Woke Up Lonely

by Fiona Maazel

  Bruce had worked with subjects in the field for years. He was not shy or awkward around strangers, even in the weirdest of circumstances. But this guy? He seemed unstoppable in the effluence of his grief, so that Bruce did not know what to say and was even a little afraid to say anything.

  He tapped him on the shoulder. Nudged him in the leg. Said, “We need to get out of here, okay?”

  Norman covered his ears. “Go away. Leave me alone. I want to die.”

  Bruce took a step back. “Okay, buddy. Let’s get you out of here and then you can die. Sound good?” He wanted to stand him up so he could glean something of the man’s role. A guard? The janitor? Bruce reached for his elbow.

  Norman shook him off and looked up. His face was all bloat and jowl. “I was crying,” he said.

  “I can see that. But we’re on a bit of a deadline. Know what I’m saying? You can cry after.”

  There was literature on the subject of how to deprogram a cult member, and much lore about a desperado named Black Lightning who went around kidnapping cultists for the purpose of deprogramming them, and about how this Black Lightning collapsed moral boundaries and made nominal the difference between free and captive thought, all of which material might have served Bruce well if he’d read any of it and not just printed a bibliography, which he barely skimmed, anyway.

  Norman put on his glasses. “What’s the point?” he said. “They’re going to put me away for the rest of my life.”

  The fireworks in Bruce’s heart were so boisterous, he could not believe this guy was not running for cover. The rest of his life! He must be important.

  “I wasn’t suggesting we waltz out the front door,” Bruce said, all casual, not wanting to betray the lusty and viselike grip he was prepared to exert on this man if he didn’t play along.

  Norman seemed to perk up a little. “There’s the tunnels,” he said.

  Good, good. The tunnels. They’d be found, of course, but not before Bruce was able to eke from their time together a little trust and the golden promise of exclusive rights and access.

  “After you,” Bruce said. And then, “I’m Bruce, by the way. And if you’re wondering why I don’t just walk out of here without you, it’s because—” Though here he stopped. Norman was not listening, and this was fine. At least he’d gotten his name. Norman Sugg, chief of staff for Thurlow Dan, VP, second in command—jackpot.

  They went to the basement, and as Norman was keying in a pass code, he said, “I guess I could live down here indefinitely. That wouldn’t be so bad.” He leaned his forehead into the metal of the door, which was more slab than door, and started to cry again, only without the purposed and cleansing intensity of before.

  Bruce was beginning to see something of his wife in this man and was determined not to make the same mistakes. And so: whatever instinct tells you to say, say the opposite.

  “Why don’t we just take a break here for a second. It might help if you talked about it.”

  “Don’t make fun of me. I’ve been through enough.”

  “I’m not making fun of you. What do you mean?”

  Norman finished with the pass code—it was an incredibly long sequence; who could remember a sequence that long?—and waited for the door to open with obvious impatience because, where five seconds ago he was ready to languish and die, now he was energized with disdain for Bruce Bollinger.

  “Here,” Norman said, and he gave Bruce a hard hat with a light and reflector strips. “I need for you to stay safe.”

  Bruce nodded. Their dynamic seemed to redefine itself at a clip. It was hard to keep up. Maybe Norman thought he’d win points for good governance of the kidnapped? Bruce was running out of time. He imagined SWAT fanned out in the tunnels and waiting for them at every turn. He imagined Norman giving him the slip. He certainly seemed to know the tunnels well, never stopping at the forks or Ts. If only Bruce were half as confident. There were so many inroads into a man’s trust. Be innocent, friendly, unafraid, curious. Ask about his family. His history with the Helix. Keep it local: So, what are your dinner plans? Ask questions that imply faith in the subject’s good heart. He was still debating the right way in when they heard footsteps, or at least the suck-squish of feet in the mulch that passed for flooring in this place.

  Bruce spun around to rake his light across the walls, looking for where to hide. Norman was unbothered. Bruce nipped his sleeve and tried to pull him from the center of the gangway. The suck-squish got closer, and with it the sound of two men who were, whatever they were, not SWAT. Bruce let out a whistle that died in fear because there were actually worse people to encounter in a tunnel than SWAT. The men were discussing oil revenue stymied by the Iraq war and laughing at this nonsense. They’d never been so rich.

