Artificial Light

by James Greer

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Where names of actual dead persons have been used, these are fictional renderings and are not meant to bear any resemblance to actual persons bearing the same name.

  Published by Akashic Books

  ©2006 James Greer

  eISBN-13: 978-1-617750-85-4

  ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-00-2

  ISBN-10: 1-933354-00-3

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2005934826

  All rights reserved

  First printing

  Little House on the Bowery

  c/o Akashic Books

  PO Box 1456

  New York, NY 10009

  Akashic7@aol.com

  www.akashicbooks.com

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Artificial Light: Editor’s Note

  Notebook One

  Notebook Two

  Notebook Three

  Notebook Four

  Notebook Five

  Notebook Six

  Notebook Seven

  Notebook Eight

  Notebook Nine

  Notebook Ten

  Notebook Eleven

  Notebook Twelve

  Notebook Thirteen

  Notebook Fourteen

  Notebook Fifteen

  Notebook Sixteen

  Notebook Seventeen

  Notebook Eighteen

  Notebook Nineteen

  Notebook Twenty

  Notebook Twenty-One

  Appendix A: Sources Consulted

  Appendix B

  Elle se plaignait d’amour, elle demandait des ailes.

  —Flaubert, Madame Bovary

  To S.A.

  Artificial Light: Editor’s Note

  The book you are about to read has had an unusual, though by now familiar, genesis. Even those who do not as a rule follow developments in the literary world will have been acquainted with the circumstances surrounding its discovery and subsequent celebrity, and doubtless will be drawn to the work by the sensational allure of those circumstances rather than by the prospect of wading through its author’s complexly immature prose. Fiat Lux has, since the events circumscribed herein, become a cause, or at least an incident, rather than a writer, a shrewd foreknowledge of which development may be what caused her to instruct, in a postscript appended to the final notebook, that the manuscript be turned over to this university, which, after due consideration, has decided to publish Artificial Light through its own press.

  Its contents are here reproduced for the most part in their original form. I have chosen to respectfully disagree with those who argued that judicious pruning of the manuscript would have produced a more readable, coherent work, in the belief that Ms. Lux, under whatever conditions she undertook to compose her book, assembled her words with some care, and that an underlying structural consistency will reveal itself to the patient reader. A more thoroughly edited version may well prove useful at some point, but in the opinion of this editor the first public manifestation of Artificial Light, which will inevitably color and shape both the immediate perception of the book and all future editions, should—must—be as faithful as possible, especially with regard to the four-part structure of its narrative. It is my hope that the mass of Fiat’s text will generate a gravitational field of serious scholarship and in so doing begin the slow, ineluctable process of drawing attention away from the lurid aspects of her case and toward the close study of what she has written.

  I grant it’s not likely anytime soon that objectivity will be restored to the matter. Too many issues remain unresolved, including many connected to the book itself. Certainly, the way the manuscript was found—in twenty-one small spiral-bound notebooks handwritten in a tiny, tidy hand, with a remarkable absence of erasures or corrections, the notebooks stacked in sequential order at Kurt C—’s residence, underneath an enormous window, the panes of which had been punctiliously and thoroughly smashed—retains an aura of mystery, years after the fact. Crime scene investigators determined that the window had been broken from within, according to their report, publicly available to any interested party. I’m not sure any of the details that report contains are telling. The panes of the window were smashed, the notebooks were found, confiscated by authorities, brushed for prints and tested for DNA, and when none of these forensic tools proved fruitful, the manuscript itself was scoured for cryptographic clues. Eventually the people assigned to investigate gave up, the notebooks were turned over to W—University, and the file was closed—officially, The Disappearance of Fiat Lux remains an open case, an unsolved mystery, but no one in a position to care does, any longer—and so What Happened has passed from a criminal matter to a cultural matter, and as with all cultural matter, has dispersed over time to such a degree that what few facts were ever known with any certainty have mushroomed into folklore.

  My interest is both more and less specialized. I am not a sociologist, I am not a student of folklore, and I’m not much of a textual analyst. I’m interested in the girl, Fiat Lux, and in what she wrote—not why, or how, or for whom, but what (and not what “what” means, either; that’s not the job of this edition—it is the job of this edition to allow others to figure that out, though). Because I think too little attention has been paid to the content of her writing, I have assigned myself the task, or at any rate lobbied to have the task assigned to me (the politics of the academic world are of little interest to the general reader), of editing and presenting this writing in as straightforward (i.e., un-annotated, unindexed, un-cross-referenced) a manner as possible.

  The curriculum vitae of the woman who calls herself Fiat Lux in these pages, when purged of the accumulation of legend that surrounds her disappearance, is ludicrously brief: She was born sometime in the early 1970s, in Dayton, O—, claims to have graduated from A—College in Yellow Springs, O—, claims to have worked as a librarian for the Dayton Public Library, and claims to have saved the world. None of these claims have been or can be verified—especially without identifying the woman behind the pseudonym, which has proved impossible, to date, in part because she’s done an excellent job of disguising herself. Ms. Lux disappeared from the object of her salvatory labors sometime in the spring of 1994, and no further details have been uncovered, despite the best efforts of a troop of journalists and academics fascinated by the various aspects of her putative existence.

