by Brian Short
And so then, okay, one must climb it, he thought, and he climbed it. He took the first step and stopped. He was above the floor, as a stairstep should do – that is, hold such a one as who climbed up; a solid shape, a physical form, as he.
He continued. The next, and the next, and next – each the same, holding him, lifting up a little, closer each time to the ceiling, where it stopped.
Proteus backed back down and looked up at it. What to do? What to do? The thing was very much in his way.
No one else could or would give him advice but, it seemed, himself. Only then he had a thought. He backed and backed up, and then crouched and he ran – he ran straight up the steps. He took them two at a time, and in an instant he was there at the limit, about to hit, about to feel the sudden crunch of his forehead to plaster and the bend, no doubt, back of his neck, and maybe then the next thing too, the snap –
Only there was none of that. No, see, because he’d broken through…
TWENTY-EIGHT
The Ultraworld!
[1994] (Hollywood, CA)
…to the Ultraworld! Yes!
Only Proteus did not know it yet. What he knew, if he knew anything, was that he now stood outside on some busy busy street, the sun shining down at him in a menacing way. It had been night. Now it was not. Hardly: cars crawled past along the wide avenue, gleaming in the too-bright sunlight, and he looked up, then down, to find whatever he could to orient himself with. He didn’t have far to look; at the intersection nearby there hung a street sign from the stoplights above: SANTA MONICA BLVD.
Okay, there was that.
He spun around, and there he saw a sign of another sort. This one towered above him on its own metal pole and spun slowly. When it turned its face to him, he read DIRTY D’S DONUT HOLE, watched it slant sideways, then reveal the same message on the reverse. The building beneath where it turned was low and squat, not big, but it was made almost entirely of glass, appearing, in a way, sizeless.
He knew this place. He knew he’d been here before.
He marched toward it, shoved the front door open with a chime of the metal bell attached to it, and entered.
“Okay,” he announced to the room as the jangling door swung shut again behind him. “Okay?”
The reception he received was less than enthusiastic. Though to be honest, he may not have expected enthusiasm. He may have expected something… or not – he really didn’t know. But after all this noise and harassment? Getting badgered nightly by the ghost? What he got was nothing from anyone. Granted, there weren’t many people around.
At one end he saw the policeman (he was impossible to miss) – a large man, who sat at an orange plastic table (as all the tables were), who very clearly had his eyes on Proteus.
Not far from the table circled a stick of a man in tight, little rings, again and again, widdershins – or, no, was it deasil? – dressed all in ruined rags: a denim jacket over his shoulder bones was hung, his jeans were spotted, stained and torn, and a wretched hat lay over his head, aflop…
“Willy,” Proteus said. He walked toward the circling man-stick. “This is you. You’re here. Of course you’re here. You were always here, weren’t you? Because this is where it starts. Yes, I remember, this is where it starts. For me it is. I remember this place. You see, I went mad, right there.” He pointed at the policeman, who squinted. “Right there. And you were there, too. And so was… oh, God… You see, my wife… she’d just… and I’d just been at work… at work… At work? God, yes, I’d just come from work. And so… I came here. I had a doughnut and went mad.”
Willy, with the wrecked, floppy hat, one even worse than Proteus’s own, may have intended some response by the words he continuously mumbled, though these were too soft for anyone to hear. His eyes lighted on Proteus, but only for those moments and those few degrees of arc as he circled around to face directly at him, but then Willy just as certainly looked past him as he continued his rotations.
“I’d wondered where you’d gone to, was all,” Proteus said, as much to the air as to the man, who didn’t seem to notice. “I guess I should’ve understood…” he looked around the clean room, at the metal beams, the walls made of thick glass, and outside, at the cars and sun, “that you were here. That you were always here.”
•
“I see you know Willy,” the policeman said. “I won’t ask from where.”
“There was a time,” answered Proteus, looking vaguely past him, “I thought this place was the Fairy Kingdom. I worked for an ad agency just up the way, on Sunset. I never expected I’d come back here. I never wanted to come back here. The place has been cemented in my memory. It’s always been back there, somewhere, just waiting, just being… like this. Exactly like this. I suppose once you’re here, you never really leave again. I’m sure I’ve seen you before, too. Yes, I do remember you.”
