Song Without A Name
The Part Being 6th In Line
Spewed by a certain
Lady Yate-xel
He bolted upright, clenching the quilt around him up to his chest. His headphones had fallen off, and he… HE had fallen asleep. He looked around at his plain surroundings, unsure of where he was. Gradually, as always, it came back to him.
Edgar’s house.
Right, Edgar had gone to bed. Johnny had stayed up and stared at the colors the television was projecting onto the wall. He always thought if he stared at those long enough… No, never mind that. He’d decided that he’d go back to the room Edgar had given him, and try to enjoy a bed for a while. The CD player would keep him up, would remind him not to sleep.
The house had become cold after a few hours, and his thin black rag of a blanket really hadn’t been enou- There was a quilt in his hands. He didn’t own a quilt. He pulled said quilt closer to his chest, as though trying to shield himself from something in the room. Did Edgar come in here last night? He looked around almost frantically. Fuck, maybe he was going to be another Jimmy…
Click.
Johnny’s gaze shot to the other side of the room where the door eased open, and Edgar leaned inside cautiously.
“Oh good,” he said, smiling. “You are awake.” He shuffled the rest of the way in, and Johnny noticed he was carrying a tray.
“So, I woke up early today,” Edgar said, trying to explain what he was doing holding something so random, “and I found this tray in the basement… for whatever reason. So, I thought, I’d use it for something different. Try to be original with decoration or something. You know, different. Problem is… I don’t have anything different in here but you.”
Edgar scratched his head. Johnny wasn’t sure he liked where this was going.
“Anyway, I figured it out. What would you like for breakfast?”
Not quite where Johnny thought it had been going. He shrugged. “I… I don’t know. Surprise me. I’m not picky.”
Edgar smiled again. It was a weak smile. Johnny suspected ‘woke up early’ meant ‘didn’t get to sleep.’
“Alright then, Nny, I’ll bring you something when I’ve got it. Make- Well, keep making yourself at home.”
He left, taking his random tray with him.
Breakfast? How long had it been since Johnny’d had actual food and not something from the vending machines in the cafeteria? Or the laundromat? Heh, the laundromat. Johnny loved the laundromat. They had those great carts to ride in, and dryers he could sneak his clothes into. Jimmy had stolen one of those carts, didn’t he? Something like – Right, breakfast.
Breakfast, and a tray. Was he supposed to sit here and wait for breakfast in bed? Johnny determined this a little too creepy for his tastes, and threw the quilt to the side.
Yeah, the quilt was creepy too.
He slid off the side of the bed, and picked his headphones and CD player off of the floor. The pause button was loose again. He tried to shove it back in place, only to make it worse by smashing it into an unusable position.
“Fuck.”
He sighed and tossed the player on the mattress, currently unwilling to try to fix the button, and looked for something to entertain him while he… waited for the creepy breakfast. Or something.
He thought he’d try to gain some information about Edgar through analysis of his house, and wandered down the hallway to the first room Edgar had offered him. The one he’d rejected immediately as a place to stay. Johnny couldn’t stay in that room; he felt too much of someone else in that room already. It wasn’t Edgar, since he didn’t choose any of the things in his house, but it was someone, and for that reason would be uncomfortable.
Still, while not Edgar, Johnny thought it would be interesting to see who was in there. He opened the door and surveyed the room for the best place to start. A shelf against the left wall was filled with books. Books were always a good indicator.
Dust. Lots of dust here. Funny, Edgar liked to keep the downstairs so clean, what did he have against this room? The books looked average enough: big thick boring types, a dictionary, an encyclopedia from forever ago, and a volume of National Geographic’s Best Photos. Pretty average. One thick book on the end had nothing written on its spine.
He tilted his head to one side, and took the book from the shelf. It seemed to be caked in more dust than the others. He assumed it must’ve been one of the first to materialize in the house and opened the back, to flip through the pages.
Empty.
Perhaps a journal. He flipped through until about a third of the way from the front, when typing appeared on the pages. If it was typed, it couldn’t be a journal, and if it wasn’t a journal, then Johnny wouldn’t feel bad inspecting it. He had his own log of personal thoughts; he understood the privacy of such a thing.
The type just started. No introduction as to what it was, just notes.
