Mister Nobody – Part 7 | You’re a tragedy starting to happen

Michael floundered helplessly in the darkness and struggled to grasp the hands that were touching him, pushing him, moving him around. He didn’t succeed.

“Don’t do this, come on! Shit… Come on!”

From afar, he could faintly hear the voice coming from the thick, murky obscurity surrounding him. It sounded frantic, ragged, breathless.

“Stay with me. Stay with me!” Panting, panting. “Come on… Don’t do this! Michael?! Michael!”

Michael tried very hard to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt so heavy. Everything felt heavy, and whatever it was that was holding him, it was also pulling him down.

“Can you hear me? Michael, can you hear me? Michael!”

Yes, moron. I can hear you, he thought, but couldn’t say it out loud. He couldn’t find his voice. Where had his voice gone?

“Michael, can you hear me?”

There it was again…

“Move your head if you can hear me.”

That, Michael, could do. He moved his head with an immense effort, the exertion almost too much to overcome.

“Good… Good!” A hint of relief in the voice talking to him from the darkness.

“Can you open your eyes?”

Now, now, you’re asking too much, buddy…

And yet Michael struggled and struggled. He felt like floating into a thick, sticky, black shroud that was swallowing him whole. Like a mythological beast opening its mouth wide and getting ready to chew him. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t see. Could barely hear. And nothing was comforting in the darkness that enveloped him. It was cold and empty.

“Open your eyes, Michael. Look at me. Michael?”

Follow the voice, Michael thought, and struggled again. It felt like the most intense effort he had ever submitted his body to. However, someway, somehow, he made it.

Slowly he opened his eyes, and his gaze found the sweaty face of the doctor. The one that had been hired to take care of him, to put him “in the right conditions” to perform in London. What was his name again? Oh, right… Conrad.

“…What happened?”

Michael frowned and his voice sounded hoarse, strained. He swallowed hard and winced. His throat was parched and felt like sandpaper.

Conrad’s eyes were about to pop out from his skull, but he hid his stress pretty well, all things considered.

“You forgot to breathe for a few seconds, Michael…” He let out a sigh of relief. “…Are you OK? How do you feel?”

Michael’s brow was still furrowed.

“I stopped… breathing?”

“Yeah, but just for a moment…”

Conrad was trying to downplay it a little, or so Michael thought. As the haze in his mind slowly faded away, he was pretty sure that it had been more than “a moment.” More than “a few seconds,” and that he had done something worse than “stop breathing.” He was sluggish and confused but was not an idiot. A pang of panic suddenly ran through him. Had he been dead for a little while? Had he died on the doctor’s watch? How was it even possible? Wasn’t this guy supposed to take care of him?

“Where are the kids?”

That was what mattered the most to him. His babies. He turned his head to the side, but all he could see was the darkness in the room. Impenetrable, thick, closing in on him.

“They’re OK… They’re asleep in their rooms…” Conrad was now auscultating him with his stethoscope. “Soon you’ll be sleeping too, and don’t worry… you’ll be well-rested tomorrow… I got you, Michael.”

The doctor smiled.

Oh yeah, he’d get him alright.

At that very moment, Michael finally realized that someone was really out to kill him, that he indeed was going to get killed if he didn’t find a way to get away from them. All of them.

It was May 22, 2009.

“It had happened before…” Lisa murmured, incredulously.

“Yeah.”

Michael raked his fingers through his hair and sniffled, his eyes remote.

“…And he was able to bring me back… That time. I don’t know if it was a test or just an honest mistake. When I realized what had happened, I freaked out… But I was so medicated the entire time, that I couldn’t even… I mean, I knew I was in serious danger but I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t function. My mind was in chaos all the darn time… I was so tired, so stressed out… In retrospect, I don’t think I was ever really clear-minded. And whenever I tried to get it together, I would find myself even more medicated. I thought it was OK. I wasn’t a junkie. I was in pain. I couldn’t sleep… I trusted those people. They were supposed to know what was best for me. I trusted Conrad… He was my doctor. He… and the others… I thought they had my back…” He frowned and blinked. “But that’s how they controlled me… I was stuck in this vicious circle… I couldn’t get out. I couldn’t…”

He stopped talking for a moment, shaking his head as if he struggled to find the words and couldn’t.

