Tomorrow and Tomorrow

by Thomas Sweterlitsch

  “I remember those commercials,” he says.

  “I’ll forward my hotel information, in case something comes up, some emergency—”

  “Of course,” says Simka. “Dominic? You’re not alone, do you understand that? Whatever you’re going through, I’m here for you, I’m with you. If you’re in trouble, come here. You have a home with me—”

  My sat-connect runs out and I decline approval for another session. Cramped, here, in this cheap hotel—claustrophobic. I crack open the window, I want to take a walk, clear my head—just like Simka always suggested, that exercise might lift my spirits—but I can hear the braying of dogs outside and people shouting nearby. I read a paperback I brought with me, Ed Steck’s The Necro-luminosity of Pink Mist, drinking Pepsi with hotel ice until my eyes droop closed and I sleep, dreaming of greenish drifts of ice, poisoned snow. I sleep through until morning.

  3, 1—

  Adverts scroll the bathroom mirror, shimmering through shower steam: Popeyes Fried Chicken, Grand China Buffet, accept the ten-dollar surcharge to book a cab through the mirror, using the touch screen as I brush my teeth—these things never work and I have to push twice, wondering if I’ve paid twice. Wharf Central, Bay Company, Anchorage coupons grid the ceiling and walls, skewing into pixelated distortion whenever the Wi-Fi hiccups. Local streams: cop killer guts four, VoyeurTube catches spy vids in J.Crew changing rooms. Gavril’s lent me a Caraceni suit for my meetings—he told me I wouldn’t be taken seriously if I showed up anywhere dressed like I usually dress and told me to know the brand in case anyone asks. Caraceni. I feel fake, wearing this thing—but the fit’s nice, it feels nice. He told me to leave the top buttons of my shirt unbuttoned, but I can’t pull off that look, exposing the upper triangle of my pasty chest, the scrawls of hair, so I button up to my neck. The coupon grids shift: Redwood National Park bike tours, lodging, collagen ass implants turn your sag bag into a beautiful bubble. Coffee at the House of Bagels vending kiosk in the hotel lobby. I wait for my cab outside—the weather’s gorgeous.

  The cab’s an AutoCab tricked out for tourists—driverless, its silky voice crackles through the speakers.

  “Destination?”

  “Fort Point,” I tell it, checking the shooting schedule I have for Zhou.

  “Destination?”

  “Fort. Point.”

  “Calculating,” it says, synching with my profile before sliding into traffic. “Welcome to San Francisco—”

  The topography of this place is sun-blanched ruinporn, an economic gutting—city block after city block of housing projects, slapdash QuickCrete construction jobs, acres of storage container housing sites stacked in corrugated sheet metal towers. Apartment building units with window slits. Beige patches of dead grass. A car’s been pushed to the center of a playground and set on fire, the smoke and gushing flames like the oil fires they streamed from Iran and Iraq following the Israeli War. iLux catches my position, pushes notifications through the streams—warns me travel delays are likely.

  “What’s causing the delay?”

  The cab searches, broadcasts relevant headlines: . . . this morning, an explosion on a Muni bus . . . Several dozen feared dead . . . Thirty-six reported dead, twenty-one wounded, the death toll expected to climb . . .

  “Jesus Christ—”

  “Travel delays are likely,” says the taxi.

  I pin the news report to a city map, overlay with the cab’s route to Fort Point—it looks like we’ll be passing the scene. Stuck in traffic, the air gritty, or maybe just soured by the chemical stink of the car fire we passed. Headlines swim in my eyes: a pipe-bomb explosion on the Double Rock route, the wreckage gumming up traffic for miles. Gang-related, crowdsourced news feeds, Cartel dispute, I go ahead and set up a user account with AutoCab while we’re inching along, buying a week-block fare instead of paying by the meter. We reach the first police barricade and I can see the bombed-out bus ahead on our right. Cops direct us through their pylons—the scene’s grisly despite the extinguished fires, the skeletal remains of a double-long bus, blown-out windows, bodies lined up on the sidewalk wrapped in sheets, some of the bodies’ social profiles still lit, rapidly updating profile statuses despite being dead. Ambulances and fire trucks are on scene, but the paramedics stand around with a couple of SWAT officers—everyone’s laughing now that there’s no one left to try to save.