‘Vargas, Edgar. (Second Time) Beta Testing Project.
Version 2.1.2.
Extra Notes: Guest) C, Johnny
Relation to Subject) ‘Best Friend’
(Notes) Crazy? Second Chance.
Items Sent: House, Keys(X3), Appliances(detailed in section 2), Clothing(detailed in section 2), pink recliner,
progress log.
Will Update as Needed.’
After that was page after page detailing everything in Edgar’s house. Everything. How many bananas they’d sent in March and how many decorative items, descriptions of which included suggested locations for them, had been sent since last August. Johnny found he was thankful that some items he recognized upon description were not where this book said they could be.
He flipped to the end of the typing, which occasionally switched to something vaguely handwritten, and glanced down the page. The location of ‘tray’ was being rewritten as he stared at the page from ‘dining room table’ to ‘kitchen counter.’ A glance upwards along the page and Johnny watched ‘Bisquick’ disappear from the list, while ‘pancakes’ wrote itself on the bottom.
Was this book simply a list of things inside the house? He turned back a few pages and saw a separation in the lists. One was the items that had been sent, with several crossed out as Edgar had used them; the other was, just as Johnny had suspected, a list of what general stuff was inside. There were moths listed. (There are currently ‘moth times three’ in Vargas-land, he noted.)
He had a sudden idea, and flipped to a more recent page, scanning for some familiar letters. On the page, between, ‘large key ring (discuss with superiors)’ and ‘house key (change of possession)' was ‘Johnny C (friend).’
So, he was an object in the environment they’d created for Edgar, along with his keys. He wondered what about his keys needed ‘discussing’ anywhere, let alone somewhere as presumably busy as Heaven. Everything else he’d brought here with him was listed in close proximity to his name, along with ‘Cellular Phone (stolen).’ Why did these people in Heaven care so much about his stuff? He blinked. It was about this time that he realized that he completely believed Edgar’s story, or, at least, what he’d been given of it. He'd complained enough to Edgar about holes in his memories, but Edgar never seemed to understand Johnny’s need to fill them. Johnny didn’t want to become his memories, like Edgar seemed content to do, but he wanted to know what they were, why he had forgotten them, and who he’d been. In short, where he’d come from.
The last page of the type was open again, and Johnny saw that ‘pancakes’ were now considered mobile, as well as ‘tray.’ He wanted to take the book, keep it the other room with him and stash it under the mattress, but he assumed it would be missed for its size on the shelf, so put it back, even attempting to replace the dust, or at least make everything else look consistently dusty in comparison.
He left the room, closing the door behind him, keeping an eye on the stairs for Edgar’s hair to come bobbing into view. When it didn’t show up immediately, Johnny shuffled back into the other room, sat back down on the bed, and tried to fix the pause button on his CD player in order to appear occupied. Even though Edgar apparently never touched the book, Johnny still thought he’d keep the fact that he’d looked at it to himself.
Footsteps, a soft knock, and the door eased open.
“Pancakes alright?” Edgar's voice called before he came fully into view. He still looked so tired.
“Sure.” Johnny shrugged. He found it somewhat amusing that Edgar would ask if they were alright after making them, as though he thought Johnny might say no and send him downstairs to make waffles instead.
Edgar took a plate off the tray and handed the rest of the tray to Johnny. Edgar had been awake enough to make food for himself as well, apparently. Edgar sat on the floor at the foot of the bed, saying nothing. He looked like he was going to fall asleep into his breakfast.
Johnny moved to sit on the floor beside him, for practical syrup-sharing reasons. He doused his own breakfast in an obscene amount of syrup then offered the bottle to Edgar who took it with one hand and covered a yawn with the other.
“So, were you up plowing the farm all night or something?” Johnny asked.
Edgar shook himself out of his half stupor, and looked at Johnny in what appeared to be immense concentration.
“No…,” he said finally, “I just couldn’t sleep very well. I’d be in bed now, but I don’t want to mess with the biological clock and such. So I’ll just wait till this evening. It will be fine.”
“When did you come in here?”
Edgar looked at Johnny, shocked and confused, as though he thought his presence in the room last night had been a closely guarded secret. Here was Johnny’s proof that tired often breeds stupid.
“You came in here,” Johnny said, as though explaining to a small child, “sometime last night, and gave me that quilt.”
