All the Beautiful People We Once Knew

by Edward Carlson

  “We already met,” Jupiter told her.

  “It’s true,” I said.

  She asked where and how. I explained that we crossed paths in the rain. She was incredulous at the odds. Jupiter confirmed that the odds were indeed small but not infinitesimally so. As we spoke, police boats escorted a massive cruise ship through the harbor and out to sea, a shiny Norwegian flag painted to her funnel a mile above the water.

  “Let me show you both something I’ve discovered,” Jupiter said. He led us over to the telescope. “Remember what I told you about the sun, young man?”

  I confirmed that I did.

  “Well, look at this.”

  He squinted into the telescope’s eyepiece and positioned the telescope toward the sun, but still careful not to stare at it directly. The optical tube now aligned with the sun, he positioned a dull, ceramic plate on the ground, marked with a series of parallel concentric circles and numbers for taking measurements and degrees. The light from the sun reflected through the telescope onto the ceramic plate, where it shined with a painful brightness. In the middle of the shining plate, a collection of black dots converged, of various degrees and at various positions.

  “See here,” he said, pointing at the plate with a pen. “These are the sun spots. But if you watch these as I’ve been watching them, you’ll notice that they’re moving a little bit closer to one another every couple days. They’re starting to dance a little. They’re not static. I’ve been tracking them. And I think it’s only a matter of time before they overlap, and when they do—”

  “Then what will happen?” Kath asked.

  “Nothing less than a full meltdown of the entire North American power grid.”

  “Really, Jupiter?” Kath asked. She lit a cigarette and offered him one. I was almost hurt she didn’t offer me one as well. “I don’t buy it. Doesn’t that seem a little dramatic?”

  “Maybe it is. But imagine the possibilities if it happens.” He exhaled smoke. “We could be on the cusp of complete and utter cosmic futility. And they know it. Yes they do. Why else do you think they’re putting everything in the cloud? To keep it off the ground.

  “Given that the end of the world is nigh, how about a drink,” he asked us. He removed a bottle from an orange milk crate stored at his feet and handed both me and Kath a mug of wine. As he did so, I noticed that he possessed the small, hard eyes of a wine addict. His entire biological systems—nervous, endocrine, muscular—replaced over the years of drinking with new organs and glands that properly functioned only when steeped in wine. Withdraw would possibly kill him.

  “What do you know about Pommards, dear?” he asked her.

  My purpose for being here in the protest camp turned questionable. I thought of the work on my desk, that I had been out of the office now for hours. My only reason for being here was to accompany Kath as she initiated some kind of ceremony. To request access and information from Jupiter. For her, it was all self-serving, but rolled into something she believed was honest and fair. He cared for her, that was evident. And though she needed Jupiter more than she needed me at this moment, she also assumed I wouldn’t leave her, because she knew I needed something from her as well. And I knew that if I stayed beside her she would give it to me.

  Jupiter toasted us with his mug. The wine tasted like vinegar and I removed a cigarette from Kath’s bag. She didn’t notice and it was the first time I had done something like this with her. Jupiter extracted another bottle from beneath his booth and set it on the table.

  “What does that say?” he said, squinting to read the bottle’s small print, scrunching his nose and opening his mouth. My desire to leave and return to work swelled and filled me with lead. The only thing keeping me here was her. Kath slipped on her cheetah-print-framed reading glasses.

  “Borgyne,” she said, nodding.

  “I can see that,” he said. He sipped and paused. “Yes, it will be a real shame when civilization ends. But maybe it’s for the better.”

  “Jupiter,” Kath chided him. “Don’t be so negative.”

  He turned away from the wind, coaxing a tear that was now trapped in his eyelashes. One small fiery particle of that golden incandescent empathy wafted upward from within the darkness. Lighter than air and hotter than fire. Jupiter looked at me. He nodded. He smiled. Kath touched Jupiter’s knee.

  “Can I ask you a favor, Jupiter?”

  He agreed, and she proceeded to tell him about our lunch and the photographs, removed her camera from her bag and showed him the subjects, the angles, the composition. She wanted to find the girl with the bloody nose and she also wanted to know her name. I watched the stalking anarchists to ensure they didn’t rush Kath’s camera. Jupiter listened, he looked at the ground, finger-steepled his pink-and-black folded hands. He explained that the girl lived in a tent near the Bowling Green subway entrance and Jupiter agreed to take Kath there but on one express condition.