“…There was just no way out for me.”

The pressure.

Michael had spoken about the constant pressure he was subjected to, all the time. Dance. Sing. Do good. Do better. Do the best you can. Do the best of your best. Perform, like a dancing bear in a circus, a chain wrapped around your neck, pushed and pulled. Dance, little black boy. You must dance again until we tell you to stop.

But Michael was in no condition to perform the way he used to – not only because his body could no longer tolerate it to that extent, but also because of all those medications.

Ah, the paradox.

The same medications that, around the time of his marriage to Lisa, he had been convinced were good for him, suddenly had become the dead weight pulling him down. She was right. She had been right all along.

In order to be injected with Propofol – not put to sleep, but anesthetized – he couldn’t eat. That resulted in him losing weight, energy and stamina. His strained body was pushed to the extremes by the lack of proper nutrition and lack of sleep and by the constant, intense physical effort. At one point, his system had started to go even more haywire because of the medications. His mind was a mess. Panic had set in. The conviction of racing towards a possible failure had become more and more solid as days went by. With that, anxiety had made its appearance, its fangs sharp, biting him hard. Anxiety and fear had led to confusion, together with the ever-present medications. He could no longer remember the words of the songs he had written and sung thousands of times. He couldn’t remember the dance routines and steps he had performed throughout his entire life.

He had tried to get help with the few resources he had left and had failed miserably. He had turned to Arnold and had found himself even more medicated than before. He couldn’t even really express what was going on, not verbally, at least. Coherence in speech had become one of the many impossible tasks to accomplish. More than once, he had found himself blabbering in front of the mirror or in his dressing room – when nobody was around. He was talking to himself like a deranged lunatic. Paranoia had arrived. Was he losing his head? Was it all just in his mind?

He was pretty sure that he had even called the police one night, trying to explain to a detective what he thought was going on. He had a feeling that he had sounded a tad bit incoherent, though.

The guy had laughed at him.

“Yeah, sure, Mister Jackson. Everyone is plotting and scheming against you. You’re always the victim. Tell me the truth: you still touching them kids? Are you ready to turn yourself in, finally? That, I can help you with…”

More laughter.

However, Michael wasn’t sure if his remembrance was reality or delirium. Maybe he had dreamed it all. It could easily have been a nightmare or pure imagination. Nonetheless, it had been so off-putting that he had decided he was never trying to call the police and express his concern, ever again. Frankly, the problem was way more significant: he had no idea who he could call, who could – and would – really help him. In his complete, overbearing paranoia, everyone had become an enemy or a potential one. Was he right? Was he wrong? He didn’t know. How could he know?

“And who… I mean… who helped you eventually?”

Lisa’s voice sounded quiet and thin. She was sitting up on the bed, arms wrapped around her knees, her naked body covered by the sheets. Just looking at him. Needing so much to just reach out and touch him.

What she really wanted to ask was, why didn’t you call me. But she also knew that she was in no position to let those words slip.

After all, she had made it very clear that she was indifferent to Michael. Hell, she had even told him over the phone, with a coldness that had scared her. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t true, that it had never been true, and that she would never have been able to lie to him had they been face to face. Her words had devastated him because eventually, he had somehow believed that she was telling the truth. And, to not blow up into a million minuscule particles, Michael had done the only thing he knew: he had iced Lisa out for good. Not from his life, not entirely, but certainly from his heart. At the very least, he had tried so hard to accomplish that impossible feat.