“It was late… still dark out. You looked cold, so…”
“Fine, but what were you doing in here… looking at me?” Any appetite Johnny had was having trouble staying with him.
Edgar was now looking into his pancakes for the answers to these questions, and spoke said answers right back into them. “You were singing again. Sort of. I… I don’t know, I was drawn to it, I guess. I came in, saw you mumbling to yourself, then saw that you needed a quilt. I didn’t just walk in here to watch you sleep. Have a little more faith in me than that.”
Johnny gave him no answer, and decided to eat his pancakes before Edgar said anything else that would have driven his appetite away again. He stole a few glances at Edgar’s plate now and then as he ate, to ensure he hadn’t collapsed in his food. Edgar was eating slowly, but he was eating. He stopped after his fourth bite, well after Johnny had finished most of his plate.
“Are they okay?” he asked. Again with stupid and tired.
“Edgar. I’ve eaten most of them. If I didn’t like them, I would have thrown them up on you already.”
“That’s comforting. How very kind of you.”
“You really should be in bed, you know.”
No answer.
Several minutes later, Johnny sighed and moved the now empty tray from his lap. There was absolutely no way he was going to listen to Edgar be mellow all day. Edgar was either going to be forced back to bed, or Johnny was going to find something to wake him up with. He assumed he wouldn’t find things like sporks and water balloons, which was sort of sad; every home needed a spork. But still, there had to be something.
A baseball bat? No, that was a little too violent. He’d learned that when he’d hit Jimmy with one last summer. Jimmy was out for hours. Johnny and Devi had to drag him from the road and into an adjacent parking lot. Invisible or not, they were fairly sure he could be hit by a car, and they didn’t hate him enough to test the theory. They’d found Jimmy’s trailer that way, so, in retrospect, it had been good that Johnny knocked him out, but Edgar was not in need of a trailer nor a cavernous head wound, so there would be no bat.
Damn.
“Edgar, you don’t have any water guns, do you?”
“No…”
Johnny looked at Edgar’s plate. It hadn’t been touched since Edgar had asked if breakfast was edible. Johnny took it off of his lap and set it on the tray.
“Edgar. Seriously. Bed.”
“I’m fine, I’m fine! You don’t like sleeping, you can understand, right?”
“I don’t like to. Doesn’t mean I don’t. You won’t ever see me looking like the walking dead. Get to bed before I knock you out and drag you there.”
For some reason, Edgar smiled. The Jimmy similarities were really starting to show through, now. Johnny slid away from him enough that if Edgar made some sort of lunge, Johnny would have space to run. However, Edgar didn’t move, or lunge; only looked at Johnny, still smiling. Upon closer look, the smile wasn’t excited about being dragged anywhere with Johnny. Instead, it made Edgar look like he was remembering something that managed to be painful and pleasant at the same time. What ever the memory was, it must’ve involved Johnny.
“…What?” Johnny asked.
Edgar shook his head, still smiling.
“It’s nothing,” he said softly. “Just another hint of you from before.”
“You look at me like I hit you, and it made you happy. Are you sure you’re not an alien?”
“Yes.” A quiet laugh.
“I’ll get back to bed now, sorry,” Edgar said, getting to his feet. He walked a little unsteadily to the door, and caught himself on the doorframe as he passed through it. Johnny wasn’t sure if he felt bad for him, or if he still felt like he was the focus of all Edgar’s fantasies. He felt his hand brush against the quilt.
“Edgar.”
Edgar turned and looked back at Johnny, who gathered the quilt, and threw it at him.
“Don’t get cold.”
****
“Why the trust? Aren’t you worried about desires for power and-”
“No, this one understands. I’m sure of it.”
“Still wish you’d tell me who it is.”
“I’m not so eager for you to run screaming from the house…”
“The thing about resetting you earlier? I wasn’t joking.”
“Ha. You won’t. You’ve always been a pushover, amigo.”
****
And the house was quiet again.
Johnny wanted to do some more exploring in the vein of the book from earlier, but hoped to find information other than a list of all the grains of salt in Edgar’s kitchen.
Back to the furnished room again. Maybe Johnny would raid the desk.
