Big Egos

by S. G. Browne

  Except I don’t want to get my hopes up, in part because I don’t want to be disappointed, but mostly because this memory feels wrong. Fake. No, not fake, exactly. More like forced. As if this is the way I wish things would have been between my mother and me rather than the way they really were—my subconscious filtering my memories through the proverbial rose-colored lens. But I’m willing to go along with it to see what happens.

  My mother is in the kitchen humming a familiar tune, something by the Beach Boys or maybe the Four Seasons. I can almost make it out but then the melody changes, blending into another song, like “The Age of Aquarius” and “Let the Sunshine In,” only my mom was never a big fan of the Fifth Dimension.

  When I walk into the kitchen, I find my mother wearing a white sundress and a red apron, her hair pulled up in a bun as she uses a teaspoon to scoop cookie batter out of a mixing bowl and onto a plate, where she rolls the ball of dough in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar before placing the infant snickerdoodle on a cookie sheet with its siblings. Then she places the cookie sheet into the oven before she removes another cookie sheet covered with freshly baked snickerdoodles.

  I see a bag of sugar and a carton of eggs and a bottle of cinnamon on the counter. When my mother turns to look at me, she smiles and I see a wisp of flour across her forehead and I know something’s off.

  My mother never baked cookies from scratch. She never made anything from scratch. Even her lemonade was made from frozen juice concentrate. And the only cookies she ever baked came from a Pillsbury slice-and-bake cookie dough roll.

  So this most definitely is not my mother.

  “Well there you are.” She gives me a big smile before turning back to her cookies. “How’s my little man?”

  “I’m fine.” I sit down at the kitchen table. Except I’m not fine. And I realize I’m not so little anymore.

  I’m older. Maybe nineteen. And I’m naked. I don’t know what happened to my clothes or how I’ve suddenly become a young man, but I’m more disconcerted about being naked in front of my mother than I am about the fact that I’ve aged nearly a decade. I look around for something to cover myself with, an apron or a place mat or a hand towel, but the only thing I can find handy is an oven mitt.

  My mother stands in front of the oven, transferring the hot cookies onto a plate, her back to me, oblivious to my current condition. I’m about to get up and run out of the kitchen to find something to wear when my mother turns around with a plate of snickerdoodles in her hands.

  Only she’s not my mother. She’s Ann-Margret. Not Grumpy Old Men Ann-Margret but Carnal Knowledge Ann-Margret. Thirty years young, seductive, in full, busty bloom, not-wearing-a-bra Ann-Margret.

  “Would you like a cookie?” she says.

  “Um . . .” I look from the tray of fresh-baked snickerdoodles to Ann-Margret’s breasts as I sit trapped naked in my chair, holding the oven mitt over my penis—which fortunately remains disinterested. “Um . . .”

  “Go ahead.” She offers the plate of cookies to me, holding it right in front of her breasts. “Grab a handful.”

  She doesn’t seem to notice that I’m nineteen. Or that I’m naked. Or maybe she does, which might explain the wry smile on her lips. It’s all a little much for me to process.

  My mother is Ann-Margret.

  Ann-Margret is my mother.

  The last thing I need is an Oedipal moment.

  She stands there smiling, still bending toward me, her cleavage the backdrop to the plate of snickerdoodles, and I’m wondering if I’m really me or if I’m someone else.

  “Go ahead,” she says, as I look past the plate of cookies and down the top of her white sundress to her nipples. “They’re delicious.”

  I reach out and grab a snickerdoodle and take a bite, chewing it slowly as Ann-Margret morphs back into my mother, who graces me with a smile. I’m ten years old again and fully clothed. And there’s not an exposed nipple in sight.

  My mother sets the plate of cookies on the table, gives me a kiss on my forehead that feels both alien and wonderful, then turns around and walks back to the oven as she starts humming Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.”

  CHAPTER 27

  “Have a seat,” says Bill Summers, closing the door to his office.

  I sit down in the chair across from Bill’s island of a desk, looking out through his window at Beverly Hills floating beneath the gray November sunset. Since being given my secret assignment nearly six months ago, I haven’t seen Bill except in passing or from across the room on several occasions, but he still looks like a man who is used to getting what he wants.

  “I heard about your crew member, Chloe Lee,” he says, sitting down behind his desk, his suit jacket hanging on the back of his chair. “I’m sorry. I understand she was a talented investigator.”

  “Yes, she was. We miss her.”

  He gives an understanding nod. “How is everyone else on your team holding up?”

  “They’re good,” I say. “Thank you.”

  Bill flashes a friendly, empathetic smile, then leans forward on his desk. “Now, how can I help you?”

  I’m not exactly sure what I want to say or how I want to say it, so I decide to just start with the first question that comes into my head. “Is there anything going on I should know about?”

  Not the most specific of questions, but at the moment I’m not being choosy.

  “I’m not sure I understand,” says Bill. “If you’re referring to the incident with Miss Lee, rest assured you and your crew have nothing to worry about.”

  I shake my head, though in response to Bill or to rearrange my thoughts, I’m not sure. “Is this happening because of what I’ve been doing?”

