Separate Natures

Chapter 1: Missing“Garner!” The name, hissed into his ear, didn’t really register. It was followed, however, by a painful pinch on his forearm—and that did get his attention. “Ow!” He pulled his arm in and turned to glare at his attacker. But, if he expected an apology, he didn’t get it; Sharon merely shook her head, regarding him grimly. “That was the third time,” she said. “I spoke your name three times, Garner!” “Really?” He was taken aback, his annoyance receding. But he still rubbed the spot where he had been pinched. “You were doing it again!” Sharon continued. “Doing what?” “Staring off into space!” “Oh!” Garner hunched guiltily and, without moving his head, looked to the side. “Anyone notice?” Sharon raised an eyebrow and smiled ironically. “You mean, other than me?” “I mean—” he leaned toward her, “Mike.” Sharon turned casually, scanning the restaurant’s main dining room. She spotted the manager, standing in his usual spot. She turned back to Garner. “I don’t think so. He’s not looking this way now, and he doesn’t look annoyed.” “Great!” Garner sighed with relief. But this was the wrong response. Sharon fairly glowered at him now. “But, Garner!” she hissed. “You can’t keep doing that!” Her eyes widened into a meaningful glare. “And, what’s more, I think you’re getting worse!” Garner didn’t say anything. He turned back to his half-finished entry in the cash machine. A little red error light was blinking. Following his gaze, Sharon made an impatient noise and gently pushed him aside. Quickly, she corrected the entry with deft finger movements. When the machine spat out the bill, she put it into a bill holder and held this out to him. “Thanks,” he murmured, avoiding her gaze. His hope that she would now leave him was quashed when he caught sight of her shaking her head again. “You’ve changed!” she said at last, her voice more puzzled now, only slightly accusatory. “So have you,” he replied, frowning and rubbing the pinched spot. “You didn’t used to be so violent.” “Violent?” Sharon’s eyebrows shot up and her face went through a range of expressions—mortification, amusement, apology, scorn, to mortification again—before settling into defiant puzzlement. Garner not only saw these changes, he felt them—and that, really, was the core of the problem. Sharon gave a small sigh, and finally nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I’m sorry I pinched you. Get over it, okay?” “Okay,” he acknowledged, smiling sheepishly—he knew, they both knew, he was being silly. After a shared moment of relief, he frowned. “How have I changed, Sharon? I mean, you said that, when I first came back from my time off—visiting my aunt.” Sharon shook her head. “That was different.” And she smiled. “Actually, that was amazing; you were—so—I don’t know. It was like all of the good things I knew you had inside, they came out, and you put them into action. I mean, you must have noticed.” “Noticed? What? Oh! How other people responded.” He grinned. “Tom being so touchy-feely?” Sharon chuckled. “Well, I can’t say I blame him, really. I mean—well, Tom is Tom—and you were really—attractive. Besides, you didn’t object; at least I never heard you complain.” Garner smiled. “No. I didn’t mind, I guess.” Then he caught Sharon’s use of past tense: You were. “What?” he said. “Now I’ve changed—back?” A wash of something between panic and despair passed over him. But it was followed by a defensive indignation. “And if I have,” he said, frowning, “so what?” He rubbed the pinched spot again. Sharon reached out and touched his arm. “Look,” she said. “I’m sorry I pinched you, okay? But, Garner—you really don’t know how frustrating it is to see you like this.” They regarded each other in tense silence. “Anyway,” she continued, her tone placating. “It’s not like you’re changing back. And—even if it were—my advice is: don’t! Just—don’t!” She held up a hand, palm out as if signaling him to a halt. “No. It’s—something else. Something worse. Half the time it’s like you’re not even here. I mean before, you were absent-minded, withdrawn—but you were still—I don’t know—still in the room. Now—it’s like you just float away entirely.” “Like just now?” “Yes! That’s why I pinched you—I wasn’t just annoyed, Garner; I was scared. I mean—you were doing so well, and I was so happy for you! And your thing with Alonzo—” She stopped abruptly and raised a hand to her mouth. “Oh!” she said quietly. “That’s it, isn’t it? It’s him?” Garner closed his eyes, unable to speak for a moment. Then he felt Sharon’s gentle touch on his arm, and felt affection and gratitude for her caring and concern. Finally, he blinked several times and hoisted a smile. She was looking at him, not buying the smile. “You still haven’t seen him?” she asked quietly. He shook his head. She squeezed his arm. “I’m sure he’ll—” she began and stopped. “Oh. I forgot; you don’t like that. And you’re right: I’m not sure.” She grimaced, then smiled. “But I hope.” “Thanks.” They were both silent. But Garner could sense Sharon was waiting for more. Certainly, there was more; he felt it churning inside him. But it was difficult—and dangerous to let out. He closed his eyes again, while collecting his thoughts. “It’s—” he began, blinking back more tears. “It’s difficult.” His voice was hoarse, strong emotions catching at his throat. “It feels—sometimes it feels like I’m going crazy, or that maybe I am