It didn’t matter that they had sporadically slept together again a few times, even after that phone call. Michael’s body was there, but his heart was missing in action. His heart was gone, completely hibernated. The ever-present connection between him and Lisa was always there. Their sexual chemistry was still explosive, their attraction all-consuming, but he had become comatose from an emotional point of view. His soul was unresponsive. Absent.

“Ah… I’m not going to dig into the details, Lise… I hope you can understand that.”

He cleared his throat and scratched his beard. He, too, was sitting up on the bed, his back resting against the headboard, the sheets covering his lower body. He looked gorgeous and tormented, and the peace Lisa had seen in his eyes while they were making love now appeared only sporadically, like foam in the waves.

“I understand… I do.” Her gaze dropped. She did understand. It was painful, but she accepted it. “You don’t need to say much, baby. As long as you’re safe, it’s all that matters.”

The time to try to push him and push and push him until he snapped and retaliated had long gone, together with their marriage. This, all of this, was different. He would say what he wanted to say and she would be OK with it. Whatever it was.

He reached out and took her hand. He sighed.

“When I moved to Bahrain, I made some friends… They had no connection with the 2009 shows, or with the people directly or indirectly involved in the tour, really… They were just so disconnected from everything going on in my life at that time, that I thought it could be safe for me to call them instead of reaching out to people gravitating around me… For all I knew, they were all part of the same circle, and I didn’t know if I could trust them any longer. I mean…” He blinked. “I know that can’t possibly be true, but at that time… It made all the sense in the world for me to talk to someone who was no longer involved in my life.”

Lisa knew that the friends he had made in the Middle East were influential, wealthy people with many connections on so many levels. People who in turn had other friends, who were friends with someone else, and so on. Some of those people, Michael felt he could trust. When it came to others, it was all about money. It didn’t matter. Everything was about money anyway. Always had been.

“And they helped me. In the only way they knew how, but they did…” He stayed quiet for a long time, organizing his thoughts. “At first, a couple of their guys became part of my security team. To keep an eye on me. They knew what I was afraid of… and they had the right medical training to help me, if necessary… Which eventually came in handy… as I’m sure you can imagine.”

Lisa didn’t say anything but set her jaw. She wondered why none of the people being part of Michael’s life at that time, people who had seen him getting thinner and thinner, more and more gaunt and exhausted and incoherent as days went by, had merely taken his skinny ass to the nearest hospital. In her mind, there was nothing else that needed to be done. No emails or internal communications, no whispered words of worry. Just take the man to the hospital, snatch him away from the environment that is damaging him so much. Instead, Michael had been forced to resort to the most unthinkable solution.

“They took me away, Lisa… That’s what they did. That was the only thing left to do… For my safety, and for that of my loved ones.”

His eyes dropped on his hands, resting in his lap.

“What about the body?”

She was almost afraid to ask.

“There was no body. I did go into cardiac arrest again that night, and when the doctor left the room, I was brought back by one of the guys that my friends had sent to help me… Conrad didn’t know that the man was always there, that he would check on me every time he left, every night, just to make sure… The paramedics… they also were part of the team. Someone at the hospital was, too. I was brought there in critical conditions, but nobody died. Conrad was honest when he said that I was still alive when the paramedics arrived… Barely, but I was.” He snorted. “…He probably wondered why, though… Since at that point I was supposed to be pretty much dead already…”

Lisa didn’t know what to say. The shock she felt turned into complete stillness. Her limbs felt numb.

“I was flown to the Middle East a couple of days later. I stayed there for two years, building my new identity and my new life. Most of all, getting as healthy and strong as I could… So that I could start the most important performance of my entire life…”

There was a shadow of bitter sarcasm in his voice.

“What about your family… your kids…”

Michael sighed and rubbed his chin with the palm of his hand.