  I realize I’m being vague but right now vague seems to be the only language I can speak.

  “Is what happening?” says Bill, looking at me with his manicured hair and his no-nonsense tie and his dimples. He hasn’t offered me a drink, which I guess means he’s not interested in any foreplay this time.

  “You know,” I say. “All of the stuff about black market Egos that’s been in the news.”

  I’m like a shark, circling my prey, sizing it up, waiting for the right moment to strike. Only in this case, my prey is an intelligent question.

  Over the past few days I’ve searched the Internet for stories about all of the black market Ego deaths that have occurred in Los Angeles since July. While I don’t recognize the circumstances of every story, enough of them strike a familiar chord to convince me that I may have played a role in the deaths of more than two dozen people.

  Not exactly the kind of thing you want to have as an epitaph.

  “I’m sorry,” says Bill, “but I don’t know how to help you if you can’t be more specific.”

  “Okay,” I say, trying to get to the point. “Is there a problem with the antidote for the people who purchased black market Egos?”

  Bill looks at me as if I just asked him why he has an alien head growing out of the side of his neck.

  “Excuse me?” he says.

  “The antidote you gave me,” I say. “Is there something wrong with it? Has anyone reported back that it’s producing unintended side effects?”

  And by producing unintended side effects, I mean killing people.

  That same bemused look remains on his face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I never gave you any antidote.”

  I’m waiting for him to smile, to let me know he’s just kidding, but his expression never changes. It’s like the discussion I had with my father when he told me there’s no such thing as Santa Claus.

  A tight smile spreads across my face and I let out a nervous laugh, thinking he’s just messing with me, but he continues to stare at me like he has no idea what I’m talking about.

  “We sat right here almost six months ago,” I say. “I drank water and you drank tequila and you asked me to help test an antidote that would counteract the retroviruses in black market Egos.”

  I look around as i
f to confirm this to myself. Everything is just as I remember, right down to the wet bar with the highballs and the rock glasses and the bottles of top-shelf liquor. The only difference is that an unopened bottle of tequila now sits next to its nearly empty twin.

  “I think you’re mistaken,” he says.

  I stare at him, still waiting for him to admit he’s joking. I can feel perspiration forming on the back of my neck and at my temples. My pulse is racing and my stomach is filling up with acid that’s starting to work its way toward my throat.

  “We never had any meeting,” he says. “And I never heard of this antidote you mentioned.”

  His voice sounds like it’s coming from inside a well and the air around me starts to grow warm and thick. I’m having trouble breathing. Inside my head, someone is playing a shell game with my memories.

  “But you promised me a six-figure bonus and stock options and a penthouse suite,” I say.

  “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” says Bill, who then looks at his watch and stands up, slipping into his suit jacket, signaling that our meeting is over. “Now . . . if there’s nothing else you have to discuss, I have a full schedule today.”

  CHAPTER 28

  I’m alone in my office trying to rationalize my meeting with Bill Summers. I’ve been sitting here for the last couple of hours, running through everything I remember, over and over again, trying to convince myself my memories are real and that I’m not crazy.

  I look up at the digital clock on the wall as it changes from 7:59 to 8:00.

  When he escorted me from his office, I expected Bill to finally admit it was all an elaborate joke. He was just kidding around, ha-ha, wasn’t that funny? Even now I’m still waiting for someone to give me the punch line.

  An Ego Investigator walks into a bar . . .

  Either I imagined the entire conversation I had with Bill Summers back in May or else he’s pretending it never happened. Except I know I didn’t imagine it. I couldn’t possibly have imagined it. Could I?

  As I’m sitting there struggling to come up with an answer, I become aware of the sound of someone crying.

  Not sobbing. Not whimpering. Not stoic weeping. Not where they’re bawling so hard they have to take big, gasping sucks of air.

  It’s more like the type of crying where it could be laughter.

  Either someone’s in distress or else they’re making their own fun. Except as far as I know, I’m the only one here. Everyone else went home for the night.

  I get up from my desk and step out of my office, trying to pinpoint the direction of the crying. It sounds amplified, echoing through the room like someone’s on speakerphone, except the only lights in the office are the low ambient lighting. None of the light sensors for the individual workstations are activated. I’m about to go search the office anyway but before I can take another step, the crying stops. I stand and listen, waiting, hearing nothing but the whispers of doubt in my head.

  After a few moments I walk around the office and check everyone’s workstation, but all I find is Emily’s partially eaten Cinnabon, which she forgot to throw away.

  I’m standing by Emily’s workstation, the sky outside dark and the low ambient light illuminating the office, thinking I must have imagined the whole thing, when the crying starts again. This time it sounds less like laughter and more like someone sniffling, the way a child might if she’s left all alone, frightened and lonely in a strange place. Of course, it could be a he. But this doesn’t sound like Neil or Vincent or Kurt. I check anyway, just to be sure, and discover the crying is coming from Kurt’s workstation.

  At first I think Kurt has somehow managed to leave his voice mail playing and it’s a message from one of his numerous conquests. I half expect to hear her lament how much she misses his throbbing cock. Then I notice the intercom light glowing on his phone and realize someone in the office has called his extension. I check the digital readout and recognize the extension calling him belongs to Angela.

