8



Down in the W e l l

*


I climb down the steel ladder anchored in the side of the well, and in the darkness at the
bottom, I feel for the bat I always leave propped against the wall-the bat I brought home with
me all but unconsciously from the house where I had followed the man with the guitar case.
The touch of the scarred old bat in the darkness at the bottom of the well fills me with a
strange sense of peace. It helps me, too, to concentrate.
When I find the bat, I form a tight grip on the handle, like a baseball player entering the
batter's box, assuring myself that this is my bat. I go on from there to check that nothing has
changed down here in the darkness, where there is nothing to see. I listen hard for anything
new; I take a lungful of air; I scrape the ground with the sole of my shoe; I check the hardness
of the wall with a few taps of the bat tip. These are just rituals designed to calm me down. The
well bottom is like the bottom of the sea. Things down here stay very still, keeping their
original forms, as if under tremendous pressure, unchanged from day to day.
A round slice of light floats high above me: the evening sky. Looking up at it, I think


about the October evening world, where "people" must be going about their lives. Beneath
that pale autumn light, they must be walking down streets, going to the store for things,
preparing dinner, boarding trains for home. And they think-if they think at all-that these
things are too obvious to think about, just as I used to do (or not do). They are the vaguely
defined "people," and I used to be a nameless one among them. Accepting and accepted, they
live with one another beneath that light, and whether it lasts forever or for a moment, there
must be a kind of closeness while they are enveloped in the light. I am no longer one of them,
however. They are up there, on the face of the earth; I am down here, in the bottom of a well.
They possess the light, while I am in the process of losing it. Sometimes I feel that I may
never find my way back to that world, that I may never again be able to feel the peace of
being enveloped in the light, that I may never again be able to hold the cat's soft body in my
arms. And then I feel a dull ache in the chest, as if something inside there is being squeezed to
death.
But as I dig at the soft earth in the bottom of the well with the rubber sole of my tennis
shoe, scenes from the surface of the earth grow ever more distant. The sense of reality
subsides bit by bit, and the closeness of the well comes to envelop me in its place. Down here,
the well is warm and silent, and the softness of the inner earth caresses my skin. The pain
inside me fades like ripples on water. The place accepts me, and I accept the place. I tighten
my grip on the bat. I close my eyes, then open them again to cast my gaze upward.
I pull on the rope to close the well lid, using a pulley arrangement fashioned for me by the
clever young Cinnamon. The darkness is now complete. The well mouth is closed, and all
light gone. Not even the occasional sound of the wind can be heard any longer. The break
between "people" and me is now total. I don't even have a flashlight with me. This is like a
confession of faith. I mean to show "them" that I am trying to accept the darkness in its
entirety.
I lower my bottom to the earth, lean my back against the concrete wall, grip the bat
between my knees, and close my eyes, listening to the sound of my heart. There is no need for
me to close my eyes, of course, down here in the darkness, but I do it anyway. Closing the
eyes has its own significance, in darkness or otherwise. I take several deep breaths, letting my
body grow accustomed to this deep, dark, cylindrical space. The smell here is the same as
always, the feel of the air against my skin is the same. The well was completely filled in for a
time, but the air here is strangely unchanged from before. With its moldy smell and its trace of
dampness, the air smells exactly as it did when I first climbed down inside. Down here there
are no seasons. Not even time exists.
I always wear my old tennis shoes and my plastic watch, the one I had on the first time I
came down into the well. Like the bat, they calm me. I check to see in the darkness that these
objects are in firm contact with my body. I check to see that I am not separated from myself. I
open my eyes and, after a time, close them again. This is to help bring the pressure of the
darkness inside me more in line with the pressure of the darkness around me. Time passes by.
Soon, as always, I lose the ability to distinguish between the two kinds of darkness. I can no
longer tell if my eyes are open or closed. The mark on my cheek begins to run a slight fever. I
know that it is taking on a more vivid purple.
In the two increasingly intermingled darknesses, I concentrate on my mark and think
about the room. I try to separate from myself, just as I do whenever I am with the women. I
try to get out of this clumsy flesh of mine, which is crouching down here in the dark. Now I
am nothing but a vacant house, an abandoned well. I try to go outside, to change vehicles, to
leap from one reality to another, which moves at a different speed, and I keep a firm grip on
the bat all the while.
Now a single wall is the only thing separating me from the strange room. I ought to be
able to pass through that wall. I should be able to do it with my own strength and with the
power of the deep darkness in here.