  Some questions of fact are easier to resolve: a) it is true that Orville Wright lived in a mansion on Hawthorn Hill until his death in 1948. There is no way of knowing whether he was, in fact, an opium addict, although certainly no other source survives that could or would corroborate such a claim, and the diaries Fiat purports to have consulted have not been discovered; b) it is true that Kurt C—also lived at Hawthorn Hill, and that his body was discovered there in early spring of 1994. His death was ruled by the coroner a suicide by self-inflicted gunshot, and a substantial quantity of narcotics was found in his blood, according to the toxicological report obtained by us. As with any infamous public figure, rumors have abounded concerning the ways and means of his passing; there are those who insist, rather pathetically, that his death was a ruse and he still lives, fat and balding, on a paradisal island far from the rigors of fame; c) the sections attributed to “Trip Ryvvers” are probably fiction, as no book or manuscript of the title cited by Fiat seems to exist; having said that, many of the specific historical facts cited in these sections are ironically the easiest to validate; and most of them have proved accurate in their smallest detail; d) the “Mary Valentine” sections would also appear to be fiction, though we have identified an incident which in its broad outline corresponds to the accidental death of Mic
hael Goodlife; but despite the repeated efforts of my research staff, no one who knew the person we have tentatively identified as Michael Goodlife will speak to us; e) Sean O’Hanlon was of course very much a real writer, and his long sad slide into insanity has been well-documented in the two biographies that have appeared in the past three years, prompted, possibly, by the renewed interest in O’Hanlon’s work as a result of Fiat Lux’s passionate advocacy herein.

  At the risk of appearing flippant, I’m not sure that any of even this scant information is important. Certainly the question of what’s “real” and what’s “fake” in Fiat’s manuscript is unhelpful at best. Her list of Sources Consulted, appended here at the end of the text proper, contains a few books that do not appear to exist, or ever to have existed, a few that were inexplicably published years after this manuscript was discovered, and a few that, while undeniably extant, have eluded our efforts to pinpoint the results of their consultation in the text. Perhaps Ms. Lux meant to say that their influence was of a general nature, but we simply have no way of knowing. In other instances, she has imported whole paragraphs without attribution, sometimes from books not listed in the Sources Consulted, which can be rather annoying, from a purely editorial point of view. Treat the book as fiction (as a vocal minority of scholars would bid you do), and you will, I think, find much to enjoy and even admire, though you will sadly miss the essential point. That said, the fact—undeniable and yet indemonstrable—that Artificial Light is no more fiction than you or I, gets neither you or I anywhere we want to go.

  One not insignificant structural note: While, as noted above, the manuscript here represents every word contained in the notebooks, formatted exactly as found, I have moved the Beekeeper fragment to an appendix, rather than trying (as more than one scholar has advocated) to incorporate the material into the text. Despite the fact that the Beekeeper material is in fact interspersed with the book proper throughout the notebooks, I believe there’s enough evidence to suggest that Lux intended her fragmental “translation” as an entirely separate textural entity to treat it as such. My two main arguments can be summarized as follows: 1) Every Beekeeper entry was written on a verso page, whereas the rest of the book was written on recto pages only. 2) A nearly illegible note scribbled on a separate (verso) leaf two pages after the end of the section appears to read, “Move to end?” Admittedly these are rather shifty grounds in which to plant a flag of intent, but it’s part of my job as editor to infer thought processes in situations where the author is unavailable for consultation. In addition, I think little is gained by intermingling the Beekeeper material with the recto text, although the reader is free to take scissors in hand and snip the pages in question from the back of the book and interleave them with the rest—those interested in structural integrity should begin the insertion process on page 37.

  Especially considering the question of whether the Beekeeper section is a translation of an actual work (no record of such a book has been found, although Lux tells us that her copy was “privately printed”; the Dayton Public Library holds no record of such a book ever having existed in its collection, but that record is incomplete, as books that were sold or destroyed before the card catalog was transferred onto computers were not recorded; you begin to see how thoroughly Fiat plotted her reality) or wholly an invention, I argue, finally, that it makes sense to leave the section discrete, so that the reader may perform his or her own appendectomy, or not, as he or she wishes.

  Pamela Taylor, M.A., Ph.D.

  October 2005

  Notebook One

  You would be too: lonely and cold and scared. But the circumstances are new. Out the window, below whose sill I’m crouched, cross-legged, so that only the top of my head’s visible to anyone approaching up the hill, the first few crocus blooms have pierced a blue skin of snow. Spring cannot be far off. But in this room—more a hall than a room, with a twenty-foot-tall ceiling, walls covered in faded red fabric, floor with threadbare Arab rugs and silk-sheathed tasseled pillows—winter reigns. Dead of winter, literal, present. In the corner where I try not to look, in every other corner too. A narrow stripe of colored lozenges, stained glass, runs the length of my high window, which faces west. When the sun sets, the light filters through the red, blue, yellow of the glass and falls in rows of blurry ellipses on the blond wood of the floor: violet, tangerine, sea-green.