  The taxi threads into a single lane. Three white cops with shaved heads and Ray-Bans hold a black teenager to the ground, his wrists zip-tied, an arsenal of automatic weapons spread along the sidewalk, baggies of cocaine and bricks of brown sugar on the hood of a Camry. Labels hover over each gun: AK-47, FN SCAR Mk 17, M72 LAW. The Adware’s augged the cops: Espozito, Stewart, Klein, badge numbers and service history, real-time charges as they’re levied against the kid. Already the comment fields are blowing up, CitizenWatch, SFAnti, 4thState, SFLibertarian, complaining of racially motivated violence, tagging each cop with civil disobedience accusations and filing citizen review complaints—the cops’ records display in the Adware, every complaint, every charge processed, every official review. Crowds have gathered, watching disinterestedly.

  “Every measure will be taken to provide for your security,” the taxi says. “I’ve calculated a safe route—”

  A few blocks past, the traffic picks up speed—emptied storefronts, boarded-over windows, abandoned cars tagged with phrases: Slinks all the fcuk and 187 $-T and God si Love. We pass through an intersection and the city improves, like I’ve entered into a different city entirely, SmartTags on the businesses, coupons offering free samples of eggnog lattes at Fourbarrel Coffee, Einstein Bros. bagels, BOGO deals at Burberry and the Gap. The street narrows like we’re driving through a canyon of gold, Bulgari and Louis Vuitton and Gucci, women wearing little more than string bikinis with max socials broadcasting their availability. I squint up into brilliant blue sky where a gorgeous face smiles, a model for Bovary’s saying, “Everything you’ve always wanted.” The Golden Gate Bridge looms ahead just like the innumerable pictures I’ve seen of it, the red spires and swooping cables vivid in the sun, almost unreal how crisp it seems. The cab pulls through Fort Point security checkpoints into a turnaround.

  “Enjoy your afternoon,” says the taxi. “Find your happy ending in San Fran Cisco!”

  A sloping hillside, a copse of pines. The ocean spray scent of the bay. Cars are double-parked in the lots, joggers and dog walkers crowd the sunlit paths that lead downhill to the fort at the base of the bridge. The fort comes into view, a sort of squat-box brick building tucked beneath one of the bridge’s behemoth arches, and NPS.Gov/Fort Point pop-ups bubble up toward points of interest in the masonry and link to articles about the Fort: Castillo de San Joaquin, 1865, the CSS Shenandoah, blinking for donations to fund preservation efforts and future expansion of the museum. Wandering the interior of the fort’s like wandering catacombs—stone corridors and arches, the roar of the ocean and the cries of gulls reverberating across the repeating architecture, blending into a deafening echo that robs the place of any beauty. Signs guide me downstairs, to underground halls that have been roped off for the fashion shoot. A production assistant waits on a folding chair. Once she sees me, she explains that I’ve entered a restricted area.

  “I’m here to see Cao-Xing,” I tell her. “I think she knows I’m coming,” but the production assistant’s face doesn’t brighten until I say, “Kelly Lee—”

  “Sure,” she says, scanning my profile against her list. “Dominic? John Dominic? Go ahead and follow along the hallway here. They’re in the middle of the shoot, so hang back until they break. Kelly’s down there already—”

  The air of these corridors is stale and the bricks are cold. The outer sounds of ocean and gulls and tourists have been suffocated, the only echo in the corridors is the sound of my footfalls and what I imagine to be the beating of my heart reverberating off the bricks. I’m nervous—to see her,
like meeting someone I’ve known intimately from a distance. Will I even recognize her? I walk until I hear the whispering shutter whir of cameras and hushed voices. The corridor curves and I come to the shoot—they’ve set up in a cell, studio lights aimed at the curved ceiling push unnerving shadows across the walls. Massive chains hang from bolts in the stone and lay coiled. Only a half a dozen or so work the shoot—adjusting lights, stationed at a makeup table they’ve set up inside a pop-up tent, working a computer rig almost identical to Gavril’s back home. The photographer’s on his knees, a young kid, searching for angles. Zhou’s here—Kelly—modeling with two women, the three of them painted gold, nude except for a lace of gold chains, their bodies detailed with finely drawn gold-leaf lines. Their eyes are brushed black with smoke-colored paint. They lie in the dust and in the chains, intertwined with each other, watching the photographer scurry before them like they’re demons interrupted from ancient sleep. The women open their mouths as if to swallow him, the interior of their mouths and their teeth dyed crimson.

