Senseless

by Fitch, Stona

  “And the money?”

  “It was in my head.”

  “Money in your head?”

  “Yes. A ten-digit Swiss bank account and a one-word authorization.” All the high technology in the financial world came down to two men speaking words and numbers, millions of dollars encoded in our conversation.

  “Weren’t you tempted to keep a bit of it?”

  “No. I’m not particularly acquisitive, unlike others who have to have more and…”

  She raised her palm. “They are angry enough already,” she whispered. “Do not push your luck.” I laughed.

  “My luck? My luck has been invariably bad so far.” Of the thousands of people involved in the push for globalization, only I, a footsoldier, was being punished for it.

  “You have to be more grateful.” Behind her scarf, Nin’s eyes gave no trace of this being a joke.

  “Grateful? For what?” I threw down the rice container, the larval grains scattering on the ground. “For the delicious food. For the constant pain. For being turned into a monster.” I held up my shining hands. “For the enchanting company of someone who is as powerless as I am to make it all stop.”

  She held up her hand up again. “Yes. For all of this and more. You need to change your ways of thinking, Eliott Gast. It’s time to focus not on what you’ve lost, but what you still have.”

  “Oh, it’s easy for you to be so glib. You’re not the one being tortured.” I stalked around the apartment looking for my cigarettes.

  Nin pointed to the red pack on the edge of the futon. “This much is true. But you are missing my point.”

  I shook a Dunhill from the pack and lit it, then pulled the dry smoke along the side of my mouth, avoiding my tongue. “And your point is?”

  “I have already told you.”

  “Right, that bit about my mind. How I should be glad to still have one. Well, after three weeks in this room, with only you and the others to talk to, I’m not sure I do.” I dropped my cigarette and tried to pick it up, but succeeded only in moving it around the dirty floor. I brought my foot down on the cigarette and ground it savagely into bits of tobacco and paper.

  I turned back to Nin. “What do you want, anyway? Did they send you to find out more about my brilliant career? There’s nothing else to tell. I have nothing else to confess.”

  Nin stood. “I asked to come here.”

  “Why?”

  “I enjoy your company, Monsieur Gast,” she said. “Your thoughts interest me.”

  “Likewise,” I said. “But there’s only one problem. I’m losing my mind. Do you hear me? I’ve had enough!”

  “I told you that I’d try to help you,” she whispered, moving closer.

  I held up my ruined hands. “You call this helping?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “There was nothing I could do.” The black snakes lowered and she turned away.

  “Just get me out of here,” I shouted at her back. Nin paused when she reached the doorway.

  “Have faith, Eliott,” she said. “You will leave soon. But there is still much ahead of you.”

  “Then let’s just get it over with.” I waved my arms wildly, making my fingers come alive with pain, all that they could feel at this point. “Bring on the torture. I’m already broken. Cut out more parts. Scald me more. Take it over the top. It’s easy! It’s easy!”

  Nin left and I ran through the apartment, throwing chairs, clothes, whatever else I could pick up. A monkey in the zoo. Winded and sweaty, I fell to my knees, then pressed my forehead into the floor like a child or a believer bowing to Mecca. Only I had no beliefs and I couldn’t be sure what direction I was facing. All I knew was that I had to get out.

  Day 31.

  I stood a few feet away from the metal doors, tightly closed, which led to Blackbeard’s world. In my dreams, I imagined these doors opening. I would walk through them then descend in the same elevator that had brought me here so long ago. It would be Indian summer outside still and I would feel the warmth on my face. I would pause in front of the building and breathe for a moment, the air scentless but warm. Then I would walk calmly to the edge of a cement plaza, where Maura, my brother, Alec Moore, and an assortment of friends and business associates waited. I would shake hands and miraculously the amber gloves would fall from my hands and the nightmare would be over. The public’s gaze would be drawn elsewhere and I would retreat to our farm, to recover, read, and forget.