  Before hunkering at the window, I found a pile of empty notebooks in a desk drawer, and a few pencils. I found three large cans of tuna fish in the kitchen, and a box of crackers. I dragged an iron candleholder with six fat candles next to me, out of sight of the window but close enough to provide light to see, and scrounged from the pantry two cartons of cigarettes and a box of fireplace matches. Also a case of good red wine and a corkscrew and the coffee mug that Kurt found funny. The wine should not be kept so cold, but I have no choice.

  I have assembled these supplies, in this place, because I intend to write, for as long as I’m physically capable, until I come to the end of the story. I’m hoping I will not be interrupted before I finish, but that threat is constant, and one reason for the cold and the candles.

  If all goes to plan, you will come to know the full extent of my faults: that I am self-absorbed, melodramatic, vain, deceitful, petty, manipulative, superficial, sentimental, moody, dim: the usual human gamut: but I don’t mind. I write not to tell you about myself but to explode, by exploring, the labyrinth of self, yours and mine. If my goal were to make you like me—and that has often been my goal, in the past—I might choose a different tack, or, and I don’t say this as warning but simply as plain fact, I might choose exactly this way. But please keep in mind that I am a twenty-two-year-old girl from a town in the exact middle of America, if not geographically then spiritually, and you are therefore required by law to cut me some slack. Sometimes I don’t know myself whether I am telling the truth or constructing the truth, or whether there’s a difference, or why.

  The story I intend to tell—that I’m compelled to tell—is not my story, but it does encompass my story. I would not have elected me to write this particular story, or any story, particularly, but as things happen everyone who should have told the story—everyone who was better placed, so to speak, or better able for one reason or another—has died. Even the second-best heads, or hearts, have been incapacitated by circumstance or caprice or simple twist of fate. So there’s just me to tell the story, which certainly must extend much longer than the period to which I have been privy. Despite clear evidence of the story’s longevity, I will not discuss its origins or guess how long in the even longer course of things the chief players gamboled and japed and plotted their own ends. I only know what happened recently—the months to which I bore personal witness—which you’ll agree, when you hear its constituent sum, is bad enough, and sad enough, and probably far too long anyway.

  We first noticed Kurt C—a few weeks after he returned to Dayton, his hometown, after a period of accruing apparently world-class fame and fortune playing in a rock band (please forgive my ignorance in these matters—I love music generally, but know nothing about it specifically). He had grown up in a rough part of East Dayton, the product of an abusive and divided household, like most of us, but—unlike most of us—had shown evidence of genuine talent, upon discovering which, he lit out for the hinterlands in search of greater glory. Having found more than he wanted, he retreated to his hometown to live as much like a recluse as possible. It’s a familiar story: riches bring only problems, celebrity isolates. It’s also a wearisome story, and this is not a biography, after all.

  My theory, or what will now become my theory, is that Dayton attracts as much as it repels its natives. There’s something about this city, a kind of centrifugal force deriving from its literally central nature, its beating heartland, that creates a vacuum in the hearts of anyone who leaves, and binds those who stay with unbreakable chains. Though Kurt would have no reason to hold his hometown dear—his childhood friends, such as they were, had long
left town or died or ballooned into unrecognizable mesomorphs with mesomorphic broods and Not One Thought in their heads—he nevertheless came back. He could have settled anywhere, in any country, and lived like a Mongolian warlord, but without the need for a standing army. Instead, he came here. He came home.

  Sometime in the fall it was rumored he had bought the big mansion on Hawthorn Hill that formerly belonged to Orville Wright. The house, purpose-built to Wright’s own crazy specifications, had stood unoccupied for as long as anyone could remember, which was not long, as we were not old. The rumor, as sometimes happens, was correct, and not long afterwards Kurt moved into Albion, as he always called the place. A surprisingly small moving van pulled up in the long circular drive (it was reported, by one of us who decided to watch, I don’t remember who, not me), and a couple of movers under Kurt’s supervision unloaded a few boxes and several flight cases containing musical instruments stenciled in the way these cases generally are with the name of Kurt’s rock band. Most of the musical-looking equipment was loaded around the back and placed in a small room that I saw only once. Kurt may have spent a lot of time there but not when we were around.

  We were surprised that anyone would want the place, which was a hulking wreck, and even more surprised that Kurt did not seem inclined to perform many improvements. The mansion’s colonnaded portico and massive lawn had fallen into disrepair. There were peeling patches of paint on the white columns and the parts that weren’t peeling were blistered and dingy. The bulk of the place was brick, formerly white but aged by weather to a dusty yellow and chipped and cracked like bad teeth, as you see in movies featuring British people. My own teeth are crooked and yellowy and one incisor, victim of an adolescent root canal, has turned paralytic brown.

  Before Kurt’s arrival, Albion’s interior was mostly bare, echoey, dark. When we were teenagers, and probably before that, a ground-floor window in the back had been broken, affording easy access, and we discovered that the empty mansion was a good place to get drunk or take drugs or have sex, back when we needed a place to do these things. Now we all had apartments, or rooms of our own in houses shared with many others, who did not care if we drank or did drugs or had sex.