by Jake Wolff
I rolled down my window as she approached. “What happened?”
Sadiq leaned over so she could see his face. “Is anyone hurt?” It was just like him, to be asking this question as he bled through his fingers.
She tucked the pen behind her ear. She was not out of breath in the slightest. She had many fights left in her. “My cousin thinks he can help you. He knows where to get the shock machine.”
“Oh my God,” I said. “Where?”
She looked down at the note in her hand. She looked up at me. “Do you know a place called … Winterville?”
CASE HISTORY
Sammy Feels a Spark
New York, 2009
Celebrity Client does one shot, two shots, three shots. Boom, boom, boom. Fireball, cherry bomb, buttery nipple.
The bartender is, like, Hey, are you Celebrity Client?
Celebrity Client is, like, Fucking right!
To celebrate, they do a Fireball.
Celebrity Client puts his back to the bar. He’s in New York shooting a movie called The Geometrist, about an assassin who, like, uses geometry. The bar is a big rectangle at the head of the room, and the dance floor is a triangle with round edges, and the music is the … is the vertex. At the top of the hypotenuse is a girl who looks sort of like Livia. Yes, just like Livia. He feels this similarity in his pants. Her lips are half-parted, showing just a hint of her tongue, and it’s like a dare.
What club is this, anyway? What neighborhood? Bushwick. Brooklyn. Buttery nipple.
Bzzz. His phone vibrates against his thigh. He slides it out, and it says, The Samster.
He answers, shouting into the phone, and he’s, like, Samster!
And Samster is, like, Celebrity Client. With a period at the end. That’s what makes Samster so funny! He’s the kind of guy who uses semicolons in text messages. Celebrity Client has seen him do this. Celebrity Client still has the message, and he shows it to himself when someone is mean to him on Twitter. It makes him laugh every time.
The text said, Thanks for the invite, but I can’t come to the wrap party; I’m not feeling well.
Hahaha.
Now, Samster is, like, Do you have any Dor?
And Celebrity Client is, like, Fucking right!
And Samster, all hesitant, is, like, Can we meet up? He says it as though Celebrity Client might say no! Some people just don’t understand friendship.
Celebrity Client hands the phone to the bartender and is, like, Tell this guy where I am.
The crowd has pushed almost-Livia closer. He goes to her, and she stays put, fighting the geometry of the crowd. He’s dancing, head rocking, and she’s receptive, she knows who he is, and those half-parted lips are, like, I dare you.
* * *
Sammy boards the Staten Island Ferry at Whitehall. It is late, almost midnight, and one week exactly since his encounter with Celebrity Client at that stupid club—the night Sammy had solved the elixir of life.
There is not much fog, so it will be a good ride, where you can see the city. The other passengers are mostly drunks and young people. Sammy no longer considers himself young, though he is only twenty-nine. He’s never felt young, not really—never known how it feels to have the stupid, innocent happiness of a child. Once the ferry has taken him farther from the terminal, he will dump his parents’ ashes into the water, and then he will follow them down.
He was at his parents’ home, where he’s lived for a year, when the doorbell rang. He doesn’t have a job or any of his own money. He sleeps in his old childhood bedroom, and just like a boy he keeps secret things under his bed. Mercury. Dor. After Tahiti, he’s no longer in contact with Bogdi, so the Dor he has left is all he will ever have. It’s like a big red timer, counting down. Whenever he can stomach it, he calls Celebrity Client and mooches.
When he answered the door, after checking the peephole, the police officer on his steps asked him if he was a relative of Don and Leena Tampari’s. Sammy said that he was. The police officer asked to come in. Sammy said okay. The officer stepped inside and told him his parents had died in a car accident caused by an intoxicated driver. The intoxicated person was also dead, though Don and Leena’s taxi driver had lived.
After the police left, he called Catherine, the mother of his boy.
“Oh, Christ,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Can I speak to him?”
She hesitated. “It’s two in the morning.”
“Okay. Of course.”
