by Owen Thomas
All I could do was stare at the dark, solid shape of him, cut into the air by the light that poured in around his outline, the sharp odor of cigarette smoke like smelling salts.
“Angus?”
CHAPTER 67 – Hollis
Hollis Johns returned to his room late feeling much worse for wear. His headache had not abated. Quite the contrary. It was as though the bottle-and-a-half of Albert Lauren had delivered millions of inflatable grape molecules to his brain, each of them steadily expanding – no doubt accelerated by the glass of Arcadian Pisoni Pinot Noir and the two glasses of Corison Kronos Cabernet – to the point that his cranium was now threatening to split into quarters from the pressure, peeling away from his brain like the husk of an overripe fruit.
He closed the door, dropped his cardkey on the dresser, and sat down on the bed, closing his eyes until his sense that the room was spinning was too much to take. He opened his eyes and did his best to fix his stare on the dusty line at which the wall met the floor. This stopped the spinning but increased the pain.
Let it hurt. Let it hurt. Accept the pain. End the suffering.
Eric the bartender had cut him off, expressing some concern and extracting a promise that Hollis would go straight to his room. Hollis had promised, but he had no intention of going back to his room. He was too drunk to lay down. He had tried to deal with the sloshing sensation in his head by walking, setting out along the sidewalk that stretched from Blythe Landing out towards Blythe proper, if there even was such a thing.
The night air had been pleasant and still, or at least it would have been pleasant and still had he been of a mind to perceive pleasantness or stillness. Instead, all was unpleasant motion, inside and outside, emotionally and physically, heart and mind, head and stomach. Walking was possible, but not easy, especially along such poorly lit streets. The curbs were not straight and the hydrants were irregularly spaced, never where he anticipated. The concrete squares seemed loose and unreliable, rising to meet his step and then receding at the slightest downward pressure, as though he was walking along a floating dock. He had returned to the hotel safely but with a mind no clearer and a heart no more at peace. He was at once exhausted and restless.
He was certainly in no state to drive anywhere even if he had known where to go next; even if he known the road that would take him to Tilly. Given his condition, he had been lucky that his room was available for another night, a fortuity made possible only by the cancellation phoned into the front desk at the very moment that the desk clerk – an irritatingly pleasant, orange-haired man who chirped out bad news like something delightful was happening – was telling him that he needed to vacate his room in twenty minutes and that he would be charged for a very late check-out.
Hollis leaned back on his hands, finding his discarded cell phone by accident. He grabbed it and leaned forward, elbows to knees, staring at the device. He tried to turn it on, experimenting with buttons whose purpose he could not comprehend, as though all the phone had needed was a little rest; as though it had had simply been besieged by fatigue and had needed some peace and quiet and now might be ready to once again communicate with the world, to call out and to be called.
But all was dark and still and dead.
The slow, leaden realization that David had no way of reaching him again found its way to the dimly lit command center of his brain. Looking around, he spied the hotel phone behind him and he fell back onto the bed, rolled over and swim-crawled up towards the pillows until he could reach the receiver. He dialed his number, missing the five and adding an extra eight. He hung up and dialed again. A woman answered. She said she was sorry but cared nothing about him. She told him in a cold simulacrum of civility that he had been wrong not to dial a one.
Fuck.
He hung up. Dialed again. A woman answered. Her again. She was sorry. She would not accept him. He tried to explain. It was out of the question. A calling card was all that mattered to her.
Fuck.
He hung up and fell back on the pillow. He closed his eyes and the world began to wobble around the spaghetti axis that connected his head to the pit of his stomach. He shoved his hand into his hip pocket and extracted his wallet and opened one eye, looking for the only thing this bitch cared about. His fingers were fat and clumsy and would not cooperate. With a decisive yank, he extracted all of the cards from his wallet at once, fanning them out two inches in front of his face like he was playing Texas Hold ‘Em, unceremoniously discarding anything that he was sure was not a calling card.