He pulled the drawers out entirely, and tossed papers around, trying to find something as equally suspicious as a nameless book, but there was nothing of the sort. The only things that held Johnny’s attention for any length of time were the few sheets of paper with ‘Edgar’ written in various styles of cursive script all over them. Edgar had mentioned these on the phone the other night, that he had wanted to put some of ‘his name’ away. He had been fairly tired at that point, and Johnny had assumed he was just talking randomly. No, no he hadn’t been; he’d stashed his name in this desk.
Johnny sighed, and regarded the mess around him. He’d pick it up later; Edgar would be asleep for a while. There was nothing else in the room that would give Johnny more of what he wanted. He left the room, and stood in the hall, thinking. He could go into Edgar’s room, and look at things in there, but that would mean being just as creepy as Edgar had been.
That didn’t leave much to examine. He and Edgar had trashed the living room playing ‘The Floor is Lava,’ and nothing had struck him as odd down there. The dining room area had fallen victim to the same, and the kitchen was simply full of food, nothing exciting there. There had been a door that led to the back porch, which Johnny had tried to convince Edgar to jump from, and a small storage area. The only other door led to –
The basement.
As he slid down the railing on the stairs, he reflected on how completely obvious this was. He felt completely stupid to have not looked at the basement, or even not have given it a first thought.
The kitchen wasn’t well lit, probably due to Edgar keeping the curtains closed on the window above the sink, that, and the light bulb had had a small accident in a bit of a fight over the blender the other night. The door was tucked in the corner. Johnny tugged on the door a few times, and it popped open, throwing him off balance for a moment. He peeked inside. The stairs down were old and crooked, and as he proceeded down, made an unsettling creak no matter how little weight was applied to them.
What would be down here? Would new items to add to Edgar’s house make some sort of magical poof and appear with glitter and pink smoke, or would they be beamed down from the mother ship through a portal in the ceiling? He couldn’t help but hope for the mother ship, but was sure he was going to get something closer to smoke and glitter.
No lighting down here either. A sliver of faded light managed to struggle through a yellowed and cracked old window to illuminate enough rough shapes that Johnny wasn’t crashing into things. He could make out vague shapes, and was able to see boxes and general piles of stuff once his eyes adjusted.
There were two sides to the basement, one on either side of the staircase. The left appeared to be storage, and the right contained a washer and dryer, and he saw, when he leaned in a little more, a shower. He couldn’t help but laugh at how easily he could get free laundry out of Edgar now instead of having to steal quarters, or cram his clothes in someone else’s washer at the laundromat.
Above the dryer, thankfully, was a string to pull for light. Miraculously, it worked, and Johnny could see into the right side of the basement enough to look for a light on that side as well. Even with just the light from the other side, he could read the labels on the boxes. Each one had a date, and general contents listed on the outside. One read ‘clothes – may 7th’, another ‘dishes – august 15th.’ One box was sitting open in the middle of the floor, and directly above it, the string for the light.
He tugged on the string as he peered into the box, and when the light came on, he was at first unable to see any sort of logical connection among the contents. Clothing, some random types of food, some CDs, and a few packs of batteries were just the top layer of the box. Examining the clothes, he found them all to be shirts and pants that Edgar would never fit into, but were perfectly tailored to his own frame. The food was ingredients for tacos and various cherry flavored snacks and drinks. Even the CDs were all full albums of artists Johnny loved, but only had been able to find single songs from.
The box was dated yesterday.
The contents were all written on the side, instead of the generic listing on the others. The pancake mix and the tray had been in here. Along with…
Prompted by the box’s label, he took everything in the top layer out. Just as the label promised, there were boots, a blanket that wasn’t made from old shirts, art supplies and spools of thread. He couldn’t tell if he felt sick, overjoyed or insulted. Perhaps a combination of everything. Maybe it was the mildew.
Now came the dilemma of what to do with this stuff. He could take it all, and explain why he’d been snooping around Edgar’s house, or, as he was just as tempted to do, he could refuse it all, burn it, or throw it on the highway. The thought that some people he didn’t know, especially some Heavenly bastards, thought that he needed some assistance angered him, despite how much he really wanted everything in that box.
“Goddammit.”
