The Bogey Man by Grace Kim
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What I need is a motion detector light in the hallway, past the
glossed, cracked bench, the tri-fold beveled mirror aged with brown spots.
After making a right at the corner, there’s a beam of light on the hard
wood floor indicating the flat space at the right to feel for the door.
Frank’s awake. He comes home to sleep for three hours after work every
night, and goes out again and comes back at the time I leave every morning.
What Frank is doing is researching an overwhelming list of bacterial species, the diseases they cause, symptoms, testing, treatment and prevention tactics. He has difficulty eating. Swimming in the backyard means 0.14 grams of fecal matter (even with good cleaning) to contaminate the water, and hardly effective chlorine takes a whole hour to kill disease-causing organisms. Everyday, he washes his hands at least twenty times a day and uses a seventy percent ethyl alcohol instant hand sanitizer, moisturizes profusely, along with many other behavior transformations, but I don’t really know all this for sure. Frank goes out, and I’m counting the fifty-two foot steps, and the bolted locks. A couple years ago I put an ad in the classifieds. It read: Room for rent. Seeking clinically obsessive compulsive, shy, male student in his early twenties. $250 a month including utilities. Furnished room. Two walk-in closets. Balcony. Full access to entire gated property. Not that money was needed, it was the company of a specific personality, but letting someone live here for free would just appear unconventional. Why Frank responded was because it was. It first happened when I was eight. Getting caught awake meant a beating, but I couldn’t sleep. Sleeping meant loud screams, asphyxiation, paralysis, out of body experiences, ghosts, alien abductions, demon possessions, hag syndrome, the bogey man; mostly death. Darkness and loss of conscious control clouded over me, freight train sounds rang; or whispers in my ear, “tuberculosis.” Struggling to stay awake, I kept myself busy. Nick at Nite. Stack of Calvin and Hobbes comic books. Flashlight. Hot soup in a thermos so as not to wake anyone on the way to the kitchen in case I get hungry. Then there were the peripheral vision images. I liked Frank as soon as I met him. He sat there during the interview, quiet, composed, bored. I offered him something to drink, and he spoke softly for some water. His eyes: repeated oceans. So what’s your major? I asked. [read on] |
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