  “Break. Let’s pick up again in fifteen—”

  One of the assistants switches on a trio of portable heaters, another offers the women sips of water through a straw. The photographer’s editing his images on the monitor. He’s criticizing aspects of the lighting, claiming the scene won’t render when they sculpt this environment for the streams. I make my way to Zhou.

  “Excuse me—Kelly?”

  She smiles. “Yes?”

  An odd sensation, talking to her—I’m so used to seeing her as a stand-in for Albion that I wonder if Albion’s here, or has been here, that if Kelly turns away quickly enough I might see a flash of hair that matches the crimson of her mouth, like there’s another, truer, world covered over by the one we’re in.

  “I’m—um,” I say, swallowing. “Excuse me, I’m—my name’s John Dominic Blaxton—”

  “Oh, Mr. Blaxton,” she says, “I’m Kelly Lee—I’d shake your hand, but my fingers are caked with this stuff. Four hours this morning in the makeup chair to get this applied—”

  She holds up her hands so I can see they’re gold. The other two models have fallen into a conversation about sushi while a makeup assistant sprays metallic paint to smooth out their sheen.

  “That’s all right,” I tell her, our Adware updating friend statuses and synching connections—the closest we have is through Nirvana Modeling’s link to Gavril and once Kelly notices I have friend status with him, she says, “You’re actually friends with Gavril? Oh my God, I flag his blog on my Lucy account. He does amazing work—”

  The photographer says, “Start wrapping it up—”

  “How can I help you, Mr. Blaxton?” says Kelly. “Nirvana probably forwarded you my portfolio, but I have other work samples to send if you’d like to see more—”

  Everything about her is familiar from the City, but only familiar in the way a dream of an unfamiliar place can seem familiar.

  “I have reason to believe you can help me find a man named Mook—”

  “Mook?” she says.

  “You’ve worked with him—”

  “Look,” she says, “I really don’t have time for this—”

  Her body’s gone stiff, her demeanor sour.

  “The man has taken everything from me,” I tell her, trying to keep calm.

  “If you want to book me for work, go through the agency,” she says. “I only work through the agency—”

  “I can pay you for your time,” I tell her. “I don’t have much, but I’ll give you everything I have if you can help me. I need to talk with him—”

  “I really can’t get involved in something like this,” she says. “I thought you’d be interested in my professional work. I’d be happy to send you my portfolio, if that would help. If you want to book me, go through the agency—”

  “Please stand to the side,” says the photographer and I back out from the ring of light.

  “We’re really going to need you to leave,” says one of the assistants.

  “Just call the cops. He’s trespassing at this point—”

  “I don’t want any trouble,” I tell them. “I can get you in touch with Gavril. Kelly—what do you want? I know he’s working on Anthropologie right now, I know that. I just need to know about this man. Please, I can set it up for you—”

  “Talk to me after,” she says. “I don’t want to fuck up the job I already have—”

  “Fine, sure,” I say. “I’ll—after the shoot. I’ll wait outside—”

  I back out of the cell. There’s a burst of laughter from the models—about me, I suppose, to cut the tension. I’m washed over with a wave of shame and hate and cold sweat. I’ve fucked it up—Theresa, I’ve fucked it up. Ascending from the fort the aura of the shoot disappears and once I’m in the bland sun, buffeted by wind rushing in from the bay, I feel like I’d left the chamber of a goddess but fumbled my chance for grace. Three hours waiting on a park bench beside a two-hundred-year-old cannon. The Fort Point information pop-ups ping me so often I almost miss Kelly’s ping when it comes. She asks if I’m still around and tells me to meet her. She flags herself and I follow hovering arrows in the Adware, pointing my way to her.

  The moment you see me, she texts, disable your connection—

  I find her sitting on a park bench. She’s still painted gold, the lines of gold leaf flashing in the sun, but she wears a red wool coat. A few tourists ask to take her picture and she smiles hesitantly but lets them. I disable my connection.

