by Chris Vola
THE SAUSAGE ISN’T cold yet, but I’m damn hungry. I shovel two forkfuls of the dull, thumb-sized links into my throat, wash them down with a lukewarm cup of coffee. The president’s sly, angular face appears above Agent Rogers’ head on one of the flatscreens, discussing the need for another troop surge into another sandy wasteland. I decide to tackle the slices of banana and cantaloupe that I’ve drenched in blueberry yogurt.
The cameras pan to a crowd of protesters holding up anti-war posters, smartphones raised to snap a picture of the president and his slick-suited entourage. I wipe my mouth, lean back, tune into the morning’s table-banter.
“…jerk thinks he’s gonna find his island princess in a Fiji brothel,” Thompson’s saying in between absurd mouthfuls of scrambled eggs. “…and, if she’s not a ladyboy, pop out half a dozen or so screaming little island babies, already infested with…”
“Won’t get to kids,” Fortune chimes in, “considering what Miller likes sticking his face in between. I’d be more concerned about suffocation.”
Miller nods at the reference to his lengthy history as a chubby chaser, even though in the handful of times I’ve seen him in contact with the wing’s entertainment, he’s always gone for the skinniest, sickliest wraith, the one who’ll bend and break the fastest, who’s already beyond human touch.
Miller’s retiring. Put in his five years of service, the required minimum, paid his dues. He’s got his Monopoly stack of yellow paychecks. Two weeks he’ll be poolside at an expansive Polynesian villa, enjoying his new identity and the warm, juicy fruits of his labor – all the fat native pussy and double-stiff Mai Tais his middle-aged system can handle.
But, there’s still one thing. He’s got to make his martyr video. Pretty self-explanatory from what I’ve heard. The camcorder turns on, you thank Allah for the opportunity to bitchslap infidels with some kind of jihad or another, tell your family and your brothers how much you love them, whatever’s on the cue card. Vaguely assume responsibility for an act of “vengeance against the enemies of Islam” that can translate into any number of suicide-bombing-related disasters. A train car explodes in Moscow, maybe a bus in Tel Aviv. Instead of actually blowing yourself up, you get a ticket to wherever, no expenses.
“What do you think, X?” Miller asks. “You think I’ll do all right in Fiji? How about Tahiti? Tora Bora? You know anything about the South Pacific?”
“One thing I remember from the National Geographic Channel,” I say, “is that in pretty much all Pacific Islander cultures, being fat is a sign of beauty, or royalty, or something. So wherever you go, not only will you have your share of fatties, but the biggest ones will probably be princesses. You could be a king, Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now.”
Coarse, easy laughter. I’ve carved a niche for myself, the non-military transfer student who didn’t quite fit in at first but who eventually won the old guard over with his unique outlook, brand of humor, whatever (“That’s X being X”…“Fuckin' odd one, but that’s why he’s funny”). A role I’ve played before, one I can handle. The idea of trying to pretend I’m something I’m not for the sake of fitting in isn’t true. They’re my friends. We hang out during breaks, slam brews a few times a week. Slam the entertainment.
Buddies.
The work aspect is that – work. Embrace the routine for months and I know how it feels, waking up, going through the motions, learning to forget the unsavory details. Like anything else. Does Archer Hamilton dwell on the family whose mortgage he’s just restructured and who, because of it, might have to sleep in a shelter? Does John the accountant have nightmares about audit reports after he’s done fucking my girlfriend? Not likely. The office closes, they’re on their own time.
Granted, the line between work and downtime isn’t as clear here, but we operate on the same principle. When the RECORD button flicks off, the selective amnesia kicks in, the brain eradication, I’m at peace.
Davis is shooting sideways glances at us from a table at the far corner of the cafeteria. Back from a field trip, showed up one morning in the meeting room wearing a gray Fioravanti suit, his head shaved, neat. But I could see that something’s changed, something major, impossible to say exactly what. Worn thin but energetic; this energy is different. Not the super-focused, manic resolve that drove his hustle, drove him to more lucrative ventures later. Like he’s felt a ghost that won’t stop fucking with his head, which is not my problem.