  Oh, right, naturally: The tunnels were witness to oil magnates in bathrobes and flip-flops.

  Bruce could hear them chuckling well past seeing their lights retire. “Do I even want to know?” he said.

  “You’ll catch on,” Norman said. And with that, they reached a door. A door back to the world where everyone wanted what Bruce had.

  “No, wait,” he said, and he slapped Norman’s hand away from the intercom button and, for good measure, put himself in the way of the button, which had assumed for him the ruinous potential of the Red Button.

  “Oh good,” Norman said, “I deserve this,” and he upturned his face and closed his eyes, waiting, it seemed, to be struck. So there it was. Strike a man and you own that man.

  “Maybe I can level with you,” Bruce said. “Maybe that’s the best way to go here.”

  Norman narrowed his eyes and pushed Bruce out of the way with a single have-at-him. This man was incredible. Good-bye sheep, hello wolf. The door swung open just long enough for Bruce to pick himself off the floor and dive in. He nearly lost a foot in the jamb as it shut behind him with what sounded like the wheeze of an air lock. If he had been suddenly launched into space, he would not have been surprised. Already he felt the atmosphere of his grip on the world becoming less dense. He could hear Norman’s feet slapping the tile floor, which suggested they’d moved from the public arteries to something financed.

  “Wait up,” he yelled, and he plunged down the hallway. At the other end were two doors, they looked like barn doors, and through the slits of their mismatch flared a light that was, even in slits, radiant. Seen from the back, Norman looked like a boxer headed into the ring. Bruce caught up with him, the doors parted, and only then did he realize he’d been subject to white noise that had grown into a din that was now the symphony of a casino packed with joy.

  Oh God, he loved a casino. He’d sworn off the casinos and replaced their void with drink, but the swap had always felt short term. Unwise, too. Drink was less costly but also less lucrative, which was why, incidentally, the bank loan for Trial by Liar had failed him and why if he’d just done the prudent thing and continued to bet his way to freedom, etc.

  He took a deep breath. An underground casino. Amazing. These days, to get to a decent casino you had to travel far, and often onto the Indian reservations, which were dry counties and annoying for it. Who wanted to poker through the night with Sprite and maraschino cherries?

  The place-name was spelled out in vanity bulbs underscored with red tube lights. The Resistance Casino and Sports Lounge. By the entrance was a cherub statuette that doubled as a scanner, or so it appeared as Norman swiped a card across the cherub’s face, once for himself and once for Bruce. They stepped inside and immediately Bruce teetered on the edge of hope. Really? Hope? Yes. On his left: the world’s greatest subject for a documentary; on his right: the money to finance it just in case no one else agreed. He was excited but also relieved. As though he’d just loosened his belt after a large dinner. It had been six months since he’d dropped money in this way. And his paychecks from Interior went straight to the bank, though no amount of savings would get him and Rita out of the hole. Between them, they had eight thousand dollars and the house. And the car. Though the car
was leased and the house was double-mortgaged. So they had eight thousand dollars. His credit card spending limit was a quarter of that. He couldn’t even get an advance. He felt in his pocket for his Visa.

  The books he’d read on addiction said that a need passes whether you give in to it or not. So you might as well hang tough. Because it would pass. And pass again. And again and again, and what book talked about that? He’d always want to be doing something great. Why was that an illness? The advice was retarded. In fact, trying to impose a rubric of thought on something as unwieldy as need simply made him feel all the more needy.

  The gaming floor was arranged by square and corridor, so that each room bled into the next. It was huge. It was so huge, an area had been cordoned off for throwback, so that if you missed the good old days, here was a slot machine for you. The levers grimed in sweat. The jangle of coins in the hopper.

  “I’ve only been here once or twice before,” Norman said, “but in case you missed it, everything I believe in just collapsed upstairs, so what the hell, right? You get your betting card at that booth across the floor.”

