He laughs, lung-rattled.
“We do have a road ahead of us, Jake. But I will say you’re wrong about God. Lord knows, I wish you weren’t.”
“Why do you want to write your memoirs, Eaton?”
It’s a question I asked him on the phone but he didn’t answer. It’s the first question I ask all my clients, and I’m asking it here to gain control of the conversation.
He stops smiling and considers. “Because that’s all we have in life, isn’t it? Our memories. It’s what makes the human experience. Best to get them onto paper before it’s too late.”
“It’s a lot of money for memories,” I say. “The fee, the first-class ticket, the room at the Four Seasons. You must have a lot to say.”
“Indeed I do.”
He leans back into the chair, which hardly seems to notice his presence. A small pool of light from a Tiffany stained-glass table lamp colors his face red and blue, highlighting a day’s worth of stubble on sunken cheeks. “And, yes, it’s a lot of money. But it’s money well spent, getting us together. This project is more meaningful than I’ve told you about so far. You see, the thing of it is, I’m sick.” He pauses to cough into the crook of his elbow, perhaps for some kind of clichéd dramatic effect. “And I might not have that much time left.”
This doesn’t surprise me. How he looks, the sudden desire to write his memoirs at an early age. Still, I’m unnerved. It’s the second time in two days a stranger has told me of their impending demise.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Can I ask…” I let the question trail, allowing him to fill in the rest.
“What I have? Of course you can, Jake. There won’t be any secrets between us. You’ll know everything about me once our time together is over.”
“Yes, of course. I just thought you might not want to talk about it yet.”
“Well, I’m sure we’ll dive into more detail later, but I have a condition that is rather untreatable, at least by common Western standards. I’m hoping to find a more unorthodox convention to fight it, but haven’t come upon it yet. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.” Eaton shrugs his bony shoulders. “Hence the memoirs. I want to leave my story behind.”
Condition. Not cancer. Not tumor. Condition.
“That’s understandable. And you seem to have done well for yourself. I’m guessing you have the resources to seek alternative therapies?”
Eaton coughs again, a deep, echoing rattle inside paper-thin lungs. Maybe his condition has weakened his immune system. “I’ve learned money is a convenience but rarely a solution. Since I’ve become sick, I’ve put a lot of effort into finding an answer. And I think there’s one out there, one particular way to make me whole again. But my instincts tell me it won’t be money that gets me there. It will be something…serendipitous.”
Goddamn interesting thing for a dying man to say.
“And so here I am, left with the one true currency all of us possess.” Eaton lightly taps his index finger against his temple. “When we get to the point of death, whether we know it’s coming or not, all we’ve ever accumulated in life that matters are memories. Things we’ve done. People we’ve loved. Lands we’ve explored. Memories are the truest measure of wealth, and yet they can’t be passed down, not really. Stories can be told, but our memories, those things as unique as our fingerprints, all crumble along with our bones.”
My body tenses at his comments, and not just because of the sheer morbidity of them. Within minutes of us meeting, he’s talking about memories, my greatest vulnerability, as if he’s toying with me.
This all makes me think of Clara. Again. I look at the window to my right, its shade drawn. That’s west. Where the mountains are. She’s out there, somewhere. Maybe at this very moment she’s drawing her last breath.
The thought of it makes me feel helpless. Damn it, I should have done something more.
“What is it, Jake?”
“Excuse me?”
“You seem to be somewhere else.”
I was somewhere else. I was up in the mountains, the Maroon Bells.
“Sorry, I was just…lost in thought a bit. Something you said.”
He nods, accepting this, perhaps proud he triggered a suddenness of deep thought in me. Eaton gets up and disappears from the room, returning a minute later with two mugs. Hands one to me. Coffee with cream. I thank him and sip. No sugar.
It’s not an imaginative leap to think a person might want a cup of coffee. But to know exactly how they take it?
He sits and holds eye contact as he sips his own.
“You and your wife are breaking up,” he says.
The room feels suddenly darker. Smaller.
“How the hell did you know that?”
He cradles the mug in both hands, warming himself. “Jake, you’re here to write my memoirs. That’s a very personal thing. Do you really think I’d hire you without doing some of my own research?”
“But how did you know about my marriage? I haven’t told anyone.”
“I only know because you just confirmed it,” he says. “It’s not like I’m having you followed. Or your phone tapped.”
“So how did you—”
“All I know is an apartment was recently leased in your name in the same town as your home, an easy thing to find out. That, of course, doesn’t really mean anything. But you’re in your midthirties, married somewhat young, had a child soon after. Statistically speaking, assuming your marriage is now falling apart is the most logical conclusion.”
“It’s not falling apart,” I say.
But isn’t it?
“Okay, Jake.”
“We’re just trying to figure some things out. Not that it’s your business.”
Eaton nods. “Of course. I fully understand. Well, maybe not fully. I never married, you see.”