Catherine hated when Sammy did this, asking for Theo when Sammy knew he wasn’t available. When he’s actually around, she says, you’re nowhere. Once, they took the boy to the zoo, and they’d done one of those photo booth pictures together, a set of three. In all of them, Catherine is looking at the camera (the right place), Sammy is looking at the monitor (the wrong place), and Theo is looking at him. Don and Leena put the printout on the refrigerator.
On the ferry, he thinks of Theo and feels good. The boy will sleep more soundly without someone calling at strange hours to wake him.
* * *
Celebrity Client reclines with almost-Livia on a red sofa in Sour Room. The club is Sweet&Sour, and it’s two big rooms: one for dancing and one for everything else. He feels the pillowy softness of the cushions against his back, the heat and wet of the girl’s leg hooked around his own.
The Samster arrives. He’s almost as handsome as Celebrity Client, which is fine, it’s good. He unhooks the ropes that separate Celebrity Client’s sofa from the other, lesser sofas.
Celebrity Client is, like, Nice!
Samster, to almost-Livia, is, like, I’m Sam.
She introduces herself, and when she turns her face to the Samster, Celebrity Client knows: Samster sees it, too, the similarity. But then rather than give Celebrity Client a high five, Samster gives him a look, a sad look, that makes Celebrity Client want to see the semicolon.
Celebrity Client is, like, Yo! How’s things?
Samster sits, mumbling an answer, and Celebrity Client is no dummy. He knows Samster didn’t come here to chat.
A tray of shots. Three Wise Men.
The Samster is wearing a black T-shirt and pants that are not good. But the shot girl smiles at him anyway, and Celebrity Client thinks, Yeah, baby! Get it!
So to the waitress, he’s, like, Do you wanna do drugs with us on this couch?
And she looks at Samster, but he doesn’t say anything, and she’s, like, Something something something my shift! She’s got red hair, it’s not natural, and she’s wearing one of those black midriff shirts. Her stomach is smooth and muscled, and this is unbelievable, but she’s got an outie belly button. You never see this! A shot girl with an outie!
The Samster moves over. He’s just being polite, but she takes it as encouragement and slides in next to him. Their shoulders are touching. But now almost-Livia is jealous, so Celebrity Client tucks her hair behind her ear and gives her a little kiss on the nose.
With their faces still close, he’s, like, I want you.
And she’s, like, Oh, yeah?
Samster nudges him. Do you have the Dor?
The shot girl is, like, What door?
Celebrity Client is, like, Samster, want to try something new? Celebrity Client takes a little metal tube out of his pocket. It’s called a Zapper, and it is small and sleek and stainless steel.
Samster is, like, What is that?
Celebrity Client is, like, You’ve never heard of zapping?
It’s the newest thing. Just before the high kicks in, you give yourself a little jolt. It makes doing drugs more, like, interactive.
Samster’s face goes so white it looks as if he might puke. He’s, like, No, thank you. No.
Celebrity Client is, like, You’ll love it!
Samster is talking fast, something about electricity, fragility, and the “brain structures.”
He looks as if he might cry, but Celebrity Client is, like, Trust me.
Almost-Livia runs her fingers along the Zapper. Sh
e’s, like, Should we?
Celebrity Client is, like, We should.
* * *
Sammy peers over the side of the ferry. Who would have guessed that Celebrity Client, of all people, would show him the answer? That golden retriever of a man. Sammy had felt the Zapper tickle his neck and discharge, and when he woke up, he just knew. The missing piece of the elixir was brain burn—the very thing from which he’d been running.
I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down. To destroy the blood-brain barrier, he needed three big breaths: Dor, mercury, electricity. The Zapper wouldn’t do it—that was nothing more than a toy. It would have to be brain burn. Once the barrier was down, he could safely double the volume of quicksilver—it would sneak in and then waltz right out, having completed its mission. It was Sadiq who said it, all those years ago in Romania: “Whatever you eat last is dessert.”
