Tomorrow and Tomorrow

by Thomas Sweterlitsch

  “I can find out,” he says.

  iLux accessing my account blends my memories into this night—Zhou joins us, a tweed skirt and knee-high boots, a cardigan over a Phipps Conservatory T-shirt about the African Grape Tree that reads I’m Not Dead . . . I’m Dormant! She sits with us, dipping biscotti into her chai. Gavril studies her.

  “She’s here because I’m remembering nights when Theresa and I sat here—”

  “I understand,” says Gavril. “She’s welcome—”

  “Mook could have done anything to Theresa,” I tell him. “He could have made her a horror show, or he could have deleted her and left all the gaps—but he’s inserted Zhou so that I can’t track him. Skillful insertions make it difficult to track—”

  Gavril’s not listening. “Don’t get me wrong,” he says, continuing some conversation he was having with me only in his head. “I’m sure your wife was very stylish for someone from Pittsburgh—”

  “I guess so—”

  “But whenever you show me Zhou substituting for your wife, she’s wearing clothes like these, generic things, things she could buy from Target or H&M or wherever your wife shopped, clothes probably pulled directly from your memories and filled in by the Archive’s corporate sponsors for historical accuracy. When you show me Zhou substituting for Albion, however, she wears unique clothes. She’s wearing high fashion, very interesting pieces—”

  “What does that tell you?” I ask him.

  “Let me make a call,” he says.

  2, 24—

  Waiting at the gates, Dulles International. Gavril’s flight to London departed on time earlier this morning but my flight’s delayed because of weather, an unexpected squall that’s iced the wings. The passengers are glued to the feeds, waiting to be seated, streaming CNN.

  Buy America! Fuck America! Sell America!

  CNN cuts to rolling blackouts in Quebec, a Wisconsin teacher gangbanged by her eighth grade class, elderly men dying in Mississippi floods, NASCAR burns into trackside crowds.

  Gavril invited me to drinks the other night. I told him I didn’t want to go out but he insisted—he rarely insists. He told me to meet him at the Wonderland Ballroom. Our table cluttered with beer bottles, cartoons on the label augs, buzzed and feeling snapped on a microdose of brown sugar. A chemical giddiness stripping back layers of depression—laughing at almost everything Gavril said, everything around me. Face-pinned club kids and their girls inked in augged tattoos, dolphins arcing from ocean sprays and fairies fluttering in glitter. Gavril said he wanted to get me plastered. I told him I was already plastered.

  “More plastered,” he said.

  A waiter arrived with a bottle of absinthe and set our table with glassware and sugar cubes.

  “You’ll think I’m a fucking genius,” Gavril told me. “House of Fetherston’s headquartered in San Francisco. Dollhouse Bettie is a boutique line of lingerie also designed in San Francisco. So I called a friend of mine on the West Coast, an editor at Sick, this L.A. fashion zine. I told him about Zhou and Dollhouse Bettie and these outfits that looked like unreleased House of Fetherston designs. I sent him images of Zhou. He got back to me in an hour. Here, have a drink—”

  Gavril held the bottle of absinthe to me—teardrop-shaped, the augged label interacting with my Adware, the branding Mucha-inspired, art nouveau swirls around a lesbian orgy. The women kissed, stroking one another, writhed—and there, in the middle of the group, her hair like black tendrils of ink intertwining with the stylized frame of the design, was Zhou.

  “Shit,” I said. “Holy shit—”

  “She’s an actress in San Francisco named Cao-Xing,” he said, pronouncing it Sow-Sing, saying, “she’s American, born in Kansas, moved out to San Francisco. Goes by Kelly Lee. Small-time gigs. She’s hardly appeared in anything, but she’s registered with a couple different agencies—”

  Gavril lent me enough money for a ticket to San Francisco and a hotel, with plenty left over for an extended stay if it comes to that. He told me he’s flying to London early, to lie low until our situation settles down. There’s a crush at the gates—nearly six hours to work my way through the queue. Staring into the streams: another murder in DC, another woman, her head and hands cut from her body. She was found in a dumpster trashed outside the Fur Nightclub. Despite six DJs and a raucous party, no one saw a thing. A flight attendant scans my Adware, checks my flight pass. The Channel 4 stream says that despite the lack of fingerprints or dental records, District police have identified the victim from a DNA match using her blood—she was living in DC from Manchester, England, on a student visa for Georgetown. The woman’s name was Vivian Knightley. A part-time model to finance her studies, the streams flash American Apparel adverts of an ethereal blonde in a soccer jersey belted like a dress and knee-high tube socks—Twiggy.