I’m leaning forward. Body-language experts would call this a sign of attention, perhaps aggression. “What else do you know about me?”
“Relax, Jake. Nothing your car dealer didn’t find out when you applied for the loan on your Toyota Highlander last year. Credit report kind of things.”
“So you have my social security number?”
“Please don’t be naive. It’s not that difficult to get. Besides, I’m going to tell you my deepest, darkest secrets. It’s only fair I know a few things about you.”
“That’s different. Your secrets are going into a book. You want them out there.”
“How do you know what I’m doing with the memoir? Perhaps it’s only for me.”
“Dying men don’t write memoirs for themselves. They want to be remembered.”
A broader smile.
“Well, yes, I suppose you have done this kind of thing before. Though I admit I hate being categorized so easily.”
This is going off the rails. I can’t deny I’m curious to hear his life story—and I do need the money—but if he cat-and-mouses me the whole time, we’ll never get anywhere.
“Eaton,” I say. “We need to establish some boundaries here. Otherwise, this isn’t going to work.”
“Okay,” he says, setting his mug down on a side table and sitting up in his seat. “Perhaps we’re not getting off on the right foot, and that’s my fault. I apologize. I won’t try to use my illness as an excuse, but I will say I have been more…cautious as a result. Hopefully you can understand I don’t want to waste any time, and please forgive me if I intruded. May we move forward?”
Eaton holds my gaze and I hold his, assessing him, struggling to read the energy on him as I now can with so many strangers. Yet he doesn’t give me much to work with. It’s like I’m trying to read the emotional energy of a hologram.
“I’m going to tell you right now,” I say. “I don’t like you investigating me. I know you’re paying me a lot of money, but don’t forget a good chunk is nonrefundable and I can just wa
lk. You’re the subject, not me. So from here on out, the questions are about you and you only. Can we agree on that?”
“Why, yes, Jake, of course. Now, tell me, how exactly does this all work?”
He stares at me almost too attentively as I speak, and more than once I look away.
“I’m in town for three days,” I say, “and over those days we’ll meet extensively. I’ll be recording our conversations as I interview you about your past. That should be enough time to develop a base of material and, hopefully, find a thematic direction of the book, an element that informs the story of your life.”
“Thematic direction?” A crooked smile.
“Everyone’s life has a thematic direction,” I answer. “But sometimes you have to do a lot of digging to figure out what that is.”
He looks to have a thousand questions for me, but he manages to simply nod in acquiescence.
Eaton starts at the beginning, before he was born, and tells me about his parents. How they met, when they married, what his father did for a living. Then he tells me they both died when he was young, and for the first time since I arrived, I’ve found something in common with the man on the other end of the couch.
We were both orphaned at an early age.
And, along with impending death, being an orphan is another thing Eaton has in common with Clara. What are the odds that the only two people I’ve met in the last two days would have such very specific characteristics?
The universe continues to shrink.
I take notes, ask questions, try to lead him towards a narrative and steer him away from extraneous stories. Ghost-writing memoirs is much more than being able to transcribe a person’s ramblings about their life. It’s about knowing what’s important and resonant in another person’s history, what will connect with readers, and what’s important to the subject themselves. But Eaton seems to sense this and has a surprising lack of ego as he speaks. He doesn’t talk about his self-importance, or how things that happened in his youth became valuable lessons to his future success. He simply tells me the story of his family, just the facts, and lets me decide how those will ultimately take form on the pages.
And just as I’m thinking this will be easier than I expected, Eaton tells me he’s tired and is done for the day. We’ve been talking just over an hour.
“Can we spend longer together next time?” I ask.
“Yes, of course. I know this requires more stamina from me. I simply don’t have it right now, I’m afraid.”
“Sure. I understand.”
I say goodbye with a handshake, and as I do, I have another moment. Just a brief one, but it’s there. A stronger sense of knowing this man than I felt earlier. Not quite déjà vu, but a close relative. A pang, almost nostalgic, softly painful.
“Are you all right?” He squeezes my hand a bit harder, as if thinking I might otherwise fall off a cliff. Maybe he’s right.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
My chest wells with short but painful desperation, and I have a sudden desire to remember something. Anything.
I quiz myself. What TV series have you been streaming lately?
The answer comes quickly: Better Call Saul, season two.
A harder question. What happened in the last episode?
I think about this as I leave Eaton’s apartment. I make it to the elevator, down to the lobby, out into the cool Denver air.
The answer never comes.
Fourteen
The Book of Clara
10/10/2018
The Responsibility of Death is a children’s book.
There is no author name, copyright information, publisher, or ISBN. Nothing but the title.
The story centers on a young boy’s long walk through a forest with his grandfather. During their walk, they encounter many creatures, all of which have advice for the two of them, but each time a creature speaks, the boy and the grandfather hear different things. A squirrel chitters, and the boy hears “Sleep heavily each night” while the grandfather hears “There’s only darkness.” It’s nonsensical and disturbing, with the boy hearing only encouraging words and the old man hearing morbid advice, culminating with an old grizzly bear suggesting the grandfather might best be served by killing himself.