After nearly a solid minute, he was left with two cards. One was a calling card that he was reasonably sure would satisfy the hateful woman who was keeping him isolated from his own family. But it was the other card that held his attention. It was simple and elegant, with clean black strokes, like small birds traversing a peaceful, white-parchment sea. He stared at the card, transfixed.
の日本銀行
Akahito Takada,大統領.
He turned the card over.
Hyakugo Bank of Japan
Akahito Takada, President.
Beneath the English were the blue pen strokes of a numerical map to Akahito’s home telephone. Akahito Takada had made those strokes with that perfectly quiet confidence for which he is known, stood up from his end of an ovular bamboo conference table the size of a small basketball court, walked half the length of that table to where Hollis was busy stuffing notebooks into a briefcase, and placed the card into Hollis’s hand. You think as I do Mr. Hollis, he had said low enough so that those still departing the conference room would not hear. On these matters wise men must reflect together, yes? In peaceful surroundings, yes? It would be my honor... and the great Akahito Takada had bowed ever so slightly, inviting him to dinner with his charming wife, Izume.
The invitation had been only for him. Not for the others. Not even Corbin Williams, the Vice President of Finance in charge of the of the OFSC delegation to the Pacific Rim Banking Conference. His colleagues had been baffled and concerned. Hurt and outraged. Corbin Williams had been so angry he refused to take Hollis’ calls for a full month. They had all slunk out of the lobby to sushi bars and to Gentlemen’s Clubs as Hollis Johns waited for Akahito Takada’s personal driver to whisk him through the mist and up into the forested hills above the city. And when the night was through, it had been Hollis Johns they all wanted to debrief, jockeying for the opportunity to sit next to him on the plane, offering to take him out for drinks, asking him to share his perspective on the negotiations at the next meeting of the OFSC Board of Directors. He was the go-to man.
But all of that was three years ago. There was really no compelling reason for the business card to have a place in Hollis’ wallet, sandwiched in between his VISA and his newly laminated Columbus First Family Health Club membership identification. Every time he found the card, Hollis expressed a silent bafflement, telling himself that it must be an oversight and that he could have sworn he had thrown this thing away a long time ago and made a mental note to get rid of it. After all, he could always find Akahito Takada’s number if he really needed it.
But getting rid of the card was always something to remember, and never something to actually do. The blue pen strokes had been a personal invitation. That is how he remembered them. A proof of kinship. That is what they meant. They were a reminder. A fixed point on a horizon.
Hollis sat up. When the room came to a stop, he reached for the telephone. Dialed the number. Held his breath. Not thinking. Not knowing what to say. Waited.
“I’m sorry…”
“Fuck.”
He hung up, grabbed the calling card and started again, number following number following number following number like a long chain of lily pads dotting the Pacific. Then, on the third ring following a great silence, there was a voice.
“Izume?”
“Who this?”
“This … this is Hollis Johns, Izume.”
“Who?”
“Hol… Hollis Johns. From… from America. F
rom Ohio.”
“Mr. Hahrris?”
“Yes. Yes, that’s right. This is Mr. Hollis.”
“Oh! Mr. Hahrris!” she says too loudly. “Mr. Hahrris!”
“Uh, yes. Mr. Hollis.”
“I do not believe this is you, Mr. Hahrris.”
“Yes, this is me. You remember me. That’s very nice. I’m flattered.”
“We just talk about Mr. Hahrris.”
“Really? Well…”
“You here now?”
“No, no. I’m in America. California. I am calling to speak with Akahito. Is Akahito home?”
There is a sharp exchange of whispered Japanese in the background, angry and mocking, followed by a blunt report from a door or a book against a stone counter or a large block of wood. There is a final shout that goes unanswered.
“Akahito no here, Mr. Hahrris. He go out now.”
“Oh. Oh, okay. Did I call at a bad time? I’m sorry…I…”
“You no sorry, Mr. Hahrris. You no sorry. I no sorry. Akahito sorry. Akahito!”