  “Name it,” she said.

  “Don’t poverty pimp us, Kath.”

  She consented and followed Jupiter and I followed too, wondering what Jupiter meant by poverty pimping. What poverty pimping entailed. Trekking across cobblestones, we approached the old subway station, its entrance surrounded by short-haired mongrels and dozing-off children nursing their billy club bruises with cans of Four Loko. Jupiter kick-started a sleeping boy with fishhooks tattooed around his chin.

  “Where’s Dutch?” he asked the kid.

  Eyes closed, the kid pointed toward a yellow tent and Kath put her hand in my back pocket and I felt ridiculous standing here like this but she wanted me close to her.

  “Dutch,” Jupiter said inside the tent, motioning for Kath to follow. Kath detached from my pocket and crouched, almost on all fours, the large camera lanyarded around her neck. Jupiter pressed down on the lens to communicate to Kath that this was a bad idea but Kath persisted, pushing forward behind the lens. From inside the tent came the low growl of an angry canine as Kath pressed forward, the servo inside the camera shooting more images. She crossed the tent’s threshold, triggering an impulse, spacious white mongrel teeth followed by muddy work boots. Kath backed away, bent over, still shooting her subject, as the girl exited the tent, face bloodied and bruised like something from the wasteland north, from the other side of the tar pits, smeared like a lesbian leatherneck with a busted nose stuffed with red-brown tissue.

  Kath stumbled. I quickened between Kath and the girl’s barking dog and it snapped at me, scraped my hand with its canines, the soft fleshy chunk around my trapezium. The girl’s hobnailed boot descended in a swift motion toward Kath’s face and the camera, about to smash them both, but Jupiter was there to protect her. He kicked away the dog while catching the girl’s wound-up foot midflight.

  “That’s enough, young lady,” he said. “She’s a friend.”

  “The fuck she is.”

  Dutch shook herself free from Jupiter’s grasp and stomped toward the flags and joined a gang of anarchy boys, who attempted to console the irate girl, all of them now yelling and pointing at me and Kath.

  “Maybe you two should go,” Jupiter said.

  He looked at my hand. There was a faint trickle of blood, as if bit by a baby vampire.

  “Make sure you wash that,” he said.

  “Thank you, Jupiter,” Kath said, and again kissed his nonscarred cheek. We said our goodbyes and Kath handed me a satin scarf adorned with little Roman crests. The one she used to clean her glasses. We walked north on Water Street. Catching our breath. Replaying events. Adrenaline dissipating into mild dizziness followed by euphoria.

  “You should have been a war photographer,” I told her.

  She wrapped an arm around my waist, thanked me, and kissed my cheek.

  “For what?” I asked.

  “For being awesome.”

  I looked at the watch. Too much time had passed to return to the office. And if I did I wouldn’t accomplish anything. The day was wasted for anything other than her.

  “What ar
e you doing now?” she asked.

  “I don’t really feel like going back to work.”

  “Good answer.”

  She took my hand and squirted colloidal antiseptic goo onto the scratch and rubbed it in with her warm hands. The alcohol burned but only for a moment.

  “Then let’s go to your place,” she said. “So I can give you your treat.”

  20

  FLEEGER LEANED FORWARD IN a leather swivel chair at the head of the conference table, hands knitted behind his head, elbows on the table, his pose for dealing with thorny legal issues. Leaning into the Bluetooth speaker, he poked the air with his long finger. I entered my office and unspooled the confidential envelope the mailroom clerk had deposited on my office chair. It contained a cover letter from Honda asking me to call him as soon as possible. The disc’s contents downloaded to the computer’s hard drive.

  Video 1. 1 minute, 03 seconds: Thomas in his garage, gripping an acetylene torch with elbow-length gloves, protective goggles, leather vest. He laughs at the fire in his hand with pure joy, like a deranged metal butcher, slicing chunks of steel into strips and shards.

  Video 2. 1 minute, 45 seconds: Surrounded by boxes of Depends, Thomas at his basement workbench planes a wooden edge. He lifts and fits the lid atop the side panels, dips a rag into a small yellow can, and commences staining a wooden coffin. His fingers dig into his scalp, violently scratching. A bald spot appears on the side of his head. He’s now scratching himself bald.

