“He said I probably shouldn’t mention his name.”
“You probably shouldn’t have. That piece of shit almost got me sued. Twice. So you work with Byron, or what?”
“We went to graduate school together.”
“Byron Lefkowitz went to graduate school?”
“Yes. At U-Penn.”
“No shit. That’s my alma mater.”
“Yes, he said he used you as a reference.”
Cedric shakes his head. The nerve of that little fucker. “All right,” he says, “you got me on the line, and you’ve kept me here this long. That’s no mean feat. So state your business, Mr.…”
“Merriwether. Sheldon Merriwether.”
“Sheldon. What the fuck do you want?”
“It’s not what I want. It’s what I’ve got to offer. Like I said, I work for a news program in Central Maine.”
“You a reporter? Weatherman? You don’t sound like an anchor.”
“No. I’m strictly behind the scenes. I’m not an on-camera talent like yourself.”
“So what have you got?”
“Earlier tonight, we received a very intriguing call from someone claiming to be part of a revolutionary movement called the Reclamation.”
“What’s that, like the Tea Party? Occupy? Something like that?”
“It’s something else altogether, according to them. They claim to have covertly begun a nationwide uprising tonight. They say they’ve infiltrated the homes and businesses of some of the wealthiest and most influential members of society.”
Cedric reflexively glances at the girl as she puts on her top. “You don’t say.”
“Would you like to hear the message?”
“Sure.”
As he listens, Cedric goes out to the kitchen, glancing over his shoulder now and then to check on his escort’s progress, eager for her to leave. He pulls a bottle of Perrier from the fridge.
“So what do you think?” Sheldon says when the message has finished playing.
“Is that it?”
“So far.”
“A little light on the specifics, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Who else knows about this?”
“Nobody. I mean, unless they called other stations. But nobody else where I work. I erased the tape.”
Cedric chuckles. “You are friends with Byron, aren’t you?” He takes a sip of Perrier. “Look, kid, I appreciate the lead, but I’m just not convinced there’s any cheese down this tunnel.”
“Come on. You’ve got to admit it’s intriguing.”
“It is intriguing. But despite whatever presumptions you may have about the kind of journalism I’m involved in, I do require some substantiation before I run incendiary stories. One needs to maintain a modicum of credibility, even in the rear float of the shit-parade that passes for media in the country. Besides, what you’ve got there isn’t a story. It’s the beginnings of a story at best. A germ. A snippet. A lead. A preview. It’s barely enough to tweet. It’s got no legs, no teeth, no body parts whatsoever.”
“But—”
“Listen. You get me something else, something I can hang my hat on, something to demonstrate that these invasions they’re talking about might actually be happening—that this isn’t just a couple of kids with a vocoder playing pranks… you do that and then maybe, maybe, we’ll have something to talk about.”
“How am I supposed to get that?”
“This is where the work comes in, Sheldon. A good lead ain’t worth a cup of day-old coffee on its own. You’ve gotta follow up on it. I’ll tell you what—you give me your email address, and I’ll send you a link for a website. It’ll let you tap into your local police department’s encrypted radio signal. Just make sure you’re doing it on a secure server. This is not exactly what you would call above-board, strictly speaking. Which, by the way—you’re not a cop, are you?”
“No.”
“Okay. And I am not, for the record, endorsing the use of this website, I am merely providing the information to you for reference purposes. Nothing else. But. Should you be interested in following up on this lead of yours, what you would want to do is listen to that feed all night. You don’t take a break, not to sleep, not to eat—you even keep the door open when you’re on the shitter. And you don’t go anywhere without a camera and a microphone.”
“What am I looking for?”
“The scoop, Sheldon. You’re looking for the scoop.”
Cedric takes down the young man’s cell phone number and email address, then hangs up. He sets the receiver down on the counter and chugs the rest of his mineral water.
The hand is on his crotch again. He jumps, wheeling around, almost elbowing the girl in the mouth.