“I… I don’t…”
“She carr me today, Mr. Hahrris! She carr me!”
“Who? Who called?”
“Suki carr!”
“Who?”
“Suki! Suki Takada carr. She speak to me. She say everything. Oh, Mr. Hahrris…”
The paper thin voice, sounding out its broken English now came to him through chokes and sobs, all the way from Japan, from seventeen hours into the future, across an ocean, punching its way through the fog of his own inebriation. He pushed the telephone receiver so hard against his ear that it nearly formed an air-tight seal, seeming to pop his ear drum when he changed position. He did his best to shape his throbbing, recalcitrant brain into a disciplined structure that was suitable for reception and analysis and comprehension. He crossed his legs and sat up as straight as he could on the mattress, which sagged under the new concentration of his weight.
“Oh, Mr. Hahrris…”
He tried to speak; tried to interject; tried to correct her. But listening did not come easy for Izume Takada who was consumed in a torrent of her own emotion.
“I not know! I not know this! He never terr me such things, Mr. Hahrris! Suki terr me. Suki Takada. Takada! He terr me ries. He dishonor me. He dishonor my fathel.”
“Izume… I… I don’t know what to say. Akahito is my friend.”
There was a sniffle, but no response.
“Izume?”
“No, Mr. Hahrris,” her voice like something dying.
“No?”
“No, Mr. Hahrris. Akahito no you friend.”
She poured herself into him for another forty minutes, making no effort to spare his feelings or to sugarcoat the truth as she had come to understand it.
“She told you this? Suki told you these things?”
“No. Akahito terr me this.”
“…”
“Mr. Hahrris?”
“I’m… I’m here Izume.”
The faint hiss of connection. They listened to the time and distance between them; listened to each other breathing; listened to the silence of betrayal reordering the world. Eventually, he spoke.
“Izume?”
“Yes, Mr. Hahrris. I am here.”
“There are some things you should know. Things you and Akahito should know. About … Suki.”
He awoke three hours later in a panic, covered in sweat. He crawled blindly off the bed, lost his balance and fell against the closet door with a crash, but ultimately made it to the toilet in time to vomit. He panted into the bowl for a minute, then flushed. Waited. Panted. Stood up slowly.
He rinsed out his mouth and brushed his teeth in the dark, still fully dressed except for one shoe. He returned to the bedroom and took off his clothes and pulled back the covers. He slipped beneath the sheets and tried to go back to sleep; tried to close his eyes and conjure an elysian landscape over which his mind could wander aimlessly into oblivion; tried to hold his conversation with Izume Takada at bay long enough to lose consciousness.
But none of that was ever going to happen. Not now.
Akahito no you friend, said Izume.
Let it hurt, said the Buddha. Accept the pain. End the suffering.
I smell a fraud... said Eric the bartender. But, hey, that’s just me talkin’.
He opened his eyes and propped himself up against the headboard. The room felt like a cell. Like he was in prison and the darkness around him was like a sheet he pulled over his head night after night to keep from acknowledging the reality of his incarceration. Any minute his world would flood with fluorescent light and the darkness would seep away between the bars and the stench of old sweat and industrial solvents would seep in on clouds of old misery as another day presented itself for inspection.
He supposed it was an appropriate sense of angst. Blythe California, he had come to understand in his discussion with Eric, served two primary, wholly contradictory purposes in the world. The first was to cater to that part of motoring humanity that was just passing through, on its way to or from the Pacific Coast in a celebration of sun and sea and the kind of freedom that comes standard with convertibles and wind-blown hair.
The second purpose of Blythe was to host that part of humanity consigned to the custody of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Perhaps, he thought, there were tremors of misery emanating from the Chuckawalla Valley State Prison or the Ironwood State Prison that traveled up the road at night like vibrational tumbleweeds, lodging under the floorboards of places like this hotel and poisoning the perspectives of its guests; re-tuning their heart rates and infecting the rhythms of happiness. Maybe that was all it was. Maybe a sense of incarceration was in the air.
