The Bread of Madness

Or, How I Lost My Mind and Gained a Friend

Photo by Michelle Ziling Ou on Unsplash

He was there every day when I got off the bus at 42nd, making my way home from the bakery. Quiet. Harmless. Sometimes mumbling to himself, sometimes talking to his dog, a sad-eyed, dirty, mud-colored pit-mix. His clothes wore him; if removed, they looked as if they would take on a life of their own. Panhandling. Not for himself; no, for his poor dog who looked as if he never got his fair share of the day’s take. He reeked of cheap knock-off cigarettes as I passed him. Today, though, was not like any other day. Today, when I gave him a day-old loaf of bread he thanked me in way he never had before. Today he quietly recited my social security number, a whisper nearly under his breath. I stopped cold and we locked eyes, his the clearest unreal emerald and completely present, then clouded as he began rambling incoherently, his voice like a cardboard box on a rope dragged down a gravel road by an angry, prophane child.. I was not sure it had ever happened.

That night, I struggled to fall asleep. My social kept bubbling up until it ran like a flooded creek through my tired mind with the speed of a livestock auctioneer’s voice. Eventually I did sleep, but emerald eyes were everywhere in my dreams.

When my alarm rang at 3.00 a.m., I was out cold and deep. I cracked my eyes, swimming out of the abyss to see green luminescent orbs at the foot of my bed. I shook my head and they were gone. An odd scent lingered, humid, like breath. Animal. I froze, fear freezing my mind and body. My breathing was shallow and quick; I suppressed a small moan that crept out of my chest. Cold air moved over my sweating limbs and the curtains rustled and swayed. I ransacked the scattered memory in my frayed mind trying to remember, desperately, that I had opened the window before going to bed and convinced myself that I did. I must have. Nothing else made sense.

I bolted from bed to light switch across the small room, e few steps only. I turned and surveyed. I was alone. Feeling chilled, i went to the wood-framed window to close it, looking out either way as I did so. A shadow, like a dog-sized rat, scurried down the side of the brick wall and two green orbs flashed as it paused in the alley below to look over its shoulder, then it stood like a man and disappeared.

I made it to the toilet before throwing up, then dry-heaving. I lay on the cool floor, eyes blurred with tears, head pounding.

This was the introduction to my new life; a descent into my own personal Hell on earth.

They were just getting warmed up.

This was my rookie year.

Photo by Michelle Ziling Ou on Unsplas

Photo by Mos Sukjaroenkraisri on Unsplash

I did make the 3:45 a.m. bus. I don’t remember how I got through the day at the bakery. Thankfully, I had been doing this work long enough that I could autopilot my way through most of my work. I pawned my appearance and condition off on a bottle of Lambrusco I had supposedly over-indulged in. I lied. There was no way I could breathe a note of this bad musical to anyone.

I’d be locked up. Medicated, something I was vehemently opposed to. If I were doped up on mind-bending meds, how would I ever know if I were better? What of the pesky side-effects of them? As rattled as I was, one night-time’s events were not enough to break my resolve in this respect.

That would come later.

Everybody breaks.

And so I was already embarking on phase one, the intro which systematically dismantled my ability to perceive reality, and phase two, isolation, which makes it easier to make the leap into their lie.

The repetition and familiarity of the bakery was a respite, that first morning after the initiation. Measuring, mixing, kneading, proofing. My hands were home, it was my mind that was leaving the building, climbing in that sleek, black Lincoln with suicide doors.

I managed to burn or otherwise destroy very little, and to make small talk, and to pretend nothing was wrong, but there were moments I felt as if the light were too bright, washing everything out, and the audio had gone underwater. Then I’d pop up for another breath, smile and apologize to whomever for whatever. My father was from Saskatchewan, so it came easily.

By the end of my day I had managed to eat something and settle down. The jangly nerves had settled. The rational mind had taken over.

I gathered my few things and left work. The sun was out in full force, the sidewalks busy with lunchtime foot traffic from nearby office buildings. Pigeons darted between pedestrians. I decided on a whim to swing into Papanelli’s, pick up a sub and a beer. Bennedetto made a beautiful six inch prosciutto and smoked Gouda. The park was less than ten minutes out of my way to the bus stop at 42nd. Soon I was on a park bench enjoying a Papanelli’s masterpiece, chased with a regional microbrew lager. I felt the recent strain ease out of my bones. The doves were cooing around me and ducks on the diminuitive pond at my feet were quacking happily. All was well.

