“I’m not sure.”
“Is this some kind of . . . What are you hiding?”
“I have to go.”
“Wait—”
I hung up in panic. The phone rang again, and I ran outside for a walk.
I had no idea how much Alice Higginbotham knew, but I knew I made the situation worse. After a short walk to mellow my mind, I used the emergency phone Francis gave me and called him.
“Markus . . . Ralph, stop. Please don’t do that,” Francis said. I could hear Ralph giggling in the background.
“I . . . I screwed up. I just got a call from a reporter at the New York Times . . . Somehow she knew I was at the White House yesterday. How the hell did she know?”
“What did you say to her?” Francis whispered, seething. I told him the details of my phone call with Alice. “Markus, listen . . . Ralph, stop . . . Stop tickling me. . . . Markus, Ralph says ‘hello’ . . . I’m going to make a quick phone call and get right back to you . . . Okay. Wait, Markus, Ralph wants to talk to you.”
“Markus,” Ralph shouted.
“Hi, Ralph.”
“Markus, cheer up, old bean. Francis is going to get me a house, my own house.”
“Sounds good, Ralph.”
“You sound down in the dirty dumps. What’s wrong? I thought you’d be happy.”
“Why would I be happy?” I asked miserably.
“Well, I heard you and Samantha—”
“Fucking hell, Ralph. How did you know?”
“I didn’t, but now I do. Ha. Oh, Francis wants to converse with you. See you.”
I punched a wall just hard enough to hurt myself.
“Markus, I just talked to my contact at the New York Times, he doesn’t know anything about it, and there’s no Alice Higginbotham on the payroll. Are you sure you were talking to an actual reporter?”
I didn’t answer. I told him to wait as I googled ‘Alice Higginbotham’ on my smartphone and immediately found her Facebook page. The large pot leaf used as a profile picture irked me, but when I noticed she was just an intern for the Arts Section, thoughts of murder and suicide juggled in my head. Wearily, I told Francis, and we came up with a plan as I slowly walked back to my place.
“You sure you’re okay with this? Lying to the New York Times is nontrivial.”
“I don’t see much of a choice.”
The phone was ringing when I opened my front door.
XVII
BASEBALL
“Hello.”
“Hello, Dr. West. It’s Alice Higginbotham again. I’d really love to ask you some questions. Is that okay?” she asked, desperately nice.
“Yes, that’s fine. I should apologize. I was quite agitated before. I was cooking and burned myself . . . and my linguini.”
My lies were getting off to a bad start.
“These things happen . . . Anyway, I should apologize too—cold calling you like that and barraging you with questions—I’m sorry if I came on too strong.”
We exchanged a few uncomfortable but easy pleasantries, which leveled the playing field. Once I agreed to answer her questions, she was more forthcoming about herself, what she knew, and how.
“Earlier, you said the identity of the artist was classified. Why classified?”
“You have to understand, I was there for unrelated matters and was just as surprised as anybody else. I did hear it was classified. Apparently, this was a condition of the artist, who demanded anonymity.”
“Who told you it was classified?”
“Oh dear, I don’t even know who I was talking to. There were just a bunch of us standing around, a marine, some Secret Service, a gardener, and the secretary of . . . maybe agriculture? I’m not sure—we were all just gawking at the damn thing. It was all highly amusing.”
“So, you can’t confirm it was Banksy?”
“Who?”
“You’ve never heard of Banksy? He’s a British . . . Forget it . . . There were reports of soldiers in gas masks at the scene. Can you confirm this?”
“Yes, there were a few marines and some workers from the CDC as well.”
“The Centers for Disease Control? Why?”
“Oh, there’s something you have to understand . . . This is funny. You see, the White House was taken by surprise by all this too. The artist had agreed to do some sort of street art, that’s what you call it, right? ‘Street art’?”
“Yes, please go on.”
