LOST HIGHWAY

by Zac Funstein

  There was a mess it was true like as they say ‘a bomb had hit it’.

  Santos who dressed as if codes regarding which uniform to wear for specific occasions were usually announced before each event, including what socks, what tie, what shirt etc, was playing with a leather box with an abacus inside:

  “I’ve grown use to it-the untidiness that is. It’s like when you were a kid-when there is an opportunity to finger-paint? Did you stress about how it would look or how much mess it would make? No you didn’t.”

  His dress shirt appeared new from the neatly pressed lines that seemed so symmetric. Perhaps,Gabriel was saving this beautiful shirt for such an occasion.

  “Is there a reason why you restrict yourself to just electronic mail sans a computer?”

  The answer was immediate as if such had given him much consideration.

  “I don’t really like the phone-because I find I can still function without it in its static or mobile form as a viable entity rather being merely seen as an extension of one of its features.”

  Zarate might have added it is a time-waster-creating unnecessary suspense/anxiety, as when you wait for an unexpected call that doesn’t come, or ( a personal high annoyance factor) the phone rings incessantly with a number which was always engaged. Another personal dislike of his was public booths with stale air filled with cancer causing cigarette fumes or stale blusher from L'Oreal Paris.

  “What are your views on the density?”

  “The sand potentially used to give an artificially aged appearance- a worn-in, casual look that would take years to create on your own known as ‘Destroyed’ in the trade. A lot of makes like to temper their jeans look like they were dragged behind a car for several miles or worn for yonks. They tried powdered pumice for a while.”

  “We already found that in the bleaching.”

  “Yeh-it doesn’t work unfortunately-least not beyond a prewashed appearance. You are familiar with Taghrid Ruwaidah Bitar meridian?”

  There was much Zarate didn’t know-this would have to be heaped on the pile. Sensing this lack of knowledge Santos continued:

  “Taghrid had got fed with manufacturers using an average consumer every time. I expect you have noticed in iron tablets they put in what the public person of general weight, height age etc would use-regarding iron, potassium, etc. Sensing that his sight was failing because of this Bitar introduced a lot of contributory factors. The increments are always in the same ratio.”

  “I might understand- It wouldn’t be asking too much would it-if the torn denim confirmed to this?”

  “Yes it is there in Taghrid’s ratio.”

  Ibrahim always knew when he had been somewhere before. The adults, who had been in this motel, were charged with cruelty to children, public indecency, obstruction of agents of the law in the course of their duty then were taken to an assessment clinic. The director of recreation was elegant in his defence of the ‘council’ as this meeting of wicked men was called, but the jury saw through the hyperbole straightaway.

  On the nearby transistor Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff lamented the shooting of what were called ‘defenseless children’ then asked for a minute of silence to honor the youngsters as the gang leaders were lead away in cuffs.

  Ibrahim Soria Zarate had visited Strike (the organizer) in prison. Inmates cells always told a lot about them. Strike's cell consisted of a narrow bed, a card table plus a beat up dresser.

  A short, bespectacled man obviously of serious disposition, wearing a Polish fake fur coat with braids a new Tyrolese hat with a chamois tuft, approached Ibrahim, acknowledging greetings trying not to appear disturbed; but even a casual viewer one could see this was someone worried even absorbed in other matters.

  “I trust you won’t take exception to my bringing you here,” exclaimed Carlos Rocha Almeida more as a declaration than enquiry. “I sense it has negative vibrations for you.”

  “Have you arrived at a friend's only to enter then immediately sense a dense cloud of angry energy hanging in the air?”

  Zarate didn't like the static of air-conditioned oxygen. It was a fight with Ross sometimes for Ibrahim smoked cancer sticks, but his beau didn't — nor did this paramour like the toxic smoke clouding up everywhere turning her into a life-shortening passive smoker. Ibrahim liked cool. Ross liked warm (Zarate did not need the temperatures as warm or warmer than Marroquín did).