  When I go back for a second look, the motion sensors turn on the lights in her workstation and I notice Angela’s phone isn’t in its cradle. I’m wondering where her phone could be when I hear the crying again, only this time both on the intercom and coming from beneath Angela’s desk. When I crouch down, I find Angela curled up in a ball in the shadows of her desk, lying on her side with one hand under her head and the other one holding the phone cradled to her ear, crying softly, her face wet with tears. Her eyes are closed, so she doesn’t see me just a few feet away. Then I say her name.

  “Angela.”

  I say it with a sense of tenderness, soft and gentle, the way you’d call out to someone who was sleeping and you wanted to wake them up without alarming them. But Angela reacts as if I’d shouted in her ear.

  Her eyes open wide and she yanks the phone away from her ear, holding the phone out at me like a weapon. Her hand is shaking. I notice that her left nostril is bleeding.

  “Hey Angela, it’s me,” I say, trying not to frighten her while doing my best to remain calm. “What’s the matter?”

  Her expression suddenly changes from fear to mirth and she relaxes, pulling the phone up against her chest and cradling it like a cherished memento. Before I can say anything else, she bursts out in a fit of laughter.

  “Angela . . . ?”

  She continues to laugh, almost to the point of not being able to breathe. Then her laughter turns to tears and she’s sobbing, her face pinched and red, her mouth open in anguish, saliva dribbling out, the blood from her nose mixing with tears and saliva and dripping down her chin.

  I call her name again. When she doesn’t respond, I reach out with my left hand and touch her on the arm. Before I can react, she drops the phone and grabs my hand and pulls it against her chest, holding on to me as if she were drowning and my hand was the only thing keeping her head above water.

  We stay like this for several minutes until Angela’s sobs start to subside. I can feel her heart pounding beneath my left hand, like she’s been running for her life. I reach out with my other hand and stroke her hair, brushing it out of her face, hoping that eventually she’ll be able to tell me what’s wrong. Then she opens her eyes and looks at me.

  “Who am I?” she says.

  “Angela,” I say in my most reassuring voice. “Your name is Angela.”

  She smiles and closes her eyes, as if the question was for me to answer and she knew it all along. Then her eyes open and grow wide with doubt and she looks at me again.

  “Who are you?”

  CHAPTER 29

  “Who are you?” says the female Buddhist monk at the front of the room.

  Where I am is the Kadampa Meditation Center in Silver Lake three years ago at their Wednesday-night meditation, seeking the spiritual path to enlightenment with more than a dozen other men and women. This is just a few weeks before Big Egos first hit the shelves.

  No one is strung out on false identities.

  No one is Cleopatra or Humphrey Bogart or Wonder Woman.

  Everyone here is just trying to get in touch with their inner Buddha.

  We’re all sitting on pillows, our legs crossed in lotus or half lotus, our shoes off, our backs straight. The instructor, a female Buddhist monk named Chookie, is talking to us about ego and self as illusion.

  “Are you your thoughts?” she asks.

  I look around. Most of the men and women I recognize from coming here every Wednesday night for the past six months. Some of them are in my Tuesday-night Bikram yoga class. A few attend seminars with me at the Zen Center of Los Angeles. Others I’ve seen at the New Bodhi Tree Bookstore in West Hollywood or the Mystic Journey Bookstore in Venice. And one woman is in my Sunday-morning tai chi class in Pan Pacific Park.

  While it’s taken me nearly twenty-four years to discover Buddhism, I think I’ve finally found the role I’m supposed to play.

  Chookie walks up to a young man I’ve never seen before who has a full head of hair and a five o’clock shadow.
“Are you your thoughts?” she asks.

  “Sure,” says the newbie.

  Chookie just smiles and walks away. “Does anyone else believe that you are your thoughts?”

  A few nodding heads, but no one else says anything.

  “Most people have an identity based upon their mind.” Chookie walks back over to her own pillow and sits down next to a miniature gong. “This means that you believe you are the thoughts in your head. Everyone thinks in his or her own unique way and believes they are what they think.”

  Makes sense to me. Descartes said: I think, therefore I am. If I’m not what I think, then what am I? How do I exist if my thoughts aren’t my own?

  “What are some of these thoughts?” asks Chookie, though it’s a rhetorical question because she keeps on talking. “I am fat. I am ugly. I am successful. I am lazy. I am a waiter. I am a lawyer. I am a failure. I am unhappy. These thoughts are not you.”

  I look around to see if anyone else is as confused as I am, but if they are, they’re hiding it. Or pretending to understand. Typical L.A. crowd. Wanting to fit in for the sake of fitting in, without really knowing why.

  “These thoughts originate in your mind due to external stimuli in your world,” says Chookie. “They depend on how your mind has interpreted the world around you.”

  I glance at the other people in the room, at the walls and the floor and the altar, and try to interpret the world around me. As far as I can tell, it’s pretty self-explanatory.

  “That is the Western way of thinking.” Chookie looks out at us from her pillow at the front of the room. “Interpreting the world and defining yourself by your reactions to them. Defining yourself by your thoughts.”