  Video 3. 32 seconds: Thomas berates his daughter on the pressure-treated deck. Multiple bald patches across the back of his head.

  Video 4. 18 seconds: Thomas, atop his deer stand, pivots, pulls, launches a steel-tipped arrow from a compound bow that strikes a multipointed buck tiptoeing through his rhododendrons. The arrow pierces the deer’s neck. The deer collapses.

  I called Honda. He answered on the first ring.

  “Honda, it’s Stephen. You got him using the deer stand. Fantastic. This is some pretty good fucking surveillance work man. Refutes a whole bunch of the orthopedic injuries, especially the archery. And what’s up with that coffin? Weird, right?”

  There was a pause.

  “Look, Stephen. He made me. I’m done. He came after me with a baseball bat and I’m done.”

  “OK, understandable man. Besides, you’ve done yeoman’s work on this already and I think we’re in good shape for the deposition. Perhaps it was inevitable. We’ve been pushing the limits on this one. But it’s true what they all say. Honda Tadakatsu always gets his man.”

  He was in no mood to banter. I almost told him to lighten up, we were in good shape.

  “Look, one more thing, Stephen. And I’m going to let you decide how you want to handle it, OK. I got another look inside his house. I couldn’t photograph it because of the light and the glare in the windows. But you should know that he’s got pictures of you and Robert taped to his dining room wall.”

  A bubble of fear rose within me, down and to the side.

  “What kind of pictures?”

  “The portraits posted on Kilgore’s website.”

  I should have been more alarmed. Perhaps I was numb. I wanted to go straight for him. The gas bubble dissipated. “Thanks, man. I’ll discuss it with Robert and we’ll take it from here. And Honda.”

  “Yeah, Stephen.”

  “Good work.”

  We said goodbye. I sat behind the desk pondering what to do next and entered a time note in the billing software. 444/15 RF/SH: In re telecon with investigator in re new surveillance: .4 hrs. My inbox pinged with an email from Lazlis.

  “Stephen: My client informs me there was an Asian man filming him the other day in a grocery store. I can only assume it was Honda. As such, I’m requesting WorldScore’s production of all surveillance footage taken of my client prior to his deposition. Your obligation to produce the footage is well established by recent jurisprudence.”

  A couple more weeks of this and we would be well positioned to shrink their settlement demand into something WorldScore could live with, pack up these boxes, place them in storage for five or six years, whatever the rules required, and move on. And I could start focusing on what Kath referred to as my “empowerment.”

  “Jim: I’m confused. Are you asking for all surveillance taken prior to the deposition? Or are you requesting production before the deposition? Your request is ambiguous.”

  “Stephen: Both.”

  “Jim: First, I’m in in no way, shape, or form even admitting that surveillance footage exists. But, without prejudice to all of WorldScore’s rights, if my recollection serves me correctly, the rules don’t require us to produce the footage until before trial, not before the deposition. Production, as you know, dilutes their impeachment value.”

  “Disagree completely, Stephen. Will bring it up before the judge. One more thing—now that I have your attention. We need WorldScore’s approval for a cervical spine fusion at C4/C5 as well as debridement of the spondylosis at L4/L5.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s got a procedure scheduled for after the deposition but it can’t be scheduled until we have written approval that WorldScore will pay for it.”

  “Will run it up the flagpole,” I replied. Knowing full well I wouldn’t.

  “Thxs.”

  “Anytime. Best. SH.”

  I typed up and entered another time note in the billing system. 444/15 RF/SH: Review/reply to email correspondence with opposing counsel re production of surveillance footage and request for approval re spine procedures: 1.5 hrs.

  I entered Fleeger’s corner office. He wasn’t there. Above the city, to the south and west, the clouds parted, converting lower Gotham into temporary Stonehenge as the sun traversed the asphalt, cleared the tip of a verdigris volcano, and struck the mirrored glass facade of a Jersey City office tower. Radiating the canyons between the buildings with the light you would expect to find above the Ganges, bobbing with garlands of marigolds, like molten magma. I closed my eyes and felt the orange-blue light, now glowing inside Fleeger’s crystal apples and beer steins and bronzing his jelly gong, illuminating the trophy sprites of his insurance industry golf tournament prowess, warming their wings. Reawakened by solar radiation, the sprites detached from their wooden podiums and twinkle-belled in the office’s dusty, golden light.

