Chapter #6Sleepers, Awake by: Seuzz   It all makes sense now, you reflect to yourself some hours later, when you're back home and taking a solo stroll around the neighborhood in the soft evening twilight. It makes so much sense that you don't know why you didn't understand it before.
Well, maybe it makes sense that you didn't understand it before. After all, when Steve Patterson had emerged blinking into the sunlight from his sleep, eleven months after laying down--and ten months after you'd woken from your own slumber in that chamber of forgetfulness--it was Joe who had treated him kindly. You'd kept a polite but courteous distance, one that Patterson himself seemed disinclined to cross. Frank had been downright frosty when he'd returned to Olympia to find Patterson still in residence. For two months, only Joe and Charles had a kind word to say to your old nemesis, and the air had been strained when it was only you or Frank in the room with him. You and Frank had privately, quietly commiserated, wondering how long Patterson would be staying at the house.
But through his patient reticence Patterson had broken your and Frank's resistance. In your case, it came one evening when Charles Brennan summoned Patterson into the living room, where you sat reading a book. "You've something on your mind, Mr. Patterson," he'd said as he settled into the old rocker while Steve took the chair opposite. Patterson had given you a sidelong look, and you'd made to leave, but Charles gestured you to stay. With an acute sense of embarrassment, you had eavesdropped.
"You've been really nice to me, Mr. Brennan," Patterson had said. "And, well--" He'd folded his hands. "Thanks. I mean that. But I should be going now, shouldn't I?"
"If you like," Charles had smiled. "No one has missed you. A golem has been keeping your place warm. You can resume your old life."
A look of deep pain had crossed Patterson's face. "Do I have to," he'd blurted out.
"What other life is there for you?"
"Maybe none," Patterson had said, and hunched over. "I don't want my old life anymore, Mr. Brennan. I dreamed about it when I was asleep. That was enough for me."
"So what would you do?"
Patterson had been silent for a very long time, very silent and very still. "Are you saying I have to take it back, to make up for all the shitty things I did, for being the shitty person I was?"
"I'm not saying anything, Mr. Patterson. I'm asking, simply, what would you do?"
"I'd like to make up to people for all those things, but it's too late," Patterson had said. "The fake me has graduated. Everyone has gone away. I can't follow them all and pay them back. It's just not possible. Even if they let me try to."
"Then you're saying it's not possible to atone the things that you now regret?"
"Not to them, not directly. Though I would if I could find a way." Patterson's folded hands continued to clench and unclench. "I'd like to start over," he'd then said. "I guess I can do that. Go home and step into the life the fake me has been living. Except--" His voice had twisted in pain. "I'm scared to."
"Scared to make compensation where you can?"
"Scared I won't, Mr. Brennan. If I go back, what's to keep me from falling back into my old habits? I don't want to, but they're very strong."
"You've been here for two months, sir. I haven't seen any sign of bad habits reasserting themselves."
"That's because of you, Mr. Brennan. You and Joe. And Frank and--" He'd glanced over at you. "You keep me out of them."
"You don't think you're strong enough on your own?"
"I don't know. I could try. I should try. But what if I fail?"
"Then you pick yourself up and try again."
"But that's the problem with my old habits, sir. Once I'm back in them, I won't want to. I know them, I know myself. I don't want a fucking-- Excuse me, I don't want a crutch--"
"Use strong language if you have to, Mr. Patterson. Express yourself as you need."
"I don't want a crutch and I'm not asking for one. But I know I need one. I need you. I want you, I need and want all of you. The last two months have been-- I'm not gonna give you a line of shit, Mr. Brennan, they've been hard, the hardest I've ever had to live through, but I wouldn't give them up, and I'd go through them again. I'll keep going through them, if you'll let me."
"So you want to stay with us," Charles had said slowly.
"I'll earn my keep," Patterson had said in a near whisper. "Until I know I'm strong enough to go. I'll get a job. I'll move out. But I'd rather--"
A long silence had ensued. "You'd rather what?" Charles finally asked.