I notice Kane is back from a late shift at the restaurant, smelly, the same dirty lunch-hour jokes while he wolfs down enormous bites and while Davis pushes the food around on his plate. While the agents roll their eyes and make it clear that they could care less about anything besides the paychecks.
Davis and Kane’s separate table reinforces their alienation. Their ability to come and go makes them part of a different fraternity, brands them with the stink of the outsider.
I smile at the satisfaction of knowing that I am better liked and more well-respected in the wing. But there is something cloudy in Davis’ eyes, the way they search the stainless steel walls and the outlines of agents, darker than the circles that rim them.
Miller’s grinning, eyes shut, elbows on the table dreaming of double cheeseburgers and thick Samoan thighs, one after the other in endless succession.
“CUT!” JEAN-PAUL yells. He turns the camcorder off, wipes the sweat from his hand onto his blue suit, stands on a chair to get more of an overhead shot of the ass-naked man we’re holding down on the table. “The angle, it is not right. This,” he says, squinting into the viewfinder, “this is much better.”
“You sure you want to keep going?” Kane asks. “He’s twitching so much I can barely remember my lines.”
I shrug, take the clothes iron out of his latex-gloved hand.
I RUN MY hands along the shank, the narrow, shaved blade, the contoured shaft, the final stretch of roundness, the plastic hilt buried firmly in the towel’s felt. Finished. Even with the deflating knowledge that I’ll probably never have to use it – why would I – there’s also the undeniable sense of accomplishment. A personal secret in this factory of assembly-line untruths. Security blanket buried below the surface. As far as shanks go, I’m pretty sure it’s top-notch, the would-be envy of the most gangster cellblock. Created with efficiency, an efficiency I spend my days trying to match. All the hardness I need.
A WHIFF OF diesel exhaust from a passing truck and here we are, bumping along on a muddy road somewhere in a sub-tropical war zone, the driver crossing himself as we sway around curves, the rearview mirror ornate with plastic Virgin Marys. Dark-eyed passengers whispering rumors from seat to seat in a language of distortion, the sunlight reflecting jungles in our stainless steel pod. Lauren inhales the zero-gravity non-fragrance, the wild adrenaline of an almost-caged astronaut scraping vomit off his boots, pushing the wrong button and we’re sucked into a vacuum, an invisible memory…
…The dusty page of the glossy Euro celeb magazine Lauren’s holding in front of my face at the bus stop in Barcelona. We’re perched on the drawbridge of our demise though I won’t begin to suspect it for at least a year and a half. My first and only visit to Spain, where Lauren’s studying, and where she’s suggested a road trip away from the city because, too quickly, ‘All my friends in Barcelona are so lame’ and ‘Why would we want to stay in one place when there’s an entire country to see?’ It’s also the road trip where she admits (while hammered on €1 tequila shots) to getting double-teamed – ‘They wore condoms!’ – in the bathroom at a rave by two bisexual 16-year-olds both named Jésus and I admit to being too balloony and detached (a wicked load of Zoloft and Spanish Vicodin) to get mad about it. ‘What happens abroad, stays…’ I’m perfectly happy to be gazing down at her sinuous, painted nails that, I realize for the first time, have always been my only real destination. She brings my face back to her round, hazel eyes, asks me whether or not Hugh Heffner’s latest ex-girlfriend can make a comeback at Florence’s Fashion Week as a centerpiece in Tommy Hilfiger’s daughter-in-law
’s latest show. I look at her like she’s crazy. She laughs, shakes her head, takes my neck and guides it into her face, to her cherry-Chapstick-flavored lips, her warm bubblegum tongue, her fingers tracing my throat, scratching…
…at my naked chest with her serrated nails, spraying her meth-rot breath. I toss her off me like a soggy paper-mâché doll. She yelps, thuds against the floor. Silence for a minute, muffled sobs.
For maybe a week after Annabelle snuck in, I started making notches in an extra soap bar under the bathroom sink. To keep my mind away, to focus on something tangible. The girl’s not my daughter, you aren’t here now… I stopped with the notches because it’s cliché. Not a methed-out prisoner, I’m an agent.
