Hollow

by Owen Egerton

  I read these words and my heart tingled. If there was one thing I had learned it was that everything I knew was wrong.

  Horner goes on to trace the history of Hollow Earth theory from Tibetan beliefs in the inner paradisal city Shambhala to the ancient Greek myth of the underworld, on to notable scientists championing a Hollow Earth model like astronomer Edmund Halley and mathematician Leonhard Euler, and American freethinkers like Captain John Cleves Symmes, Jr., who theorized in 1818 that the clearest paths into the Hollow Earth were massive holes located at the north and south pole.

  The argument is simple. Our Earth—like most planets—is by nature hollow. Hollow and inhabitable, its ecosystem separate but symbiotic with our own.

  Due to its mass and the centrifugal force of the planet’s spin, the majority of gravity is found not in the core, but in the crust. So we walk on one side of the crust, and those within walk on the other side of the crust. Though it appears some creatures—devolved humanoids—dwell in cities carved into the crust, the majority of non-surface life thrives on the concave inner-surface.

  All this, of course, flies in the face of most modern geologic models, which is why scientists have such a difficult time accepting it. As Dr. Horner puts it, “It is a bold mind that willingly forsakes the false science of their fathers.”

  My father taught me that hard work is justly rewarded and there’s no such thing as a free lunch. I’ve seen much work go unrewarded and I have eaten many free lunches.

  Modern explorers have searched for a way in, either through the Symmes Holes at the poles or in deep caverns, ancient temples, or even ocean canyons. We have a few testimonies of lost ships and submarines disappearing to parts unknown, but nothing conclusive enough to dismiss the skeptics.

  What lies within? What kind of life exists in the rays of that inner sun? Some say that our inner world is a primitive place, like surface life in the last ice age, with prehistoric animals hunted by tribes of peaceful humanoids. A few fear an advanced race with demonic intentions. But most experts believe the Hollow Earth to be the home of technologically and spiritually advanced beings that have evolved past war, past poverty, past mortality.

  Our government—from NASA to the military—openly ridicules Hollow Earth theory. In his book, Dr. Horner explains that in fact the government is well aware of the Hollow Earth and the wide pole entrances. They have long suppressed satellite images of the poles and narratives of sailors and scientists who have stumbled into that hidden world. The government believes the stark truth would cause massive panic on the surface. “Once we know we are not alone in this globe,” Dr. Horner writes, “economies will crack, religions will crumble, and the status quo will cease to be. No wonder those in power are so reluctant to have the truth revealed. When you discover that the unimagined is fact, the first reaction is panic.”

  I know this to be true. After Miles died, my own footsteps made me flinch with fear.

  Dr. Horner concludes his book with a promise to acquire a nuclear-powered icebreaker and lead an exploration into the northern Symmes Hole himself so that the Hollow Earth can move from theory into recognized fact.

  “We are ripe for a revolution of thought, no less radical than the Copernican Revolution.”

  I read all of Horner’s book in one sitting, the words dripping into my head like water into a kettle that has burned itself dry. I, too, was ripe for revolution. I was blank and newly uncertain of the nature of everything.

  Lyle found me at the bookstore days later. I was sitting in a corner rereading Horner’s book. He hovered above me until I looked up. He nodded knowingly and said, with an exaggerated drawl, “See?”

  For weeks after we’d sit over waffles or bubble tea and he’d talk ceaselessly about the Hollow Earth, spouting off half facts and theories and conspiracies, and lending me dog-eared books and smudged DVDs. A Guide to the Inner Earth by Bruce A. Walton; A Journey to the Earth’s Interior: Or, Have the Poles Really Been Discovered? by Marshall Blutcher Gardner; Flying Saucers from the Earth’s Interior by Raymond W. Bernard; The Kingdom of Agarttha: A Journey into the Hollow Earth by Marquis Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre.

  As if a fire had swept away my mental library, these books repopulated my mind’s shelves. I understood it was all pseudoscience, but I liked it. I liked listening. I was like a child appeased by a new book read aloud.