crazy.” For a dangerous moment, he teetered on the edge of losing it, going into a real sobbing jag. No, he shook his head, and gritted his teeth, tightening his control. He could feel Sharon’s puzzlement—which, oddly, helped. She didn’t know, he reminded himself. And the real problem was, if he said any more, if he let even a little more out—well, none of it would make sense, to her. And then she would demand explanations—the full story. And that, he simply was not ready for. Even thinking about it made him cringe inwardly. No, he told himself, he simply couldn’t. For heaven’s sake! He hadn’t even told Vera! He hadn’t even spoken to Vera since his return from visiting home. That had been his resolution, made in the bus journey. He would reconnect with Alonzo first, make sure that everything was good between them—before talking about it with anyone. Only, he hadn’t been able to find Alonzo. And that was two weeks ago. That admission, which until now he had been avoiding—telling himself: Maybe tonight—brought on the realization that he would have to do something else. For starters, he would contact Vera, text her tonight. And—he gulped slightly at the thought—he would tell her about Alonzo, the whole situation. After all, she deserved to know—after what they had been through together. And because they were best friends. Plus, he wanted her advice, wanted to hear her take on it all. He groaned inwardly at the prospect but, having made the resolution, he felt an improvement of his mental outlook. He squared his shoulders and gave Sharon a determined smile. “Okay,” he said, firmly. “I’ll—focus.” Sharon’s relief was a wave of warmth. She gave him a half-smile. “Well,” she said. “At least stay in the room.” “Gotcha.” He tapped the bill holder and headed toward his section, murmuring, “Focus! Focus!” * * * * Garner managed to stay focused for the remainder of his shift. And when he and Sharon were standing together outside after Mario’s had closed, he experienced the familiar sense of combined relief and accomplishment that he used to feel—another shift survived, and successfully. But he could feel Sharon’s concern, and the fact that this arose from her affection for him made it worse, somehow. It reminded him that he was struggling to keep his head above water. Losing his job at this point was not something he wanted to have to deal with. And Sharon was right. It had been so different when he’d first returned from his short vacation. But that was when he’d expected to reconnect with Alonzo. Alonzo had told him, when Garner had said he needed to get away to sort things out in his head, that he would be there when Garner returned—whenever. And Garner had left happy in that knowledge. It had been necessary, that going away. He had to think through the incredible offer Alonzo had put to him—to undergo the Change, to become a Vee like him, a Variant. It was an attractive offer. For one thing there were the greater sensory and motor abilities Vees had. But it was the prospect of becoming closer to Alonzo that was the real selling point. For, although Alonzo had sought Garner for purely instrumental reasons—”We’re interested in you,” had been how he’d put it at first—in the process of Garner learning about what Alonzo was, they had fallen in love. And that had made everything else, every other consideration, secondary in importance. For Garner had never been smitten like this before. Not only was Alonzo attractive physically, with his perfect, slim build, raven black hair and dark smoldering eyes, there had been a true meeting of souls as well. Garner had been overwhelmed. But the invitation, to become a Vee, that had been daunting. So he’d said he needed time to think, and Alonzo had been totally good with that. But then, when Garner returned, there had been no Alonzo! Garner shook his head, and came back to himself as he felt Sharon looking at him. He could feel her concern, and when she asked the question, he almost smiled—he had felt it building in her mind before she began to speak. “You’re sure you’re okay?” He sighed. “I guess.” “And there’s still no sign of him?” He could feel her wanting to ask more, hesitating because she didn’t want to pry and because he probably wouldn’t tell her. “Of Alonzo?” he said. Garner felt it was important to say his name. “No. None.” Sharon opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it again. Instead, she only nodded and put a reassuring hand on his arm. “Oh, here he is,” she said, as headlights illuminated the sidewalk in front of them and a car slowed down and stopped directly in front of them. “You sure you don’t want a lift?” Garner shook his head. “Or come back for a drink?” He smiled and shook his head again. “But thanks,” he said. “Some other time.” After a moment’s hesitation, Sharon climbed into the car. After pulling the door closed, she rolled down the window and smiled at him, waving as the car slid away. Garner smiled and waved back, but when the car was gone his smile faded, and his shoulders sagged as he turned away. It was with a somewhat dreary resolution that he headed in the direction, not of his cozy apartment, but of the park where he had met Alonzo in the past, the only place he knew where he might find him. As he turned down a residential street, he took a deep breath and let it out. The smell of the summer filled the warm night air, so beautiful—flower scents