  “Somewhere even though it is inanimate, sometimes—because emotion/ energy were put in when it was built you walk into somewhere empty whether it's a happy, uplifting to be, or if it is ugly, dangerous negative then sense an incredible presence.”

  “I don’t see where this might be.”

  “A building that has high energy—maybe a beautiful church, or somewhere spiritual.” “Sometimes people wearing tight clothing emit bad vibes because they are suffocating their energy.”

  “All that, but it’s not why you’re here.”

  How examples of negative energy included casinos, sleazy clubs, family or bankruptcy courts, plus criminal hangouts, those locales that Almeida sensed a quiet desperation around such must be left for another soiree. That the anxiety surrounding the wards of hospitals can also have a strong effect that ( If you must go into such) who made the clothes you are wearing, where you live in, or the car you drive, must be left for another time too. Ibrahim had certainly stood up eloquently enough on the phone how deceit, avarice plus mendacity seemed to be the main faults displayed by successive governments that lead to unsafe times for us ‘little folk’ as Carlos termed those who shared his interest.

  There seemed to be a couple of them-Carlos plus his old-school buddy Oriol Mojica Aguayo who had a small office. Across the hall was Clodomiro Najera Salinas who was interested in quarks as much as they were-had even made a protracted boring movie which was in the reviewers summing up- an awful long while in the cinema just to have the condescended truism lowered on us - distorted / exaggerated almost to the point of saturation that these semi invisible fellahs were important.

  Their research wasn’t particularly glamorous Oriol compared themselves to bank tellers not modern ones but those that would be situated visible through teller windows embellished with wrought-iron,a sweeping staircase curves up to the floor perhaps,glass chandelier, rug-carpeting creaking flooring, plus crackling grate.

  It was a mysterious quarry they sought. How you sought the semi-visible especially with another opaque-hunter was something hard to define. They seemed to have different personalities -ectomorphs/endomorphs -lanky versus stocky whatever. Oriol was the active one who liked to ‘get stuck in’ sometimes Carlos used to drive him to distraction with his procrastination. If you could see a shadow pacing up ‘n down or heard such activity upstairs you were onto a winner if you believed it was him.

  Almeida was happier set firmly before the monitor catching these pithy sayings that Oriol tossed out.

  “One market that has been overlooked as the Internet economy has developed is the aging baby boomer Ibrahim.”

  “It is-it has rather!”

  “We, you might argue, played a much greater part in creating the permissive, liberal society, The majority of Canadians must then be liberals, judging from recent public opinion polls, but none of them were baby boomers. Now we are burdened with pandering to its fads. We all love our democracy dislike defenseless detainees being tortured because of big bros ignorant penchant for making others suffer but I ask you what are they defending pre-shrunk chinos!”

  “Hence the interest in what did you call them quarks. I still don’t see what this has got to do with aging denim.”

  “Aguayo discovered that the sand used for giving an artificial finish was superior from a certain depth. Sand as you know or don't know comes from varying depths -we found that the better grinding granules came from mid depth-that is not from surface mines but those relatively mid way. There was a text originating in the oral tradition which denied their existence then a later textually-based anthropological/ his
torical tradition that controverts its authority which put us on the track.”

  “I don’t quite see how this fits in with the quark.”

  “The deeper the mine the less quark streaking. We were able to determine just what depth the BC fabric came from by the quark intensity. As anyone who watches the CSI TV programs knows, quarks are like prints- they cannot be controverted nor surgically removed by thieves for personal gain.”

  “What depth is our denim from?”

  “We had some fun giving the layers different names after the presidents of the USA. The BC square had a quark intensity conversant with Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”

  The last Zarate had been here it had been under a less salubrious yoke. Then his claustrophobia had been bad, before Dr. Friedrich Peralta Carrasco had weaved his unique sophism making ‘outside’ as indistinguishable from ‘in’ as it was possible to be. Then even the most innocuous of noises were perceived as a threat as if sound was what brought the hostile exterior into closer proximity: the noise of the bicycles on the cobblestones outside (here there was a short-lived scheme imitating the same in Amsterdam for reasons that seemed self-evident for many whereby one might borrow such transportation then leave it where found on the proviso that it was in a certain radius) the pulley on the dumbwaiter, the rattle of trays or guests moving elsewhere in the vicinity or the TV which seemed to play exclusively in foreign languages conspiring to make this his prison cell in which Zarate was shut.