“The artist had agreed to do something for this International Creativity Month, but no one knew exactly what was going to happen. When the big helium blimp showed up, the White House was just as surprised as anybody. The Secret Service got a real bug up their ass and wanted to be extra sure the cylinder was safe. Frankly, I’m surprised no one got shot.”
“Was the artist arrested?”
“No.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see the artist? There’s some distant video footage of someone or something jumping off of the top of the can.”
“Someone or something is right. I still don’t know who or what that thing is,” I lied.
It was just one of the many questions on her list, but I was relieved to hear it. Because of the height of the cylinder and the blockade around the White House, the distant pedestrians couldn’t easily see Ralph with unaided eyes. It still seems like luck that no one got any decent footage of him that day.
“Can you confirm that the . . . theme song to the movie Rocky was playing?”
“Umm, yes. It was one of the songs from Rocky. It wasn’t ‘Eye of the Tiger,’ it was the other, more instrumental, one.”
“Other news outlets reported rumors there was some sort of partial evacuation of the White House, is that true?”
“I really don’t know, but if it had been a partial evacuation, they probably would have told me to leave. I wasn’t there for anything crucial.”
“Thank you. Can you confirm that the artist is male?”
“No, but I have to suppose the cylinder was made and operated by a large team, not just one artist. I suppose there were some females in that team.”
“Why would you suppose that?”
“Sheer probability.”
“I see. Where is the artwork now?”
“The cylinder? I don’t know. I heard some say they might install it outside the Smithsonian, but I’m not really the one to ask.”
“Who else might be a good person to talk to about this?”
“The president; it was her pet project.”
“Umm . . . How about someone more accessible.”
“Maybe the Secret Service? Sorry, I can’t think of anyone else.”
Our conversation was dwindling, and I was feeling like Keyser Söze. I was nervous the whole time, but sure it barely showed. She was nowhere near the truth, and, of course, she wouldn’t have believed it anyway. She just wanted some good quotes, and I gave them. Lying was easy because it was mostly true. She paused and I took a drink of water, expecting a satisfying good-bye.
“I hope I’ve helped,” I said. “Is there anything else you’d like to ask me about?”
She was shuffling some papers, getting distracted, and taking her time. “Yes,” she started, “. . . one second . . . I wanted to . . . ask you about . . . RALPH.”
If temporary insanity exists, I experienced it the moment she sternly blurted his name.
I dropped the phone and envisioned myself in a nightmare. I expected the walls to dissolve. I expected assassins to walk in the door and kill me. I needed to destroy something to regain the sense of reality I normally held tight. I grabbed a stack of pens by the phone and threw them at the wall, but felt nothing. I took the baseball I kept and threw it straight through my kitchen window. Echoes of shattering glass urged me to yell as I grabbed the phone off the floor.
“How Could You Know About Ralph? How Could You Possibly Know Anything About Ralph? Who The Hell Told You About Ralph, You Goddamn Imp
ossible Bitch?”
I felt release as the silence drifted and my pulsing anger calmed. I had been imagining her talking to me in a cubicle in some office space in Manhattan. She was in her dormitory.
I heard a curious cat meow.
“Ralph is my cat . . . He jumped on my lap and surprised me . . . Mr. West, who did you think I was talking about? Who’s Ralph? Is Ralph the artist? Ralph Steadman? Wait, isn’t Ralph Steadman dead?”
I gently hung up the phone and wished I were dead.
XVIII
FIGHT
I sat down in my armchair and hated myself for several minutes. I ruminated on my stupid explosion and tightly gripped the arms of my chair.
I screamed, “Ralph. Ralph. RALPH.”
I felt slightly better.
For a few seconds, I imagined murdering Alice Higginbotham. Quickly ashamed, I hated myself for thinking about killing her. I wondered what to tell Francis and then wondered if he would kill Alice Higginbotham. All she knew was a name, and suddenly I feared for her life.