Accompanying the words are wondrous illustrations, all done in fine, black, hair-width pen strokes. Thousands upon thousands of inky wisps, collectively bringing to life the bizarre tale in the most depressing fashion. I think about how long those illustrations must have taken, how long this illustrator sat at a desk, hunched over paper, meticulously drawing one ink whisker at a time, trying to capture a scene of a snake telling the grandfather everyone is out to get him, while trees tower and loom, raining darkness. Each drawing is a piece of art, but one that somehow feels it shouldn’t be seen by anyone. Mesmerizing and unnerving.
The story’s simplicity is also why it’s so disturbing. That, and the ending. On the penultimate page, the grandfather speaks for the first time. He looks down at his wide-eyed grandson and says, “I’ll never come out of these woods, boy.” The final page, formatted so it requires the reader to turn the book ninety degrees, shows the boy walking back on the path from whence they traveled, and the grandfather remaining behind. The old man sits stoop-shouldered on top of a tree stump, and in the background loom the eyes of animals, malevolent, glowing stars, watching. Watching and waiting.
I suppose the end is up for interpretation, but not much. Either the old man was dying and chose to let it happen in the woods, or he wanted to die and was sacrificing himself to the waiting teeth and claws of all that lived there.
I have read The Responsibility of Death enough times to recall many of the thousands of inked marks with precise clarity, but still have no idea what the book is about. What responsibility is the author talking about? The best I can come up with is the idea that once a person’s time on earth is coming to an end, there’s a responsibility to acknowledge that and, perhaps, do something to hasten the process. Making way for the younger generation, yielding land and resources to those who need them more.
I met with Landis twice after being accepted into the trial. The trial—which he called the program—consisted of a daily reading of the book and a weekly consumption of two tiny blue pills, which were so small, it was hard to imagine them having any potency. Landis and I discussed any changes I’d been feeling, any side effects. I expressed my concern that I hadn’t retrieved any old memories—and in fact had been losing some of the recent ones—but he assured me this was all normal and, almost certainly, temporary.
I also informed him that, indeed, I had been feeling a shift in my life. In my mind, my emotions. This manifested itself in two distinct ways. One was positive, though it might not sound so. I became suddenly very certain teaching was not what I was meant to do. For years I pursued teaching, thinking it was my calling. I believed myself to be good at it, and I loved the children. But then, soon after I started the program, my eyes just opened. I wasn’t supposed to be a teacher. And the realization wasn’t a moment of I hate my job. It was as if I realized I was filling my day with a respectable and fulfilling job, but I was meant to do something else. The something else remained hidden from me, but I was convinced I had to quit my job and let the answer come to me. That may seem like some kind of early-onset midlife crisis, but it was nothing of the sort. It was a stunning and soothing revelation that something most meaningful was right around the corner.
The other way the program was changing me was more jarring. I was suddenly feeling the emotions of others, as if I had turned into a Geiger counter of human energy. I could be on a bus with a stranger, and if they were having a bad day, I could sense it, and ultimately I’d end up soaking in their feelings, leaving me heavy. Alternatively, I’d catch the radiation of a joyful person, which would keep me smiling until counterbalanced by someone else’s foul mood later that same day.
During my last visit, Landis informed me the company was moving the office to a different state, but that he’d be following up with me by phone. The trial was to last a year, and he said there would be little need for contact unless I was experiencing significant adverse reactions.
Dear Reader, this is where you will be cursing at me. Telling me that I surely must have been mad to participate in any trial where I might develop significant adverse reactions. But how can I explain to you how the program made me feel? I had such a profound sense that discovering my true place in the world was imminent. It excited me. It drove my every waking thought.
Ironically, this enlightenment ultimately led to the idea of my own death. It crept onto me slowly at first, like a spider skulking along the backs of my fingers. Vapors of thoughts, here and there, flashes of how light death must feel. I kept sensing it as a hot-air-balloon ride, gently lifting, allowing me to float away and leave all earthly attachments behind. These weren’t fully formed thoughts, but rather emotions, or even hazy memories. That I should be in the air, cold air, perhaps mountain air. That maybe I’d been dead before, and it was a wondrous astonishment, a dream to be first chased and then fulfilled. The ultimate pleasure.
Though these thoughts might be considered an adverse reaction, I didn’t call Landis, and he didn’t call me. I’m not ashamed to say I was addicted to the program. Very soon, nothing else mattered.
Two months after my last visit with Landis, I took to my life of seclusion. It all felt so right, so wonderfully predetermined. I don’t expect you to understand. How could you? This doctor comes into my life, promises me a purpose, and I just do what he says.
Dead Girl in 2A (ARC) Page 5