“Jesus!” he says.
“Sorry. You can’t blame a girl for trying.”
“It’s all right.” He leans against the counter, his hand rising reflexively to his chest. “I’m just a bit on edge.”
“What’s the matter?” Her voice is more straightforward now, none of the sensual affectation she had put on before.
“It’s just this call I got, this lead some guy in the middle of nowhere thinks he turned up. It’s nothing. Thing’s total bullshit, obviously a prank. I just didn’t have the heart to tell the guy.”
The young woman runs her fingers along the countertop, passing in front of the knife block. The hard black handles of the knives glisten coolly in the track lighting.
How much does this girl make, he wonders. Given what she charges, it must be decent, even if she pays a hefty commission to the booking agency. Not as much as him, though. And who knows how far it stretches? Or what kind of toll the work takes on her. If he were in her shoes, he’d sure as hell jump on the opportunity to bring some righteous retribution to his perceived oppressors.
He slides over on the counter, positioning himself between her and the knives. She gives him a quizzical look, and he knows that he won’t be inviting her over again, even though she is his favorite girl. One sudden move from her right now, and he might have an actual heart attack.
When she’s gone, Cedric pulls the bottle of Black Label from the cupboard. He pours. A stupid rhyme runs through his head—one finger, two finger, three finger, four—as unease piles upon unease in a gut that hasn’t been properly fed in half a decade.
Sheldon guns it down Route 126, kicking his ‘02 Camry up to 60, 65, 70 MPH, freaking out only once when he mistakes a pick-up on blocks in someone’s yard for a speed trap. He chomps a dark chocolate and pecan energy bar in celebration of his independence. It’s not who you know, someone once told him—it’s who knows you. Well, Byron Lefkowitz knows Sheldon Merriwether, and Cedric Powers knows Byron Lefkowitz. Ipso facto (and ipso the facto of Sheldon’s nascent resourcefulness), Cedric Powers now knows Sheldon Merriwether.
That kind of connection—along with a little bit of luck, such as he’s had this evening—this is how careers are made. Not in groaning, stultifying increments, but in big strides, sweeping maneuvers, epic coups d’états. One big hit and, baby, they’ll be saying your name for generations. This is what it feels like to be a winner.
No. It’s way more than that. This is the feeling that Lazarus had when he walked out of the tomb, the hot sun landing on his freshly animated flesh. This is what it feels like to be reborn.
The auxiliary cable connecting his phone to the car stereo is kicking in and out again, vivisecting Modest Mouse into fuzzy fragments of melancholia and clanging guitar. He flips the feed over to FM radio and turns it to WCYY, the local modern rock outfit. They’re swinging a bit hard for his taste tonight, but it’ll have to do. He craves an aural accompaniment to the surge of adrenaline he’s feeling.
He’s going a solid 15 MPH over the speed limit as he rounds a curve and passes a local cruiser going in the opposite direction. The cop (who must be pretty damn short from how low his crew cut rides in the window) wags a finger at Sheldon as he passes. But Sheldon’s foot doesn’t e
ven float over the brake, and—kind of giddy—he flips the officer the bird.
Dumbass cop. What the hell is he gonna do? Turn around just to pull him over? Please. No traffic ticket quota in the world would be worth the trouble of pulling a U-ee on this narrow stretch of rural highway. Nothing is going to touch him tonight.
The radio plays “My Hero” by the Foo Fighters, and Sheldon belts out the chorus along with the band. Shit, that lyric may as well have been written for him.
He bobs his head to the deftly executed pop rock blend, wondering how anyone could refuse to acknowledge the Foo Fighters as a superior overall contribution to Nirvana. He rounds another curve. As the road straightens out, the flashing red and blue lights appear in his rearview mirror. A moment later, the siren squeals and a throaty voice comes over the bullhorn, ordering him to pull over.