But it didn’t matter where the feeling came from. It was real. He was trapped. He was a miserable, wounded animal and he wanted out of his own skin. He wanted to be somebody else. He wanted to escape.
The square glass eye of the television stared darkly at him from across the room. He found the remote by the lamp. The room filled with a soft, glaucous light as the images sharpened. CNN was showing footage of men in battle fatigues scaling walls and kicking in doors and turning their backs to rocket launchers spitting smoke. Carnage and mayhem on a desert street, half a bus, half a restaurant, half a man, women wailing, AK-47’s stabbing at the blue belly of sky. The President alighting from Marine One with a choppy wave. The Vice President and the Secretary of Defense waiting behind a podium hunched in conversation. The President clearing Crawford brush. A crowd of thousands on a sprawling green. Faces. Banners. Hands applauding. Hands raised. Fingers and fists.
Hollis blinked hard, focusing now, honing in through the shaft of light.
Victory Bell. Prentice Hall. Taylor Hall. Blanket Hill. A stage. A microphone.
A woman. Her lips. Her eyes. Glaring at the camera. Glaring at him. Her hands; her finger pointing at the camera. Pointing at him.
At… Him.
My God, he thought. Was he dreaming? He looked around quickly, from the pile of clothes on the floor, to the dead cell phone and disemboweled wallet on the mattress, to the sliding closet door he had forced open with his head, and then back again.
No. He was not dreaming. The woman still spoke. Still pointed.
Susan?
He fumbled with the remote. Volume… damn it... volume!
… my grief or my rage. It is your turn to admit you have been wrong. I will not apologize to you or for you. It is your turn to apologize. To explain yourself. It is your turn to show your loyalty.
Tears came without him knowing. His mind began frantically reaching for things – wallet, cards, keys, phone, clothing – and stuffing them into the carry-on, which was still on the other side of the room. Mentally, Hollis was packed and headed for the airport before he had moved a single muscle.
CHAPTER 68 – David
As I pull the car in, I can see that the newspaper – the one I could not find this morning while Ben was getting dress
ed – is tucked neatly under the lilac bush.
Knowing that the paper was beneath the lilac would have avoided the necessity of picking through the cotoneasters along the front of the house, which, in turn, would have avoided the canine surprise into which I planted my father’s right slipper. Surprise, because the pile was not there yesterday when I dragged the sprinkler out to water the lawn. Canine, because as angry and disgusted as I am about the slipper, which I have thrown away, and the side of my foot, which I have scalded raw, I am willing to give my parents’ paperboy the benefit of the doubt. I am willing to assume that his most daunting entrepreneurial challenge is that he has rotten aim and that he is lazy, but not that his statistically predictable addiction to reality television, first-shooter combat video games, internet porn, cell phone Tetris, Hollywood sequels, Auto-Tuned pop music, and inorganic recreational drugs has twisted his concept of customer service to include crapping on the grass of his upper middle-class subscribers.
I walk out to the lilac and fish out the paper and walk back into the house. I toss the paper in a clean arc onto the coffee table from the foyer. It lands dead center.
I close the door and head into the kitchen thinking that maybe after my life completely deconstructs I will become a paperboy. Something more humble and honest than the phony, high-flying, glamorous life of public high school education. My subscribers will love me because of my excellent aim and my strict non-defecation ethic; so much so that they will gladly tolerate my crack-of-noon variation on the tried and tired newsprint delivery business model. The whole industry is quickly going the way of the horse-and-buggy and bottled milk anyway. Adaptation is the order of the day.
I eat a bowl of cereal and, because I have stupidly thrown the paper into the living room, I am forced to read all about the nutritional miracle that is puffed wheat. The back of the box shows a cartoonized farmer grinning stupidly at a bouquet of wheat stalks that he holds out to the reader. He reminds me of Lonnie Lumkin holding his finger up in my face. Wheat! Gosh-Golly, that and a plea deal for simple possession will cure what ails ya’, Mr. Johns!