Why were they catering to him as well as Edgar? Johnny didn’t live here, didn’t ever intend to. He was staying while they stashed prizes and over-priced merchandise in his choir room. He’d be going home this evening. Yes, he’d be back on Friday, but that was still no reason to be filling boxes of stuff for him and sending them to Edgar. He hadn’t been the nice boy that Heaven loved so much. It was Edgar they were supposed to be providing for, not Johnny.
Another thought. One that disgusted him just as much as someone sending these directly to him. They might have been sent as things for Edgar to give to Johnny. Things Edgar could use to make Johnny happy. Would Edgar pretend he had gotten these things himself? He would refuse it all in that case as well.
Well, except maybe the boots. The boots were sort of neat. Really neat. Damn more than neat.
Fuck.
Going through the items, it was hard not to want to take just one or two of the shirts. Edgar would never know the difference. Johnny was used to having nothing but his invisible friends, and wanted no part of this wanting and needing that had manifested itself in the form of this box. There were even more socks in the box! Socks. The socks were neat, too.
He slammed his fist into the box, mangling the cardboard. He was simply frustrated now. Facing away from the box, he sat on the floor, arms resting on his knees. He ran his hand through his hair once, and took a look around the basement. It looked less ominous with the light on. The boxes were stacked to the ceiling, and all were labeled. Were they all still full? Maybe Edgar used the old boxes to store things he didn’t use? How often did he get them? If Johnny sat here wishing for a light bulb long enough, would one appear to light up the kitchen so they could stop using the flashlight?
“They should just send him memories in a box and make both our lives simpler.”
Talking to himself. Or to the boxes.
Hand through his hair again. Something here was a little more complicated than two teenagers with vague impressions of existing before. He wasn’t sure what, but it was there. There was something… something in addition to the people who’d sent them here, he was positive. As far as these people were concerned, Edgar was the center of the universe, and Johnny just another character in his story. They might as well have written ‘Johnny C. (sidekick)’ in that little book.
*****
“Fine, fine. Still, why this particular one? Why give it to him?”
“They had me bring him here in the first place.”
“‘Here’?”
“You know, here. Life or whatever.”
“Since when have you ever listened to them?”
“Since they started asking nicely.”
“And why did they want him? You say I wouldn’t trust him, he doesn’t sound like someone they’d…I dunno…”
“A ‘special request.’”
*****
He sat in the pink recliner for hours, the stereo on loud enough that he could hear it, but soft enough that certain sleeping people up stairs wouldn’t be affected. He turned the television on, but watched the colors on the wall instead of the images. It was on mute to allow for the music. Floor still a mess, still a pathway of cushions and books from the living room to the kitchen.
"Out on the scene today
Blasted in every way
Got you
Caught on the other side
Some things you just can’t hide
Feel the poison of change in me
All that I’ll ever be
Comes back
Crushing on into me
Here it comes again…"
A noise from upstairs snapped Johnny out of his television color trance. He stared at the stairs, and just waited for the noisemaker to appear. Any energy or spunk he’d had before he’d forced Edgar to sleep was gone, replaced with a strange unsettled feeling that something wasn’t quite right.
Edgar did indeed appear quite relaxed when he eventually descended the stairs. He stretched on his way down, and stepped over a few pillows to collapse on the couch.
“Thanks for talking me into that,” he said, cheerfully. “It made an amazing difference!”
Johnny wasn’t answering. He sat with his knees hugged to his chin, focusing on his toes, noticing the holes that were starting to form in his socks. For a moment, he curled his toes under, so Edgar wouldn’t notice and he wouldn’t have to deal with Edgar giving socks already. He wasn’t like Hobo Bob; he didn’t need gifts and handouts. He wasn’t some urchin on the street, he had everything under control. Dammit those boots were neat.
“Is something wrong?” Edgar sounded concerned. Concern. Concern for whom? For the ‘poor kid’? For the Johnny he evidently had been once? One of those. Not for him, specifically, but for the categories of people that Edgar had filed into the ‘People to be Pitied’ folder in his head. The people he would make happy only for more gain on his part. Fuck.
“Nny? Are you okay?”
"With every step it takes
Something inside me breaks
Hang myself by a rope of words
Whether or not it hurts
Got to
Save you from all of your
Demons that had to score
Every trick that you’ve pulled before
Here it comes again…"
“Where does the stuff in this place come from?”
