ll join you in this research. If you have any more questions, I will be at the Pig ‘n Whistle tomorrow night, downing white Russians and considering my place in the communications lexicon, trying to figure out where it all went horribly wrong.”

  Ryan studied each of their faces. That hot girl in the front row was lapping it up. The little stooly next to her didn’t have a clue. A few of them seemed to be laughing it off. The kid in the back row with the hat had an all-too-knowing expression. He couldn’t read him.

  “So, lets dig into your dark psyches and start coming up with some answers.” He picked up his book and headed for the door. “Have fun. Think deep. And get a little fucked up, will ya?”

  Ryan walked out the door without saying another word. Everyone sat there for a moment, then they looked around at one another. An older woman, probably in her forties, dressed in a denim Winnie the Pooh jacket, looked pretty upset.

  “That’s it?” she muttered. “This is bullshit.”

  Jamie laughed to himself. The rest of the people in the room were getting their things together hesitantly, unsure if the professor was coming back at any moment. The girl in the front row tossed her hair to the side and looked back at him suddenly. Their eyes locked for a moment. As always, Jamie didn’t blink, but he was nervous. The girl, she just stared back at him with that certain look in her eyes, that glimmer that told him things were bound to happen with them.

  Kelli stood up, still giving him that look. The professor was a cutie, but she didn’t want another one of those situations. She’d learned after the whole affair with her Pop Art professor. Older guys were too much trouble, whether they were married or not, the thrill always ran out, and they ended up wanting her to be something she wasn’t. No. It was time for someone younger, and the guy in the back was just what she was looking for. She stared him down, giving him the message: before she’d fuck him, she was gonna fuck with him. It was always better that way.

  The girl headed towards the door, and Jamie hurried to catch up to her. The Winnie the Pooh lady stood up in front of him, gathering her things together, blocking his way as she complained to the girl beside her.

  “This had better not be a waste of my money. I had a guy like this last quarter, and I told my husband we are not working two jobs to pay for this hippy, liberal nonsense.”

  Jamie shoved past the woman and out into the corridor. He looked both ways down the hall, but the girl was gone.

  CHAPTER TWO - COLLEGE LIFE

  College dorms are like space stations orbiting the planet, their inhabitants studying history and current events with finely tuned instruments and unforgiving eyes, all the while remaining safely isolated from the very events they’re busy observing for meaning. But that’s the way it should be. That’s the only environment where youthful idealism has the space and ability to grow, while still letting students find their footing in the turbulent emotions of adulthood. In college, pot-bellied computer programmers and goth art students can happily argue the merits of communism with self-assured business majors, while in real life, those same artists and tech guys are doomed to customer service departments, working under the very individuals to whom they now preach. Where else can actions and emotions be more immediate and biting? A person can watch The Simpsons with a group in the lounge one moment, feeling a complete sense of community, only to walk down a quiet hallway to their room, and be overcome with an utter sense of isolation. Polar emotions experienced in a matter of seconds.

  Maybe it was the price you paid for creativity, but such feelings were never alien to Jamie. Even throughout high school he’d had a sense of walking through life in a daze, oddly detached from the events playing out around him. Hell, maybe it was the Parkinsons, but somehow he doubted it. Well before he ever felt symptoms of the disease, Jamie had the sense of viewing life through old windows, the warped glass
magnifying certain events, bringing them forward in his vision, affecting him in ways others around him were not always aware of, while other parts of life, certain social encounters, seemed to have completely escaped his attention.

  While he was definitely excited to finally be in school, Jamie was still feeling that sense of detached loneliness. Most likely it came from starting classes in the second quarter, after everyone around him had already been on campus ten weeks. They’d made their friends, learned the lay of the land, possibly enjoyed the first lays of their lives, and life had suddenly stepped on the gas, whisking them into the next chapters of their individual stories. Yeah, it was only ten weeks, but to paraphrase Ferris Bueller, life moves pretty fast in college, and Jamie had the distinct feeling of leaping onto the roof of a speeding train while the other passengers were already settled into their seats.

