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Fwip…. Fwip…. Fwip…
A noise repeated itself behind me. A familiar one. I turned around and froze seeing McMurphy sitting on the end of the bed. How long had he been there?
He sat there, his deck of cards in his hands, flicking the top of the deck and letting the drumming sound echo in the room. His cap pushed back to show all his face. He didn’t look any different from when I last saw him, still dressed in his greens, wrapped up in a leather jacket.
“Evenin’, Chief. How’ve you been farin’?” He waits a beat, but can’t hold himself back. “You alright now, Chief? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
McMurphy takes to cackling and slaps his knee with his free hand, before going back to messing with his cards.
I couldn’t bring myself to say anything, only stared at him bug-eyed while I sat at the room’s desk. I finally mustered up the courage to tell him to go away, but he just glanced up at me through his furrowed brow and let a grin spread across his face.
“Now why would I wanna do somethin’ like that?”
“I can’t do nothing for you, and you can’t do nothing for me.”
McMurphy scoffed and crossed his arms, deck of cards still kept together in one hand. He leaned back and narrowed his eyes at me. His red hair fell around his face, peeking out from underneath his cap.
“I did something for you, didn’t I?” McMurphy’s words slipped out his mouth so smoothly, like nothing had changed. Like he was still himself. “And you did something so honorable for me in return. I’d consider our relationship mutually beneficial.”
“You’re not him,” I reasoned. I looked at him, seeing the way he sat there with his hands on his knees, and turned back to the desk, the notebook still sitting there with a pencil in my hand. I hadn’t realized my grip was so tight, ‘til I relaxed it and gave the pencil a break on the pressure. “You’re not real .”
I heard a laugh; a loud, confident laugh come from behind me. “No?”
I whipped back around as I shouted at him. “No!” He was still there, one leg resting on the other’s knee as he propped himself up by his hands on the bed, deck of cards tucked back away in his pocket. He was smiling at me, looking like he was amused by my behavior. “You’re just some hallucination like I always have,” I admitted to him. Least I was aware enough, at least if I could confront it, he might go away. But he didn’t. I blinked, and when he wasn’t gone from the room, I blinked again. Nothing.
“Am I, Chief?” McMurphy licked his lips before he got up from the bed. I looked back at the desk and sat there, real still, hoping maybe if I’m still enough he won’t think nothing of me and leave me alone. He won’t come near me. But he does. I feel what feels like solid, living hands on my shoulders as he stands behind me, gripping me and staring at the back of my head. “Am I a figment of your imagination , haunting you ‘cause of your own guilt?” His voice lilts in a mocking tone, making fun of my reasoning. He chuckles to himself, thinking the whole thing funny, and he leans over and I feel subtle wind against my hair and my ear, like he was breathing. But he couldn’t be breathing, and he couldn’t have his hands on me. Then how did he? “Or am I hauntin’ you ‘cause I think you’re oh, so cute when you’re scared?”
I shivered like someone stepped over my grave. I swallowed, my throat drying up as I felt McMurphy wrap his arms around my neck and press himself into me. I could hear his rapid breathing, the way his breath struggled past his teeth. The way it whistled out of his broken nose. I supposed that my mind couldn’t have been making this up. I don’t think I’d want McMurphy talking to me like that.
I asked him that if he was real, then why wasn’t Billy with him and haunting me, too? Where was he in the first place?
McMurphy gave me a huff and retracted his arms, taking a step away from me. “What, you think I’m dead, I know all the answers to errything?” He came to my side and planted his hand against the desk. “Foolish, ‘s what it is.”
Standing next to me, McMurphy began to fiddle with the pencil I had set on the desk. He poked it back and forth ‘til I smacked my hand down on it, keeping the pencil from moving, and McMurphy flew his hand back like I had almost taken his finger off.
“If you can’t answer me, then how do I know you ain’t just my head messing with me? Not just avoiding the question?”
He gave me a knowing look, but there was no smile on his face. He sighed. “Billy, bless his heart, is probably up there in the sky having the time of his life and charming any woman he comes across.”
“Then why are you here ?”
McMurphy scratched at the scar on his nose, now paused in the process of fading. “Y’know, I don’t got the faintest idea.” He prodded at my shoulder, digging his finger into it as he jabbed at me. “I figure it has somethin’ to do with you .”
“Me?”
McMurphy’s eyes lit up, flashing me a grin. “That’s right.” Giving me no warning, McMurphy sat on the desk, settling down right in front of me. He pushed the notebook over to the edge of the desk to make more room for himself. He adjusted the sleeves of his jacket, his feet kicking a bit in the air, so close to touching the ground. “If I’m attached to you instead of having a grand ol’ time in hell, then you must have somethin’ to do with it!”
McMurphy takes off his hat, running fingers through his hair, and murmurs to himself. “I already tried to leave.”
I leaned back in my chair, looking at him. “You wouldn’t go to hell, Mac.”
Pause. “…Let’s not kid ourselves, Chief. But—“ he held up a finger, having a revelation— “conflict of thought, somethin’ like that. Ain’t that proof I’m real?”
“What were you saying about leaving?”
McMurphy started fidgeting in place. He looked off to a corner of the room. “I don’t know.”
I opened my mouth but didn’t even have time to push him about it before he started talking a mile a minute.
“Look, I can’t exactly get away from you for too long. It’s like I’m a dog on a leash. I’m stuck goin’ wherever you are.” He puts a hand on his chest. “I can’t be made up, now, can I?”
I started to think about it. McMurphy had a point. “I guess if I made you, you’d be wanting to stay.”
McMurphy chuckled. “Awh, c’mon, don’t take what I said too hard! I just get bored, is all.” He scratched his side, and I started looking at his hands. They looked solid; weren’t see-through at all. His hair was fluffed up like it was neatly washed and put together. His eyes were shiny, wet, light reflecting off them. His hands looked warm like they always were when he touched me. Nothing about him looked like he was—
“Hey, Chief.” His calling got me out of my head, and I realized I’d been staring at him for who knows how long. His lips were parted in a small smile, bearing his teeth at me. “Still not convinced?”
I rubbed my temple. Shook my head after a little while, when I just couldn’t get my head around it. No matter how much he told me or could tell me, no matter how much he acted like McMurphy, how the hell could he be there with me?
He clicked his tongue. “That’s a shame.”
We sat there in silence until I got to thinking: if he was all in my head, he’d want to do something that I wanted him to do without me saying it. So I tried thinking of him doing something. Maybe he’d take the notebook and give it to me. Or maybe he’d get off the desk and start touching me again, breathing in my ear as he did. He’d say something like how I looked tired, maybe I should lay down. Say he’ll join me. No. Not that. Definitely not that.
But if he laid down with me I could get to touching him and seeing how real he felt.
“Chief?”
Maybe he had a heartbeat, and he’d prove it to me by pressing my hand into his chest. Or show me how, see, his lips were still warm.
“Chief.”
I blinked and a hand waved in front of my face. I gripped my knees, holding my breath while McMurphy returned his hand to lay against the desk. He quirked his brow. “Everything alright in there?”
Here it comes. “Um, yeah.”
He crossed his arms and got a smug look on his face. “What were you thinkin’ about?”
“Huh?”
“You started starin’ at me. Thinkin’ about a girl, maybe?”
I gave a sharp exhale. “Yeah. Something like that.”