  Bruce did not even hesitate; he flew at the booth and returned in seconds. So much was alive in this place for him. The black pile carpet snarled with orange and cyan, magenta and wheat. The colors dizzied by chandeliers and fluent across the walls, which were marble and bright. He’d put $500 on the card and took his place on a swivel stool at a bank of dollar slots. The touch-screen instructions told him what to do, not that he needed their guidance. He hit the Spin button. Lost $100, made $1.25. “Whoo!” he said. “Just getting started.” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together.

  Norman looked bored. He watched the others up and down the aisle. He sighed.

  “You realize you’re not helping,” Bruce said. Four hundred dollars was three hundred. Wham.

  “No one even recognizes me,” Norman said. “I don’t know any of these people.”

  “Casinos aren’t for friends,” Bruce said, and, by way of adduction, a man next to him caught his wrist in a tube attached to the respirator hitched to his wheelchair.

  “This was a bad idea,” Norman said.

  Bruce waved him off.

  “You’re already out three hundred? You go down fast.”

  “Hey, you can be positive or you can take that doomsday shit elsewhere.”

  “Okay.”

  Bruce took a long breath. Muttered, “Don’t go far,” but never turned around to see which way Norman went. Two people were waiting for his chair. He could feel their eyes on the screen, watching his credit dwindle. He was hemorrhaging by the minute, and then by the second, unable to hit the button faster than he was losing money for it. So maybe Norman was more talisman than not. He pressed the button again, lost again, and heard as though for the first time the quiet at his back. Norman? He spun around. Ah, Christ, Norman was gone.

  He popped off his chair, which actually felt like a popping, a freeing, because he’d nearly lost his mind for a second. Priorities, Bruce. Jesus. He scanned the room. Cruised the aisles. What the hell? The casino was not pied, it was just white, so how was this roly-poly black man able to blend in? He began to run. A woman in marching-band jacket and matching skirt was stopped at the end of a row, manning a cart of drinks. He bought two cups of whatever she was serving—Ahhhhhhhhhhhh—smacking his lips, exactly the Scotch and soda he’d been praying for. He asked if she’d seen a black man. She said, “Once or twice.”

  He made for the bathroom. There were no pay phones anywhere, nor the usual spotting of people on their cell phones, either. He was not ready to call his wife, but it would have been nice to know he could when the time was right. Because the longer he waited, the harder it would be to pretend the delay was anything but vindictive. Rita wanted to name their kid after Thurlow Dan? Yeah? Maybe while she was waiting by the phone for Bruce to call, she could explain his absence to her swollen belly thus: Your namesake stole your dad. He’d call her the second he locked down Norman and secured enough money to back the film.

  In the bathroom, the toilet seat was veiled in a cellophane doily that moved on its own. At the sink, the faucets were automated. The paper towel dispenser reacted to the motion of his hands. This was no place to be when probably the one thing that could stop your headlong plunge into financial destitution was the voice, the reason, the care of another human being, or even just a reminder that such humans existed and were worth being good for, which was precisely the kind of reminder dispatched by the robotic amenities on duty in the Resistance bathroom.

  How could he have let Norman go? No, no, how could he have sent him away? Was nothing sacred next to gambling? Next to his work? Would he sell his wife for a buck, especially if the buyers trafficked in slave labor and prostitutes and had never told their story on camera before? The vampirism of art was pathetic—he knew it was pathetic—and yet there he was, teeth bared.

  He was being methodical now, touring the rows of slot machines from left to right and stopping at ATMs as he went. Stopping and taking out the max from each. Shredding the receipts and leaving a paper trail. Pausing at a slot—just one—lose $100, make $1.25. Norman? He thought he saw the black hand of fate larking about the poker tables, and he headed that way.

  An irony that frequents gamblers who are and are not addicted to gambling? They are and are not very good. Bruce took a seat at a table. High stakes, no dealer, just a friendly game among five. Four guys and, who knew, the queen of England; she was at least eighty and wore a Day-Glo pink suit and, pinned to her lapel, a diamond brooch shaped like the Commonwealth. She, more than the others, looked on him like fish food. The others were sizing up his affect for clues to his talent, while she plumbed his heart and knew he was doomed. Everybody in? Yes.