"I'd rather work for you, Mr. Brennan," Patterson had said in a rush. "I know the kind of work that you do, Joe doesn't keep any secrets from me. I know I'm not fitted for it. But if I can help out, somehow, even if it's just working for you like Laverne does, running errands--"
"Laverne finds happiness and satisfaction in that kind of work, Mr. Patterson. You wouldn't."
"Isn't there something I can do?" You have to look away from his face, which is twisting hard. "Please! I want to make up for all the shit I've done, and this is the way I want to do it."
"Why don't you try asking me directly, Mr. Patterson?"
You'd held your breath. You didn't know if you wanted him to ask, or to not ask. And you feared Charles's reply, whichever reply he made, if he did ask.
"Please, Mr. Brennan. I want to work for the Stellae Errantes. With them. Somehow, in some way, to help them, because it's the only way I can imagine paying the world back for my shitty existence."
"No one has a shitty existence, son," Charles had growled, "and no one has to pay the world back for existing. But I accept your request. It spares me the embarrassment of offering it to you, which I've been wanting to do for some time now."
You'd held very still as the two men slowly stretched hands to meet each other, and clasped hands, and then embraced. You'd looked up in embarrassment, though, as Patterson stood and turned toward you. For a moment you'd held each other's gaze, and you'd looked back into those cool gray eyes, which were filled with water, not with ice. Then you'd risen, and you and he had taken your own turn embracing.
* * * * *
Joe--who a year ago was still treating Patterson with great friendliness--had whooped about the room when told. Frank had been much stiffer, but still polite. He didn't complain to you about Charles's decision, either because he thought it wrong to complain, or because he thought you'd take Joe's and Patterson's side. For a month there had still been a tension between him and Patterson.
And then they'd gone off on a camping trip, just the two of them, to hike into the wilderness and hunt. "Two go out," Joe had said to you in a worried voice as they'd driven off. "Only one will come back, and it ain't gonna be Patterson."
But two weeks later they had both come back, and it appeared that everything had changed between them. Gone was the sense of gladiators sizing each other up. Now there was a rough-hewed bonhomie between them, a bond of good cheer and coarse humor. They played hard-fought games of ball on the court Charles had put in the back yard, cursing lustily at each other, and sat on the back porch with beers to argue about sports and hunting and other manly topics. For awhile you'd worried that the influence worked both ways, and not to Frank's improvement, especially the night they both went to a bar and only Patterson came back. He'd winked when you asked him where Frank was.
But gradually you'd ceased to worry as you kept a close watch. Frank's manner never changed that you could tell, but Patterson seemed to relax in his presence. And you'd catch the way Patterson looked at Frank. When the four of you ate out at steakhouses--your quartet's favorite repast--with Frank and Joe holding forth loudly, Patterson would lapse into silence, to gaze intently at Frank. The content of his expression would never waver: always warm, and brimming with an obvious admiration. Sometimes, you could have sworn, it was even one of love. And he never gainsaid Frank, never fought with him, always took his side when--as so typically happened--Frank got tangled up with Joe.
* * * * *
That was during your first autumn as a Stellae, which you all spent in Olympia: you and Steve doing chores for Charles while Joe and Frank took a very long break after their first, harrowing mission. Frank and Joe had then gone off to work some more with Rick Bredon, one of their longtime mentors, and pursue other missions; you had gone to study with Kali Valentine, and then with Nash Carnes. You'd take vacations at Charles's, to meet up with Patterson, and formed your own rough connection to him, one built on a common history at Westside High. You'd regale him with your own memories of what it was like to suffer in its hallways; and he'd grin and cuss you out as a pussy while telling you what it had looked like to him. You even talked freely about your adventures with the masks and the trouble you'd got into--trouble that had all worked out right, thanks to the Stellae.
It was a long time before you noticed that Joe had stopped smiling when he was around Patterson.  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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