  I kicked the door over and over. In repetition I found a certain comfort – the slow cocking back of my right foot, the swift push forward so that the toe of my shoe met the metal door head-on, repeated over and over like a mantra.

  The rhythm summoned up my weekly jog around the Reflecting Pool, when I used to dodge tourists, roots, and the shit of the geese that huddled on the grass. I gave in to memory as I kicked, and returned to the flat, elegant strip of land, so pure and incorruptible. As I ran the long, worn path toward the Washington Monument then back to the Lincoln Memorial, I often sensed the older city beneath the traffic and gray office compounds. In this dank, oceanic place of rutted roads along the Potomac dwelled the souls of revolutionaries and men of ideals. My runs were a kind of penance, reminding me that my work with IBIS meant nothing. When I died, my history would go unrecorded on any plaque. While I lived, I could only run wheezing among the monuments of far greater men. There were few better ways to stay humble.

  It was difficult to stay moody while running. The rasp of my breathing filled my ears. My heart pounded. Sweat limned the neck of my sweatshirt. One summer afternoon the steps of the Lincoln Memorial were crowded with visitors, each climbing the long, steep marble steps then turning reverent as they walked inside, as if the spirit of Lincoln resided here. There was a rally going on at the base of the monument, where white and black teenagers sat on neat rows in the sun, a catalog of indifference. A small, energetic man in a blue suit paced nervously in front of them. He spoke down into a microphone he cradled. “You have to take control of your life. That’s what the Gospel tells us.”

  A distant “Amen, Praise Jesus!” came from the audience.

  “And that means taking control of your financial situation. That’s what I’m here to tell you about today. The journey from spiritual riches to new financial security.”

  Martin Luther King had delivered his famous speech here. But the man in the blue suit didn’t have a dream. He spoke of the common desire of our time – personal wealth. I stopped for a moment to listen, glad to walk after two laps.

  “It is said in the Gospel that you cannot serve God and Mammon.”

  “Amen.” There were a few older people in the assembled crowd, teachers perhaps. Their responses kept the man in the blue suit going.

  “I am not asking you to serve God and Mammon.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I am asking you to serve God by achieving your personal best, by letting the light perpetual shine on you and deliver God’s graces to you.”

  “Amen.”

  “And to accept God’s graces, you have to be ready. You have to have a plan. You have to have a system for personal financial security.”

  I turned and started running again, afraid that I might start laughing out loud if I heard more. I was not a believer, but I was fairly certain that achieving financial security wasn’t a major theme of the scriptures. I ran away from the crowd, down the long path lined with maples and benches.

  I had dealt with money for so long and on such an abstract level that it had become meaningless. After delivering millions to my contacts in Europe, the small transactions that fill every day – buying a cup of coffee with a dollar, handing a cab driver a ten-dollar bill – seemed ancient and quaint to me. We were all caught up in larger tides than we could fathom. Savings, financial planning, the American obsession with the
stock market – these were all like attempts to stop a flood with a carefully built wall of matchsticks. We could only be truly secure by taming the larger swells. At least, that was how I justified my work.

  At a point in his midlife, every man has to reconcile his unimportance. For some, this leads to a realization of wasted years and subsequent depression. For others, it leads to an attempt to inject false meaning into what they have done.

  I was in the second group. I told myself that my work at IBIS had connected hundreds of American firms with trading partners in Europe, generating billions of dollars in trade. Then there were my clandestine chores. There was nothing very heroic about waiting in foreign hotel rooms, venturing out for dinner or a newspaper. During each trip, I spent a total of less than ten minutes with my contacts, just enough time to pass along the information I had. After completing my task, I would walk down the city streets. No one passing me knew that I had just committed an act that might change their world. Businessmen made millions. But I had done something of deeper importance, in the nation’s service. In these patriotic moments, pride flourished, then quickly faded. I had only delivered numbers and words. I was less than a footnote.