Edgar blinked, and looked a little confused. “I told you, it just shows up here, in the basement…”
“And what is all this stuff supposed to be for?”
“Making my house… a house, I guess. It’s just supposed to help me out,” Edgar said with a slight shrug.
“Help you with what, exactly?” Johnny continued to stare at his toes, which he curled and uncurled every so often.
“With… living?”
“You aren’t sure?” Johnny looked at him, eyes narrow, a partial accusing smile on his face.
“I don’t understand what you’re looking for, Nny! They send me a chair, I take the chair; I don’t look for a deeper cosmic meaning behind it. If I can’t fit something in, or decide I don’t like it, I just leave it down there.”
“Things for me will help you live, then?”
“Things for… you?”
“Yes, you know, the shirts, the CDs, the cherry food. The box, with the things for me. The one you took the tray from this morning. Or hadn’t you noticed that that box had some strange things in it? Do you talk to someone up there? Do they think I need help?” Johnny slid off the chair and stood in front of Edgar, staring down at him. “Do you?” Johnny demanded, glaring.
“No! You’re doing better living in the school that I would ever be living on my own! I’d never…!”
“Why is it there?” Johnny growled.
Edgar made an almost fist, and bit his lip. Hard.
"One of my feelings took a ride today
Into a black box and it came out grey"
“Why?”
Still silence from Edgar. Johnny wanted to hit him.
“Dammit, WHY?!”
Edgar grabbed Johnny’s wrist before it decided to assist Johnny’s fist in knocking him out.
“BECAUSE,” Edgar said forcefully. “I essentially asked for it.”
Johnny looked as though he may bite him. “You - !”
“No! Listen to me!” Edgar now held both Johnny’s wrists tightly.
“When I was first up there,” Edgar began, “I was going to be completely content just sitting, blissing eternity away. It was going to be boring, and I was going to deal with it. Then the issue with you came up. You weren’t moving, and thus weren’t supposed to be there at all. They were saying something about sending you to someone for … something involving Hell and various other unpleasant things.”
He adjusted his grip as Johnny fought against it.
“I wanted you to get the chance to go somewhere else," Edgar continued. "I volunteered to go through again, if I could take you with me. I would find you again, and make you happy. Make you happy. That’s it. That’s all. I exist to make you happy. They let me do it again, because I wasn’t doing it for fear of being bored until the end of time, I was doing it to fix what had happened to you. The things in the box for you must’ve been sent when they realized you’d come here. If it would help me make you happy, they’d give me things they saw you as needing. Okay? That’s all. I’m not trying to rob you of any dignity, of any pride, I’m just trying to make you happy.”
He sighed, and the grip loosened.
“And they’re trying to help me… that’s all.”
Johnny looked at the floor. “…t me.” His voice was muffled.
“Pardon?”
Johnny looked up at him. Wanted him to understand this, and wanted him to understand it well. “That’s not me.”
“Nny-”
“The person you want to be happy is dead. Dead, god dammit! I’m not him! I’m some regurgitated version of him, but I’m not him! The person you want to be so HAPPY? He isn’t ME!” He began struggling against Edgar’s hold again. Had to just get away from this. Just tear himself away from all this insanity.
Edgar tightened his grip again, and twisted.
“Ah! Stop it, god damn you! You’re twisting it off!”
“Listen to me then!” Edgar hissed through his teeth, “I’m can’t be sure who you are in relation to who he was. I believe you two to be one in the same, but it doesn’t matter to me! It really is you I want happy! You- You’re… you’re just…”
He looked like he had a word stuck in his throat, and his grip faltered a little. It was back full strength as soon as Johnny attempted to run again, along with the determined look on Edgar’s face.
“I’m not trying to insult you,” Edgar managed to say calmly. “I honestly just want your happiness. I didn’t give you those things because I thought you would… well, do this. I think, in some ways, we’re both right. We are the same people, but living in situations that shape us differently the next time around, which, in a paradox kind of way, makes us the same and different at the same time.”
"We’re heading for a fall
Set your mind at ease
Won’t you save us from…"
This sounded intelligent. Johnny let himself relax. He still rather wanted to tear Edgar’s throat apart. He needed something to… calm him… to… damn it.
“Can I still have the boots?” he asked the floor.
"…These little things?"