  “I’m sorry about the scene I was causing,” I tell her. “Back there—”

  She stands from the park bench. Nearly as tall as I am, but thin. She lights a cigarette and asks me to walk with her toward the water. We don’t talk, and I’m aware of the attention she elicits from the crowds we pass—she must be used to being noticed, anyway, but painted gold she looks like an alien among a lesser race of beings. Most don’t stare, not obviously—though I do spot a few people baldly ogling her, probably recording her with their retinal cams. There are pay streams, things like Candid Candies and Real Girls, full of vids just like these would be, of women unknowingly filmed and served up in the Adware for men in their privacy to swallow whole. At the water, Kelly takes another drag on her cigarette while I gape at the Golden Gate Bridge above us, stretching to distant hills, wondering at its immensity and trying to imagine how men in a different century than my own had constructed this thing, let alone dreamed it.

  “Mook’s not his name,” she says.

  “I don’t know his name. I don’t know anything about him—”

  “That’s good. We’ll call him Mook, then. The work I do for Mook is all private stuff, off the books,” she says. “If my agency knew about it, they’d drop me and I can’t afford that. They own my image. The stuff for Mook is a different deal—”

  “I understand,” I tell her. “I shouldn’t have barged in like that. I should have told you up front what I needed—”

  “It’s all right,” she says. “If you would have told me up front, I would have told you to go fuck yourself. We’re here together now, though. And if you’re hooked up with Gavril, in some way, if that’s true, then you’re legit—”

  “He’s my cousin,” I tell her. “I’m not in the industry—”

  “I don’t want to talk with you here,” she says. “I don’t want anyone from the shoot starting rumors about who you are. I want them to forget the word Mook and forget about this afternoon. I’m serious—if word gets around that I’m working jobs outside the agency, my career is fucked. I only have a few years before I’m replaced by younger girls, so I need to float all the work I can. I can’t fuck this up—”

  “I didn’t mean any trouble,” I tell her. She takes a final drag before tamping out the cigarette and saving the rest for later.

  “Fuck it,” she says. “Here’s what you can do for me. Get out o
f here. Tell my agent that you met with me and liked what you saw, that I was agreeable and have the perfect look, that you’re interested in hiring me but will get back to him—”

  “I can do that—”

  “As for you and me,” she says, “book me with Gavril. Have Gavril present my agency with a contract. If I’m going to risk my work with Mook, I’ll need something better to take its place—Gavril will give me that. If the contract comes through, I’ll ping you and let you take me out to dinner. We can talk then, okay? I’ll ping you—”

  I don’t want to watch her leave—I want to believe I’ll see her again, that I’ll learn everything from her, so I look out over the water, watching waves crash against the buffers, watching kids run from the white sea spray, laughing. In the AutoCab I leave a message with an administrative assistant at Nirvana, relaying what Kelly had told me to say—that I liked what I saw, that I was interested, that I’d be in touch. I try to call Gavril but he doesn’t answer, so I write him an e-mail with everything that’s happened.

  Chicken McNuggets for dinner, watching an old Battlestar Galactica marathon on TV when I pay for a few minutes of sat-connect to check my accounts.

  Gavril’s responded to my e-mail: Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired—

  3, 7—

  Kelly has a few things to take care of first. She says she wants to meet in Jackson Square, so I head over in that direction early, to wait in City Lights. Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations, carved into the sidewalk. Ferlinghetti. Chessboard floors and room after room of books on wooden shelves—rare, places like these. Coming here’s like a pilgrimage. Posters of glowering geniuses ring the walls, Ginsberg among them, wild-eyed and ink-stained—Ginsberg, whose work I once memorized and chanted at 2 and 3 a.m. on empty Pittsburgh streets. I was a teenager then, loving the feel of his words in my mouth, loving the shock and lucidity of his imagery. It’s been too long since I’ve felt like that—I pick up a copy of Howl and Other Poems. They stock titles here the streams never promote, titles never on bestseller lists and never with the full weight of marketing departments hyping them on daytime talk shows or blurbing them through bookseller apps—European novelists, dissident writers, established writers I’d lost track of in the past decade, like J. Constantine, Picard, Lucille Hash, all with new volumes, a new edition of the collected works of Bob Dylan and Grace K.’s new translation of Beowulf. I pick these up, buy an armload of books—gouging my Visa for thousands more than this trip is already costing me, but worth it to buy this paper, to hold the weight of these books in my arms. The cashier wonders if I’ve depleted their poetry section and I laugh. “Maybe I have,” I tell her, “maybe—”