Something obscured the sun. I looked up, expecting an errant cloud. The homeless guy from 42nd was standing over me, chanting my social frontward, backwards, then scrambled. His green eyes had a preternatural luminescence that trapped my eyes in his. I could smell him, like swamp gas or an open raw sewer line. I heard jaws snap shut and looked away to see the second half of Benedetto’s masterpiece go down the wide maw of the dirty pit he had in tow. His ribs were showing; his eyes looked guiltily at me. He ducked his head. Meanwhile the dog’s master had moved on to my birthday, chanting it, forward, backward, then scrambled. I panicked. It was as if he were stealing my memory one item at a time and I needed to stop him. I reached down and grabbed what I had—a second can of lager. I flung it at him from close range, clocking him squarely in the temple. He collapsed like a rag doll.

I grabbed my stuff and ran. The dog chased me and my blood chilled. He caught up to me, then was pacing me, so I took a chance and bent to snatch his leash. He brightened instantly. You stole from me, I’ll steal from you.

We made the bus without event, save for one nondescript man whom I once caught staring. When I did, he smiled innocuously and went back to his phone. Something or a nothing burger? I tried as hard as I could to remember his face, but realized quickly that there was something about him that slid right out of my mind. He simply was un-rememberable. A Teflon man.

We dove out of the bus together at my stop and walked into a corner bodega for a bag of dog food, then walked the few blocks more to my flat. We ran up the stairwell and I hoped not to see my landlord just yet. I did not have approval for a pet or the money for the deposit.

We were blessed, Ramone was nowhere to be seen. We cleared my door and I shut it quickly behind me. Then I turned to survey the panting product of my rash decision. He was definitely a pit, mixed with something I couldn’t see yet. One thing was for sure, he was all dirt. And if I didn’t know any better he was smiling. I’d be happy too, to be free of that . . .I had no word for what he was.

“Bath? Who wants a bath?”, I asked, typical mouthy primate speaking to a non-verbal animal. And to my everlasting surprise, he followed his nose to the bathroom and bailed into the empty tub. I ran the water about belly-deep and began gently washing with the most mild soap I had. Two tub-changes later, he was nigh unrecognizable. So was my old enamel-coated clawfoot tub, it looked more like a dirty stock tank.

I rubbed his short coat down. His body had its share of scars. I looked at his nails. They would need attention at once. I had had a dog when I was growing up; with a little on-line refresher I was hopeful I could do it myself. He seemed very good about his feet, which was itself a good sign. The hardest part of washing him had been keeping him out of my lap until we were done grooming. I’d never seen a dog moan with joy. I hadn’t been able to stop the face-licking; I thought I shouldn’t, or he might not get past it. My face had been mopped hairline to chin, ear to ear by the time he settled somewhat.

We padded into the kitchen, both barefoot with his nails clicking, and I gave him a bowl of moistened kibble and a water bowl, then turned my attention to his collar. It was near-black with gunge, but I didn’t have a replacement. So I got a spray bottle of Simple Green out and began scrubbing. We had used it when I was deployed to clean our body armor and gear. It removed everything, from grease to—remains. That was a time I didn’t enjoy recalling.

I soon had a black flow of liquid streaming off his collar. It took half an hour, but it did come clean. Ish.

In the course of cleaning his collar I had noticed an odd lump in it. Using my old Benchmade issue knife, I delicately made a small cut in the stitches that held the layers of nylon material together. I patiently teased out a tiny chip mounted on a watch battery housing and two thin braided golden wires. If it wasn’t a transmitter I didn’t know what else it could be. I debated crushing it or trying to weasel out the battery. They knew I had the dog, or he did. I assumed he or they had tracked the dog back here. If I disabled it or in any way interfered with it’s function they would know I found it. I put it in a pill bottle and threw that in my shoulder bag.

I was beginning to wind down, but my new roommate was letting me know it was time to go out, nosing the door. Perhaps Homeless Man hadn’t been homeless after all.

I retrieved a plastic grocery bag from a canvas bag hanging in the kitchen. My mother had given it to me when I moved out a decade or back. It’s fading logo proclaimed it a “Bag o’ Bags”. Mom humor, I supposed.

Leash, dog, and out the door we went, successfully dodging my landlord yet again. Dog did his business in the alley next the building and I did mine, picking up and depositing the tied-off baggy in the dumpster.

Dog looked up at me, pleased as could be, with canine adoration for his brilliant, big-brain primate.

“We can’t keep doing this. You need a name,” I informed him.

His head cocked sideways in that classic dog pose that seemed to convey interest.

“Vinnie!”.

His head drooped and he began looking at a bug on the ground, trying to trap it with his paw.

“Carmine?”.

He rolled over and stretched out on the pavement in the alley.

“Happy!”.

He bounced up and gave a play bow. Happy it was.

