by Adam Nemett
They flew him everywhere. David marveled at his new housemates’ shoulder endurance. Somewhere around the sunroom, with its purple velvet couch and impressive media library, he started to feel both more and less nervous. His muscles relaxed, surrendering themselves to the aerial tour. But he was astonished that they’d gotten to this point, that they’d convinced him to do all this weird shit, before settling on basic things like rent. David’s parents warned him to ask questions in advance, but each minute of flight eliminated old queries (like “How do you divvy up utilities?”) and brought new ones to mind instead.
Where do I sleep?
Why are you flying me around the house?
What’s happening?
“This is the best way to see The Egg,” Mathias lectured, as though reading his mind. “Through the power of flight. We’ll help you fly this first time. After that, you’re expected to fly on your own.”
“Just so I’m clear,” David asked down to them. “Did you all drop out of school?”
“Leaves of absence,” said Lee. “But no, we don’t plan on going to classes anymore.”
This was news to David. He’d assured his parents that he’d maintain a full course load.
“Okay, but what do you do here?”
“Think of The Egg as a new eating club,” said Mathias. “It’s farther away from campus and our membership is currently all dudes. But we’ve still got three floors.”
In his grandpa László’s day, there were twelve such eating clubs. Similar to fraternity houses, these odd Princeton institutions each occupied a mansion on Prospect Avenue, which was for some reason dubbed “the Street.” The functions of the clubs were delineated by their three floors: the main floor was the dining hall, where upperclassmen ate their meals; upstairs were the residences where seniors lived and worked and accustomed themselves to the amenities of the ruling class; the basements were the taprooms, where the interesting stuff happened.
Each step down the stairs to the basement of The Egg brought with it strained swears and the echo of feet on wood. David could tell their arms were getting tired and he wondered what staccato rhythms his body might make if they dropped him down this jagged slope of stairs. He felt the specificity of his conditions, the carefully orchestrated strangeness. All action was special now, all time sacred.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, the guys finally set him down and shook out their arms. It smelled like spray adhesive, primer, old cold. Fu ran back upstairs to fetch grocery bags. David scanned and immediately found a fully stocked and impeccably ordered array of metal shelving units, a true prepper’s pantry: cooking oil, salt, beans, powdered milk, sugar, honey, scary-looking bags that looked like landscaping mulch but were probably rice, a serious cache of canned goods, myriad backpacks, first aid kits, soap, vitamins, TP, massive blue barrels marked WATER. It was only four storage racks but might as well have been that infinite stockroom of weaponry from The Matrix. David suddenly realized Mathias had intentionally neglected to tell him about this supply. He’d been testing David to see how well he’d do at the grocery store. And here David was with a fucking birthday cake.
He wondered if The Egg had weapons, too.
“I didn’t figure you guys for right-wing, tinfoil-hat conspiracy types,” David said. He was kidding around, but Mathias took it seriously.
“When you say ‘right wing,’ you’re talking about American political parties that aren’t going to exist in the same way after things break down. What you’re really talking about is two kinds of people, what Fu would call a binary system, like ones and zeroes…
“Maybe the Ones are people who think humans are basically born bad and have to be made good—by religion, by law and order, what have you—and so these people are scared of everyone else, especially the different, the deviant ones, the Other, hence racism, xenophobia, homophobia, right?
“And then there are the Zeroes, people who think humans are basically born good and are tragically made bad—by socioeconomic pressures, by their parents—but that folks can generally be trusted or, at worst, turned around and rehabilitated…
“The Zeroes prevail when times are good. But it’s easy for the Ones to take over when times are tough. The Egg is filled with Zeroes: we like to think people are pretty good. Yes, we have a pantry. With weather like this, if you don’t have extra food and supplies on hand you’re either stupid or lazy. But those’re just basic necessities. We’ve got bigger projects, too.”
Mathias pointed. Beside the stairwell sat a workbench with a metal vise hanging from the wood, ingrown like a barnacle. On top was a homemade radio setup, more wires. There were two recently built bedrooms down here, with uneven drywall and spackle like fresh cupcake icing. One of them, David learned, was vacant and would be his. The other belonged to Mathias. Its door was open. Inside, David spotted an antique refrigerator, padlocked shut.