Damien checks his service weapon before exiting his vehicle. This a-hole didn’t even slow down as he passed (if he’d seen brake lights in the rearview, he might not have hazarded that fishtailing U-turn). Plus, if he’s not mistaken, the guy had the nerve to flick him off. Can’t let a thing like that slide, regardless of where he was headed.
He sidles up to the driver’s-side window in his usual fashion, snuffing up the air, needlessly adjusting his belt. He attempts to tap the window, but the driver has already rolled it down, and his flashlight swooshes impotently through the air.
“Good evening, officer,” says the driver.
“That’s… yes. Officer. Right.” Beat. “Driver’s license and proof of insurance please.”
The driver produces the requested documents. Damien takes them and stares at them dumbly. He’s looked at hundreds of licenses and insurance cards before, but somehow he can’t make heads or tails of them at the moment. He feels light-headed. The letters float around on the surfaces like the ghosts in a game of Pac-Man. He’s lost his ability to read, his ability even to know what information he’s looking for or where it might be found. His eyes dart loosely between the items in his hands.
“Is everything okay?” the driver asks.
“I’ll ask the questions.”
What is he doing? The guy, whose name Damien has yet to discern from either his identification or insurance card, hasn’t really done anything wrong. He was probably going no faster than Damien is like to go down these roads, and he didn’t even get a good clock on him. Even if he issues a citation, the guy could contest it and would probably win.
Damien feels his eyes closing, his shoulders slumping.
“Umm… are you all right, officer?”
Damien looks up. The driver, a gaunt, hipsterish guy with a scraggly beard and dimpled cheeks, is gazing at him with a look of genuine concern. Damien looks at him for another moment, then walks around to the opposite side of the car. He opens the passenger’s-side door and gets in.
He looks around at the car’s interior. “This is a Camry, right?”
“Uh… yeah,” says the driver, leaning against his door.
“Turn of the century.”
“Two-thousand-two.”
Damien sighs, sinking into the seat. “I had a car like this back in high school.”
Wait a second. What’s going on here? Is he sitting in the passenger’s seat of the car he just pulled over?
He looks over at the driver. The guy is staring at him with something surpassing concern now, something more like wide-eyed, survival-fearing panic—his eyes unblinking, his lips parted slightly, the muscles in his neck all taut. This guy is scared as fuck. And therefore liable to do something dangerous.
Damien’s hand drifts down to his service weapon.
The driver reaches for the door handle.
Damien snaps open the holster.
The driver opens the car door and scrambles out of the vehicle.
Damien pulls the gun from the holster.
“Driver! Remain in the vehicle! Stop! Come back to the vehicle!”
The rest is a bit blurry—fragmented and fried. Like he’s watching the events on an old black-and-white TV with flimsy rabbit ears.
So many things remain unclear. How Damien gets out of the car. How he hoists himself onto the roof of the vehicle to get a good shot at the non-complying suspect. How he sees the man fleeing toward a pasture on the opposite side of the street. How he hears the shots before he’s aware of pulling the trigger. How the man goes down with a trajectory that seem to him more like a flattened cardboard box than a gunned-down body. How the keys are still in the ignition. How another set of headlights comes around the bend. How easy it is to shoot out the tires of the passing sedan. How conveniently both driver and passenger of said sedan stay in their seats. How compliant they are, as if they couldn’t guess that two more shots are coming.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The Weight
The final insult is how the body continues to grow. ‘Expand’ might be more like it. There’s no growth in the sense of ‘evolving,’ ‘blossoming,’ ‘becoming a better you,’ or any of the other self-help drivel those well meaning counselors try to feed J.S. every now and then. Annie’s body will continue to get bigger, heavier, but she’ll never really grow, never be a grown-up. Just a half-there toddler brain inside an expanding biological shell.
He’s never told it to anyone like this. When he talks to people, his friends or co-workers or the occasional shrink, he can’t ever seem to find the words. They get stuck somewhere in his throat, and he goes silent. People think he’s dumb, he knows that. Dumb as in stupid. Maybe that’s where it comes from, that sense of the word: dumb. When you stay quiet long enough, not answering simple questions, people are bound to think you’re a little dopey.