  He hardly paid attention. He was in free fall, which was the madness he liked best. It was like adulterous sex when you knew your wife was due back any second; like sharing needles with someone you knew had AIDS; like driving through the desert with a tank on empty. It was not about risk but ruin, not about chance but certainty, and though you didn’t want your wife to find out, or yourself to end up with AIDS (there were easier ways to devastate or die), you’d still suffer this fate just for the thrill of its prelude.

  Bruce tossed his chips as if feeding the birds and finally offered up his tower and watched as this tower was assimilated into a cityscape across the table.

  He maxed out his credit card and bet his wedding ring. The queen of England said there was a special phone for guys like him and gestured at a console Bruce had not seen before. It looked like one of those car-rental kiosks in the airport. Call 123 for Visa, 456 for AmEx.

  “Representative,” he said. He pressed one, then two. Three for stolen cards. “Representative.” Because if he got one on the phone, he’d say: My card was stolen, and I need a new one right now.

  He watched the game wind down and started to press all the buttons at once. Goddamn it. “REPRESENTATIVE.”

  He returned to the table. Everyone in play seemed to have at his disposal many chips, silos of chips, so that it was just insulting to see his wedding ring back up for grabs. The man who’d won it had a braided ponytail, which he stroked lewdly every time he anted up, and more so when saying, “It didn’t fit, not even my pinky.”

  My God. His wedding ring was going to pass from one asshole to the next. It wasn’t even real gold. The man with the ponytail clamped Bruce’s wrist midair. “The ring’s in play. Leave it alone.”

  “I’ll buy it off you.”

  Laughter.

  Bruce reached for it again. This time, a hand clamped his neck from behind. Security. He tried to wriggle free, but the clamp was tight and siphoning off air he probably needed to live if this kept up. It didn’t. The hand shrank from him like a bat from light, and when he spun around, the guard was gone; here was Norman.

  “What the hell?” Bruce said.

  “How about thanks?”

  “Thanks. But what the hell?”

 
; “The Helix has friends.”

  “The Helix is over.”

  “Correct. But news travels slower down here than you’d think.”

  “I’m sorry about before. This is not a good place for me. I have a—a history. Can we go somewhere and talk for a second? I want to talk to you.”

  “I don’t feel like it,” Norman said, and he sank his hands into his pockets.

  “I don’t think you understand. You have to talk to me. You’re my only way out at this point. Don’t you see the wreckage of my life piling up all over this casino?”

  Norman shrugged. “When Thurlow and I were kids, one Halloween we were the Hamburger Helper hand. We spent months sewing pillow cases and making the hand big enough for two, but then when it was time to trick-or-treat, we realized we forgot to make eyeholes for us both. Only he could see. Even then I thought it was a metaphor.”

  Bruce heard a siren go off two banks down—someone had won a jackpot. He tried to focus. He said, “I just don’t get it, really. My wife got all excited about the Helix, but I couldn’t understand what she was excited about. When I pressed, she’d just get angry and say I was badgering her, and God forbid I said maybe it was the hormones—she’s pregnant—well, that made it even worse.”

  “You told your pregnant wife she’s hormonal?”

  Bruce laughed. “I know, I know.” And something in him dislodged, because when was the last time he was met with compassion on any topic, especially the thousand missteps he’d made with his wife? When was the last he indulged the camaraderie of a guy who, just for being a guy, a straight guy anyway, understood what traumas inhered in the pleasing of your wife? He said, “It’s rough out there, lemme tell you. My son’s due in a little less than four months.”

  “You got a name for him?” Norman said.

  “No”—and he shrank into himself and vowed not to say another word.

  “The thing about the Helix,” Norman said, “people used to say Christianity was a cult, too. Anything that’s a threat to convention is a cult, which is the saddest part of all, because when did this horrible loneliness get to be the norm, so that whatever tries to break it down is threatening? None of us expected Thurlow was going to kidnap anyone.”