by Alan Osi
But, despite my skepticism, I had to admit that it had me curious.
The link had come from my friend Elba, who was pretty plugged in to the scene. Which was another tick in the plus column for the event. She only sent me these things when they were sure bets. I figured, why not?
Even if it turned out to be lame, we could make it fun.
98. STEVEN
My guy Wally Beaver sent me a text. It had a link to a website. The website was a single page, and it was an invite to a party, “The Moondust Sonatas, A Magic Theatre Production.”
Sounded interesting. Wally had told me about some crazy stuff called moondust a few times. But, wouldn’t give me any. Said the people who sold it were trying to keep it extra hush. Now, they were throwing parties and all. And he was in on it. Made me wonder if he was selling it all along and was blackballing me for some reason. Which sucked big time.
But I was totally going to this party, so I guess I’d forgive him. I wondered if he’d need any of my multi-media pieces for, like, ambiance. That would be kick fucking ass.
99. SIENNA
“The Moondust Sonatas?” Whatever.
You couldn’t be an A-list recording artist, like I was, without getting this kind of thing, invitations to random events from random people who somehow know your email address. Everyone always hoping you’d show up to whatever they invited you to, so they could leech off your name. This one came from a hairdresser who’d styled me for a shoot last month, according to the email containing the link. I didn’t remember her at all. How the hell did she get my private email address?
It was so alienating somehow, lonely. ‘Cause, how could you ever tell, when someone was looking at you, how polluted their minds were by your public image? Really, the better question was: What was the chance their minds weren’t polluted by it? No one was genuine with each other in this world. That was just the way it was, as much as we all hated it.
Some days, I felt like life was about running from my shadow.
Anyway, I had better things to do with my fame than be a black Barbie at some hipster’s disco ball. I am an artist, and I was in a position to help people. We all needed to stay positive, and be about the things that matter.
100. ROB
It was definitely time to crack some skulls.
Will, Clyde, and I were wandering around Manhattan looking for the messenger. What kind of asshole called himself that? And did he even exist? Probably not. This sounded like some nonsense Will told Clyde to get us off track, maybe so he could go off on his own.
Either that or he was stupid enough to believe this shit. Or maybe some guy actually was out here giving away moondust, and the mob had given us some fucked up order, as if they were my boss, to lay off the guy in Williamsburg and get our info from some fuckhead in Manhattan with a stupid name. If so, then Will, Clyde, and I were screwed, because the dude was nowhere to be found. Nowhere.
So, I was pissed. Instead of going to Williamsburg and grabbing the guy we knew—who was definitely back in his apartment by now—we were out here, looking for some phantom with an abandoned apartment.
We’d gone to Harold’s building four days ago. That was the messenger’s real name, as given to us by some Slavic mobster. He lived in a neighborhood in Brooklyn, chocked full of Puerto Ricans, looking at us like, ‘Why the hell are you guys here?’ Not that I gave a fuck. I had my gun for problems like them; they were best off leaving me alone.
The messenger had split, if he ever lived there in the first place. If he was even real. And that I definitely gave a fuck about—wasn’t nothing in his apartment, but roaches and a real funky smell. The front door hung wide open, too. We didn’t even have to pick the lock.
Looking out of his window over that nothing neighborhood gave birth to the anger boiling over in me now. Sure, I’d been stressed before, about how I was partnered with people who didn’t know the game from their own sweaty asses. But, it hit a whole new level. They were wasting my time. I didn’t have time to be wasting.
“What the fuck, you guys?” I had said.
“He ain’t here,” Clyde said, stating the obvious. “What do you want me to do about it? Blink and nod like Barbara Eden?”
“Barbara Eden?” Will asked.
“I Dream of Genie, moron.”
“Who gives a shit about Barbara Eden?” I shouted. “What the fuck do we do now? We’re wasting our time here. This guy’s a myth. May as well be looking for Sasquatch.”
“So you think the mob and some random girls made up the same dude? Where’s your head?”
“Watch what the fuck you say to me. Especially when you’re trying to sell me bullshit. Makes my fuse short. Hear me?”
He took a step back and adjusted his tone. Good for him. “Okay. It’s all bullshit. But, it being bullshit doesn’t tell us what to do next. Bottom line, we got to do our best to find this guy. That’s what we said we’d do, and that’s all we can do. You got a better idea, please share.”
And so we all were on our own schedules now, wandering around Manhattan looking for this dude named the messenger, wasting more time. Everyone agreed that on the off chance any of us found him, we would call the others. Not that I thought it would actually happen. But, they’d better tell me if they found him, because if I ever found out they cut me out, I’d kill them both. Slowly. With dull knives and socket wrenches.
In fact, it’d been two days since I’d heard from either of those two fools. And that made me angry.
I was in a pool hall now, drinking a beer, smoking a cigarette, and nursing my frustrations. And then, I got a text from Clyde.
It was a link to a party. Called, “The Moondust Sonatas.”
Which, of course, turned everything on its head. Everything.
I texted him back, “See you there.” And I went the fuck home.