  I stepped behind Fleeger’s desk hungry to pry. To open the drawers and look under his desk. Beneath the pile of old Wall Street Journals. The carpet protector eroded by years behind the machine. His essence resided here. In the leather chair cracked open by his massive legs and back. In the groove of the hard, plastic mouse. I scrolled the cursor across his trinity of screens. Some of Tara’s squares still required filling but a fuller picture had emerged. Accountant. Searching for a position with a nonprofit organization (preferably housing or women’s rights). Avid flosser. Insecure about her gums (thinks they’re too big). Loves Spain. Loves tapas and paella. Loves her parents. O’Malley. Perez. Petra. No O’Shaughnessy.

  I looked up from behind the screens at Fleeger standing in the doorway of his office. Both of us now bathed in the city’s golden, radioactive sunlight.

  “Find what you’re looking for?” Fleeger asked.

  Some tropism of blame cracked through its eggshell. Uncoiled its slimy body, also reaching for the sunlight. I crushed it with my heel as outside the protestors’ plastic bucket drums resumed their beat. There were fewer now.

  “There’s one thing maybe you can explain for me, Stephen,” Fleeger said. “If your hours are consistently low, then what are you doing all day?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What are you doing here? Every day? In your office? Behind your desk?”

  “Working,” I said. “What else would I be doing?”

  Outside the corner office window, a skyscraper released a plume of steam that curled in and around itself like a Möbius strip.

  “You tell me,” he replied.

  None of this would hold for much longer,
I thought. I squeezed his shoulder and stepped past him and exited his office.

  21

  KATH WAS EN ROUTE. Estimated time of arrival: two hours. She wanted to continue discussing my empowerment and her upcoming exhibition of the protest photos at Soncha’s quarterly gathering in the Village. She also needed my help to protect her intellectual property. I suggested that we meet here in my apartment over dinner to discuss and she agreed. Together we had coined a new mantra: Live free of Fleeger or die.

  The toilet and the shower were scrubbed. On the bathroom windowsill, I arranged the trail of products she had left here, for lips, for hair, for skin, contact lens solution. Sniffed her now-indelible scent on the pillows while changing my sheets. Extracted anchor-hitches of her red hair from the shower drain. I arranged the candles to coax her to spend the night. Because she loved candles, she said. What the Danes called hygge, she explained. The way they glowed in the dark, the promise of light. Bequeathing us time to get it done right. I wanted a long night and a good long morning with her.

  I lay on the couch and opened a binder of Thomas’s medical records. For continuous review and study before next week’s deposition. Pages of notes and charts for cross-referencing reports and records that contained no reference to the incidents that allegedly caused the man’s injuries. I opened the folder of photographs. Of Thomas the deer hunter, the slaughtered deer, the family law pleadings, Thomas on his tractor, Thomas hauling beer. A narrative was evolving, the pieces fusing. We were winning. I napped on the couch with the binder splayed across my chest. Confident that after this case I would start looking for another job. That I owed it to myself to be happy.

  The nap ended. I awoke in a panic but realized I hadn’t slept too long. Kath would arrive soon. I prepped the food so we could cook together. Removed a cookbook from the bookshelf, Gourmet in 60 Minutes, by a celebrated Scandinavian Somali chef. Leaning against a butcher block stacked with organic bounty, I felt the anxious glow of Kath’s impending arrival. Would keep it high protein and low carb. Every woman I’d ever loved gained weight once we were together. Because they became too comfortable, thus becoming less desirable, commencing the downward spiral. I would prevent that from happening with us. The clove of garlic resisted the knife, required extra pressure. There we go. Another and another. I crushed the flavors into a rub. Poured grapeseed oil into the steel pan and set the blue gas flame on high. Billions of metric tons of the stuff brought to you by American Pipe. The stove lit the round, blue flame with a quiet roar and I stirred the shallots with a wooden spoon. The shallots cooled in pepper and salt as the steak absorbed the garlic marinade. I wanted a beer.