  He walked back through campus after class. Students were huddled outside the library, chatting with friends, lighting up cigarettes, and self consciously exhaling plumes of smoke as they watched the crowds wander by. Aside from the smell of that smoky sweet first drag on a cigarette, which always reminded him of his father, Jamie despised smokers. Now their instant sense of community bugged him even more. Sure, smoking butts looked cool, gave them something do with fidgeting hands, but he focused on the soot and the yellow film on their fingers. Disgusting. He wondered if he could pick a pack up on campus anywhere.

  He passed another group of smokers outside the gym, several of whom pulled out lighters just as he approached, and the burst of tobacco as they lit up damn near convinced him to skip his workout and swing by a gas station instead. He entered the building and showed the kid at the gate his student ID. The gym was teaming with people who were the polar opposite of smokers. No droopy eyes and crinkled, gray skin. These folks were pink, and healthy, and firm. These were the folks on campus having sex, and Jamie’s envy immediately shifted again. He got a towel from a cute blond at the reception desk, changed in the locker room, and followed a herd of frat guys to the weight room.

  He stretched on the mats by the entrance and observed the crowd filing in and out. As with most gyms, one wall was covered in mirrors, and Jamie watched knowingly as guys and girls alike snuck peeks at one another and then themselves in the glass. The frat guys were the worst, their eyes constantly shifting from girls, to guys, to themselves, sizing up their targets, then comparing their own bodies to their perceived competition. Jamie felt the tingle of curious eyes as he tightened the strings on his hooded sweatshirt. Eventually, he might keep his head uncovered, but he hoped his hair might grow in before he’d have to respond to curious stares.

  He did a round of exercises on the machines, then worked forty minutes on the elliptical trainer. A television was tuned to CNN in front of the aerobic stations. Jamie watched a segment with Elton John discussing his newest pacemaker. That was followed by a piece on a high school student who’d recently lost an arm and both legs, but had begun running marathons with the aid of space-aged prosthetic legs. Jesus. How did these people do it? His own experience had been a nightmare, but to start running marathons with titanium legs was unimaginable. This kid was amazing. Jamie turned the resistance up on his machine and picked up the pace for another five minutes. By the time he stepped off the machine he’d sweated through his sweatshirt. He wiped the machine down with a towel and went back to the stretching mats.

  “I wonder if they’ll want to do a story on me,” he mused.

  It was probably only a matter of time before Price and the university would start sending out press releases, trying to get some glory for their groundbreaking new treatment. Jamie knew what they were waiting for, however. They wanted to be sure their little miracle was the real thing. They wanted him to get settled in school, grow back his hair, become a little more photogenic, a little more productive, then they’d no doubt call in the camera crews and pitch their story. They were playing it safe, waiting to see if something was gonna go haywire. No sense putting him on 60 Minutes, showing him all pale and weak, only to have the implant fail, and watch “this promising young man” become a vegetable on national TV.

  Jamie stretched on the mats. His eyes were stinging. He realized he’d been staring again. He blinked hard, then looked out at his hands as they stretched out to his toes. His fingers were still steady. He glanced over at a girl across the room who was jogging on a treadmill. She had nice, firm breasts, held tightly with a pink sports bra, but they were still bouncing just enough to get his imagination going. She was cute, sort of a Jennifer Aniston look. He put his head down, switched legs, and continued stretching.

  He walked into the locker room after his workout, grabbed his towel, and headed for the showers. He was feeling good. His body was moving naturally, no sense of sluggishness. There was someone in the stall to the left, so he took the one by the far right wall, stripped off his clothes, and pulled the curtain behind him. He stepped under the scorching hot spray, lathering up with a combination shower gel/shampoo from the dispenser on the wall. The workout had gotten his blood pumping, he could feel his dick getting hard. He opened his eyes and looked down. This one wasn’t gonna go away on its own, no ugly librarian images would do the trick this time. He pulled the curtain shut tightly and closed his eyes. The girl from the media class popped into his head. He remembered that look she’d given him as they got up to leave. Damn. He lathered up one hand and started stroking himself, picturing her walking towards him, pressing up against him. She was her turning her back on him, bending over the table in front of him. Jamie imagined his hands on her hips as he felt the hot water on his skin...