“Have we met?”
“You, yes. It was rather a long time ago. Rather a long time. Though you’ve not changed at all. And everything else is exactly how I’ve remembered it, too.”
“Have a seat,” the large policeman offered, and Proteus, if not so much hesitantly but with a certain tenuousness, took the swiveling plastic chair that was attached to his same table and lowered himself there. “I have to admit,” he started, “it troubles me. You do seem… maybe a bit familiar. I can’t say from where exactly, yet it seems I must know you.”
“You’ve not changed, not even a little,” Proteus reiterated, “though it has been ten or more years. I don’t believe I’ve thought of you once since then, despite whatever impression you may’ve made on me at the time. Don’t take it personally. I was busy going mad.”
“Ten years… or more,” the policeman said each word carefully and dropped his head, as if in thought. “Since you’ve last seen me? That is a new one,” he looked up, “because usually, it’s just the opposite. Usually, they’ve just seen me. And usually, they say I’ve changed quite a lot. You’ve just come out of Cleric, Arizona then, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Good. That’s good. That’s a good place for us to start. Cleric, Arizona. And you are here now. And that is something.”
“I… it is.”
“And since you do know Willy here,” the officer said, with a nod toward the circling man, “you perhaps know that he rarely says much. He’s not much of a talker, that Willy, at least not most of the time. Except I’ve found that when you do get him started – and this happens very rarely – you can hardly get him to stop. It’s true! Once he gets going, he just talks and talks and talks. Strangest thing. He’s like the oracle at Delphi, spouting prophecy and whatnot. Maybe we’ll get lucky today, and he’ll say something for us. Probably not, but you never know.”
“Willy only talks to me,” said Proteus, “when I’m in two places.”
The officer raised an eyebrow at this: one very thick and brushy eyebrow. “Is that so?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Proteus. And he said it again, “Yes.”
“And you do know where you are right now, here?”
Proteus looked around the room at all of its bright, reflective surfaces. “Uh huh,” he said. “Santa Monica Boulevard.”
“That’s right. You’re at Dirty D’s Donut Hole on Santa Monica Boulevard. And I should tell you something else. That guy back in the kitchen there, that Junsuh, the owner… he makes the best doughnuts in all of Hollywood, maybe in all greater Los Angeles. And believe me, that’s saying a lot. You’re very lucky to find yourself in a place like this.”
“Wow.”
“But do you know where else you are?” asked the officer. “Because, as you’ve just told me, you seem to be in two places.”
“Yes,” said Proteus, “I’m in the land of the dead.”
The officer thought on this, nodding his chin slowly up and down as if giving it deep consideration. “This is something,” he said significantly.
“I’m here,” Proteus further explained, “and I’m in the
land of the dead. The locals there call it Fake City.”
“Fake City, you say? That doesn’t sound… real. Does it?”
“No. No, it doesn’t.”
“So then, what do you make of that?” It seemed the policeman was genuinely curious, like he really wanted to know.
“Officer,” said Proteus, “I don’t think it is real.”
“Yes… yes…” Again, thoughtful. “You know that some people think that in Hollywood, nothing much is real here either. I myself beg to differ.”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Maybe not. But tell me this. You say that Willy talks to you when you’re in two places. And you’ve just told me that you currently are in two places. Granted, the reality of one, or maybe both, of these places is debatable. Now observe here, how our mutual friend Willy…” and the policeman pointed directly at him, “is demonstrably not talking to you, even though, under such conditions as you’ve described, he maybe would. Can we conclude anything from this?”
“I…” Proteus started, but a burst of static from the police radio attached at the officer’s shoulder interrupted him, and amidst the static a small voice squelched through, saying:
“You shouldn’t expect this one should give you much information, Friendly.”
And then, with a pop, it was silent again. That was when Proteus noticed the name tag at his breast pocket: FRIENDLY, it said, glimmering in the light. Proteus stammered, “I don’t think… we can conclusively… say… I mean… there’s too many, I think, variables, but… Excuse me, your name is… is Friendly…?”
