“And? We’ve literally almost died five times in the past few days. I’m not mad at you. I just want to go home. I’m done.”
Kenner leaned back against the headboard, eyes closed, and took a long drink. He looked old, de-pleted, his brow thickened and deep, his wild hair full of gray. Coming in on the tail end of ten lifetimes. Abram once saw Kenner as the last gleaming thread connecting him to his youth, to blind hope, but in this moment, Kenner became Abram’s father, a pitiful drunk clinging to an imagined past.
“Kenner . . . I’m forty years old. I’m broke. My art is going nowhere. I’ve finally found a girl I get along with, and I’m trying to get my life together so I don’t end up losing her. I don’t know what I’m do-ing, but Edie loves me for the time being. I’m trying to create a new life, and this entire trip has felt like a step backwards for me. Artificial. Like we’re both acting our old parts. You’re still my best friend, Ken-ner. You know that.”
“I know that. I know. But you’ve seen me let go of everything piece by piece. You watched it,” Kenner said, slurring.
“So you expect me to let go of everything? Drop my girlfriend and my apartment and my art and just party with you 24/7? One long vision quest?”
“No. But you have to understand, nobody wants anything to do with me except lunatics. And you maybe once a year, if I’m lucky. Why is that? My fault? Am I the asshole? Aside from drinking and playing poker, I lead a clean life, right? Clean like a bone. I’m getting older, and I’m tired. It’s like a slow suicide for cowards. The body is like a river, though. It’s dry out here in this desert, and nothing is real. Surrounded by ghosts this whole time, right? San Francisco. The city is a desert, too, just a different kind. A dying desert. Just wind and human grains of sand. You know what I mean?”
Abram saw himself as a child again. A captive audience to his father’s 3:00 a.m. drunken mono-logues. How had Kenner arrived to take this role? Abram often thought that every person he met just turned out to be a slight variation of the same four or five people. Archetypes. Kenner the Father. The Hermit. What about all the strange people he had met in the past few days? The result of stepping too far outside of his predestined path? Reality made up of patterns, forms, simple images, waking dreams. Abram felt slightly better, clearer somehow.
Kenner drifted off to sleep, the empty cup in his hand resting gently next to him on the bed. Abram moved from the floor to a chair against the wall, watching Kenner sleep. He envied him, his thick-glazed nirvana, and then Kenner suddenly spoke.
“At the end of my path. Fucking invisible. Nothing worse than being invisible. It’s good, though. To reach the light, I have to bury myself in darkness. Maybe? Right? It’s okay, it’s okay. When I’m done, you’ll keep going. A continuation.”
“You’re fine,” Abram said. “You aren’t going anywhere. You always get on a suicidal trip when you’re drunk.”
Kenner didn’t answer. He began breathing heavily again, unconscious. Abram stood and looked at the door. He felt something waiting on the other side, something unimaginable. A mask. Oblivion. He carefully checked that the door was locked and then went into the bathroom and drank water from the faucet with his hand. He looked at himself in the mirror. Unrecognizable. He locked the bathroom door, closed and locked the bathroom window, and lay in the dry bathtub, wrapped in the comforter. He heard Kenner snoring. He placed the gold bar at his feet, covering the drain to block the imagined en-trance of potential spiders, and fell asleep under the flat white fluorescent light.
29
Kenner opened his eyes to a woman kneeling beside the bed. She touched his hand and ca-ressed his face. A naked woman, entirely blue with strange eyes. The eyes of something not human, not animal. A world-encompassing black storm. Not benevolent, not evil, beyond human concept.
There was a quiet knock on the door. Kenner sat up, numb, confused, scanning the motel room. He wondered where he was. Another knock on the door. He stood, coughed, retched, and stumbled to the door. When he opened it, the younger woman, Laura, was holding a paper bag with grease spots at the bottom and a paper tray with two large coffees. She forced a wide, business-like smile.
“Good morning,” she said. “You ready to go get your truck? I brought you coffee.”
