by Alan Osi
37. PERCIVAL
I’d given him Wally’s name for two reasons: first, because Wally was a shit, and therefore a great person to use as a fall guy; and second, because I wanted to see what ‘Maxwell’s’ response would be. As an information gathering technique, it worked brilliantly.
The bad news was that I’d been wrong: The people who showed up at my apartment had nothing to do with Wally Beaver or this reporter. So we still had a problem.
The good news was that I now had a place to hide out—the reporter’s couch, ready-made—that would also advance my career.
He didn’t know I’d be crashing on his couch, yet. But, that wasn’t an issue at all.
We didn’t talk much on the ride to his Manhattan apartment, which was surprising. I’d figured he’d throw a thousand insipid questions my way, so the silence was welcome. I used it to ponder who was trailing me.
According to what my neighbor told me, when they came to my apartment building whoever-it-was had known I lived there and had seen my tattoo. But, they didn’t have my name. So I figured I’d met them directly. But, briefly, probably on the roof of the building. Maybe they saw me there and were looking for me. But, they didn’t know anything about me—where I lived in the building, who I ran with, my name, and so forth. If they knew any more information, they would have used it.
Which, when I combed my memory, lead me to the inescapable conclusion that this was all my fault.
According to my admittedly hole-filled recall, I’d only slipped up on my no-strangers rule once. I’d been drunk during a rooftop party, and some cocky coke-dealer showed up, being an ass. I’d so wanted to scramble his brains, so I let him have some moondust, and it seemed to have been one of the dumber things I’d ever done, because now, obviously, he wanted more.
And he had friends.
I needed to find out who they were, which meant finding out who knew of the guy. Someone had either invited him as a friend or had ordered some coke. We needed to know who.
Because I had to stay removed from the situation, clandestine, the obvious choice was to have Hailey and Mark, my associates, ask around. I sent Hailey a long double-text to that effect, shortly before we arrived at Lord Maxwell’s apartment.
I had to admit, when I stepped out of the cab, I was impressed. It was a building with style. “I say!” I quipped to reporter-man. “Lovely building, old man.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Follow me.”
And I did.
38. HAILEY
Things suddenly became interesting, forcing me up off the couch. I’d been hanging out with my latest boy, a kid named Cameron—a sometime installation artist, tall, lanky redhead, who tended to be pretty good in bed.
My man Perce, on the run, just texted me that we—Mark and I—needed to figure out who hunted him. Who were we, spies? Was I Joan Bond?
“Where do you think you’re going?” Cameron said.
“Um, nowhere? I think better standing up. Blood-flow.”
“Did you know your synapses fire 12 percent better when you’re stoned?” As he said this, he pulled out a bag of weed and dumped it on the table. He absolutely had to be bullshitting about 12 percent. But, the kid rolled the tightest, most beautiful spiffs I ever saw. Far be it from me to tell an artist not to practice art. But, he took his sweet time about it, every time.
I was cool with the wait, though, I had thinking to do.
First, I tried to remember details, if any, from the party Perce mentioned. I didn’t have much to go on. There’d been quite a few affairs over at Percival’s place, and they all ran together. We lived in Brooklyn—the prospect of remembering one guy at a long-ago party seemed an impossible task. Perce said his antagonist sold cocaine. But, that wasn’t quite enough to go by.
As soon as I started to write off the possibility of figuring out who the guy was, however, a course of action presented itself to me. I could ask our close friends if they had ever done moondust with their coke dealers and go from there.
So embarrassing! No one likes this kind of question. Whose business is that sort of thing anyway?
Fuck you, Perce, I thought, for putting me in this position. But, Cam finished the spiff so I didn’t stay annoyed for long.
After lighting and taking the first toke, Cameron looked at me, long and slow, and said, “You going to tell me what’s going on?”
I weighed sharing against being secretive, and in the end, after I exhaled beautiful blue smoke, I told him the deal.
“So what, you’re going to interrogate your friends? You suck.”
“You suck. And it’s either that or… what, let Perce down in his hour of need?”
“Isn’t there another way?”
“Like what?”
“The guys chasing him don’t know what you look like, right? They sure as fuck don’t know what I look like, and I ain’t scared of those shitheads. I’ll cut their asses.”
The look in his eye spoke to more than simple bravado, although maybe only a little more.
“So… what?”
“Well, your friend’s scared they’re at his place. Let’s go check it out. If anything looks suspicious…”
“What if nothing does?”
“Then your guy’s having a bad trip or something.” He exhaled, blowing smoke. “Either way, you’re good.”
“Yeah, maybe. But, what do we do if they’re there? Burn their faces into our memory? We’re the types to have short-term memory issues.”
“Good point. This is why I’m not Sherlock Holmes.”
“I know, right?”
“We could take a cell-phone picture of them. Send it to your close friends. See if we get a hit.”
“That just might work,” I said, glad that we had a working plan, glad that, in this, we were a we. Luckily, my camera took high-res pictures. As long as we did it in the daytime, I could get a reasonable likeness.