  This recent joiner of Canadas ranks came to know every feature of his incarceration. It seemed to him more like somewhere Nordic or Finnish than the North American continent for his only time here before had been as child. Having waded through a soporific video presentation, gazed at some rather disappointing Hungarian art contemplated the implications of Carrascos advice to them, the pair (Ibrahim slightly stir-crazy, his then love-interest Delfina J. Munoz even more so) had made the first move into the unknown.

  Before this was a sophisticated part of the city to visit there had been a mine here, though it was so ancient history that no one was alive who could give account. The owner sank a deep shaft, rigged up a corrugated-iron engine-house with a winding-engine, then lowered his men (mostly Native Americans that had been press-ganged into virtual slavery) one at a time down the shaft, in a big galvanized bucket. One might have heard the rattle-rattle of the screens at the pit, the puff of the winding-engine, the clink-clink of shunting trucks, plus (more importantly) the hoarse little peep of the colliery locomotives but all that was now past-tense.

  At the time of the Great Exhibition (which just goes to show how ancient this was), Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, who had worked in theater design/ panorama painting would later invent the daguerreotype photograph, unveiled a dazzling new spectacle he dubbed the diorama. Crowds flocked to a Parisian diorama devoted to simulating the experience of seeing St. Mark's in Venice after French baroque painter Nicholas Poussin tagged the Vatican his favourite site. The project has been so successful that Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre worked full time creating more life size figures/ more small figures to set in dioramas that extend the scope of the museum displays-this contemporary homage to Daguerre recreated the first diorama.

  Now at the museum where Ibrahim had arranged to meet his next contact Zarate was noting how finely carved brass metal items are comparatively costlier,how that connoisseurs of art can ungrudgingly fork out more considering the amount of effort that goes into making these artefacts when a tall, nylon jumper wearing, unhealthy-looking young man wearing a cheap suit,discreetly patterned tie appears.

  His cadence is comfortingly familiar; his style of often punctuating moments of intense moral seriousness, is instantly recognizable.

  He introduces himself then Ibrahim says:

  “I saw you earlier outside admiring the paintwork although I didn’t know it was you.”

  “The ability to coat surfaces - making them stronger, lighter more resistant to corrosion - has many applications. I was observing how roundness is increased by abrasion/ chemical weathering, creating the new yet unworn. I don’t suppose Seliger's labor-intensive techniques are familiar to you-it would be unfair of expect anyone but a small clique to know how accretion often mimic geologic processes.”

  “I don’t see how this fits in with the sand used to artificially age.”

  “Glauconite dear boy is what you should be searching for,” explained the man who was called Antígono Tejeda Barrientos. “Is used sometimes as such a coating.”

  “Can you give a laymans guide to this Mr. Barrientos.”

  A defensive air seemed to creep in as if whatever this was had been attacked often-that one in an entire range of well-tested responses to the detractors, from the ‘Dignified Evasion’ to the ‘Clever Putdown’ was always at the ready to deflect such an onslaught.

  “Sure Seliger begun innocently enough- suffered numerous cuts, abrasions and contusions clearing some land to build a homestead. Superficial cuts, scratches minor burns, etc will heal with the same treatment but our source of interest found that a poultice that had a Glauconite coating was more effective-moreover although his working clothes seemed worn they actually lasted in a much better state.”

  “I don’t see where the sandblasting fits in.”

  “Rebecca J. Litz who was Seligers biographer quite by coincidence happened to a professional tye n dye cum batik fan.”

  Zarate must have seemed at a loss for an explanation was deemed necessary.