  I once taught in my Introduction to World Religions class that no person is ever truly without some kind of faith. The sternest of atheists and the most dedicated of rationalists all have faith.

  Even outside of organized religion, we gravitate to religious practices: an exercise routine, a political podcast, a weekly therapist appointment. We form congregations with like-minded thinkers. And we believe that these practices and these opinions somehow give our life meaning. We are, I taught, religious by nature.

  And when one’s understanding of how the world works shatters, we lose our opinions and practices, and we are excommunicated, either voluntarily or by force.

  A void is formed. Something will fill it.

  If Lyle had been a Jehovah’s Witness or a Hare Krishna, would I be sitting in a different YMCA room?

  I doubt it.

  Hollow Earth struck me in a way no official religion could. For starters, I know too much about religion. I’m an expert with a PhD to prove it. You can’t tell anyone anything about what they believe they already know. And secondly, at the center of the Hollow Earth conversation is a question, not an answer. The only belief held by all Hollow Earthers is that the globe is hollow. The real question is what resides within. I can embrace any faith that revolves around a question. The concept of the Hollow Earth was something better than factual; it was applicable. I was myself a hollow shell with nothing but a question at my core.

  “Okay,” says Belinda, placing her palms together. “We’re almost out of time. It’s a game night and the Little Dunkers get here at six. But before we close up . . .” Belinda pauses and smiles at me. “As you know, Jim Horner’s North Pole exhibition is on schedule for this coming spring. As we also all know, Lyle has applied—”

  “Hell yes, I have,” Lyle says through a grin.

  “But Lyle wasn’t alone from our group.” Belinda turns to me. “Oliver, I hope it’s okay I let the cat out of the bag.”

  “What cat?” I ask.

  “Seems Oliver has also applied. Both he and Lyle have been selected to join Jim Horner—two of only two hundred accepted applicants.”

  I look to Lyle, who grins. This explains the note on my door.

  “Are you going?” Bentley asks me.

  “Are we going?” Lyle says before I can answer. “Bentley, you backass, of course we’re going.”

  “It’s ten thousand dollars a person.”

  “Oooo,” Lyle says. “I’m terrified.” He stands, dwarfing Bentley. He opens his arms to take in the group. “A chance to shake hands with a higher race and come back with pictures and proof and tell all the fuckers you were right? Ten K is a bargain. Ollie thinks so too, don’t you?”

  All those eyes on me. I open my mouth, but I see the basketball flying toward the back of Lyle’s head. “Lyle,” I say.

  He turns just in time and catches the ball with one large palm.

  “Ball help,” Brad says.

  Lyle places the ball down on his seat and reaches into his backpack. “I tell you. I’m not sure if I want to come back, maybe we’ll get there and just take up residence.”

  “Dude. Ball help!”

  Lyle pulls a switchblade from his bag.

  “Dude.”

  “Now, Lyle,” says Belinda.

  Lyle raises the switchblade. “Because I’m getting pretty fucking tired of this side of the crust.” He slams down the blade into the basketball. It hisses and drops limp to the floor. The twentysomething steps away.

  Lyle smiles at all of us. �
��We’ll send you a postcard.”

  “Lyle, what did you do?” I ask as we step out of the YMCA. The day is muggy, the heat building beneath a smear of gray sky.

  “I got you a fucking ticket to the Hollow Earth.” He lights a cigarette. When inspired, Lyle can squeeze in two in the fifty feet between the door and his car. “I think I deserve a thank-you.”

  “I never applied.”

  “I saved you the trouble.” He hikes up his blue jeans. “We should hit IHOP. They’re starting that pumpkin pancake special.”

  “Lyle, I don’t have any money.”

  “We’ll split an order.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  We climb into his blue Geo Metro, Lyle curving his body over the wheel in order to fit. The floor is carpeted with empty cigarette packs, butts, and ash. It’s like having your feet in the remains of Pompeii. But I don’t drive anymore, so I can’t complain.