“Some of them know, some don’t… And those who don’t know, I don’t want them to know, ever… I have my reasons for that, believe me. I gotta stay safe, I can’t risk it… The kids… they know the truth now. For a while, they had to believe they had lost me, though… and I’m not sure I will ever be able to forgive myself for that… But again… What other option did I have… I would have died for real, Lise… There was just no escape for me. So… I try to appease myself by thinking that my children were subjected to the lesser evil, after all…”

“Does it work?” Lisa studied him, the little crease on her forehead noticeable. It was always there when she was worried. Or pained. “Can you make peace with yourself? With what you had to do… to save yourself.”

His eyes welled up.

“Only sometimes.”

“The kids… Do they see you?”

“Not frequently. Not as much as I’d like.” A sad smile appeared on his lips. “The older they all get, the more they’ll see me… I’m sorry I can’t be there for them as much as I’d love to, but still… what else can I do, really?”

Lisa sighed. He was right. All things considered, the public persona he had so hardly worked to build during his career, throughout his entire life, had ended up becoming a prison that could only be escaped by dying. Every other consideration was futile.

“I can never go back to the US. You know that, right? I can’t live there…”

She lowered her head and looked up at him.

“I know. I understand why you can’t.”

“I ain’t going back there and risk the consequences… I may have had the most understandable reasons in the world to do what I did, but they would never forgive me… They’d never try to understand what happened or truly investigate to find out why they were trying to kill me… and they were Lisa, believe me… They were out to get me… It wouldn’t have been accidental… You know it… I had told you already… Over the phone, remember? That they wanted my ass. But if I go back, they won’t care… Because it’s me we’re talking about, here… I am, and always will be, hunted.”

His voice was firm, but there was an undercurrent of tension and bitterness there that Lisa recognized as very familiar. However, he was not paranoid. He was clear-headed, and he was right.

Lisa knew that Michael was thinking about what he had to endure – the false allegations, the trial, the rumors, the lies, the slandering. Sheer persecution. A vendetta that had kept spreading for over twenty years, with the support of the media and widespread ignorance. He was tired of it all, utterly devoid of trust in the system, and he had all the reasons to stay away from it.

“Did you find out who wanted to kill you? And why?”

She knew he would not answer, but she had to ask anyway. She interlaced her fingers with his.

“Yeah… But I’m not gonna say… I don’t want you to be in danger, and I ain’t taking any risks… Leave that burden on me, and me alone… There’s nothing else you need to know but the fact that I’m here now.”

Lisa’s eyes were wide open in the darkness, transfixed on the ceiling. From time to time, the silence of the room was interrupted by the roar of the rain or the crackling of lightings. She couldn’t sleep. She had too much to digest.

She turned her head lightly, then her entire body, and watched Michael sleep. He had dozed off after talking to her for hours and now laid down on his stomach, completely naked, the sheets covering him at the hips, his solid back bare and exposed.

Lisa watched the way his face relaxed in his sleep, his mouth only slightly open, his cheek pressed in the pillow, his hair wild. He looked exhausted and beautiful. And childlike somehow, despite his scruffy appearance. Lisa let out a sad smile, finding somehow funny how their roles had reversed at that very moment. Usually, Michael was the one who had issues sleeping, and she would try to stay awake with him. Now it was the opposite. She couldn’t sleep, not only because of the things he had told her, but also because she was so scared to lose him again if only she closed her eyes.

If this was a dream, she was not sure she ever wanted to wake up.

She kept staring at the way his eyebrows twitched in his sleep and listened to his deep breathing, thinking about that day in June 2009. When she had imagined his body cold and motionless. Emptied of his beautiful spirit, of that spark. Lifeless. Gone. A lash of real pain, intense desperation and anguish took her breath away for a second when her mind registered and replayed the memory. She gulped for air, her heart beating furiously in her chest. She realized that she was on the verge of a panic attack and, instinctively, albeit reluctantly – in fear of waking him up – she reached over and rested the palm of her hand on Michael’s naked back. She felt his warm skin and closed her eyes, trying to regulate her breathing by listening to his. After a few failed attempts, she finally made it. She was safe for now. There he was. The pillar of her sanity.