“What’s in that fridge?” David asked, pointing.
“My thesis,” Mathias said.
“You keep your thesis in a refrigerator?” asked David.
“You keep your thesis in a computer?” asked Mathias.
“Well,” David said after a moment, “I don’t keep mine anywhere, because I don’t have to write one until senior year, I thought. And at this rate I kinda doubt I’ll last that long.”
Mathias sighed. “Let me guess: You’re dissatisfied with Princeton, right? You were expecting some magical Hogwarts utopia, but it’s actually not, so you’re dissatisfied, which, in turn, makes you feel like an ingrate. And at the end of it all, you’re supposed to write a thesis, some long piece of critical theory that sits on a shelf for eternity. And who gives a fuck, right?”
Lee strolled over to the pantry shelves to help Owen stock cans; they’d heard this spiel before.
“Well, the thing is all you’ve got to do is drop out or go to a different school. Yes, of course, familial pressures, parents are paying good money. But honestly? My response to that is: wipe your ass like the rest of us and make a decision. It’s daunting, but the things we desire are daunting.” “I’m not afraid of hard work,” David insisted.
“Well, that’s what we’re doing here: high-concept hard work. The point of The Egg is for you to develop a thesis. I bet you’ve already got the kernel of an idea. Your Halloween thing was a debacle. We both know you can do better next time. At The Egg, you’re always working on your project, your vision, your thesis—something only you can do. If it’s viable, I’m happy to help fund it. Preferably something practical, not merely theoretical. Something that helps others.”
“I’m still trying to figure out whether you’re a good guy or a bad guy,” David said.
Without blinking, Mathias uttered gently, “‘I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself.’”
Thoreau. That did it. David was in.
But this freaked him out, viscerally—this crossing over, this liminal space, whatever it was he was deciding to enter into—and that fear must have shown on his face, or else Mathias just sensed it.
“You’re scared,” he said to David, gripping his shoulders the way he did in the river when they first met. “We watch movies and assume the end of the world will be filled with bad guys, devolving into some sordid Mad Max hellscape. I’m betting our world is just going to become different. Smaller. It’s going to be our job to make that smaller world into a close-knit community, starting with this container, The Egg. Supporting, educating, transforming, always improvising. If we don’t succumb to fear or protectionism and—this one’s big—if we don’t assume our college pedigree somehow makes us elite or more important than anyone else… we can help create a generous, safe society. Our own small heaven on earth. That’s what we’re building.”
“Honestly?” David finally said after taking this in. “I don’t see why I can’t go to classes and also do your thesis project. It’s Princeton for chrissakes! I like my classes.”
“Fine, then do both.” He shrugged. “You won’t sleep much. B
ut Lee can help with that.”
Hearing his name, Lee took the cue to wander back from the shelves. Like a ship’s captain spinning a helm, Owen turned the workbench vise, and David heard the rising whir of machinery purring to life—a furnace kicking on, he guessed.
But the sound grew and grew, a mechanical growl that wouldn’t stop.
And then the stairs began to move.
Quaking and lifting like a jaw coming unhinged, a system of heavy-duty hydraulics elongated beneath the stairwell, tilting the steps up and back, opening wider and wider until they touched the ceiling. To look at the undercarriage of these stairs was unnatural, as if staring at the craggy roof of a dragon’s mouth. A curtain now separated the basement from whatever mystery lay under the stairs. The rest of them stood with smug smiles on their faces, arms crossed like soldiers at ease.
All men become little boys when shown a cool machine.
Lee handed out a stack of surgical masks and placed one around his own snout. They walked under the curtain into the black mass. David assumed the stairs were recent retrofitting—the whim of Mathias, their trust-fund baby who’d maybe seen the movie Clue too many times. But Mathias told him the previous owner, a gun collector keeping his firearms locked away from his kids, had installed it. The presence of a hidden panic room was Mathias’s primary criteria in looking for off-campus housing. It took him months to find this place.
