Strangers

woke up shouting, 'Stay away, stay away, stay away!" And this morning, the knife…"
        "Knife?" Parker said. "You didn't tell me about a knife."
        "Woke up behind the furnace, hiding again. Had a butcher's knife. I'd removed it from the rack in the kitchen while I was sleeping."
        "For protection? From what?"
        "From whatever… from whoever's stalking me."
        "And who is stalking you?"
        Dom shrugged. "Nobody that I'm aware of."
        "I don't like this. You could've cut yourself, maybe badly."
        "That's not what scares me the most."
        "So what scares you the most?"
        Dom looked around at the other people on the terrace. Though some had followed Parker Faine's bit of theater with the waiter, no one was now paying the least attention to him or Dominick.
        "What scares you the most?" Parker repeated.
        "That I might… might cut someone else."
        Incredulous, Faine said, "You mean take a butcher's knife and… go on a murdering rampage in your sleep? No chance."
        He gulped his margarita. "Good heavens, what a melodramatic notion! Thankfully, your fiction is not quite so sloppily imagined. Relax, my friend. You're not the homicidal type."
        "I didn't think I was the sleepwalking type, either."
        "Oh, bullshit. There's an explanation for this. You're not mad. Madmen never doubt their sanity."
        "I think I'm going to have to see a psychiatrist, a counselor of some kind. And have a few medical tests."
        "The medical tests, yes. But put a hold on the psychiatrist. That's a waste of time. You're no more neurotic than psychotic."
        The waiter returned with more nachos, salsa, a dish of chopped onions, a beer, and a fifth margarita.
        Parker surrendered his empty glass, took the full one. He scooped up some of the corn chips with generous globs of guacamole and sour cream, spooned some onions on top, and ate with an appreciation only one step removed from manic glee.
        "I wonder if this problem of yours is somehow related to the changes you underwent two summers ago."
        Puzzled, Dom said, "What changes?"
        "You know what I'm talking about. When I first met you in Portland six years ago, you were a pale, retiring, unadventurous slug."
        "Slug?"
        "It's true, and you know it. You were bright, talented, but a slug nonetheless. You know why you were a slug? I'll tell you why. You had all those brains and all that talent, but you were afraid to use them. You were afraid of competition, failure, success, life. You just wanted to plod along, unnoticed. You dressed drably, spoke almost inaudibly, dreaded calling attention to yourself. You took refuge in the academic world because there was less competition there. God, man, you were a timid rabbit burrowing in the earth and curling up in its den."
        "Oh, yeah? If I was all that disgusting, why on earth did you ever go out of your way to strike up a friendship with me?"
        "Because, you thick-headed booby, I saw through your masquerade. I saw beyond the timidity, saw through the practiced dullness and the mask of insipidness. I sensed something special in you, saw glimpses and glimmers of it. That's what I do, you know. I see what other people can't. That's what any good artist does. He sees what most cannot."
        "And you called me insipid?"
        "It's true-about what an artist does and about you being a rabbit. Remember how long you knew me before you found enough confidence to admit being a writer? Three months!"
        "Well, in those days, I wasn't really a writer."
        "You had drawers full of stories! More than a hundred short stories, not one of which had ever been submitted to any publication anywhere! Not just because you were afraid of rejection. You were afraid of acceptance, too. Afraid of success. How many months did I have to hammer at you till you finally sent a couple to market?"
        "I don't remember."
        "I do. Six months! I wheedled and cajoled and demanded and pushed and nagged until you broke down and started submitting stories. I'm a persuasive character, but prying you out of your rabbit hole was almost beyond even my formidable talent for persuasion."
        With an almost obscene enthusiasm, Parker scooped up dripping masses of nachos and stuffed himself. After slurping his margarita, he said, "Even when your short stories started selling, you wanted to