Copyright (c) 1996
                            ME, YOU CAN TRUST
                             by Paul A. Toth

    I just had to leave her, lose everything, be stripped bare.  I
would stand on a spindle and watch my skin peel away.  I had dreams about
that.  My nerves and veins snaked into the black, my organs bobbed along.
The whole system separated, expanded into exploded view.
    I couldn't go to work any more.  I couldn't think about having
kids anymore.  I couldn't listen; couldn't talk.  No logical excuse to
leave.  So, one day I came home and pretended that I had forgotten who
she was.  It took hours to convince her.  But when she saw that I would
not relent, she threw me out.  
    As I turned the ignition key, I wanted to spike my hands to the
steering wheel.  How did this happen?  Only last week, the regular things
comforted me:  television, apples, her feet, the sound of the train, the
cold smoke from the factory, the smell of the heat, the moons of her
fingernails, her cute fat nose, the muted conversations of the neighbors,
the wind chimes... I was surrounded by reminders of peace and good
fortune.  What happened?  
    I drove.  I thought, if I drive along the two lane highways, and
obey the traffic signals, speed limits, etc., I will reconnect.  Perhaps
then I'll realize how foolish this is.  I'll go home and say, "Darling, I
lost it.  I admit it.  I'm going to the hospital for a while."  
    Along the way, I talked to myself.  I said things like, "My name
is Dan.  I am 32 years old.  I have brown hair.  My eyes are green.  I
live in the state of Michigan."  I didn't fool around with abstractions,
just the basics until I got my footing.  I was my own neurologist.
    But it didn't work out.  Instead of winding my way back, I
spiralled out.  Some part of myself steered the car -- towards what I
didn't know.  I tried to talk but trailed off.  My guilt receded.  My
mind went dim, hypnotic. 
    The mind said, Slow your breathing down.  I know what I'm doing. 
I know where we're going.  Everything will be all right.  Trust me.  Me,
you can trust.
    The foot adjusted speeds smoothly.  The hands held the wheel just
right.  The body smoothed, sank, uncoiled.  The blood warmed.  The eyes
watered.  All systems go.  
    I branched off from the city down this road -- I've never known
its name.  It has long been my destination when I had to get away.  This
road was little traveled.  Occasionally utility trucks passed, but not at
this hour, unless there had been a tornado or flood. 
    The road moved into the abstract.  My feelings cooled.  I became
a scientist, the world a series of reactions and juxtapositions. 
Everything that took place could be represented geometrically.  Through
the triangles, rectangles and circles, fish swam, out of sight, oblivious
to us.  Down this road I was silent and took my place.  If before I had
been a physicist, now I was a particle. 
    I left the story.  I went into the dots of ink, under the page,
through the binding, underneath the table, below the floor, into the
foundation, through the dirt and rocks, into the core, out the other
side.  Now I shot away, dispassionate but not unmerciful.  
    Exhausted, my hands lay atop the wheel, hardly touching it.  It
is not true that the car steered itself, as some accounts have it.  But
gradually, the surroundings metallicized.  Wires crossed the sky.  The
only visible natural object was the moon.  There was a constant whir. 
    The gate of the 50 foot high fence was open.  I pulled to the
side of the road and waited.  Of course, the generators, fuses,
connections, optic fibers were unaware of me.  Here at the source I was
obsolete.  This place may have lit my love affairs, but it would just as
well have lit any event imaginable.  The cold mechanics of it might have
given me comfort were I still a part of those events.  But there wasn't
even that.
    I had come to the home of homes.  Curiously, the structure sat
upon a hill.  I looked at the city below.  How many couches were there? 
Every couch was a satellite.
    I got out of the car.  It was colder than it looked.  The
temperature must have dropped 10 degrees since I left the old house.  I
hadn't brought a jacket.  I had to piss.  
    Standing on the hill, imbalanced enough to take a spill down the
side at any time, I put my hands behind my head and knew that smells and
colors and tastes would not be the same again.  There was no easy
nostalgia.  I thought of all the people below, looking up at me,
wondering, "What if we knew?  Then it would be different.  There is some
awful secret.  To know that secret would be a diagnosis."
    I spoke these last words to them:
    "I promise that one mystery leads to the next.  It's a gift
delayed by an infinite spiral of wrapping paper.  You're just a child at
the Christmas tree, tipsy with euphoria and expectation.  That is how you
should feel, and, I hope, how you always will feel."
     I got into my car with the goal of contributing to the mystery. 
I turned the key, pushed the accelerator down with a stick and then put
the car in drive.  It careened through the gate, ambled straight into
what looked like a giant spring.  I turned around.  Some of the lights
went out on the northeast end.  It wasn't much.  But somebody would ask
questions in the morning.

                                   END