•
“If what follows next is a joke,” said OFFICER FRIENDLY in a flat voice, “believe me, I’ve heard it before, and it isn’t funny.”
“No, no, that’s not… I wouldn’t,” Proteus protested, “but if… if you’re Sheriff Friendly?”
That took the large man aback, so that, again, the one eyebrow moved northward. The other remained unaccountably still. “All you… you unfinished people… you all call me that. I don’t know why. Do I look like I’m the sheriff of anythi –”
“Oh that’s him alright,” interrupted another voice. Accented, nonspecifically European, and, even, Proteus might say, familiar… “Only he won’t know it yet. Give him time,” said Ignatius, glowering, stepping from some unseen corner of the doughnut store (though in a glass building, what corner could go unseen was another matter). “He’s about ten years out until all that’s happened yet, but he’ll grow into the part. God help us all. Perhaps even a bit more naturally than you have, though that’s not saying much. He’ll be ten years more insufferable by then too. The man’s bad enough with only a badge. Give him the title of Sheriff, you’ll see his head inflate to more than twice the size.”
“Your attitude is wearing on me, you… horrible man,” snapped the officer peevishly.
“Attitude. I’ll give you some part of that. I know my rights, Officer. Attitude…”
“Ig, I guess I should be surprised…” Proteus said.
“There’s no need to be surprised, and it will do no good. This one,” Ignatius pointed at himself, “knows no better than you, though one supposes one should. While that one,” Ignatius pointed at the officer, “knows even less, which makes him even less than useless. Fairy kingdom. Sure, this is the Fairy kingdom. You can call it that, if you like. I’ve found other words for it. I think I’ve you to thank for putting me here too, it seems. So, thanks. Might I ask what you’ve done with my coffee shop while I’ve been gone?”
“It’s no worse than it was, Ig. Rather better now in fact.”
“Sure, sure, I’d sooner see for myself, but circumstances what they are, you know… You’ve not had time to run the place into the ground yet? Not sent it sliding down the slope into rubble?”
“Give me some credit. I’m a better worker than you’d ever admit, and a better manager than yourself, I’ll wager, unworldly as I am. I’ve untangled your books, though that was hardly easy. And I’ve upped production. I’ve found where I can lower costs and sales are higher now than ever. I’ve even found a new wholesale market. So stuff it, already.”
“Some boast for all of a few hours’ attendance. I’m hardly gone yet and you claim all this. I don’t believe it. Neither should you.” This last part Ignatius directed at OFFICER FRIENDLY.
“I believe,” the policeman said, his annoyance roused, “what I see. At least some of it. And some of it I don’t.”
“Ig… excuse me, a few hours? No. You disappeared nearly two weeks ago.”
“What have I said? You’ll tell me that to my face, and I’m the one who’s standing here? I’ve scarcely had time to take a proper shit.”
“And you’ll do it through the new hole I tear you if you don’t stop it already,” threatened the officer, “with the attitude.” To Proteus he said, more calmly, “I take it you know this person too?”
“He was my employer,” he explained, “formerly.”
OFFICER FRIENDLY nodded gravely. “The latest in a long series of new arrivals, just like yourself. I’ve watched them come, one after another, right in through that door. You’d think I was customs and border control, or some such thing. Everybody walks in, with that same look on their face. Everybody says that they know me – and they call me ‘Sheriff’ too, and they blame me for being here – though I’ll swear I’ve never seen a one of them before in my life.”
“I’m just visiting,” said Proteus.
“They all say that too.”
“Oh, no, I mean it.” And with that Proteus stood again and turned on his heel and made for back outside.
“You won’t stay for a doughnut?” suggested the policeman as Proteus walked out. “They’re really good.”
“He’s got a store to run, that busy, busy man,” sniped Ignatius at his retreating back. “My store. A coffee shop in an enclave of fundamentalist Mormons. I wish you luck with that!” But the heavy glass door had already swung shut.