mostly, no longer any lilacs, but others, including the sweet smell of roses—which he had always loved, though not as much as lilacs. He still valued this nightly walk home along the tree-lined streets of the sleeping city. He used to be content too, almost happy. But that, of course, was before Alonzo had walked into Mario’s and sat down in his section, a table for one. That had changed everything. * * * * Walking helped Garner to avoid his own thoughts. He focused on the experience itself, the individual houses that he knew, the different configurations of the front yards. He passed a cat, which slunk under a parked car. He didn’t have to direct his footsteps, and when he turned the final corner approaching the small park, surrounded on all sides by streets and with two benches right in the middle, he felt again the old sense of anticipatory excitement. But this was mixed with a bitter sense of disappointment; he really didn’t believe Alonzo would show tonight. Still, against all likelihood, he hoped he was wrong. He had come here every night after work. And had remained here each time, for at least an hour. Sometime he dozed, once waking only as the morning light began, aroused by the twitter of the birds. He’d had a lot of time for thought. And, given what he had to think about, the thoughts themselves had been truly bizarre. He approached the bench now with only a slight unease. He was still hoping that Alonzo would show up in that strange way of his, simply appearing—which he had dismissed as merely a “trick.” When he sat down, however, Garner felt certain that tonight would be no different from any other night since he’d come back to the city. A lonely vigil, with only his thoughts for company. The image built in his mind’s eyes as he sat there, until at last, filled with despair and futility, he rose to his feet, spread his arms wide, and flung into the night in a silent cry all the pain and longing, through the wide-open gates of his mind, calling to Alonzo, wherever he might be. He felt that cry rushing away from him in all directions, then felt so weak that he collapsed back onto the bench and had to lean forward, letting his head hang down between his knees so as not to pass out. When he had recovered, he was surprised to discover that he felt considerably better. It was like he had cried his eyes out; the pent-up emotions were gone; he could think much clearer. Sitting up now, he was quite alert, aware of his still surroundings, and so he returned to the only topic that mattered now: Alonzo. It struck him that he still had little idea of who, or rather what Alonzo was. That was, perhaps, part of being in love. Intimacy, someone had once described as in-to-me-see, seeing into the other person. It was a good definition, Garner thought. He wanted to know Alonzo better; they’d had so little time together, after all. He did know that Alonzo was a Vee, a Variant—a person whose heart did not beat like normal people—termed Norms by Vees. He had felt Alonzo’s chest and certainly there had been no heartbeat. Apparently, blood flow in Vees was achieved by a different, variant heart action, something like fibrillation, where the heart quivered continuously, in sympathy with the larger blood vessels. How exactly this worked, Garner had no idea, but evidently the continuous blood flow produced greater efficiency in body and mind functioning. And there were general biochemical changes, resulting in what was effectively an entirely different mode of existence—though nothing supernatural, as Alonzo had assured him. Even now it all sounded incredible. And, despite his own memories of the experiences he’d had with Alonzo, he might, since Alonzo’s disappearance, have come to dismiss the whole idea of Vees as being due to his own overactive imagination. He might have, if it had not been for the single continuing and ineluctable fact of his own odd abilities. And it had been Alonzo who had first pointed these out to him. All his life, Garner had retreated from people, without knowing why. The truth was, he was what Alonzo called a Sensitive—someone gifted with what was commonly called ESP. But it had been more than picking up signals from people, from their minds, their state of minds. It was also the ability to push people—push their minds in some way, what Alonzo had called Influence. It had been intoxicating, learning about that—discovering a truth he had always been unconsciously aware of. Apparently, most people had something of these abilities, at least in its embryonic form; Sensitives just had them to a greater degree. Which apparently made them valuable—to the Vees. The proof of this last Garner had learned literally on the streets. Twice he had been present when Alonzo was attacked by so-called Vee hunters, who preyed on Vees, imbibing their blood so as to experience a “Vee high,” in which for several hours they borrowed the greater Vee perceptual and motor abilities. For it was in the blood that the Vee nature resided, communicating the Influence of the Variant configuration, that continuous circulatory action of heart and blood vessels. These experiences had led Garner to sympathize with Alonzo, further deepening his love for him. But he’d wanted to go home, to think things through—before taking the step of becoming a Vee too. And hadn’t that turned out to be another revelation! The central tragedy of Garner’s youth had