  I started my last lap. As I circled the end of the plaza, I could see the rally breaking up. About halfway down, I saw another man running down the steps. Only serious runners sprinted on the steep stairs. He was younger than me, gaunt as a marathon runner, his legs spindled with muscles. He was shirtless and wearing green running shorts. A school group crowded the steps of the monument, and the jogger had to dodge through them. Halfway down, he lost his footing. Perhaps he was trying to avoid one of the students or misjudged a step. He fell forward, flying above the steps, face jutted forward, eyes closed.

  “No!” I shouted. The runner fell for what seemed like minutes, parallel to the marble steps, arms outstretched. He hit the steps with the sound of a melon being dropped, then rolled down the stairs head over heels, tainting the marble with his blood. His crumpled body came to rest face down a few feet from the rally.

  “Is there a doctor here?” The man in the blue suit rushed over. “Oh Lord God have mercy!”

  The crowd rushed forward to see the runner, arms moving in slow motion. I shook my head at the unfairness. One moment confident and healthy, the next moment… The man in the blue suit knelt down to pray. I turned and kept running, leaving the crowd behind me to gawk and shudder, to feel thankful that this didn’t happen to them.

  Certainly that was what our audience wanted from me as well – another bloody performance. But today wasn’t to be their day. Instead, they had to watch me kick a metal door again and again. My pointless kicking went on so long that my foot ached and the pain on my tongue rekindled. I pressed my tongue tightly in my mouth, then spat on the wall, making drips of red and yellow.

  After about an hour, I sat down on the floor in front of the door for a moment and breathed deeply, feeling the pain in my face fade a little. Beyond the white windows, the light was failing. It was fall, a time of early darkness, the warm lights of bars so inviting, the cobblestones damp beneath the streetlights. A cigarette, coffee, and brandy used to mark the end of my day. A Hoogaarten beer and a bowl of mussels with leeks would be my dinner. Then back to my apartment to read and drink wine. That time seemed to belong to another century.

  I raised my hand to scratch beneath my nose, where the burns had come alive from my sweat, the skin pocked and yellow like a quince left on a branch. The cold surface of my hard fingertips still strange to me, and I imagined that I could peel off the amber gloves I wore now and be free. But the Doctor had done his work well, and these hideous gloves were mine forever. Fueled by a new dose of rage, I stood and started kicking again, sending the dull rhythm echoing across to where I envisioned Blackbeard and the aliens surrounded by cables, monitors, computers, and their own debris, probably not so different from mine.

  In a few moments, I heard footsteps behind me. “Stop it,” Blackbeard said.

  “Why?”

  “You’re boring our audience.”

  “Good. Fuck them.”

  Blackbeard moved over to my side. He held the silver pistol in his right hand. “Turn toward me.”

  I kept kicking the door over and over.

  “Now!” He pressed the short gun barrel into my temple.

  I turned slowly and pressed forward until the cool tip of the gun rested directly between my eyes. I pushed hard against it.

  We stood so close that I could see Blackbeard’s dark eyes, bright with anger, could sense his malevolent charge. I was no longer playing the role of good hostage. Perhaps he was tired of our whole charade too, and ready to end it all with one quick pull. Then again, I was the golden goose.

  “You’re too much of a coward,” I said loudly.

  “You hide behind your mask, behind your ridiculous speeches. Everyone watching knows you’re an idiot.” I raised my eyes to the ceiling, where the black snakes dropped slowly.

  “Good,” whispered Blackbeard. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Say something worse.”

  Instead, I said nothing. I remembered the dead man on the plane from Miami, how the pistol in his face had scared him to death. But at that moment, I felt none. After all that had happened, fear was not part of me. I had already been so violated, nothing new could scare me. I reached out suddenly and grabbed the bottom of Blackbeard’s mask but the plastic slipped from my clumsy fingers.

  Blackbeard backed away quickly. “Damn you, asshole,” he hissed, then pushed me up against the metal doors. When he strode across the apartment, I turned and starting kicking again, sending a defiant rhythm throughout the fading apartment.

  Day 32.

