Big Egos

by S. G. Browne

  On the radio, Black Francis yowls through the song’s lyrics, which don’t make any sense to me but I sing along with them anyway, the effects of my Ego gradually fading—though I still feel the Lizard King lurking just below the surface.

  I’m singing that I have my feet in the air and my head on the ground.

  Although I’ve been Morrison before on a couple of occasions, there was definitely something about this time that felt different. I don’t know if it had anything to do with the fact that it was a black market Ego, but the experience was more intense than I remember. Like a rock concert in my head, complete with drugs and amplifiers and a bass guitar beat that thrummed throughout my body. At a party full of rock stars, I was legendary. An icon among icons.

  I’m not sure why I’ve never been interested in spending much time as Morrison and reveling in his air of subdued menace—embracing his ability to be surly, sexy, and mysterious all at the same time. For some reason, I’ve always been drawn more to the likes of John Lennon or Elvis Presley.

  Speaking of The King, it was surreal talking to one of my favorite Egos. While I run into one every now and then, I don’t generally interact with them, but just seeing them is always a little unsettling. It’s like looking into a mirror and seeing a reflection of yourself, only it’s not you.

  I’m singing that my head will collapse but there’s nothing in it.

  Up ahead of me, near the entrance to the Pepperdine University campus, a police car is headed my way, its siren silent but its lights flashing across the asphalt, lighting up the otherwise nearly empty highway in a strobe of blues and reds. It races past in the opposite direction without slowing down.

  I watch the police car in my rearview mirror as I continue south on the PCH, singing along to the Pixies, belting out a couple of lines in my best Morrison, though I can’t quite capture his tone. It comes out sounding more like Elvis. And a little bit of Lennon. The weird thing is, I can sense all three of them swimming around just below the surface of my consciousness.

  I’m singing that I’m going to try this trick and spin it.

  When the song ends, I turn my Sirius satellite radio to a local news station and catch the weather forecast, which is for clear and sunny skies with a high of seventy degrees. Following the weather is a report of a Beverly Hills couple who died last night apparently as a result of injecting black market Egos. According to eyewitness testimony, Dean and Gabrielle Gordon started to experience seizures at a private Ego party they were hosting before they both went into cardiac arrest.

  A second police car appears on the highway and flies past, heading in the same direction as the first.

  The news report goes on to say that both Dean and Gabrielle Gordon served on the Board of Directors for the Los Angeles–based Engineering Genetics Organizations and Systems, with Dean Gordon serving as the board’s chairman. The death of the Gordons, along with the recent death of the company’s head of Applied Research, Bill Summers, is a significant blow for the multimillion-dollar bioengineering giant, which had seen its stock price and profits take a hit in recent months—ironically from the proliferation of black market Egos.

  The report wraps up with a statement from Paul Lawson, the president of EGOS, expressing his sadness for the deaths of the Gordons and his shock at learning that black market Egos had claimed the lives of two more members of the EGOS family. Then the sports update comes on and someone is talking about the Lakers and Clippers game.

  I turn off the radio and roll down my window, continuing my ride in silence, enjoying the feel of the fresh ocean air blowing into the car, caressing my face and ruffling my hair. I notice something tickling my upper lip and think a wayward bug has landed on my face. But when I reach up and wipe it off with my hand, my left index finger and thumb come away red. So I pull over to the shoulder, put on my emergency blinkers, and turn on the interior light.

  When I look at my reflection in the rearview mirror, it’s not me staring back. It’s Morrison. And his nose is bleeding.

  I’ve never had a bloody nose in my life. Not as a kid. Not that I can remember. But there’s no denying the blood trickling from my left nostril and onto my upper lip.

  An ambulance comes racing north along the PCH following the police car. It passes and continues toward Malibu in my rearview mirror, lights flashing and siren wailing.

  CHAPTER 51

  An ambulance races past, its siren obeying the Doppler effect, but I only hear the ambulance, I can’t see it. All I see in the rearview mirror and out the windshield is white.

  I’m sitting in the driver’s seat of my Aston Martin, staring through the windshield at what appears to be a complete whiteout. Not like a dust storm or a snowstorm, but more like a blank, white page. A universe of white.

  It’s as though nothing exists outside of the car.

  Nat sits in the passenger seat next to me, not saying a word, just looking around with a puzzled expression on his face.

  “Where are we?” he says.

  I stare at the emptiness around us. “I don’t know. I think this is supposed to be a memory.”

  “Mine or yours?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s mine,” I say.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because this entire conversation is taking place in my head.”

  Nat looks at me, then down at himself like he’s thinking about what I just said. “So I’m not really here?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He nods again and looks around, then starts to open the passenger door.

  “What are you doing?” I say.

  “This place sucks,” he says. “If I’m not really here, then I don’t see any reason why I have to stick around.”

  He pulls up on the handle and swings the door open.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say.

  “Why not?”

  I stare out at the endless, white nothingness. “Because I think if you leave this car, you’ll cease to exist in the real world.”

  “But if I’m not real, then how can I cease to exist?”

  “It’s hard to explain,” I say. “But you’re just going to have to trust me.”

  Nat scowls in concentration and purses his lips, then he finally closes the door. “Can we drive out of here?”

  I turn the key in the ignition but there’s nothing. Not a click or the whine of the starter. The engine’s completely dead. “Looks like we’re stuck here for a while.”

  We sit in silence for a few beats. It’s a comfortable silence, born from years of friendship. Still, it seems like there’s something important one of us has to say. But I don’t know which one of us is supposed to say it.

  “What time is it?” asks Nat.

