Chapter 13

The guy who answered the door at Indiana Isolated was tall and really skinny, like as skinny as possible. Not just his body, but everything: the bolo tie, the slim green pants that would look obscene on fleshy legs like Gavin’s, the mustache that could have been drawn on his lip with a Sharpie.  Gavin had seen ironic twenty-somethings who dressed this way, especially when he went home to Northern California.  But this was a grown man, in his mid-thirties at least, with a web of tiny wrinkles spreading around his eyes.

“Ah.  Lovely,” he said, holding the door wide open to enjoy the growing storm outside.  He inhaled deeply through his nose and stared over Gavin and Rona’s heads, as the snow piled higher on their coat sleeves and hoods. 

“Can we come in?” Gavin asked.

“Oh, you’re cold,” the man said, like, poor babies, who let this happen to you?  “You should come inside.”  

He opened his arms and pulled them into his enormous wingspan, steering them up the stairs and into a little waiting room with two mismatched couches and murals of frolicking dolphins on the walls.  On one of the couches, a young woman, maybe Rona’s age, sat next to gray-haired guy.  They were sipping tea and sharing a book—filled with colorful illustrations of dolphins—spread open between their two laps. Creepy. I mean, old enough to be her father was such a cliché, and Gavin knew age was an arbitrary construct and everything, but ick, gross.  

“Coats and shoes on the racks there.  Then you can have a seat.”

Rona sat down on the empty couch.  Now that Gavin could actually look at her, the messy bun and gray sweatshirt were kind of cute, albeit in an I-am­-definitely-low-maintenance way, like she was a struggling young artist or something.  He sat next to her, but as far away as he could get, which was not very far, maybe a foot of space between them. He hoped it would be clear that, whatever transgression of cultural mores was happening over there on the army-green couch, here on the tan couch, normal boundaries were still in effect.  Right?  Because okay, sure, Gavin had fantasized about dating his students before, but those were just fantasies.  It’s not like he expected them to actually happen. 

The skinny guy came over, carrying a low stool.

“So you’re Rona and Gavin, three-thirty appointment, right?” He put the stool down and sat across from them, spreading his legs like a giant spindly spider.  “I’m Guy.” He didn’t say it the Canadian way, Ghee, just plain old American Guy.

Gavin felt something wet on his ankle.  A tiny dog, smaller than a cat, was licking an exposed bit of skin above his sock, where he hadn’t bothered to straighten his cuffs after he took his boots off.

“That’s our mascot, Lilly,” Guy said.  “Get it?”

“I don’t think so.” Gavin pulled his pant leg straight and crossed his legs. Then he gave Lilly a cursory pat on the back so it wouldn’t seem like he hated dogs.  Though truthfully he didn’t like them all that much.  Even the dumbest cat had enough sense not to go around licking random strangers.

“She’s named after our progenitor.”  He handed them each a folded brochure, and opened his own copy to reveal a photo.  “Dr. John C. Lilly, inventor of the isolation tank.”  The picture was in black and white and he was sporting one of those kooky triangular chin-beards.

“So it’s your first visit.”  Guy reached out and spread his long, bony fingers over Rona’s knee.  “Have you experienced sensory deprivation before?”

“No, neither of us have,” Rona said.  She didn’t flinch at the hand or anything, but it was creeping Gavin the fuck out. Big spider hand, spread across Rona’s jeans. Didn’t this guy know you weren’t supposed to touch girls you didn’t know? He was worse than the fucking dog.

“Well, you’re in for a treat,” Guy said. “Isolation will facilitate relaxation, enhance your creativity…”

“We know,” Gavin interrupted, holding up the brochure.  Move—your—hand.

 
Guy smiled. “Glad to see you’ve done your homework.  Joanie will show you to your rooms.  Hey Joanie!”

He stood up, which required releasing his grip on Rona’s leg.  Gavin sucked in a gulp of air, like maybe he had been holding his breath for a few minutes without realizing it.

“These the three-thirties?” Joanie came out from behind a bamboo screen with more dolphins printed on it. She was as skinny as Guy, and maybe pretty if you could see her face, but it was mostly hidden under giant green glasses and a thick curtain of bangs. 