“Oh, baby…” She whispered, pushing back the rising tears, suddenly feeling full of understanding and compassion for the immense burden he had to carry on his shoulders, all alone. For the drastic decisions that he had been forced to make, and for the terrible and implacable reasons that had inevitably guided his outcome.

“Lisa…”

He opened his eyes slowly. His sleep was still as fragile as crystal.

“I am sorry… I didn’t want to wake you up.”

She scooted closer to him and kissed his shoulder, her lips lingering there, against his skin.

Michael sighed softly. He liked to be touched. She could see it by the way his face relaxed.

“It’s OK… I don’t mind… Actually, I didn’t even want to fall asleep… I feel like I’m wasting my time if I keep sleeping.”

“You’re not wasting any time… I’m here… I’m not going anywhere. You can rest as much as you want, baby…” She kept kissing his warm skin, over and over again. “I’ll always be here when you wake up.”

But he didn’t look like he wanted to sleep any longer. He rolled to the side, moved closer and his lips reached for hers, gently probing, kissing.

Lisa sighed against his mouth and placed her hand on the back of his head. She felt the soft texture of his curls. They kissed like that, in that excruciatingly slow manner, for a very long time. When she broke the kiss, her blue gaze sunk into his dark eyes.

“Was I supposed to know? About you… About the truth?”

Michael blinked, studying her.

“No…” He replied eventually, softly, the back of his hand stroking her hips now, the curve of her waist.

She didn’t know how she felt about that. Not so good, anyway.

“Why not?”

“Why would I have wanted to drag you into this?” He kept stroking her skin, his fingers moving over the small of her back, running along her spine and up to the nape of her neck. She shivered under his touch. “You looked happy… You had your own family… a husband… the twins. You said… you were indifferent…”

The words brought back a faint trace of sorrow in his eyes. Instead, what he saw reflected in her eyes was a brand new definition for the very concept of regret.

“We’ll have to talk about that too, Michael… sooner or later you gotta hear what I have to say.”

He scooted even closer and kissed her again, their foreheads touching.

“You don’t need to say anything. I already know.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve seen your interview.” He made a face. “…With Oprah.”

Lisa pulled back. “You did?”

“Yeah…”

He didn’t look happy. In retrospect, she wasn’t happy with the outcome either.

“And you really think that was all I had to say?” She frowned and leaned up on her elbow. “Did you notice how she kept interrupting me? Besides, she edited a lot of shit… That was not all I wanted to say.”

Michael chuckled and shook his head.

“She’s a witch. I do hope that was not all you had to say about the matter… But I know… you know, about the indifferent part. That it was bullshit, I mean. And let me be clear… I already knew that, but it was nice to hear you admit it.” He smirked. “So… don’t think I can’t figure out a lot of stuff by myself. I’m still good at that.”

“You still have a big head. That much is clear.”

Despite her dry tone, it was obvious that she was taking his bait and was more than willing to play with him.

“I just know more than you ever give me credit for.” He was still grinning. “And more than you’ll ever believe.”

“Well, I’m glad to know your immense humbleness is still there… For a split second, I thought you had become an arrogant asshole…”

She reached out and caressed his naked skin, from his shoulder to the side of his neck, then his collarbone and chest.

Michael pulled her closer and she found herself draped over his body once again. The feeling was heavenly.

“Yeah? Well… Just so you know…” His husky voice against her lips stirred all kinds of right sensations. They kissed, and she welcomed his tongue into her mouth. “It’s not the only thing that’s still there…”

Her hand slid under the sheets and found him warm and hard. She loved how responsive he still was to her touch.

“It’s not the only immense thing about you, either…”

He smiled, grabbing her ass and pressing her down on his hips. Lisa moaned and bit down on his chin.

“Why don’t you let me show you just how humble I am…”

And so he did.

He showed her his humbleness, again and again, until the storm was long gone and the sky started to turn blue.

Chapter song