39. MAXWELL
I was about to witness something incredible, something the journalism community hadn’t yet broken. I would define history.
This guy behind me, this “Wally Beaver,” sauntered up the stairs on the way to my apartment, as if he was bored of the whole situation. Coolness was 90 percent manufactured boredom—looking immediately tired of any situation in which one may find oneself. Sure, he’d taken moondust before. But, not like this. Not when it mattered, not when the world was watching.
I opened the front door, and let us both in. “Make yourself comfortable,” I said. “I’m going to review my notes before we begin.”
“Sure, guy, you got any cola?”
“Help yourself to anything in the fridge. If you touch my whiskey, then I’ll kill you.”
I went into the bedroom, took off my shoes and coat, grabbed my notebook and pad, and walked back out. Strictly speaking, I didn’t actually need to bone up on any information. I was acting, mostly, maintaining control of the situation, keeping the all-important upper hand.
When I sat down and flipped my notebook open, staring at the notes I’d taken at Peter’s chemistry lab, I thought of Justine.
Should I call?
Maybe later. I shook her out of my mind and threw myself into my work.
The main thing I needed, after watching him, was to obtain a sample—assuming he had access to a stash.
I figured I may have to pay out of pocket for it. But, I didn’t foresee difficulty. It seemed like everything would be smooth sailing.
“Okay,” I said, “ready when you are.”
Beaver—and calling him that, in my head, made me smile, I’ll admit—Beaver, beer in hand, sat on my sofa. He used his other hand to aimlessly flip through channels on my television, never staying long enough to ascertain content. “It’s time” I said, and he nodded. He turned the television off and dug in his pocket.
He pulled out a rather large vial of moondust; there was a ton in there. It wouldn’t be hard to get Peter a sample at all.
“I got to say, dude,” said Beaver, “This ride
really isn’t a good spectator sport. Not much to see from the outside.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. If you want to know about some things, you experience them yourself. This is one of those things.”
“Can I quote you?”
“Sure.” He took a pinch of the powder between his right thumb and forefinger, leaned back into the couch, and held the hand over his head, and dropped the powder into his eye.
40. PERCIVAL
I was awoken at dawn, by the sound of the camels screaming. Nasty, ill-tempered creatures, camels. I had been closer to them on this trip than I had for any extended period in my life, and it was not an enjoyable experience.
The desert was freezing this early in the morning. One could see one’s breath. Our Berber guides had been up for some time, judging by their voices and the noise, breaking camp and trying to get the uncooperative beasts to their feet. The camels’ unwillingness to be used so early caused a ruckus that always awoke me.
The cold seeped into my bedroll, so I didn’t look forward to letting the morning air greet my skin. But, we needed to get going. The desert waits for no one.
This was my first caravan, and it was, indeed, my caravan, so I needed to set a good example. Despite the cold and my general discomfort—not to mention the raging pain of my backside where I’d been riding a stone-hard beast of burden—I forced myself up and took a minimal drink of water from my sack. Shivering, I left the tent, facing the dawning day.
With pleasure, I noted the guards, rough looking fellows all, were also up and about, and acting as one would expect them to act, given the circumstance.
I couldn’t help staring balefully at the camels while breaking down my tent. They wouldn’t be quiet. Despite the ministrations of the Berbers, only a few had gotten to their feet. The rest had my Berbers cursing and tugging with full strength at their reigns, while the camels, quite literally, bellowed and spat in the poor men’s faces. They had to be the most uncivilized creatures that Allah, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, had ever seen fit to create.
Not that I would ever doubt the most high. But, at moments like these, I had to wonder at His infinite plan, and my own inability to understand why certain things, like the nasty temper of animals, were necessary. If it were up to me, then I’d have them all rounded up and lashed. For there seemed to be an intelligence to their disrespect.
God grant me strength and wisdom!
I tried to spit sand out of my mouth. But, it never worked. I could only hope and trust that my cargo of carpets—the finest in Istanbul that money could buy—would make it to the market without taking any damage. We were so close.
My hand, almost unconsciously, found and tightened around the sword hilt at my waist. Strange, how the late stage of our journey increased all my apprehension. I found my eyes scanning the horizon for raiders almost all the time now, without my thought or consent—even though they most often struck in or around oases, and we’d past the last of those two days ago. In theory, we were home free, and yet, I was more anxious than ever. Allah protect us.
By the time I’d finished Morning Prayer and broken fast, it was time to go. A Berber brought me the camel I’d be riding for the day, and I shuddered as I straddled its back and, with its terribly awkward rocking motion, the animal got to its feet. Cursing its ancestry, I flicked the reins, and we were on our way. The horizon seemed clear of danger, and the sun rose fast.
And then the vertigo rushing feeling of a soul returning to a body. And I was me again. Percival, me. Today, Saturday. Here.
41. MAXWELL
His eyes rolled back into his head, darting as if in REM sleep. On his lips were half-formed words from another tongue. His hands twitched, drool spilled from his slackened lips. This was not a seizure. This was moondust, the latest and most dangerous designer drug that is now taking New York by storm.