If I hold my breath and concentrate, I can see what is in the room. I myself am not in
there, but I am looking at what is. This is the hotel suite: Room 208. Thick curtains cover the
windows. The room is dark. A vase holds a massive bouquet of flowers, and the air is heavy
with their suggestive fragrance. A large floor lamp stands beside the entrance, but its bulb is
white and dead as the morning moon. Still, if I stare hard enough, after a time I can just make
out the shapes of things in the hint of light that manages to find its way into the room, the way
the eyes become used to the darkness in a movie theater. On the small table in the middle of
the room stands a bottle of Cutty Sark, its contents only slightly depleted. The ice bucket
contains newly cracked chunks of ice (judging from their clear, hard edges), and someone has
made a scotch on the rocks in the glass that is standing there. A stainless-steel tray forms a
still, cold pool on the tabletop. There is no way to tell the time. It could be morning or
evening or the middle of the night. Or perhaps this place simply has no time. In the bed at the
back of the suite lies a woman. I hear her moving in the sheets. The ice makes a pleasant
clinking in her glass. Minuscule grains of pollen suspended in the air shudder with the sound,
like living organisms. Each tiny ripple of sound passing through the air brings more of them
to sudden life. The pale darkness opens itself to the pollen, and the pollen, taken in, increases
the density of the darkness. The woman brings the whiskey glass to her lips, allows a few
drops of the liquid to trickle down her throat, and then she tries to speak to me. The bedroom
is dark. I can see nothing but the faint movement of shadows. But she has something to say to
me. I wait for her to speak. I wait to hear her words.
They are there.



Like a make-believe bird hanging in a make-believe sky, I see the rooms from above. I
enlarge the view, pull back, and survey the whole, then zoom in to enlarge the details. Each
detail carries much significance, of course. I check each in turn, examining it for shape and
color and texture. From one detail to the next, there is no connection, no warmth. All I am
doing at that point is a mechanical inventory of details. But it's worth a try. Just as the
rubbing together of stones or sticks will eventually produce heat and flame, a connected
reality takes shape little by little. It works the way the piling up of random sounds goes on to
produce a single syllable from the monotonous repetition of what at first glance appears to be
meaningless.
I can feel the growth of this faint connection in the farthest depths of the darkness. Yes,
that's it, that will do fine. It's very quiet here, and "they" still haven't noticed my presence. I
sense the wall that separates me from that place melting, turning into jelly. I hold my breath.
Now!
But the moment I step toward the wall, a sharp knock resounds, as if they know what I am
trying to do. Someone is pounding on the door. It's the same knocking I heard before, a hard,
decisive hammering, as if someone is trying to drive a nail straight through the wall. It comes
in the same pattern: two knocks, a pause, two knocks. The woman gasps. The floating pollen
shudders, and the darkness gives a great lurch. The invasive sound slams shut the passageway
that was finally beginning to take shape for me.
It happens this way every time.



Once again I am myself inside my own body, sitting in the bottom of the well, my back
against the wall, my hands gripping the baseball bat. The touch of the world on "this side"
returns to my hands slowly, the way an image comes into focus. I feel the slight dampness of
sweat against my palms. My heart is pounding in my throat. My ears retain the living sound


of that harsh, world-stabbing knock, and I can still hear the slow turning of the doorknob in
the darkness. Someone (or some thing) outside is opening the door, preparing silently to enter,
but at that very instant, all images evaporate. The wall is as hard as ever, and I am flung back
to this side.
In the darkness, I tap the wall in front of me with the end of the bat- the same hard, cold
concrete wall. I am enclosed by a cylinder of cement. Almost made it that time, I tell myself.
I'm getting closer. I'm sure of it. At some point, I'm going to break through the barrier and
get "inside." I will slip into the room and be standing there, ready, when the knock comes.
But how long is it going to take for this to happen? And how much time is there left to me?
At the same time, I am afraid that it really is going to happen. Because then I will have to
confront whatever it is that must be there.
I remain curled up in the darkness for a time. I have to let my heart quiet down. I have to
peel my hands from the bat. Until I can rise to my feet on the earthen floor of the well, then
climb the steel ladder to the surface, I will need more time, and more strength.