  “Tie-dye is a modern term invented during the peace ‘n love era for a set of ancient resist-dyeing techniques-least way that’s what the hippies say. Tie-dye typically consists of folding, twisting, pleating, or crumpling fabric a garment then binding this with twine or (more usually) elastic bands, followed by application of the dye. The manipulations of the fabric prior to application of dye are called resists, as they partially or completely prevent the applied dye from tainting the fabric.”

  That ‘Tie ‘N Die’ was a fictionalised character at Ibrahim’s local library thriller shelves who enjoyed restricting his victims with a knotted-cloth one that was very popular was not mentioned, or that his targets who complained of their treatment were said to ‘resist’.

  “They use Glauconite with tie-dye amazing!”

  “Not quite you’re almost correct as per usual I sense. Seliger kept a screw top bottle nearby which had some in-this must have accidentally fallen into the mix. When his attention turned to aging denim then this chance concoction seemed to gel. But let us put something to you.

  Take a telescope Ibrahim. There never had been such, till some, scientific astronomer had acquired enough skill to mix, melt, mould glass, such would never have been countenanced. It is not less true, that those employed in making the glass could not, in the nature of things, be expected to acquire this scientific acumen, requisite for carrying on those arduous calculations, applied to bring into a system, the discoveries made by the magnifying power of the telescope.”

  “That’s true Barrientos.”

  “I might extend the same remark to the other materials, of which a telescope consists. It cannot be used to any purpose of clear observation, without being very carefully mounted, on a frame of strong metal; which demands the united labors of the mathematical instrument-maker, as well as that of the brass-founder.”

  “It is the same with the artificial aging I see,” added Ibrahim even though if honest it couldn’t really be seen.

  “There is not just the sand but an entire plethora of artisans that wash sieve, grade yes even coat the grains with substances such as ours. You have heard the aphorism ‘History repeats itself’. Seliger was using the sand under the same shelf that contained the Glauconite to simulate artificial aging-indeed it fell in once again-his visual apparatus is not what it should be-what with getting old. A combination to rival those of history was born-Gertrude Stein/ Alice B. Toklas, Diego Rivera/ Frida Kahlo, George Putnam/ Amelia Earhart you name them!”

  “Are there many wh
o use this to make their clothing more ancient?”

  Antígono Tejeda Barrientos didn’t know but would find out.

  After this little encounter Ibrahim got waylaid with another more important facet of his caseload; ‘we must resign ourselves to the fact that there is nothing we can say or do that would be appropriate’ Ross allegedly told him. ‘The eponymous anti-hero isn't always the central character’. Who or what the ‘eponymous anti-hero’ was-if this was him or not- never known. Like many before Zarate believed that this episode was trying to tell him something but just what-well that would never really be known now either. Maybe the one departing might have developed a wider understanding of the human experience had his inner circle been more diverse. Ibraham was going to chill out with some Teflon coated league sport anyway, preferably something so popular that even the sight of former players punch drunk from their playing didn’t stop the public from watching it.

  For most dancers, they are up at the crack of dawn. They disappear from view. One doesn't hear anything about them anymore; as if they were swallowed up by the earth. Karl Sørensem took this moment whilst his partner (Karl had not had the courage to take her as his wife yet) ballet star Nivi Tobiassen was getting ready. An orphan with no past, Nivi is a happy, well adjusted, young woman who is loved by the Sørensem family (who seem to have taken her in) as well as by her many fans.

  If it could be that somewhere lurking beneath the defensiveness, the partisanship, the blinkered worldview was an answer then there was no doubt Karl was the one to find out. All of the computers/ high-tech gadgetry in the world will not motivate anyone if his or her role models teach them that lying, cheating, self-entitlement/ general immorality is the way to get on.

  Naja Filemonsen’s e-mail had a flag connected which immediately alerted Karl. It went into some length about how Naja was an observer of the Glauconite since her father was a manufacturer that owned a company the perfected its refinement.