•
Back outside on Santa Monica Boulevard, the hot sun blared down. It was entirely too bright. The colors were washed out in the bleaching noontime light. Proteus looked up the street and down it, left first, then right. The press of cars bumped and rolled through the lanes then stopped, idled at lights for a time, and went again, in bland procession. He stared up at the sky: white.
White?
Since when was a clear sky white?
He spun around to look in one other direction: over and beyond Dirty D’s, beyond more buildings – most of them short, a few of them tall; still and hazy in the dense atmosphere – and there were the hills, maybe not so distant yet seeming many times removed through all the smog; a mottled, scabby blister of green with the iconic block letters propped up on them, spelling out the word HOLLYWOO. Because apparently the final D had fallen off.
He turned around again to face forward. Across the street were a cluster of low buildings with wide lots between them. He blinked in the sun. Cars were parked in the lots, scattered and still. Jetliners scratched contrails in the distance.
Again: he looked up the street and down it. There was no one on the sidewalk for as far as he could see in any direction, no one but him.
He looked at his hands as he held them up before him: they were hands. And he looked down at his feet: they wore his best shoes still.
Proteus turned once more and went back inside.
•
“Oh, you’re back,” said OFFICER FRIENDLY. “I thought you’d left.”
With the door’s small bell still reverberant behind him, “The last time I was here,” said Proteus, marching back toward the table where Friendly sat imperiously, “I was going mad. Do you understand? Do you understand?”
“Sure, okay,” the policeman agreed. Agreeably. He then added, “What, just now?”
“No.” Proteus shook his head, a little too vehemently and for a little while too long. “I shouldn’t…” he started, “I won’t dwell overmuch on your own role in th
is. Save to acknowledge that you did play some small role. Small, yes, but of some consequence.”
“I did?” OFFICER FRIENDLY may not have quite communicated an appropriate level of conviction. “I’m sorry,” unconvincingly.
“Perhaps,” continued Proteus, “you’re not able to appreciate… exactly what’s involved when someone does this. There’s a level of commitment. There is… you might almost call it love. Yes, love. You stand at the precipice, looking down. And it’s a long ways down. You see it opening up. You see the abyss there, and you know… you go forward, as you must, as you inevitably will… and there just isn’t any stopping halfway. There just… isn’t any stopping, once you’ve started. You stare in, and it stares back at you, and you’re going in. You can feel yourself going in. In for a penny, in for a pound, and there you have it. Have you… have you ever stood looking into the void like that? Have you? Do you know what a love like that means?”
“I –” Friendly began.
“Because I can tell you, that void is inside you. Yes, it knows you well, because you are that void.”
“I –” Friendly tried again.
“And I came from this place… from this place, right here, and I went, from here, back to work at my job… Oh yes, my job, you see… I walked outside through that door,” pointing, “and went back to the office. And I… I… I went in. Yes, I went in. I went in and I went straight through it. Sitting right there at my desk. I went in and I went through it, with my… felt-tip markers and my… glue stick… And that… that… that was my way through it. To this. To this right here. I went in, I went into the sea, and I went through it, and, and came out again, came out of this place, right here. And I became a sea creature. Oh yes. But this time, since I’m here again, this time I don’t know where to go. I can’t go back to the ocean again, can I? I can’t pick up my glue stick. Can I? So how do I get back through it to where I was?”
The policeman stared at him with slightly widened and somewhat surprised, if not entirely unkind, eyes.
“How do I get back to where –”
“Always with the excuses,” came Ignatius’s voice from a corner (and where again had he found this corner?) where he glowered, sitting at his own small table. “Always with the staring off into space, with the muttering. The ‘I am here, I am not here’. Or the ‘I am in two places now’, blah blah blah. Welcome to Fairyland. You put me here, I’ll have you know, and now you put yourself here too. Too bad. The way in, so far as I can tell, so far as anyone can tell… there is no way in. There is no way out either but to live through the next ten years, like everyone else. You get to be your own double, watching yourself through the bushes. You get to haunt yourself, like you are a ghost. See yourself, every day, as you were ten years ago. You get to be your own ghost, and won’t that be fun?”