“Uh, yeah, yeah. Great. Give me like five minutes.”
“I’ll meet you in the lobby,” she said.
Kenner closed the door and gathered his thoughts. He went to the bathroom door and found it locked. He wondered if he had inadvertently locked himself out of his bathroom in a drunken stupor the night before. He couldn’t remember anything. In desperation, he pissed into a small plastic trash can near the bed and rinsed his mouth out with bottled water, spitting into the trash can. He ran his fingers through his hair in the mirror and then self-consciously ventured out into the hallway, still wearing the spandex yoga outfit. He knocked on Abram’s door, but there was no answer. He beat on the door and called to him. Nothing. He was concerned but then assumed Abram must already be waiting downstairs with the lawyer.
“Where’s Abram?” Kenner said, stumbling into the lobby. “I figured he’d be down here. He wasn’t in his room, or he’s not answering his—”
“He’s with Betty. They’re back at the police station, straightening out some paperwork,” Laura said in monotone. “Let’s go to the impound lot to get your truck, and then we’ll meet them at the police station.”
Kenner wanted to believe her even though his gut told him she was lying. Her eyes were blue; she had taken out the solid blackout contacts from the night before or had replaced them with blue ones. She now had a smattering of artificial freckles across her nose and wore a pastiche of a Midwestern-style collegiate outfit. An attempt at natural, almost wholesome, in spite of her cosmopolitan shaved-back hairline and lack of eyebrows.
They walked along the desolate road in the forgotten little town, passing a few squat, boarded-up houses. The area was made up mostly of light industrial or abandoned light industrial. Kenner sipped his coffee, and they ate donuts out of the bag as they walked. Kenner noticed that Laura had an odd gait that could only be described as methodical, as if she were counting her steps. Nearly tiptoe in vintage sneakers. Both of the women, and even the red-haired child, seemed to carry out even the smallest ac-tion with thoughtful precision. Kenner was attracted to Laura and wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t his type, but it had been so long Kenner scarcely remembered his type. Did he ever have a type? His attraction to Laura perplexed him because it felt artificial, as if he were being influenced toward it invisibly, algo-rithmically, Laura sending subtle, subliminal cues. He wondered what the small woman walking next to him was thinking and sensed something beyond his understanding.
“Abram went to your room last night,” she said, breaking the silence and startling Kenner.
“Oh yeah . . . he did. I remember now. Weird. Yeah, he didn’t feel good. Maybe the sandwich he ate. Mine wasn’t sitting right with me, either. I had to buy a kombucha to settle my stomach.”
“It’s time I came clean with you, Kenner. Abram is unwell.”
“Unwell?”
“Betty and I have been hired to bring Abram back to San Francisco. He needs immediate medical care. He’s having a psychotic break as a consequence of exposure to certain materials at his last artist residency. It’s a public health emergency. Others were affected.”
“The artist thing at the satellite company? What was he exposed to? He seems fine to me, just tired and stressed out.”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss the details. But . . . I like you. I feel like I can trust you, and you should know the entire situation. Can I trust you, Kenner?”
Laura stopped and grabbed Kenner’s wrist, dropping the bag of donuts. She turned to him, slowly rose on her toes, and kissed him, staring at him with artificial blue eyes.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” she said in a flat, emotionless voice, like bad acting, but it was somehow endearing, disarming.
“No, no,
it’s cool,” Kenner said, and he attempted to kiss her, but she jerked her head away and continued walking. He stood, confused and embarrassed for a moment, and then caught up to her. His hands trembled and he didn’t know what to do with them; the spandex had no pockets. He felt naked and nearly was. A dirty white autonomous semi roared by like a missile, engulfing them in a cloud of dust.
“What was Abram exposed to? Does it have something to do with the memory card?” Kenner said.