Flipping a switch, Lee made the cave come alive with blinking fluorescence. David peered down the room, deep and thin like a walk-in closet, tubes forming graceful, calligraphic conduits between beakers and IV stands. Toward the back were vats and mixing bowls and foreign packages marked with Germanic umlauts and squiggly Spanish tildes. At the far end of the space was a tall gray gun safe, probably from the previous owner, though the Winchester logo looked reasonably new. He wasn’t ready to ask if it was full or empty, so instead he asked, “What is this? A meth lab?”
Lee’s shoulders deflated. “This is my thesis. I’m cheaply counterfeiting a few commercial pharmaceuticals but mainly experimenting with new hybrids.”
“So… it is a drug lab, though,” David clarified. In truth, he was disappointed. It could have been anything in that secret room—Narnia or a cryogenic freezer of unicorn brains or whatever—and a drug lab felt almost pedestrian at first. Regardless, Lee gave a short tour through his arsenal. Arranged in pristine rows sat a cornucopia of raw chemicals, labeled in meticulous block lettering. Along one wall were gleaming synthetics with labels like “HIn/phph” and “Hexamethyleneteramine.” On the other wall, dusty brown bottles with organic names: “kava kava,” “zizyphus seed.”
David pointed to an older one. “What’s yohimbe root?”
“Herbal Viagra,” whispered Owen. “Careful, though. Makes your heart race like crazy.”
Lee’s demeanor had changed since entering his lab. He was professorial, calm, almost nice. Placing an arm around David, he said softly, “And we call this pill the ‘Big Bang.’” He opened his palm, revealing a red gelcap, then pulled it away.
Mathias mimed an invisible ball exploding and whispered, “XplO…”
“I’ve got it in pill form, smokable wax, liquid. It’s best intravenously, but the MAO inhibitor in my pill makes it orally active, like ayahuasca.”
David suddenly felt a visceral memory of his first meeting with Mathias at Stony Brook and the consequential trip that had carried him down that waterway and ultimately into The Egg.
“What you got at the river was the high dose, what psychedelic pioneers like Terence McKenna called the heroic dose,” Mathias said. “You rocket past the veil and it’s hard to be an atheist ever again. Lee’s pill is a more gradual, subtle experience.”
Just then, the power went off. David panicked, fearing he was about to be beaten up or left in the dark. Some new initiation. But the guys were unfazed.
“We’ve got a generator,” said Mathias. “And Fu will bring a flashlight in a sec, I’m sure.”
“So that’s me, that’s what I know how to do,” Lee said. “Your boy Owen is working on a new kind of power source. Fu—where is Fu?—he’s into robots and radios and shit. Mathias is—”
“I get it,” David said. The blizzard would provide an opportunity to hunker down and figure out his project. “Just give me a little time.”
“If you need time,” Lee said, unscrewing a mammoth GNC canister, “we’ve got plenty.”
There must’ve been a thousand purple pills inside. Lee distributed a handful. David wondered if Lee’s counterfeit version of Zeronal worked the same as the Pfizer version, which he’d read was nearing FDA approval. The pills halted the mechanism of melatonin production—usually based on light, time of day, season, whatever—like freezing time.
David recalled the feeling. Of not being worried about the past or the future. Of being in it. His first foray into Zeronal was responsible for hastening his removal from campus housing. He wasn’t sure he was ready to experiment again.
“Kiss the pill,” Mathias stated. He smooched his capsule, swallowed it.
They echoed back, “Kiss the pill,” and brought the Zeronal to their lips.
On cue, Fu entered the lab, carrying Martin’s donated Batman cake, now covered in candles. He sang the “Happy Birthday” song in a sweet, lilting tenor.
“Your voice!” Fu’s tone was pitch perfect.
“I was gonna just light a random candle,” Fu said. “But this seemed cooler.”
“Make a wish,” directed Mathias.
David made the same wish he’d been making since Halloween: to do better next time.
2
HALLOWEEN
i.
The black mask had smelled like a baby bottle, a mix of rubber and plastic. It fit perfectly. Wiggling into the massive chest padding, airbrushed to look like muscles poured into spandex, David watched himself slowly transform in the door mirror. There were black boots, a yellow utility belt (with real functional holsters!), a vinyl cape, and latex black gloves with gauntlets serrated on the sides. David made a few tight fists, pounded the bat insignia spread across his pecs. When he fit the codpiece in place, he gave a nod at the mirror, saluting his suddenly impressive-looking junk.