Sammy peers over the side of the ferry. He doesn’t know how to swim, so the chances of accidental survival are small. But he doesn’t want to get sucked under the boat and churned up by the machinery. A few years ago, a New York stage actor killed himself this same way, and his body washed up mostly intact. If Sammy jumps from the rear of the boat, he should be fine.
He hasn’t told anyone what he’s going to do. He considered calling his old psychiatrist, Dr. Gillian Huang, but she is too smart, too resourceful. She might talk him out of it. The ferry is nearing the halfway mark. He removes the ashes from the pockets of his coat. He has them in a plastic bag, which he unzips. He checks his surroundings—no one is watching—and throws his parents into the water.
* * *
Celebrity Client is, like, Imagine an ocean. The ocean is made of orgasms. You’re floating in the ocean of orgasms, but you’re also, like, high as fuck. That’s Dor.
Almost-Livia is, like, You convinced me!
The shot girl sticks her tongue into Samster’s ear—he doesn’t react, dude isn’t ticklish, Celebrity Client has tried—and she’s, like, You go first.
Celebrity Client hands him the Dor. Just do your thing, bro.
The Samster shoots the Dor and takes a drink of something from a bottle—something green. Celebrity Client plants the Zapper at the base of Samster’s neck, right where it begins the curve into shoulder. He presses the button—there’s only one button, no voltage settings, who wants the hassle?—and the Zapper is, like, BWANG.
Celebrity Client turns to almost-Livia, and she kisses him. Her tongue touches the roof of his mouth. When she pulls away, he’s, like, You’re the best, most beautiful girl.
And she’s, like, Aw, and they kiss again.
The Samster’s eyes roll back, and he’s, like, Something something something.
The shot girl is, like, Whaddidhe say???
Celebrity Client is, like, Your turn!
She takes the Dor, and he zaps her. Next he zaps almost-Livia, who is not his true love, and then he just sort of sits with the Zapper, smelling the smells of Sour Room, wishing he were in Sweet Room. He didn’t tell them the Zapper only gets three charges before it’s empty, didn’t tell Sammy that the Dor is running out, that he doesn’t have enough for himself. Yesterday someone on Twitter was, like, Your movies are the worst. You should kill yourself. And he wanted to write back, I can’t think of one time I’ve been truly cruel to someone. How many people can say that? How many people, when it comes to kindness, to the giving of kindness, can honestly say they have no regrets? But the gossip blogs would mock him endlessly if he said this. Plus it was too many characters.
Maybe forty minutes later, Samster is, like, What’s wrong with me?
Celebrity Client thinks, You still don’t get it, Samster. There’s nothing wrong with you, or with anyone, because imperfection is the only reasonable state of being. Who cares about living forever? Let’s live! If a line is parallel to any line on a plane, it is parallel to the plane. That’s the first rule of geometry, or at least it’s one of the rules, and to me it means we are all brothers and sisters. We should celebrate this, not try to fix it.
But Celebrity Client doesn’t say this. Instead, he’s, like, Be cool, Samster. Everything is great. Soon we’ll be dancing in Sweet Room.
* * *
Naturally, Sammy would have to test his theory. Another rat study: something to confirm that ECT attacks the blood-brain barrier, that the elixir would work more strongly on a brain-burned subject. He would need to be sure the elixir could counteract the memory loss from a high-voltage, bilateral burn—a new ingredient, perhaps. But these thoughts are purely academic. They don’t change what he has come here to do.
Sammy has his hands on the railing, ready to disembark, when he hears a fart behind him.
“Oh,” says the source. “Thought I was alone.”
Sammy just nods, humiliated on the man’s behalf.
The man is short and pale, wearing jeans with an elastic waist. But rather than flee, as Sammy would have done, the man joins him at the railing. “It’s my dialysis. It makes me gassy.”
“I’m sorry.” Below, the waters swirl in the wake of the ferry.
“I couldn’t sleep. I figured I might as well go for a ride.” When Sammy doesn’t respond, the man explains, “I’m only in the city to see a specialist.”