He bends down low and slides his hands behind the small of Annie’s back. Her arms rest listlessly on his shoulders. He checks his posture, bends his knees more deeply, and braces himself. She’s not that heavy—hardly above average for her age, though soft from inertia. He could carry her around all day and hardly feel a burn in his arms. But lifting her up from her chair is murder on his back. Three years ago, he could hoist cinder blocks and I-beams all morning and afternoon and not feel a stitch—nothing, at least, that some Epsom salts couldn’t handle. But he must have hoisted one too many over the years, ‘cause now he has the spine of a much older man, not fit for lifting much of anything. Including his eight-year-old daughter.
“You shouldn’t be lifting anything heavier than 20, maybe 30 pounds.”
The voice of the osteopath, looping in his head.
“I understand that your daughter needs exceptional care. You might just have to bring someone in to help, no matter what your pride tells you.”
He had wanted to tell the doctor that it wasn’t his pride talking, it was his bank account. The union benefits he was no longer getting. The COBRA insurance extension he couldn’t afford. But he had instead remained silent, as usual. He’d never been one to argue. People are gonna think what they’re gonna think regardless, so what’s the point?
He takes a breath and straightens his legs, lifting Amanda out of the wheelchair, his L2 and L3 vertebrae wailing, threatening to jump ship.
“There are services available.”
The voice of the social worker now—one of them, anyways—another track on the endless score of criticism that’s set to ‘shuffle’ in his head pretty much 24/7 these days.
“You have to ask yourself if you’re in a position to give her the care she needs. Don’t you think she might be better off in a group home?”
The question is screwy, slippery. He can’t quite catch hold of it. Of course it might make sense for him to let someone else shoulder this burden for him. It would sure as heck be easier. But somehow letting her go seems like it would cement his loss. More than that, it would render that loss meaningless, strip it of whatever dignity might be attached to it. So he keeps his nose down and keeps at it, depositing the piddling disability checks, absorbing the loneliness, intent on caring for his daughter until his body gives out… or until hers does.
She groans in response to his groaning, followed by something resembling a laugh. A sick-sweet odor rises from her back. She needs a bath. It’ll have to wait ‘til morning; the thought of dealing with the shower at this point is too dreadful. He sets her down on the bed and brings her pajamas over. She gives him a look that he allows himself to believe is a smile.
Once she is tucked in under her single sheet—blankets get complicated—he goes to the kitchen, zaps a frozen burrito, and sits down at the makeshift office in his living room to look at his computer. He glances at the scrip sitting out on the desk: OxyContin, 60mg. It’s expired, but he could easily get the osteopath to write him another. Yeah right, and end up a dope fiend like some of his friends from high school? No way. He balls up the scrip, tosses it in the wastebasket, and turns to his computer.
He pulls up his email. In his inbox, beneath the usual line-up of bills and overdue notices, there’s a message from an address he’s never seen before. The subject reads “A Friend from the Arena.”
He doesn’t get the reference right away. He figures it’s a piece of spam that somehow got through the filter. Then, with a jolt to his stomach, he realizes: The Revolutionary Arena—an on-line forum that caters to a hodgepodge of ‘armchair rebels’ with both leftist and libertarian bents. He’s been cruising the site almost daily for the last few months. His brother-in-law had mentioned it over dinner one night, critical of the Marxist contingent on the site— “I don’t get what those goddamn pinko-commies are complaining about. They already got one of their own in the White House!”—and Stanley figured it might be a good diversion: easier on his liver than the Jack, easier on his wallet than the pot, and unlike on Facebook, there would be no happy family photos to scroll through.
He clicks on the email and reads.
dear j.s.,
i’ve read your questions and comments on the revolutionary arena. we seem to have a number of the same interests, the same fears, and the same hopes.
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