Laura stopped walking and turned toward him. “Yes. It does have to do with the memory card. Did you come into contact with it yourself? Did you see what was on the memory card? Do you know where the memory card is located?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, one thing at a time. I don’t know what happened to the card. Abram had it. Then a lot of crazy shit happened to us. Maybe he left it at the Blue Lady cult. Did you ask him?”
“The Blue Lady?” Laura said, visibly affected, but her specific reaction was unreadable to Kenner.
“So if I touched the card, does that mean that I could get sick, too?” he said.
“Did you see what was on the card?”
“I saw a little bit, I guess. It was mostly corrupted files, though.”
They reached a rusty corrugated metal airplane hangar next to a pawn shop. The pawn shop ap-peared to be open with the lights on, but there was no one inside. Laura took out a key and unlocked the twin hangar doors.
Inside, a truck gleamed. The same make and model, the same color, same interior, even the same license plate number, but brand new.
“This isn’t my truck. This truck is new.”
“I don’t know,” Laura said, climbing into the passenger side.
“Are the keys in here?” he said, climbing in cautiously.
“In the ignition.”
Kenner started the truck and received a destination prompt. “See, this for sure isn’t my truck. I disabled autonomous mode and—”
“I don’t fucking know,” Laura said as she impatiently tapped out coordinates on the console.
The truck began slowly out of the hangar and onto the road.
Laura examined the spotless interior. She stopped and stared at a seemingly random point on the dashboard in front of her and then leaned forward and pressed and held her thumb down on the area.
“What did you see on the card? Speak quietly,” she whispered.
“Why? What does it matter?”
“Abram is very sick and you may be, too, and it is very important that you tell me exactly what you saw. Trust me, Kenner. I care about you very much.”
“Okay . . . Who did you say hired you?” Kenner said. “And why would you give a shit about me? You just met me last night.”
“I’ve known you for quite some time. I know about your time in Oakland and before that in Den-ver. I know what you eat. I know when you sleep. I know your bathroom schedule. I know your porn preferences and where you get your news. I know what upsets you and what brings you comfort and why.”
“You’re fucking crazy.”
“Tell me what was on the card.”
“I’m not telling you shit. Who hired you? Are you another collections agent? I don’t have any-thing.”
“I know where you buried your dog in a wooded meadow on Mt. Shasta. I know that you cried alone at the graveside for approximately eighteen minutes. Afterward, you drove to a nearby casino and drank in the parking lot and then entered the casino and lost three hundred dollars at a poker table. Ta-ble 3A. Later that evening, you slept with a woman you met online—or should I say attempted sexual intercourse—and then you left at 1:00 a.m., drunk, and cried alone in your truck in a Walmart parking lot. You contemplated suicide and wrote Abram a long email but passed out before sending it. The time was 3:15 a.m., April 29.”
“Enough,” Kenner said, tears in his eyes.
“I know you, Kenner. I know you much more thoroughly than you know yourself. I can see the fur-rows that guide the wheel. It’s my job.”
“Who are you?”
“What did you see on the card?”
“Tell me who you are and what this is all about, and I’ll tell you everything I remember.”
Laura looked at the area on the dash where she still held her thumb.
“We don’t have much time,” she said flatly. “I work for the government.”
“Like what? FBI, CIA?”
“No. We’ve been sent to retrieve Abram. He’s very ill.”
“Bullshit.”
“We’ve been sent to retrieve the memory card and find out what and how much you and Abram know and if you disseminated that information,” Laura said in staccato, staring coldly into Kenner’s eyes.
“I told you, the card was damaged or encrypted or some shit. We were only able to read a few pag-es.”
“What did you read?”
“Something about NRO. The National Reconnaissance Office. That was at the top of a few of the pages. Is that who you work for?”
“What else did you read?”
“I don’t remember. Something about implanted memories and something about a cephela—an octopus, I think?”
“An octopus? Are you sure?”
“Yeah, also something about DMT-A and—”
The back window of the truck exploded, spraying tinted glass throughout the cab. The sound of another gunshot rang out as the driver’s side rearview mirror popped and vaporized. Kenner and Laura dropped, crouching on the floorboard.