been the death of his parents in a car accident when he was five. It wasn’t just the loss itself that had traumatized him then, leaving a residue that had remained him ever after. It was the context. Being so little, he hadn’t known what was going on, just his parents dropping him off at his aunt and uncle’s, while they went to have a “second honeymoon” at a posh resort in the mountains, paid for because his father was to attend a convention there. And then had come the accident, the phone call—and him knowing what had happened before being told. That had disturbed his uncle especially, and afterward, when the orphaned Garner was set to live with them, while his aunt had been kind, his uncle had avoided Garner’s company. The confused and traumatized small boy had concluded that his parents hadn’t really wanted him. And his uncle’s behavior on top of this seemed to confirm that there was indeed something wrong with him. And when, less than a year later, his uncle had broken his neck falling off the front porch, Garner began to feel that somehow all of these events were his fault. He withdrew from people more and more. When he came to the city to attend college, he found the anonymity welcome. While attending classes, he worked part-time as a waiter, and found the work congenial. He welcomed the slight barrier that existed between himself and the diners, so much so that when he graduated, he took a full-time job, waitering at an upscale restaurant. And life had settled into a pleasant routine. His work hours put him out of step with the daily rush of most people, and providing the opportunity for pleasant, solitary walks home in the wee hours. He got up late, and could go about his daily routine in a desultory way before getting ready to start work in the late afternoon. He’d been content enough, even despite several failed attempts at relationships, and never really wanted more—until he’d met Alonzo. And, flush with a new promise of love and happiness but daunted by the challenge of adopting another mode of living, he had gone home to think—except that once there, his aunt had shared with him something about his parents he hadn’t known before. It had been his first visit home in years, and his aunt had been reminiscent. And Garner, in his new, excited state, had asked questions about his parents. Amid other things, his aunt related her puzzlement at his mother’s behavior before she had left Garner with them. There had been a sense of being concerned for her son’s safety—almost as if she’d had a premonition of the accident. To Garner, this explained his last experience of his mother—so painful to remember all these years—of her hugging him fiercely as she told him to be safe. She had loved him, wanted to protect him. He had not been abandoned, cast aside by uncaring parents. And his uncle’s aversion, mightn’t that have been a reaction to Garner’s nascent Sensitivity? And so, he had felt reborn, eager for new experiences—and determined to accept Alonzo’s invitation, to embrace love and adventure in this new Vee world. And then—no Alonzo. He remembered that first night, here in the park, his eager vigil, his slowly diminishing expectations. He had opened his Sensitivity wide, casting about for any sense of Alonzo’s presence. And got nothing. And that happened every night, now for two weeks. So, here he was again. And, he couldn’t not come. To sit and wait, occasionally reaching out with his mind. Even now, he could sense the people in the houses that faced the park on all sides, some awake but most asleep. Ordinary people living ordinary lives, coping with the worries and occasional minor crises. He sighed and let himself relax. He felt very tired. Each night’s no show made it more difficult for him to get through the following day. Now, weary of body and mind, he drifted toward sleep, dimly aware of the collective human vibe of the city around him as a kind of background mental hum. Then, out of nowhere, he was shot into a state of nerve-jangling wakefulness by what felt like a mental blow to his head. He sat up, then staggered to his feet, and looked around. What the hell? He stood for some time, before sinking slowly back onto the bench. Though his nerves were rattled, he concentrated, reaching out with all his Sensitivity for whatever that had been. But it was gone; only the background hum remained. Replaying the sensation in his mind—it had only been there for a second—it had the quality of a passing searchlight: disturbingly brilliant, but soon passing. Now, he shivered as an icy sensation went down his spine. His impression was that of a distant but potent menace. He even felt slightly chagrined at how intensely he had reacted, how unnerved he had been—and it even now continued in some degree. He shook his head, trying to clear it. Then he got to his feet, unable to remain seated. He had to do something. So, he decided to go home. His vigil was finished for tonight; all he wanted was his cozy apartment and his own comfortable bed, with possibly a nice bath before that. And so, he headed off. He thought of checking his phone, but knew that Vera didn’t keep late hours; if she was going to respond to his text, she would do so tomorrow morning—which meant later this morning. More than ever, he was resolved to tell her about his crazy predicament. Maybe she had some suggestions, because right now he was fresh out of ideas.