All Alice knew was that ‘Ralph’ was a name of importance. That’s all she knew. She could not have considered the truth, not at this point. There was no persuasive reason to think the name ‘Ralph’ would show up in a New York Times article about the cylinder . . . but there was no guarantee it wouldn’t.
In my effort to navigate the political intrigue, I let go the one secret I didn’t want the world to know. I wanted to talk to Francis, Ralph, or Samantha, but couldn’t talk to any of them. In my vexation, I decided to get exceptionally drunk. Normally, I would have stayed home, but every second at home reminded me of the phone call. Instead, I went to a bar.
Here is where I become unreliable. I remember going to an old dive bar with bare brick walls, the kind where the locals don’t even know the name because the sign fell off the storefront a decade ago. All that remained was one of those small, rectangular neon signs that said ‘BAR,’ and that’s all anyone needed to know.
I remember lots of empty chairs, a pool table, a broken Wurlitzer, and a bitter, grey bartender. I remember a chalky tasting glass of cheap, red wine. I remember politely complaining about the quality of the wine, and the bartender calling me ‘an asshole.’ I remember five quick glasses of Jack Daniel’s on the rocks, followed by many more shots of straight Jägermeister that I don’t remember so well.
I was talking to a fellow customer, a transient old biker, and I was arguing. I don’t think he recognized me. He was convinced the lunar advertisement and the cylinder were signs the corporations were taking over. I argued that only aliens could be responsible. At first, the biker thought I was joking, but as my explanation became more elaborate, he thought I was mocking him.
I remember yelling Ralph’s name and being called ‘crazy.’ The argument turned awkward, then loud, then physical. There were pushes and punches. I remember pain in my face, gut, and hands. I remember the taste of blood. I remember sirens and darkness.
I woke up the next morning on a hard floor, alone, in a dark room. I had a wrenching hangover, bad breath, and torn knuckles. My right shoulder ached because I didn’t sleep properly. I saw a black eye in the crappy metal mirror which barely reflected.
My shoes, socks, wallet, keys, phone, and belt were missing. A lanky cop with a fat mustache walked to my cell and turned on a painful light. As my eyes adjusted, I could see him looking at me with suspicion as he handed me a box with everything I was missing.
“What happened last night?” I asked with a dry throat.
He huffed as he opened the cell and said, “Don’t ask a single question. Just go.”
I looked at him inquisitively, which apparently was too much of a question. He pulled me up and pressed me against the wall. “Get the hell out of my precinct, you fucking lunatic.”
I gathered my things and got the hell out.
I picked up the New York Times and a decaf Red Bull from a deli and sat on a dusty stoop nearby. The article, with Alice Higginbotham’s name listed as a contributing author, was on the front page underneath a distant color photo of the cylinder on East Executive Avenue.
Alice must have been thrilled with her scoop. She went from a lowly intern to a contributing journalist for a front-page article in the most respected newspaper in America. I read the article, which cited my name as a source, and smiled when I was done. I read it again to double-check. No mention of the name ‘Ralph,’ no surprises. I felt like Dick Cheney, and she was my Judy Miller. I wanted to hug her.
I checked my new pink cell phone and saw too many missed calls from Francis. Then it hit me. The phone must’ve had a GPS device in it. This is why my phone was different from Samantha’s. Francis had no problem tagging me with a GPS device, but he wouldn’t have done it to the secretary of defense. I visualized Samantha righteously punching Francis in the groin. The thought brought some cheer to my weary face.
Francis had been trying to reach me, so he tracked my location and figured out that I was in jail. After a few official and awkward phone calls, I was released on my own recognizance. I had to call him.
“Markus.”
“Thanks for bailing me out.”
“There was no bail. They never found whomever you fought at the bar, and they were going to let you go eventually. All I did was expedite, but you can thank me later. Have you seen the Times?”
“Yes, and I think I did a pretty good job with Alice.”
“Well . . . yes and no . . . From the standpoint of national security, it’s beautiful. But, politically speaking, you fucked up,” he said as he gave me a moment to figure it out. I didn’t.