“Ah,” Sammy says, and maybe because he’s feeling bad for the man, or maybe because a small part of Sammy is scared of what will happen once the man leaves, he asks, “Where’s home?”
“Maine.” The man points in the direction of Maine. “I teach high school physics.”
“I was never any good at physics. My master’s is in chemistry.”
A smile breaks across the man’s face. “You know, we need someone to teach chemistry. I’ve been too sick to even place the ad.”
At first Sammy doesn’t say anything, but then he realizes the man is serious. Sammy laughs. “I don’t know.”
The man, who still hasn’t introduced himself, places a light hand on Sammy’s shoulder. “High school kids aren’t that bad, and you’re fifteen minutes from the ocean.”
Before Sammy can stop him, the man is telling him about his hometown, which Sammy will remember as Littletown, but then he’ll get a phone call, and the man will say, no, it’s Littlefield. Sammy will decide that disappearing is just as good as dying, so he’ll pack up his stuff, without telling Catherine, and leave.
21
Home
By the time I reached my father, I had missed fifteen calls from Dana, five of which had produced voice mails.
“I’m sorry if you felt ambushed,” said the first, “but you’re not in trouble.”
“Get your ass home,” said the last.
I was driving Sadiq’s rental car, alone, with nothing but a learner’s permit. I’d left Sadiq at the hospital, barely stopping to say goodbye. Despite my urgency, I’d spent the entire drive to Cumberland in the far right lane, getting passed by tractor trailers and, once, most embarrassingly, by someone in a driver’s ed car. In a cooler in the trunk, I had everything I needed to create the elixir of life.
It was almost midnight when I hit the long dirt driveway that led to St. Matthias. The moon was big above the trees. I took my foot off the gas, and the car rumbled past the little nighttime animals whose eyes flashed in the headlights. It was so dark I nearly missed the parking area and drove straight onto the lawn. I turned off the car, killed the headlights, and sat in the growing cold to see if anyone would emerge from the main house to investigate my arrival. While I waited, my mind drifted to RJ. When we started this adventure, I assumed he would be here with me, if we even made it this far. Instead I was alone, and he would never, ever forgive me.
I slipped out of the car and followed my memory to my dad’s room. As I walked, rocks and wood chips crunched under my sneakers, the sound bouncing off the lake. It felt as if I were the only person in a five-mile radius making noise, but either everyone was asleep or nighttime strolls are common among addicts, because no lights turned on, no doors opened. The narr
ow path led to my father’s steps, which I climbed quietly, testing each one with my weight.
At the top, I tapped the wooden door with my finger. “Dad,” I whispered. “Dad.”
Nothing.
I risked a louder knock, two quick raps. Inside my dad’s room, I heard the creak of a spring-supported mattress, and through his window I saw the glow of a cell phone or bedside clock. I knocked again.
He opened the door a few seconds later, a blanket wrapped around his bare, impossibly thin shoulders. I’ve never, ever seen a person look the way he looked that night. His body, in the porch light, was yellow and gray—not yellowish, not grayish. I stepped back, catching my foot on the step and nearly tumbling to the ground. Just in time, I caught myself on the railing.
My dad squinted at me. “Con?” he said too loudly, standing aside in the doorway so that I could come inside. “What are you doing here?” He closed the door behind me.
I whispered, hoping he would follow my lead and lower his voice. “Do you remember when you said you’d give me one Make a Wish?”
He picked a sweater off the floor and began to turn it right-side out. “Vaguely. Yes.”
“I need you to come to Winterville with me, and I need you to do whatever I say when we get there.”
“That sounds like more than one wish. I’m not going to Winterville.”
“Please.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and made me wait as he stuck his pallid head through the sweater. “Your mother always said it was hard to say no to you, but I never felt that way.”
“You promised.” I took his arm, pulling him back up.
He steadied himself against me, coughed. “If I do this”—he looked right at me—“it comes with full immunity. All past crimes forgotten.”
“Sure,” I said, not really understanding, heading for the door.