  “Oh, God—”

  “Is everything all right?” says the attendant.

  “It’s horrible,” I tell her.

  I file toward the rear of the plane, searching for my seat, Twiggy’s death reverberating in my mind and hovering in my eyes. Christ, I’m near tears. Twiggy’s crime scene pics illuminate my sight, headless, her arms severed at the forearms—red hair, that Albion-red shade of hair dyed for the party—I’m nauseous, remembering her. This dead woman, pictures from England, her modeling stint. She was a poet, they’re reporting, e-zine servers crashing from gawkers interested in her work, they post she was a genius fucking poet and she’s already a front-runner on Crime Scene Superstar, with the highest instant-fuckability score the show’s ever seen. Every passenger on this plane’s streaming tabloids, mouths gaping in titillated shock at Twiggy’s body, at performance vids of Twiggy masturbating while reciting “I reached for you this morning but you were gone,” staring out the windows over the wings and the runway at Twiggy’s face, every passenger consuming this young woman, this beautiful young woman, oh God, oh God. Primary school graduation pictures. Pictures of Vivian with friends in Paris. CNN streams fuck-vids sold by ex-boyfriends, Twiggy the top story, millions worldwide watching her fucked and be fucked, watching footage of her body pulled from the dumpster, laid out in the alley, streaming autopsy photographs, gray-skinned, flaccid breasts, nipples the color of stone, veins visible, the stump of neck and stumps of arms, death shots and money shots, shots of her smiling face, streams of American Apparel ads, giving head, lesbian fucks with other models, behind-the-scenes photo footage, set for superstardom, they report, what a waste, what a waste, oh God, I collapse into my seat and close my eyes, I close my eyes to it all, to block it out, and I can no longer see but I still see her in my mind, the image of her face burned into my mind’s eye, her body beautiful, her beautiful hair like light, but in my mind I see her hair dyed that Albion color of blood, all that blood-red hair, and see her body cut apart, another missing woman, see her lips and eyes, oh God, I dig my nails into my scalp, Oh God, and want to rip it out, rip it all out, rip this world from me.

  • PART II •

  SAN FRANCISCO

  2, 25—

  Five hours in flight, nine hundred passengers staring into cells or screens embedded in the seats in front of them, in-flight streams prohibited: an entire season of Whipped and Creamed, a showing of Jules and Peasley Blarf in Cairo. Rank circulated air—mucosal breath, dirty diapers and thawed airplane meals, stale socks and the pungency of feet from people who’d kicked off their shoes. Garbage in the aisles, the crew too short-staffed to care—pushing drink carts through, serving splashes of liquor in cups of ice. Dawn, my face pressed to the window as the San Francisco sprawl cuts beige and concrete black against the blue ocean. The fractal coast becomes mundane the lower we descend. The sprawl comes into focus—strip malls, traffic-glutted highways, housing developments. The runway appears beneath us. The wing flaps adjust and rattle the cabin. Seat belts on, electronic devices off. Screaming kids, a cloud of body funk. The plane thumps as wheels hit concret
e. A smattering of applause when the Adware blinks on and most of us reboot, autoconnecting with SF.net. We taxi, nearly everyone standing, anxious to leave, heads bent awkwardly beneath the overhead bins. People pulling jackets and luggage from beneath their seats, elbows forcing position in the aisle, a chemical waft from the bathrooms—urinal cake and diarrhea and disinfectant. It’s been a while since I’ve flown. The stewardesses tell me to enjoy my stay.

  Hannah.

  Twiggy.

  Albion.