She led them behind the screen down a small hallway.  Gavin watched the tail of her shawl swing back and forth over the velour stretch pants covering her meatless behind.

“We don’t have shared rooms, but I made sure you two were next to each other,” she said.

“We’re not…” Gavin said.  Okay, he wasn’t going to finish that sentence.  It wasn’t anyone’s business whether they were or not.  Joanie looked at him, waiting, but he didn’t say anything else. She raised her eyebrows a little.  Actually Gavin couldn’t see her eyebrows, but her giant glasses shifted a half-centimeter upward.  Then she opened one of the doors.

“You’ll be in here, sweetie,” she said to Rona.  “But you can both come in for the orientation talk.”

It looked like a room you would get a massage in, with a little cabinet against one wall (decorated with dolphin stencils) and a basket of robes and towels in the corner. Except instead of a massage table, there was a giant box taking up one half of the room, like a coffin for a linebacker, but white so it didn’t look morbid.

“There’s only one shower,” Joanie said.  “So you’ll have to take turns. Unless you want to share.” 

“I don’t need a shower,” Gavin said. “I showered this morning.”

Joanie’s smile reflected her enhanced levels of tranquility. “We ask all of our guests to shower before entering the tank, to remove oils and dirt from the skin.”

She walked over to the coffin-thing, only a few steps since it took up half the room, and placed her hand on top of it like it was a car she was selling. 

“These are our tanks.  You can see they’re quite spacious, so even a larger person”—she looked at Gavin—“has plenty of room to move around and get comfortable.  You get in here.”

She pulled on a little trap-door on the side. It made a sucking sound as it opened, thwack.  Gavin could see down into the tank, all black inside, filled halfway up with water that looked thicker and juicier than water should look. There was a heavy, swimming-pool smell drifting up from it.

“The water is only about two feet deep, and you’ll be floating at the top, so there’s no danger of drowning. You can open the door any time you want.  A lot of people worry about getting claustrophobic, but…”

Oh shit, yes.  That’s what was happening.  The dark void of the tank seem to be falling upwards towards his face.  He tried to take one of those deep, relaxing breaths that reduced anxiety, but his nostrils filled up with that steam smell and he felt like he was going to suffocate.  What was she saying now?  It sounded important, like make sure you something something and many people prefer to something something.  And what was that about about eight hundred pounds of dissolved magnesium sulfate?  That’s what was in the water, to make you float.  What was magnesium sulfate again?  Bleach?  Chlorine? 

He wanted to reach out and lean on something, but the only things in reach were Rona, Joanie, and the tank.  He took a couple steps backwards and put his hand on the dresser thing with the dolphin stencils.

“Everything okay?” Joanie asked.

Gavin nodded and held his thumb up at her, which should have been a clear sign that everything was not okay, but she seemed to buy it. Actually, he did feel a little better over here, with that tank thing over there.

“Well then,” Joanie said.  “I’m sure you’re anxious for me to stop talking so you can get in and try it out yourself.  Gavin, your room is the next door down, and the shower is the one after that.”

Gavin tried to follow her out the door.  He felt less woozy now.  He had probably just messed himself up squinting at the gray road for an hour; that kind of thing could make you dizzy.  Once he got to his room, he could sit for a minute and pull himself together.

“Wait,” Rona said.  He turned, and she came over to him, arms open.  Before he could figure out how to stop it, she was giving him a hug.

“I really hope this helps,” she said, into his ear.  Actually it did feel kind of okay.

“With what?”

She let go of him, but she squeezed his hand in hers quickly.

“Your talk.  To make you less stressed and more creative.”

Oh, right.  

“I’m sure it will.” He tried to smile in an easy and confident way that said I am super psyched to go lie in that relaxing dark coffin full of slimy water.

He waited in his room for a while, at least ten minutes, to take his shower, so that he wouldn’t run into Rona in a bathrobe.  After the shower, he put on the bathing shorts he’d brought.  Most people choose to go in without clothes, Joanie had said, but Gavin didn’t like the idea of being naked with Rona just on the other side of the wall.  He sat for a few more minutes, staring at the tank, before he finally worked up the nerve to climb in, lower his body to a dead float, and close the trap door above his head. 

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Chapter 14>