But here she is, a bizarre, half-realized nightmare. Her stale reek and bony touch. The smell of Sparkles, my childhood cat, after she’d been missing for a few days and we found her in the garden, pinned under a hydrangea bush, after the bugs had dug in.
“Sorry,” I say. “You scared me. You OK?”
“No,” she whispers. “I shouldn’t have…” More sobs, louder.
“They’re going to hear you.”
“Who’s out there?” she moans. “You know?”
She crawls onto the bed. The pungent rot closing in.
“Trouble,” she whispers, tugs at my arm. “Your cell phone. You made the end.”
The call to Lauren long ago, the desperation, her hanging up. Another half-forgotten disaster movie.
“Titus knows I made the call,” I say, trying to control the surge of anger that makes me want to reach for the shank. “It was a test. I gave my phone to him. He’s chill.”
“Not Titus,” she says. “This is different.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I snarl, grab her neck. She tries to twist away but I clamp down.
“You set them in motion!” She bites my hand, shakes free.
I reach for where her face should be, try to cover her mouth. Did something make a sound outside the door? Always the cameras… She scrambles to the opposite end of the bed.
“You set them in motion,” she repeats, cackles, laughs until she’s crying. “They’re coming, oh yes fucker, they are.” I don’t say anything for a long time. She’s high off her ass. Questions are useless.
“You can leave,” she whispers. “I have a message.”
I groan, pull the bed sheets over my head. “I’m going back to sleep now, Annabelle,” I say. “I have an important day tomorrow reprimanding Christians. Save this for the guy who shoves needles in your butt. Or is it between your toes? Is there anywhere left that isn’t rotten? That’s why you haven’t been in any of the scenes, lately, isn’t it? Why you haven’t been invited to any parties? You’re not even a decent hole.” Her pathetic mucus-choked sniffles. “Oh,” I say, “tell my quote-unquote daughter I say hello and that I’m sorry for being such a dead-beat. Been busy.”
Annabelle swallows hard. The room is silent. Pretend she’s gone. “How do you think I got in here?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I groan, “Titus let you out of your cage, promised you a couple extra grams if you did a good acting job. Another demented test, something ridiculous, maybe you won’t even remember this tomorrow. I don’t care.”
“Seriously? Then you have no idea.”
“I’m fine with that,” I say. I shift a little bit so that the bump made by the shank rests underneath the small of my back. A measure of comfort, fetal position.
“Come into the bathroom.”
“No. Go away. Now.”
“Give me thirty seconds,” she pleads. She lifts off the bed, bare feet brush the carpet. Goddamn this waste of life! Everything was fine. The bathroom door creaks open. Don’t move for at least five minutes, hoping she’ll forget and leave or pass out. Nothing. I pull the covers off, swing my feet to the floor. No getting around this. She’ll leave if I play along.
She flicks on the lights. A different worn-out tee shirt and gym shorts, the pockmarked arms, thinning spider strands of greasy blonde. She’s clutching a folded up index card.
“He told me to give it to you,” she says, hands me the card, “and there’s something I should have shown.”
Before I can ask who he is, she pulls down her shorts. No underwear. The rings are stainless steel, oblong like chain links, the thickness of my little finger. Pierced symmetrically through both of her labia, suspended several inches below where the lips should end, clanking louder than expected when she adjusts her balance. Attached to the rings are stainless steel discs almost the same diameter as the rings are long. Engraved on each one is an intricate cursive T.
Can’t not look. “Uh,” I manage. “Why did –”
“He saved me, I’m his property,” Annabelle says, pulling up her shorts. “Simple. I can’t leave. This isn’t about me. He doesn’t own our daughter.”
Your daughter, I want to say, but the shock of the rings is still too crazy. Part of me wants to hug her.
“I want her to survive this month,” she whispers, “to leave here.”
“This month.”
She stares, glassy-slack for a long time. Forms a gun with her hand, puts two fingers into her mouth and pulls the trigger. “It’s all I know. It’s…it’s all he said.” She turns, examines her ruined face in the mirror.
“Fine,” I sigh. I won’t get anything else from this. “Won’t look good for either of us if anyone sees you leave.”