  Shuttle buses to the terminal, Delta security performing a first ID scan on the way in, sponsored hotels showering us with cheap rates. BayCrawler recommends an economy room in the Bayview–Hunters Point Holiday Inn, a Daily Deal. I go ahead and book, the terms and conditions scrolling in half-light. Accept, Accept—Accept all. Hours in lines twisting through cordons, everyone sitting on their suitcases, eyes glazed watching streams. Adware kicks in a flickering jangle, competing currency exchange rates for foreign travelers, taxicabs, yellow cabs, that old woman Paris in gold leggings begging me to switch my booking to Hilton, Days Inn with cheaper rooms and HBO blinking in the overlays, Holiday Inn blasting reminders that my reservation is nonrefundable, women in towels offer spa services and city tours. You’ll find a happy ending in San Francisco!

  Gavril’s contact is an agent at Nirvana Modeling named C.Q. I ping him but he doesn’t respond. I ping again with a friend request and Gavril’s attachments, but still no response. I text: Dominic, a friend of Gavril’s. Looking for a model you might work with. Did Gavril get in touch with you?

  Armored National Guardsmen with submachine guns slung over their shoulders stalk the security line. German shepherds tethered on leashes sniff each of us, sniff our bags—I leave my backpack on the floor and the dogs surround it, running their noses along the seams. Praying they don’t sniff out residue, but sober enough to have left my brown sugar back in DC. Another ID checkpoint—soldiers with handheld bar code readers scan my passport and retinas. Robotic voices chime: “Never leave your bag unattended. Remain with your luggage at all times. Never leave your bag unattended. Remain with your luggage at all times—”

  A young woman ahead in line answers questions. She struggles with English, but a TSA supervisor, white-haired, pockmarked, finally stamps her passport and waves her through to the scanner. Strict policies arriving or departing for flights—we’ve been through this before, all of us, when we boarded the plane, but TSA makes us go through these security points again and again. I watch her hike up her shirt a few inches and slide her belt from her blue jeans. She unbuckles and removes each boot and places everything in a plastic bin. She speaks French, I can hear her now, but she doesn’t understand anything the customs agents are telling her—translation apps struggling to keep up in the anemic Wi-Fi. The screener, a slight man in blue vest and gray slacks, holds his arms out to his side, each hand capped by a blue latex glove. The French woman understands now and imitates him—holds her arms outstretched. The man frisks her, running his hands along the back of her thighs and up over her like a bored lover, patting the interior of her thighs, cupping her genitals. The woman’s embarrassed, but complies—she stands still while the man fondles the undersides of her breasts and runs his fingers along the underwire of her bra, what else can she do?—and when the customs agents instruct her to step through the body scan, I look with the other men to the crowdsourcing security screens placed where we all can see. We’re curious—and there she is, like an etching in green, layers of her, her skin and underwear, demure, the fabric of her clothes. The buttons of her jeans and the underwire of her bra display pale green, almost white, her Adware displays like a lace doily sitting on her brain. The screeners have poker faces, playing their part of professionalism, but as I watch the screening, Adware girls overlay my sight, offering to bounce me to pay sites full of leaked airport scans—porn stars, celebrities, amateurs, perfect tens all scanned for national security, all leaked to the streams.

  Passport stamped, I’m frisked and asked through into the scanner. My body is projected in green on the black glass—the travelers can see, but I wonder if anyone bothers to look.

  Acid jazz over electronica—an unrecognized ringtone. Check profile: Colvin Quinn, Nirvana Modeling, editor. Add to address book? Yes—and Colvin’s profile fills my vision as I sit on a bench to put my shoes back on. He’s texted: Gavril’s friend? You’re the one looking for a model?

  Cao-Xing Lee. Gavril said you know her?

  Yeah, Gavril’s question—that’s Kelly, he writes. Real name’s Cao-Xing, but she goes by Kelly. She’s one of mine, yeah. Are you booking her, or what? You can book her through the agency.

  I need to talk to her.

  What do you have in mind? She’s an actor, does some print work. Terrible at celebrity impersonations, but she’ll work private functions if you’re paying her.

  I just need to talk to her.

  If you book her, it goes through the agency. No freelance bullshit. But I can set up a meeting, as a favor to Gavril. She has a shoot on the first. You can visit her on set. Sound good?