Look at you, David thought. You are a demon of sexiness.
So, yes, David was that guy. The kid with the overdone Batman costume. Because this was more than Halloween. It was his Princeton debut.
The Forbes guys were pre-drinking down the hall. During that early freshman moment, barely two months in, David’s core foursome consisted of himself and Owen, plus another odd couple of roommates: Bob and Esteban. While David had spread himself around, making lots of acquaintances to deduce who might become true and lasting friends, Owen had swiftly chosen Roberto “Bob” Badalamenti, a soccer player from San Dimas, California, and devoted his hip to be conjoined forthwith. By default, David and Esteban became their co–third wheels.
Owen’s bad knees made him unfit for college football and most other sports. So he busied himself to overcompensate for the leftover physical energy, but he clearly longed for the locker room camaraderie. Hence “Soccer Bob.” Everyone said Bob would be captain someday. He was towering and chiseled and Italian and had bleached-blond hair and a ridiculous sound system, a billion-watt Bose behemoth. Guys on their hall nodded like disciples whenever he leaned on those chest-high speakers, running down specs like it was some juicy Trans Am.
Esteban was Tuscaloosan, Latino, gay, wore a cross around his neck. He was tall like Bob but skinnier, with a smile both genuine and constant and a head of tight dark curls. He was the kind of guy who might’ve been the lead counselor at a summer camp, trotted out to impress and calm nervous parents on drop-off day. To David, Esteban seemed eager to make an exit from this particular friend arrangement, yet simultaneously riveted or at least curious to experiment with what was clearly an uncommon social milieu—a closeness with two athletes who hadn’t yet devolved into the overt or accidental bigotry that David assumed E
steban experienced in Alabama.
Maybe Owen and Bob found Esteban unthreatening. Maybe they appreciated that he attracted women. David played a similar role. His facial hair made him look like a guy who was dangerous and mature, and his shyness could be mistaken for the brooding intensity some girls go for. Either that, or he looked like a guy who had access to weed, and some girls go for that, too.
As a group they almost made sense. If they stood in a line, diminutive David bringing up the rear, then hefty Owen, then fun Esteban, with sexy Bob in front, anyone could see the upgrading trajectory of their height and attractiveness, an evolutionary timeline come to life. But the gap between David and Bob was considerable, and on the occasions when they’d find themselves as a duo, their other two links missing, they’d swiftly part ways and opt to roll solo. David was never the sidekick Bob wanted.
Another way of saying this: David was conspicuously a virgin.
He’d arrived late to both drugs and girls. When puberty mangled him, expanding his nose, ears, and teeth faster than the rest of his face, his dad used to say, “Count your blessings. The normal kids can go out and get popular. You can stay home and get brilliant.” So David became a plodder, an academic workhorse. He read voraciously and his favorite was Thoreau, whom Hawthorne once called “ugly as sin.” In solidarity, David grew a neck-beard during that middling era of high school when few boys could grow decent facial hair. So despite his five-foot-six stature, David was seen as something of a man. In his junior year, he’d started smoking pot and dating Madeline Cone.
David and Maddy fooled around a lot, but they never had full-on sex. Slowly, they tiptoed around bases, experimenting in cars, in fields and bathtubs and off-duty construction equipment, sometimes successfully. He bought flavored condoms, let her guess. She bought a candy bra and let him bite the sugary dextrose from her breasts.
She said it first, those three magic words: “You’re my bitch.”
Then the blush wore off. So they tried to summon it back. They drank, smoked. No hallucinogens, though, not ever. David’s loving parents, Gil and Eileen Fuffman, never said much about cocaine or heroin—they figured there was plenty of negative propaganda already—but they’d staunchly warned David against the dangers of tripping. A single dose of LSD could fry his brain, they said. He’d be a pointless presence in the world, nothing, a zero. David had respected this rule. Hallucinogens were his kryptonite, he’d decided, and if he ever disobeyed, there’d surely be righteous punishment for hubristic defiance.