That’s how my article would start. It would land me in the hallowed halls of canonized journalism. I had scrawled it out on my pad by the time Beaver regained consciousness, wiping tears and rubbing his reddened eyes.
“Was it good for you?” he said, and took another sip of his beer. As if nothing interesting had happened.
I disliked the guy. It didn’t help that his next move was to try to light a cigarette.
“No way,” I said, and grabbed it before he lit up.
“Temper,” he smirked and put his feet up on the coffee table. “So, you got questions?”
I restrained myself. I placed my digital recorder on the coffee table, and pressed record. “Describe, from your perspective, the hallucination you just had.”
“It wasn’t a hallucination.”
“What would you call it?”
Pause. “A fully realized consciousness experience.”
“And how does a ‘fully realized consciousness experience’ differ from a hallucination?”
“When you hallucinate, you are still yourself. When you take moondust, you’re not.”
“Who were you this time?”
“Can I smoke my cigarette, now?”
“No. Answer the question.”
“I was a merchant taking a shipment of rugs through the desert to Marrakech.”
“Describe the experience in detail.”
“I’m having trouble with recall at the moment. You know what always helps? Cigarettes!”
“Smoke your goddamn cigarette.”
He lit up, and I hoped his story would be worth the stench filling my apartment.
“I woke up in another man’s body, with another man’s thoughts. I was concerned with getting my cargo safely to the markets, nervous about bandits. Dawn had just begun. I slept until the camel screams woke me up.”
“Why were the camels screaming?”
“I guess they just do that in the morning.”
“What happened next?”
“I got up, left my tent, prayed, ate, and helped break camp.”
“And then?”
“That was it.”
His story was not worth the tobacco stink.
“Come on,” I said. “There must have been more.”
“No, not really.”
“So you got up, prayed, and ate, while camels screamed. That’s it?”
“Only the surface of it. But, yes. I told you, it’s something you have to do to understand.”
“I’m not taking that stuff. So why don’t you try explaining a little bit better?”
A pause ensued, I could tell he struggled to capture a concept in words. He said, “I saw this television show once. An anthropologist called the meaning of life an unanswerable question. We think we want the answer when we actually crave the experience of being alive. We get, like, numb to ourselves. We grow to miss our own lives, even as we’re living them.
He stared into my eyes and gave it a second go. “When you take moondust, you’re someone else. When you’re someone else, you experience the feeling of being alive, of being a person, more vividly than anything since when you were a child, not yet numb to life. And when you come back from moondust—now you again—it’s like coming home. You end up reinventing your whole idea of what your life is. You examine your thoughts and beliefs in a whole new way. You experience living again, instead of going through the motions.”
“I see,” I said, my heart sinking.
This information wouldn’t translate to an article at all. Not even a usable soundbite.
The obvious and unethical fallback now appealed. If the actual account of the drug was metaphysical, existential bullshit, and only a few people knew the truth of it, I could jazz it up however much I needed to. Strictly speaking, I wasn’t limited by the reality of what my source told me. I could manufacture soundbites.
“So,” I said, “let’s talk addiction.”
“Addiction? No, it’s not that kind of thing.”
“But, surely people are compelled to take the stuff again and again, right?”
“You could say that about anything people enjoy, t
hat’s not necessarily addiction. People go back to moondust because it’s an enlightening experience. Walking in another person’s shoes, you know?”
“How often do you take it?”
“I don’t know, once or twice a day, depending.”
“And your friends, who take it also, they take it about the same?”
“I don’t know, dude. I guess so.”
“Do you ever take a few days off?”
“I never really thought about it. So I guess not.”
“Is it expensive to make?”
“Not at all.”
“But you sell it at a pretty penny.”
He grinned. “We do have our expenses.”
“So what keeps your customers coming back?”
“Like I said, the experience of being alive.”
“Elaborate.”
Pause. “It’s the wildest ride I’ve ever been on, it’s pure genius. Nothing else in the world can give you an experience like this. If it’s an experience you want to have, you go back. Simple.”
“But it’s different every time, right?”
“Bingo.”
“So can you ever really go back?”
“If you went into the same person twice, it wouldn’t be the same. So the answer’s yes. Hey, what’s for dinner? I’m going to be hungry soon. Being interviewed really takes it out of you.”
“Tell you what. If this interview works out of me, I’ll order you a pizza. You have anything to add? Something good?”
“Define good.”
I took a deep breath. “When I get this article published, it’s going to be read by people all across the country, the world. People who’ve never heard of moondust, people who have less experience, in general, with drug culture than you do. You’ve maybe had a moondust experience of someone like that?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Okay. They’re the people who’re going to be reading this article, and they’re the people we need to reach. Speak to them. What would you say to them? What should they know about it?”
“They should know their lives are all a dream.”
More existential hogwash. But, I decided to run with it. “Elaborate, if you will.”