  I sat on the toilet wondering whether the world was watching me shit. Certainly someone was. The black snakes kept me available constantly to whoever wanted to turn on their computer and find me. It was late and I was half asleep, wanting to finish so I could get back to the futon. I felt something strange and looked beneath me. Delicate white cloth – a bandage, a piece of cheesecloth – stretched into the bowl. When I reached down and pulled it, I felt a strange tugging inside, a quiver at the end of my spine. The white threads were woven carefully into a fine gauze that I couldn’t break. In the harsh light of the bathroom, I saw that it stayed white and pure, glowing like a mantle even in the disgusting toilet, which hadn’t been cleaned since my arrival. I had shit, vomited, and bled into it. Now the white rope dangled unsullied into the water. I pulled again and felt the strange tremor inside.

  “What have you done to me now?” I shouted up at the ceiling.

  “What have you done to yourself?” came the response.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  There was no answer.

  “What is this?” I pointed to the whiteness.

  “Your soul. You have sloughed off your soul.”

  I woke on my futon, face glazed with sweat. No white rope stretched from inside me. My soul, such as it was, remained inside.

  Day 33.

  Blackbeard, Nin, and the Doctor appeared at the door in the morning, followed by a group of aliens.

  “Ta-da,” Blackbeard did an elaborate bow and swept his arms before him. Two aliens trudged forward.

  “Allow me to introduce two of my associates. They will be assisting us in today’s event, which is of a somewhat delicate nature.”

  I ran toward the bathroom and slammed the door. Inside, I held the knob tightly and pulled as hard as I could with my hands. I looked up at the ceiling and one of the black snakes emerged slowly, red light glowing.

  “Stop this. Stop this!” I shouted. “Tell them to let me go. You have to do it, now…”

  Someone pulled the door and the knob almost slipped from my grasp.

  “I just want to go home. Maura, if you can hear this, call Alec Moore and tell him to pa
y them what they want. Get the money from IBIS. Just tell him to make this stop…”

  I reached down beneath the pile of mildewed towels and found the sock I had hidden there, the heavy showerhead in its toe. I hid my weapon under one arm.

  The door yanked open and the aliens grabbed me. They dragged me over to the corner, where the Doctor, Nin, and Blackbeard waited.

  The Doctor smiled and gave a small wave, as if we were friends who hadn’t seen each other in awhile. Nin stood silently beside him. Between the folds of the scarf, her eyes stared ahead without any trace of emotion. She gave no sign that this was the right time to strike. I couldn’t wait any longer.

  I tore away and swung the sock overhead as hard as I could. I hit an alien in the side of the head, sending his mask flying as he fell to the floor, then scrambled out of the room. I swung again and hit another on the shoulder, keeping him at bay. I turned toward Blackbeard, my arm cocked back to swing the heavy sock. He held up his hands and hunched over to protect himself. In one quick tug, Nin could reach over and pull off his mask. I paused, waiting for her to pull the mask off. She stood motionless beside him.

  I swung the weight as hard as I could, the heavy end arcing toward Blackbeard. From the floor, one of the aliens reached up to dig his fingernails deep into my other hand, breaking the skin’s crust and sending me to the floor in a spasm of pain. The sock whirled across the room, then ricocheted off the wall like a wayward comet.

  I lay on the floor and screamed. Aliens grabbed my arms. One came forward to kick me in the head, making the room come alive with sparkles of pain. Over my screaming, my ears rang with a high, pure note.

  “Finally, some excitement.” Blackbeard held up the sock and took out the showerhead. “And a spark of creativity, too. I’m impressed. And I’m sure our audience is too. Everyone wants you to be a hero, Eliott Gast. They’re cheering for you.” He threw the showerhead across the room. “Unfortunately, you won’t be hearing them.”

  He tossed a pillow from the futon onto the floor with an elaborate gesture. “For your comfort,” he said. He nodded to the aliens and they forced my shoulders down, centering my head on the pillow. Blackbeard sat on my knees, facing me.