  He opened his eyes and rinsed off, checking to be sure the curtain was still tightly closed and no one had seen what he’d been doing. He lathered up the rest of his body as he grew limp again, but he couldn’t stop thinking about that girl from class. He had to say something to her next week. That look she’d given him was unmistakable, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

  Jamie picked up a sandwich at The Corner Store in the tunnels, then headed back to his room. The dorms had that lonely feeling again. Everyone was in an evening class, huddled in the lounges, or cruising back and forth between their rooms, but there was just an overall quiet feeling in the air. Jamie went past Fritz’s room, but the door was shut, so he continued down to his dorm and closed the door behind him.

  He sat on his bed and unwrapped his sandwich, the cellophane crinkling quietly. He closed his eyes, chewing slowly, picturing the implant in his head, wondering what it looked like nestled into those tissues, deep in the darkness of his brain. He pictured it sparking and humming, keeping everything in line, fighting to maintain control. Now and then an errant signal tried to break through, and the implant shot it down with a wild, spidery blast of electricity, like something from Frankenstein’s lab. Suddenly, Jamie remembered that scene from The Bride of Frankenstein, where the creature finds the old blind man in the cabin who tells him, “Before you arrived, I was all alone.”

  “Alone bad,” the Creature rumbled. “Friend good.”

  Jamie stopped chewing, got up, and went over to his dresser. He opened the canisters for his meds and took a pill from each, swallowing them as he stepped out into the hallway to take a drink from the fountain. No one was near his door, but he could hear voices around the corner. He needed to get to know some of these people, but somehow he wasn’t in the mood tonight. He walked back into his room, locking the door behind him.

  Jamie finished his sandwich and stretched out on his bed. Why the hell was he thinking of that stupid old movie? And why was it making him so damn depressed? He rolled over, stared at the brick wall by his bed, then closed his eyes. Gradually, his breathing deepened, and he fell asleep.

  ***

  The events after the accident had always been a blur. He remembered bright lights and the feeling of a latex glove on his forehead as the doctor pulled the glass from his eyes. He remembered a long period when everything was black, and he felt clot
h bandages over his eyes. He’d drifted in and out of sleep, waking only to the sounds of his own breathing. Then slowly, he heard the voices of adults in the background. He heard his mother and father talking. No, not his father, someone else - Uncle Matt, whose voice had the same gentle murmur, but just a slightly higher pitch, fewer cigarettes, more herbal tea. They were talking about something. But the words came out like wheezing mumbles, characters from a Peanuts cartoon. The voices faded in and out like the sound of his own breathing.

  Then he was awake, the bandages had been removed, and he was alone. Other than the smells, and the echoing silence, all he recalled was a giant purple elephant, spinning in front of him, an insane smile on its face. It was laughing at him.

  ***

  Kelli reached over and twisted the volume knob on her stereo. She didn’t feel like hearing Christie and her boyfriend fucking in the next room just yet. It was too early. She had enjoyed Thanksgiving break, reading in bed at night, free from her suite mate’s steady moaning and the slamming of a bed against the adjoining wall. She looked at the clock - 9 a.m. and they were at it already. Jesus, if the girl had a ten o’clock class, she could barely make it to the shower before she left, but if Joe was in the mood -- and when wasn’t he? -- the two of them were bright eyed and bushy tailed, animals in an entirely inappropriate petting zoo.

  She took a couple of beer bottles from the foot of her bed and tossed them in the trash. Administration had made RIT a dry campus in the first month of the school year, after one of this year’s freshmen drank a dingy full of Olde English and did a face-plant off a third floor balcony, but most of the people she knew had elaborate ways of smuggling the stuff in. It was like the dawning of a new prohibition era, only everyone was an underage Al Capone, squirreling booze into the dorms in gym bags, padding the bottles in rolled up socks. Will had snuck these bottles in by slipping them down his boxers. Even as she’d sipped from the long neck bottles, she’d shuddered to think how his depraved little brain would interpret it. He was her friend, and a decent guy, but he certainly wasn’t the first pile of bones she’d toss herself at. He was fun to hang out with and talk movies, but aside from their studies in film, he was kind of your typical…film geek, which sort of said it all. He had a serious crush on her, and she’d have to give it the kibosh shortly - he didn’t know what girls wanted, let alone what she wanted in a guy.