“Are you alright?” Kenner said reflexively to Laura, whose milky white face was dotted with blood spray and tiny embedded pieces of glass. She didn’t answer as she tapped new commands into the con-sole. The truck sped up and took a sharp right. A thud and scrape in the bed of the truck, and then the muzzle of a gun jammed into the broken back window. Laura grabbed the muzzle and pulled it, and the person attached to it, through the broken window in one fluid, powerful motion. She bit into the pale young gunman’s throat and ripped it open, blood spraying into the cab. Gurgled screams. The gun dis-charged, shattering the passenger window behind Laura, who took the gun, turned it around, and emp-tied it point-blank into the man’s skull and through the roof of the vehicle. She shoved the body back through the window, steadied and aimed, and shot at the sound of screeching tires behind them. She shot once more while simultaneously entering coordinates into the console with her other hand. All of her movements were precise and measured. Kenner crouched, pale and trembling, covered in gore.
30
Abram awoke in the empty bathtub. He could see it was daylight now through the small, frosted window. He stood and removed the comforter wrapped around him, tossed it on the bathroom floor, and turned on the shower. He picked up the gold bar from the floor of the tub and placed it on the soap rack.
He remembered very little from the night before: some kind of catharsis, exhaustion, strange dreams. He thought about the concept of memory. Memories corrupted and faded, easily tricked. Mem-ories that haunted for a lifetime or disappeared in an instant.
He thought about Edie and his stomach hurt. He thought he would borrow the clerk’s phone in the lobby and try calling her again. A vision of an octopus appeared in his mind, then a long gray face and then nothing, white light. He opened his eyes to the warm water streaming over him. Abram washed with the small, strongly scented, green motel soap, rinsed, exited, and stood in the steam, star-ing at the faceless, flesh-colored mass in the mirror where his head and eyes would be.
Having no clothes, he dried himself and then wrapped himself again in the comforter. The bed-room was empty. The plastic trash receptacle next to the bed had piss in it, and the room smelled like morning piss. Abram assumed that Kenner must have already gone down for breakfast. He wondered what time it was. The lawyer, Betty, had told him they would go to the police station at noon. Or did she say noon? He couldn’t remember. He thought again of Edie. Unlocking the door to his apartment, find-ing Edie in bed, smiling, covers pulled up to her neck, surrounded with stuffed animals. He obsess
ed over their bed. The only way to set his world right was to sleep one night in that particular bed and no other bed, no motel bed. One night to reset everything.
Abram found the door to his motel room unlocked. He changed back into the absurd spandex yo-ga outfit, which he found in the middle of the bed as if he had vanished out of his clothes the night be-fore. He made his way into the lobby and the make-your-own-waffle bar, wondering if there were any other guests in the motel. The desk clerk was missing, and the shabby breakfast spread appeared half complete.
Abram leaned into the front desk window and found a pair of shoes and one sock strewn on the floor, along with three large, dark drops of blood. Or more likely spilled syrup or jam. Abram made a sad waffle and ate it off a very small, limp paper plate. The door opened with an electronic chime and Betty walked in, looking even more impeccable than the day before.
“They have a make-your-own-waffle bar,” Abram said, swallowing nervously.
“Wonderful. Did you sleep well last night?”
“Umm, yeah. I think so.”
“You think so?”
“Sorry, I’m still waking up. I figured Kenner and Laura would be down here having breakfast, too. What time is it?”
“They went to retrieve Kenner’s vehicle. I’d like to go over some of the details of your case.”
“Sure,” Abram said.
Betty sat across from him. “So the police officers said you mentioned a memory card in your pos-session.”
“I never mentioned a memory card.”
“Maybe you forgot that you mentioned it.”
“I never said anything to them about anything. I never even told them Edie’s phone number, but you said that’s how you found me, which I still don’t underst—”
The Fact of the Moon Is Stranger Than Most Dreams Page 18