  Perfect—

  I’ll send you details—

  Leaving the airport, I’m warned I’m leaving a secure green zone and have to “accept” before the warnings will blink out. Yellow cabs line the curb—BayCrawler displays user reviews of the drivers, the drivers standing curbside shouting at us, trying to convince us the one-star reviews are false, were posted by bitter, jet-lagged people, that they’d cut rates for a fare. Criminal record pop-ups halo most of them. The driverless AutoCabs are parked together, but BayCrawler flashes a scare piece about drug cartels tracking tourists in driverless cabs, forcing them off the road and murdering them for their luggage and cash. Too many warnings of pricing scams. I queue for the commuter train, downloading SF.net’s top free travel apps and augs while I’m waiting. The commuter train’s a maglev bullet cutting through suburban slums, empty station to empty station—storefronts blur, abandoned strip malls, cars stalled out and feathered in tickets, whole sections of outer communities burned, the wood char left to rot in the paradisiacal sun. I lose Wi-Fi until we’re closer to the city center, office towers and skyscrapers coming into crystalline view. An autoconnection to City.SF.gov—a ping from a Nirvana Modeling intern waiting in my in-box, the subject line: Kelly. I download a press packet and scan through publicity shots along with tomorrow’s shooting schedule. Unmistakably Zhou. Video clips from Our Town, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Gem of the Ocean. She’s not a bad actress, but most of her credits are from liquor commercials—a nude Kelly dripping with red syrup for Absolut Strawberry, in a minikilt for Dewar’s. A fashion shoot tomorrow—the Nirvana Modeling intern gives the address and mentions that Kelly’s been told to expect me.

  We skirt the city center and enter Hunters Point. Retinal scans for fares, the station scrawled with Meech-HAM graffiti and swastikas—a graphic Meecham death’s-head with hair like a corona of blonde fire. The neighborhood’s shit, but the Holiday Inn looks passable and I check in through the kiosk, gathering the key cards that pop from the slots. I reset the dead bolts once I’m in my room—the economy-size little more than a closet with a sofa and toilet. Jet lag’s catching up with me—but I wander out to find a grocer on the next block for a few apples and Greek yogurt, a two-liter of Pepsi and a box of Ho Hos. Men loiter on the corners here, in oversize T-shirts and baggy jeans. Someone shouts out to me, asking for money. “A quick loan,” he says. I keep my head down. I lock myself into my room. Ho Ho after Ho Ho, watching the flat screen bolted to the wall—I’ve tried the streams, but the Holiday Inn router is spotty, blinking in and out. I try to visit the City, to visit the empty spaces, but the connection’s lost.

  Paying for a few minutes of sat-connect, I call Simka.

  “Dominic, where are you? Are you okay?”

  I open my room curtains and look out over the third-floor view of Hunters Point so that he can see
what I’m seeing, an empty apartment tenement slashed with graffiti and lewd tags meant to implant viruses in unprotected Adware. There are fires somewhere distant—three columns of dark smoke mar the horizon.

  “Where are you?” he asks.

  “Paradise,” I tell him. “I’m all right—”

  “Your call says San Francisco. Dominic, are you really in San Francisco?”

  “I landed a little while ago,” I tell him. “I’m feeling ill, Simka. I’m feeling so bad right now. I don’t know what to do—”

  “You’ll be fine, Dominic. Remember to breathe. In and out, in and out—”

  “I’ve gotten mixed up in something,” I tell him, not sure how much to say.

  “I’m worried about you,” he tells me. “What’s going on? I haven’t heard from you since we talked about Timothy. I can call the police if you’re in trouble, Dominic. Tell me—”

  Hearing his voice is like a balm on wounds I didn’t quite realize I have—lonely, I realize. “I’m realizing how fucked up I’ve been,” I tell him. “After Pittsburgh, once winter came, they used to run these PSAs about radioactive snow, do you remember? Those commercials used to stick in my mind—I’d dream about them—that person walking through snowfall. Everything serene, snow piling on trees, over lawns, on houses, before we realize that all the snow is poisoned with radiation. They’d list these symptoms. Tell us about Caesium-137. That’s what my depression’s like, Simka—I can’t really quite explain it, I guess. When the depression settles over me, it’s like I’m walking through that radioactive snow, that no matter how fast I run or try to cover myself, the snow will keep falling until I’m buried under—”