Happy and I headed upstairs and to my apartment. I put an old blanket on the floor by my bed, checked my alarm for the umpteenth time and slid into bed, Then got up and ran a security check of doors and windows, and back to bed.

I cannot begin to draw an accurate picture of the night. It was chaos. I was pursued, in my dreams, by the dog-men, through every corner of my mind. Their eyes glowed with green IR fire and they owned the night of my hellscape. Through rural and urban, through fantastical shifting environments of fire and water, earth and air, they were relentless. Then the pain came and I woke with my intestines on fire, my head splitting in half. I ran to the bathroom, shaking and puking, white as a sheet. I looked at my wild-eyed reflection in the mirror, expecting to see my face tear in two, green light shining from the massive crevass as the face of a dog-man was birthed through the ruins of me.

I felt as though I were being disemboweled, my head as if in a human-sized bench vice. I blacked out.

I woke to Happy bathing my face, nudging with his nose, and the alarm going in the background. I was a horrible, stinking, filthy mess, as was the bathroom. I put myself in the shower, clothes and all, and broke down, sobbing, sitting in the tub. I could hear Happy whining, then he bailed in, water-be-damned, then began barking and growling the kind of growl I never ever wish directed at me.

He was focused on the ceiling corner above and to my left.

I stood and tried to look closer and something the color of everything and nothing at all, mouse-sized, shot across the ceiling and into a vent, and I felt a cloud lift. My mind settled. The pain had subsided while I was unconscious.

Reality dropped in place like a stubborn ball joint finally seating. I still had no sense of what the entity was, but already it was fading in my mind. What was important was the here and now, the concrete that could serve to anchor my mind in reality.

I flew through cleaning up, made coffee and toast while Happy destroyed his soaked kibble.

Out the door we went for the stop on 42nd, while I tried to figure out how I was going to bring him to work.

As we neared the bus stop I began sweating, realizing homeless man might be there. I scanned and scanned but saw nothing until we were on the bus and rolling away from the stop. Happy rumbled, low enough I felt it more than heard it, and I thought I glimpsed him through some shrubs, and a red light panned me like a laser scope might. Happy lunged up and snapped at it and it was gone.

“Atta boy, Poppi loves you too!” and I rubbed his ears and he climbed fully into my lap, burrowing under my elbow. Together we rode the rest of the way to the bakery and Happy’s smile was unbreakable, unlike my insides which ached with the leftover lactic acid buildup in tortured muscles and who-knows-what-else. Happy’s soothing animal warmth combatted the anxiety that kept bubbling up like the a high mountain spring.

Marcello was waiting at the rear entrance to the bakery looking stern, shaking his head and tapping his wrist with one thick and angry finger. He never wore a watch.

“Late again. Look like hell again. I gotta check you for track marks now? Your father would kill me if you go off the rails on my watch. You goin’ off da rails?”. One meaty hand spun me around, the other gripped my face and his dark eyes looked into mine with honest concern as well as an expert eye. He knew junkies and I knew better than to fight. He was the closest thing to family I had since I lost dad.

Happy had slipped my grip. He ran for the storage room.

Marcello shook his head. “You look clean, but you don’t feel clean. You wanna tell me somethin’ son? No? O.k.. Hey, where’d that beast—?” we both spun toward the storage room where most of the ingredients were kept. The door was ajar. Happy had let out a short bark and there sounded a quick scuffle, of feet and a squeel cut short. Happy came out with possibly the largest rat I had ever seen indoors. It was very much an ex-rat, having shuffled off it’s mortal coil, hanging from his wide jaws. He seemed pleased with himself. He was proving to be an awesome prowling machine.

Marcello looked at Happy, to me, back to Happy.

“He works, he stays. What can I do? I been after that rat-bast’d rat for two years. That mutt Italian? Is he a made mutt?”. He laughed at his own joke.

“What about the inspectors, Papa Marco?”, I asked.

“You think I don’t know their schedule? I get it before they do.” He headed into the kitchen, strong, short, and wide. “Fuggedaboudit. Let’s make some bread.”

I suspected Marcello—Papa Marco—augmented his ethnicity with a deep video library.

And so that problem was solved, Happy had solved it himself.

These . . . other issues I was experiencing were nowhere near a conclusion, if any were to be found.

Was it all real? Who are they? Why me? Is this all in my head? How do they get in my dreams? How do they assault me physically without touching me or being present? Who and what are the dog-men? What was that thing in the bathroom that ran across the ceiling? How is any of this possible, if I’m not cracking up?

Worst of all, will I even make it long enough to find some answers and is it even possible to win?

If I find out, you’ll be the first to know.

Photo by Madalyn Cox on Unsplash