  “You used to have money, huh?” Lyle asks, pulling out of the parking lot. “Did the court take it away? Or was it your ex?” He lights a new cigarette, steering with his knee.

  “It just didn’t last.” I say. “Lyle, I can’t go on an expedition.”

  “This is Dr. Horner we’re talking about, Ollie. Dr. Jim Horner chose you!” He beats on the wheel as if it’s a bongo. “The main focus for us is raising that money. Ten thousand times two. We can sell blood, sperm, etc. Maybe pick up some side work. We’ve got to think big.”

  “Lyle, I’m not going.”

  “Before I forget, at IHOP you’re sixty-five.”

  “I’m not even forty.”

  “There’s a senior citizen deal and you look older than me. I’ll be your son. No, too predictable. I’ll be your nephew. Or maybe I’m dating your daughter.”

  “I don’t have a daughter.”

  “It’s our backstory. You’ve got to have a backstory.”

  “Welcome to the International House of Pancakes,” our waiter wheezes. “Do you know what you’d like?”

  He’s round. His face is scarred with acne. It’s like watching a fleshy moon. I imagine him as a teenager, maybe ten years ago, in the stink of a public high school bathroom glaring at a mirror, his face revolting against him with bumps and sores. I see him very alone.

  “Hello,” Lyle says with a large smile. “We’d each like to order a pumpkin special. And we’d like the senior citizen discount. Does that come with coffee?” Lyle looks to me. “Uncle Peppy, can you drink coffee?”

  “Wait,” says the waiter, one eyebrow struggling to rise. “He’s a senior citizen? Really?”

  “Yes.” Lyle can lie with perfect eye contact. It’s his greatest talent.

  The waiter grins, shuffling the red constellations on his face. “I don’t think I can swing that for you guys.”

  “My uncle fought in Nam and you’re going to charge him full price for pancakes?”

  The waiter sighs and turns to me. “Do you have any ID?”

  I reach into my wallet, but I keep my eyes on his red face. How can a person grow when so many looked away? What chance did he have? He should have had a chance.

  “I’m sorry about your face,” I say as I give him an ID card.

  He frowns at me. He has a dimple. He looks at the card. “Okay, student discount. Two specials for the price of one.” He walks away without waiting for a reply.

  “Ollie, what did you show him?”

  “University staff ID. It’s all I’ve got with my picture on it.”

  “Sweet!” Lyle says. “We are eating pancakes every day this week.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Explain the application.”

  Lyle puckers his lips in thought and fixes his gaze on me. The waiter places down two coffees and a plastic carafe, and Lyle’s still staring. Then—like a snap—he simultaneously begins talking and pouring sugar into his cup.

  “Confession time,” he says. “I applied for me, right? Only for me. But ‘pedicab operator’ doesn’t look that impressive on the application. So I borrowed some of your credentials. Not a lot of legit PhDs bold enough to join the Hollow Earth faction. Too dependent on mommy univer-titty to go against the mainstream fantasy. But I didn’t use your name. Not at first.”

  “Yes?”

  “They checked the references!” Lyle lifts his arms as if this were a faux pas of grand proportions. “Can you believe that? I’m trusting these guys with my life and money, and they don’t even believe my application.”

  “To be fair, you were lying.”

  “They didn’t know that.” He reaches across the table and snags a handful of individual creamers. “You think a machine fills these things? Or is it someone’s job?” He pops the first creamer straight into his mouth.

  “So you came clean?”

  “I told them I had been filling out the application for you and accidentally put my name down.” He alternates, a creamer for the coffee, a creamer straight shot. “So they gave us two spots. Dr. Oliver Bonds and his guide-man.”

  “I have a guide-man?”

  “You’re blind.” Pop into the mouth. Some drips land on his chin. “Since birth.”

  “You want me to pretend to be blind?”

  “Only for the first week.” He gulps half his coffee in one swallow. “Then I figure we stage a miracle cure. Say it was the aurora borealis or something.”

  “Once I’m a seeing man, won’t they kick you off the boat?”

  “By then I’ll have proven my worth. I mean, I know my shit, right? I just don’t have some fancy paper from some ass-knocker establishment. No offense.”