He explained, “Characterizing the Secret Service as being surprised by the cylinder was something of a surprise to the president. It doesn’t look good. I mean, it looks awful.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“You made her look irresponsible, Markus, as if she’s willing to sacrifice national security for the sake of some artistic statement. Her political opponents are writing editorials about her this second, and they’ll be online by noon. It is all very ironic, of course.”
“Ironic?”
“Well, by protecting national security, and by that I mean Ralph, you’ve made it look as if our national security is a joke,” he said with a laugh. “Look, Markus. Personally, I don’t care, and the president understands. Ralph says we will detect the Kardashians by tomorrow night at the latest, so by then it won’t matter. But, for the moment, the president has a small battle on her hands because of you. On top of everything, she has her live interview scheduled tonight for 60 Minutes, and they will ask her about it.”
It was her first one-on-one live interview since she came into office. It became the most-watched live interview in the history of television.
“Oh, God, can she cancel the interview?”
“We considered it, but it would look terrible. Right now, people are asking too many questions, and the only way to stop them is to start answering.”
“Can she ask them to not ask about the cylinder?”
“Of course not; do you have any idea how strange that would look?”
“Of course . . . Sorry, I’m pretty messed up. What do I do?”
“Forget about all of this, go home, clean up, and be ready to go to Ralph’s tonight.”
“Ralph’s?”
Most people know exactly where they were on the night of January 30, 2022. I was in the abandoned military barracks of Fort Ritchie, Maryland.
XIX
HOME
To escape the Nazis, thousands of German Jews immigrated to America before World War II. Many joined the war effort after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and were trained as intelligence officers at Fort Ritchie, Maryland. They were then sent back to Europe to interrogate prisoners of war. In 1989, Fort Ritchie officially closed, and at Samantha’s request, there was zero red tape in commandeering a portion of it for Ralph’s new home.
Ralph got his own renovated barracks, encircled by a cyclone fence over a mi
le in circumference. At any given time, there was only one guard—which surprised me, but secrecy was Ralph’s best protection, and the area was uninhabited for miles. The guards didn’t know what they were guarding and were warned to never go inside the perimeter unless to pursue an intruder.
The night shift guard was Lieutenant Frank Barber, an old friend of Samantha’s. Frank was a quiet, burly, and aging Navy SEAL with more hair in his mustache than on his head.
The two-floored barracks were quickly refurbished so that Ralph’s home was Ralph-proof. The old windows were replaced by unidirectional windows—that is, the new windows were one-way mirrors, which gave them a fucking tint, and allowed Ralph to look out without anyone looking in. Lieutenant Barber would periodically scan the grounds with the night-vision binoculars he wore around his thick neck, and Francis didn’t want him peeking inside Ralph’s home.
All sharp edges were sanded down to protect Ralph’s only Earth suit, and a fluffy wall-to-wall shag carpet extended to the ceiling and up the stairs. The upper floor, really an attic, contained a makeshift helium room, loosely enclosed with thick plastic, where Ralph slept on a waterbed. Here, in his helium room, Ralph could comfortably stay and sleep without his Earth suit, though he kept his helmet on at all times, for reasons explained shortly.
A simple hose connected a canister of helium, from outside, to a valve in Ralph’s little plastic bedroom, upstairs. Again, the helium was not actually necessary. Ralph could breathe oxygen. But the helium made him comfortable.
The cover story for the whole operation did not make sense. But, if all went well, only the guards would know the cover story. The cover story was that NASA was doing experiments to find a better treatment for Alymphocytosis, also known as Glanzmann-Riniker syndrome aka severe combined immunodeficiency.
The disease is better known as ‘bubble boy disease,’ named for the young victims who spend their lives in a sterilized plastic bubble insulating them from infection. As an immunodeficiency disease, it is like AIDS, except congenital and typically worse. Those who have it in the extreme form can die of almost anything, e.g., the common cold.
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