I didn’t know who Wally Beaver was, but I had some pent up aggression with his name all over it. Finally, things were looking up.
101. YVONETTE
I got a text from Wally,
Out of the blue. But, it hadn’t been that long.
I hadn’t expected to hear from him, hadn’t wanted to.
Didn’t want anything.
Or even know where I was
Daddy wanted me to come home.
Of course, he did, and I?
What did I want?
Didn’t want anything.
And nothing brought clarity, nothing could.
Was it good that I’d talked to them? Was it what I wanted?
Like ripping the bandage off something, exposing it to air
A sick emaciated tiger caged in the back of my brain:
Opening the doors of the cage, even a little bit,
It attacked.
Well. There was nothing new there,
It was the oldest story. So dull.
The pain parents cause us. They might as well be planets,
With inescapable gravity.
Wally was throwing a party,
Featuring his new drug
And I was in my bedroom drinking, listening to Neil Young,
Wondering how, when I lost my way.
Or had I ever even been on it?
A wreck that called herself a girl
Would I go?
To Wally’s party, would I go?
Moondust was fucking evil
But, I was too.
Everything in my childhood taught me that and
Everything in my soul knew it and
It was why—the answer to every question.
So how could I go home? And why not go
To the party?
Why not take every drug known to man? And
Why not fuck every man known to drugs?
I was a sooty little ball of sin
And I couldn’t even fool myself
Into thinking the kingdom of Heaven never existed
I knew now.
I’d seen now.
My parents were wrong, but they’d always be
en right.
Always.
Wrong as they were, they’d always been right.
Saturday, October 7, 2006
102. JUSTINE
Saturday, a lazy kind of day that I was out trying to enjoy. I got a text from Maxwell, now my ex—or had our relationship lasted long enough for him to be called that?
The tone of the text seemed impersonal, to say the least. It described a party. I read this while I shopped at the Saturday market, buying fruit and vegetables from local farms on this stereotypic fall day. The air had a snap to it, a cold clarity reminding one of diamonds. No clouds marred the sky, everything seemed hyper-real.
Before the text came, I strolled among the sellers and the hawkers, looking first at a young woman’s extensive collection of paintings, which she’s spread out on the sidewalk before her. The paintings struck me as mediocre, rote pictures of the city’s skyline, semi-nude self-portraits, and still lifes. I did not buy anything from her, but chatted for a moment, telling the white lie I thought her work provocative. She spoke with me without hiding her boredom, as if the experience was as standard and unexciting as her paintings. I quickly moved on.
I browsed the stands of fruits and vegetables, occasionally picking up and smelling plums or bushels of spinach. But, I didn’t talk to any of the vendors. I guess I’d only one conversation in me, today.
I was examining some artichokes when the text came through. I read it, staring at the screen for quite a while, letting the city move around me. Then, I put my phone back in my purse and went home.
103. PETER
It was a party, one of those things where hip kids with trust-funds experimented with designer drugs and other people’s genital emissions. Therefore, it was not the kind of thing chemistry geeks like me usually got invited too. But, of course, ever since Max had me analyze moondust, nothing felt normal.
The party invite scared the hell out of me. The thought that kept running through my head was critical mass.
A substance with fundamental instability—like, for example, a radioactive isotope—tended to be less dangerous in small amounts. If one grouped enough of it together, the effects amplified, sometimes exponentially—like a nuclear bomb.
Did the moondust have a critical mass? And what would happen if it did?
And what would happen if a bunch of party kids became critical mass by dropping the powder in their eyes all at once? The brain on moondust acted as if it were moondust. Consciousness became liquid. And the only thing about a brain that made it special was the self, the I Am instinct of the human being. For all other intents and purposes, a mind was a collection of bioelectric wires. Cells in superconductive jelly lighting up like so many Christmas lights.
One atom that became moondust showed up as an infinite variety of atoms when observed. One person on moondust—seemed also to become moondust in that person—briefly lived the experience of another. Therefore, when it came to moondust, we were no different than atoms. Just bigger and more complex…
If a group of atoms, such as a brain, responded to moondust the same way as one atom, it stood to reason that a group of brains could react to it as one thing as well. If they all took it at the same time, something new would happen. Critical mass.
And so I was full of wonder and terror. I tried to tell myself I was just being silly. But, I didn’t really believe it. If something crazy happened the world would notice. The scientific community would shit a collective brick the size of Giza pyramids. Everything would change.
104. MAXWELL
So it was the tomorrow that Friday had promised.
I had my draft finished, except for the finale, of sorts, which would be whatever happened during “The Moondust Sonatas.” I had to admit, the title was catchy. I respected that.
I came to the conclusion that my piece read like a failed soufflé. It lacked pop, even though I’d done everything the right way, in classic exposé style.
But maybe that was my mistake: Trying to stay classic, yet forward thinking, to write the kind of piece I figured the big zines would eat up. Trying to frame the story so it seemed I had my journalistic integrity intact. The truth was that I’d betrayed that integrity inch by inch, and then totally, all at once, the minute I gave my sources up to the police.