  The waiter drops off two plates of yellow-brown pancakes sprinkled with tiny candy pumpkins.

  “I’m not going,” I say.

  Lyle crisscrosses syrup over his cakes. “It’s a journey into the Hollow Earth, Oliver. You have to go.”

  “I don’t have any money. I’m no longer a working professor. My application was entered under false pretenses. And I doubt the validity of the entire venture.”

  Lyle speaks through a mouthful of pancake. “That’s your uncle speaking.”

  “I don’t have an uncle.”

  “I’m quoting Star Wars.”

  “Don’t.”

  Lyle frowns. “Give me one good reason not to go.”

  “I just gave you four.”

  “Fluff.” Fork in hand, he waves the waiter over to refill the syrup.

  “Lyle,” I say. “I have responsibilities.”

  His wave to the waiter spins into a point directed at my face. “No, Oliver, you don’t. That’s the point. You don’t have anything.” He forks half a pancake and lifts it. It wiggles like a disembodied flipper pulled from a gulf oil slick. “Convicts settled Australia. Madmen crossed the Atlantic. Ne’er-do-wells went west for gold. People with nothing to lose.” He shoves the flipper into his mouth. “Guys like you and me, we’re made for this kind of shit.”

  I raise a bite, stare at it, then place it back on the plate.

  He’s right, I know. No one is asking me to stay. No one relies on my contributions. I could go anywhere and no one would blink.

  “Look,” Lyle says. “Your kid died. I get that. Hell, if I were you, I would have—” Lyle shapes his hand into a gun and puts it to his temples. He pops his lips as he sends a mime bullet soaring through his skull. “But,” he says. “You’re still among the living, Ollie. So you might as well do something. You going to eat that?”

  He reaches over the table and spears the top pancake.

  “I tell you what. Read this.” Lyle retrieves a hardback book from his backpack and slaps it on the table between us: Our Journey In by Dr. Jim Horner. “It’s an advance copy. He mailed a copy to everyone going on the expedition.”

  “I didn’t get one.”

  Lyle shrugs. “You’re blind.” He swallows a mouthf
ul. “He’s coming to Austin on the book tour, too,” he says. “We’ll get to meet him.”

  I pick up the book. It shows a globe with a hole emitting streams of light. Even now I feel the familiar quiet thrill of an unread book.

  “Ollie,” Lyle says, pushing in the last of the pancakes. “If you’re looking for answers, there’s no better place than the center of the world.”

  With Horner’s new book in one hand, I walk through my neighborhood. I move past the houses and pollen-coated lawns, breathing in the damp heat and ozone. The late-day sun dips away and everything turns amber—the trees, the air, the cracked sidewalk. Everything hums. The old woman, who lost her husband four years ago, waving at the children climbing from an overused trampoline; the near-blind fifty-year-old decked in denim who tromps from the convenience store with a six-pack of tall boys and a red-tipped cigarette; the couple from California pushing a stroller the price of a secondhand SUV. The dentist waters his lawn, avoiding the cacti, and the banjo player strums on his deck as cats leap from the banister. I live among these people. Some still know my name.

  A few clouds roll over the last of the sunlight and everything dims.

  Here’s the house that was once my home. Where we lived, Carrie and I and Miles.

  It looks good. The new owners have undone most of our renovations. Repainted the door and replaced the lawn with xeriscaping and a rock garden. I see him occasionally—a dark-haired man with high eyebrows. I’ve only seen his wife in shadow, passing by windows and turning off lights.

  I wonder if I’m there too, a ghost taking shape. In my head I’m there so often. I’m there right now.

  There was the immediate urge to die, the morning I found him. Then later in jail.

  Days passed, I did not die.

  I did not die for Carrie.

  Later, for a brief time, I did not die out of spite.

  Before long, the pain changed. It throbbed more than stabbed, and the dramatic act of taking my own life slipped out of reach. It wasn’t that I wished to live so much as I was not willing to die. Not then, at least.