“One second.” She turns on the faucet, cups her hands, pours water on her face, into her mouth. I listen for noises outside. She looks at me one last time before turning off the lights. The rings clink together as she walks out. Something close to pity registers.
The little girl in her party dress, smiling back at Titus when he winked at her.
THREE DOORS DOWN on the right, 8:00 tomorrow. The handwriting is sloppy but with a certain roundness to the letters that suggests a girly hand. I squint at the card, any clue I might be missing – anything. It’s early. The agents are dozing their last minutes of sleep.
Three doors down – from where? My room. That means the storage closet, across the hallway from the meth heads. And 8:00? Is that a.m. or p.m.? Either way, I’d be eating breakfast or drinking beers in Thompson’s room at Miller’s going-away party. No time for this shit. Judging by the penmanship, Annabelle’s the author. My throat tightens at an image of her pulling down her shorts. Filthy. How does she get off on this stupid CSI mystery-show?
I try to think of a way to lock her out of my room without anyone knowing, decide that it might be a better idea to let Titus know about Annabelle. I’m on his side, not his freak’s.
Another day at the office.
SENSORY DEPRIVATION SCENES are boring, but they’re an easy way to kill time. We stand around like feature-film-quality CIA agents –black suits and aviators, metal clipboards – pretending to observe and take notes about the scraggly bearded “prisoner” seated under a heat lamp. Wearing an orange jumpsuit, shackled and fitted with heavy goggles, headphones, and nostril plugs. They usually stop fighting it after the first couple minutes, give in to the silent nighttime death-limbo. There’s no script, and even if we get so bored and start talking about random shit, like how the soymilk pancakes in the cafeteria haven’t come out right for weeks, it’s cool.
We’ve only been filming for about twenty minutes so Rogers and I haven’t figured out anything to say to each other. He’s busy with his clipboard, drawing what looks like a stick figure in a turban humping a busty, anatomically female (or possibly transgender) Jabba the Hut. I’ve filled three-and-a-half pages of notebook paper writing the words ACCIDENTAL TOURIST again and again.
A door opens and Titus strolls onto the set, hair in an immaculate pony tail. He smiles as he steps in front of the camera, seems to be in a pretty decent mood. Philippe lifts his head from the viewfinder, scowls. Titus throws up his hands faux-apologetically.
“Sorry! I’m so sorry,” he says. “Editing’s going to be pissed off when
they have to cut me out, I know, man. But I need to take care of this before I forget it. You get to my age, you’ll see. Brain like yogurt. So relax, I’m borrowing Agent X for a minute.”
Titus slaps the back of the prisoner’s neck playfully. He screams.
“What’s up?” I ask, moving away from Rogers and Jean-Paul into the corner Titus has staked out, away from the camera equipment, leaning against the wall but careful not to muss his hair.
He stares at my clipboard, chuckles. “You becoming a poet or just going nuts on me, huh?”
“Not as nuts as that,” I say, pointing at the prisoner.
Rogers and Philippe snicker at something on Rogers’ clipboard.
“Our ‘inmate’ will be fine,” Titus says. “I wanted to talk to you about Davis.”
Something happened on Davis’s last field trip. He didn’t follow protocol. And what protocol. What do I have to do with it?
“I know you probably don’t hold it against me anymore,” Titus says, “but I still feel responsible for having some part in ending your friendship. I want to try to patch things up if I can.”
“I don’t know what you’re…”
“If I hadn’t decided to bring you into this, you two would still be pals.” If you hadn’t decided to bring me into this, I’d be like Billy… “He hasn’t been around. I’ve also tried to keep you apart when he is here, never in the same scenes, put him in a room at the opposite end of the wing. Thought it would be a good temporary solution in the way of maintaining a peaceful internal climate, especially when I knew you’d be making a long run here.”
I shrug.
“Davis’s retirement is creeping up,” he says. “Hard to believe he’s put in enough time.” He pauses, shakes his head, mutters something I don’t pick up. “Like I said, I want to patch things up, and I thought one of the ways to do that would be for you to help out at his martyr video, basically run it. Davis would appreciate it and it will give you two a chance to talk about the new opportunity.”