Now my life was in free-fall.
When I sent my boss the email with my copy attached, trying to stay ahead of things, she’d responded too fast for me to believe she actually read it. “See me tomorrow, first thing.” Less an email than writing on the wall. I never believed it would happen. Not to me. They call that hubris. I understood. I counted on my own charm and subtle genius—and on my subject matter’s groundbreaking nature. Yet, none of it was real.
So I sat in my apartment, staring at my computer and drinking whiskey, looking for a way to salvage something from this. Of course, the drinking didn’t help.
I also avoided making a call. My avoidance was symbolic; calling Detective Greene wasn’t up for debate. He made it clear I was on a short leash; if I didn’t call, he would come looking for me. Still, this stank as the point of no return.
So I drank, and sat, and moved the mouse every once in a while to keep the screensaver from taking over the computer. And read lines from my disappointing first draft, lines like, “In what most disciplines call the Post-Modern age, moondust represents a massive escalation—as if the very theories and ideals that have decayed clarity in fields like art, literature, and social science have spread, virus-like, to both science and religion, obscuring our deepest and most fundamental ways of knowing the world around us.” A good sentence, but out of place, treading water in a piece lacking heart or direction.
If I had a paper copy, I’d have thrown it out the window. But, it was on the computer, so throwing it out the window would cost me quite a bit of money. I sublimated the urge, using the destructive energy to place the call—once and for all killing my dreams of rescuing journalistic integrity. I could almost hear Milton Burrows: Et tu, Maxwell?
“Detective Greene,” he said, answering the phone in the flattest voice.
“It’s me, Maxwell Smith.”
“You drunk, Smith?”
“Yeah,” I said, annoyed. “You got a problem with that?”
“Long as you ain’t driving.”
“Fine. Can I text you at this number?”
“What have you got?”
“What you’re looking for. They’re sending out invites.”
“Send it to (212) 555-3829. My cell.”
“We’re done after this, right?”
“If it’s good intel? Yeah.”
“Good,” I said and hung up.
I texted right away. And then I sent it to Peter, the chemist, for good measure. And Justine. ‘Cause why not?
I drank some more and fell asleep.
105. LEONARD
After I read the text my canary sent me, I sat for a while thinking things through. Then, I came to a few decisions. I got the messenger out of the hole to see if the time he’d spent—trapped in his own crazy—had softened him up.
Not that it mattered much, I didn’t really need him anymore. Sure, any information would help. But, my top priority was stalling his release long enough to find something on the books to hit him with. It would take some finagling, and even if it didn’t work, at least I kept him off the streets as long as possible.
I went down to the holding facility and waited while they pulled him up. Sat in a standard interrogation room, whistling an old song trying to remember its name.
First thing I noticed about him was his walk. He shuffled in like his legs didn’t work; a few days in the hole would do that to you.
I tried to check his eyes, but they were hard to see. He hadn’t been about to win a beauty contest before we threw him down there, and the time didn’t help. Half a week’s beard obscured his face. His head hung down, but it read as something other than the normal defeat. I decided to be cautious, take a wait-and-see approach.
&nbs
p; “So, bright boy, how you feeling?” I said, after he’d sat down. But, he didn’t respond.
“I asked you a question. You’re going to answer. “
“Or what?”
“Guy, what do you think I couldn’t do to you?”
“Break me.”
And now he let me look into his eyes. They were feverish and ironclad.
“Okay,” I said, “truth time. The easiest thing for me to do with you is throw you back down there, lose the key, and forget about you. I got you in here on a homeland security violation, and the tests on that stuff you had were inconclusive. So I get to treat you like Al Qaeda and no one’s going to make a peep to defend you. “
Finally, a trill of fear shot through him. Didn’t matter how much iron a guy had in him, solitary was hell, pure and plain. Most would do anything to avoid it after an extended stay.
“But you’re right. I’m not going to torture you, water board you, or any of that shit. I really don’t have to, and honestly, who has the time?”
I leaned in like I was about to confide in him. A bit of theatre.
“Did you know some guys are throwing a moondust party? Like, DJs or something, they’re doing a Studio 54-kind of deal, which is pretty hedonistic, don’t you think? I mean, as far as you’re concerned, this stuff is holy, and they’re treating it like it’s just another recreational drug. For you, that must be like they’re taking a dump on the Bible.”
“You’re lying,” he whispered.
“You want to see the text?” I pulled out my cell phone, brought up the info, and tossed it to him. “Here. Take a look.”
He stared at it, and then a tremor went through him. All the warning I got. Next thing I know, the cell phone flew at my head. By reflex I jerked back, so it glanced off of my temple, doing a lot less damage than it could of. I was off balance, falling to the left, which was actually lucky, because the psycho flung himself across the table at me, following the phone. His still-cuffed hands reached for where I’d been a second ago, going for my throat, but missing. His elbow grazed my chest. He clattered into the table, and it fell over; we tumbled to the floor together.