  I look down at my watch to give Nat an answer, but my watch isn’t there. There’s not even a tan line to indicate that I’ve ever worn a watch. When I look up, the readout on the dashboard clock is a bunch of blue, digital zeros.

  As an empty circle, zero represents both the nothingness of death and the totality of life. Kind of a poor man’s yin and yang. As an ellipse, the two sides of the zero represent ascent and descent, evolution and involution—which, in philosophy, is the turning in on one’s self.

  I don’t know if I’m turning in on myself, but this sure doesn’t feel like a step in the right direction.

  “Do you know how we got here?” I say, looking around.

  Nat shrugs and scratches his head. “This is your memory, bro. I was kind of figuring you had that information.”

  Yes, I should have that information. Something should be familiar and grounding this memory in reality, but it’s as if this part of my memory is blank. I’m thinking maybe all this nothingness represents part of my mind that has been wiped clean and lost forever, kind of like a reformatted hard drive.

  “What time is it?” asks Nat.

  “You just asked me that.”

  “And what was your answer?”

  “I don’t know.”
/>   “You don’t know what your answer was?”

  “No. I don’t know what time it is. My watch is gone.” I show him my naked wrist for emphasis.

  That’s when I notice that my wrist is thicker and hairier than normal and that my hand isn’t my hand. It should be mine because it’s attached to my arm, which is attached to the rest of me, but I don’t recognize it. It’s too big, the fingers too long, the hair too coarse.

  It’s like I’m Dr. Jekyll turning into Mr. Hyde.

  CHAPTER 52

  I stand with my back to the hospital room, looking out the window at the December sunset. Christmas is just ten days away, but I’m not exactly thinking about chestnuts roasting on an open fire or Jack Frost nipping at my nose. And no amount of turkey or mistletoe is going to make the season bright.

  “Hey bro,” says Nat, in a cheerful voice behind me. “You should see some of the nurses they have here. We’re talking hot hot hot. You know, like the Buster Poindexter song, not the song by the Cure.”

  I continue to look out the window, unable to face Nat, though I can see his reflection in the glass. The bed next to him is empty. The older woman who was here the last time I visited is gone. I don’t know what happened to her. The way things have been lately, I wouldn’t be surprised if she never existed in the first place.

  “I keep asking the nurses to give me a private fashion show, but they claim it’s against hospital policy,” says Nat.

  I don’t want to turn around because if I do, then I’ll have to admit to the truth of the situation and as long as I continue to watch the sunset I can pretend everything’s okay. But I know I can’t keep pretending forever, even though pretending has become a running habit.

  “They dig me,” says Nat. “They just don’t know it yet.”

  I stare out the window a few more moments before I turn around.

  Nat lies in his bed, his eyes closed and his lips slightly parted around the ventilation tube, his chest rising and falling as the ventilator pumps oxygen into his lungs and the feeding tube delivers fluids and nutrients and medicine to his stomach.

  While the doctor and the nurses have all told me that it’s likely Nat can hear everything I say to him, no one expects him to talk anytime soon. They say the chances of him coming out of his coma are about one in a thousand. But it makes me feel better to imagine I can hear his voice.

  “Bro, tell me the truth,” says Nat. “Is this a good look for me?”

  I walk up to him and give him my most convincing smile. “Absolutely. Women dig the whole comatose-feeding-tube-in-the-stomach look. Brings out their nurturing side.”

  “I was kind of hoping it would bring out their human-vegetable-fetish side.”

  “That might work if you were a cucumber rather than a baby carrot,” I say.

  Nat smiles. Not really, but the fantasy is preferable to the reality—which is how I got into this mess in the first place.

  I sit down next to his bed. “If it makes you feel any better, you’re the second-most attractive guy in the room.”

  “What would make me feel better is a hand job.”

  “Hey, I know we’re best friends,” I say, “but I think we need to keep some boundaries.”

  “Not from you. I was thinking about the hot redhead who works the graveyard shift.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I say.

  “Speaking of redheads, how’s Dee?”

  “I think she left me.”

  “What happened?”

  “Long story.”

  “I’m not exactly going anywhere.”

  “I’ll tell you next time,” I lie.

  For a moment, Jim Morrison glides through my head in his concho belt and black leather pants, his baritone voice like an epitaph.

  This is the end, my only friend, the end.

  “You know, you two wouldn’t have even met if it wasn’t for me,” Nat says.

  I give him a faint smile. “I know.”

  We sit there for several moments, neither one of us saying anything.

  “Well, if you’re not going to tell me about your redhead,” says Nat, “then how about being my wingman and finding me one of my own?”

  Morrison slips away just as the nurse comes in to check on Nat. It’s not the redhead Nat was looking for, but a blonde who looks like Hot Lips Houlihan from M*A*S*H. The Sally Kellerman version, not Loretta Swit. I don’t know if she actually looks like Sally Kellerman or if I’m just imagining it, but the instrumental version of “Suicide Is Painless” plays in my head. I glance out the window to make sure we’re still in Los Angeles and not South Korea.

  Hot Lips asks how I’m doing and how Nat’s doing and I lie to her on both counts. Then I help her to move Nat into a new position to help prevent bedsores. It feels good to be able to do something for Nat, even if it’s not what he had in mind. But as we’re shifting him to one side, I notice that Hot Lips has one of her hands on Nat’s left thigh, just inches from his crotch, and I can’t help but honor his request.

  “Excuse me,” I say. “But would you mind giving my friend a hand job?”

  CHAPTER 53

  Gandhi hands me my triple espresso, places the palms of his hands in front of his green apron, gives me a slight bow of his head, then smiles and tells me to have a nice day. When I thank him, I realize it’s not Gandhi but just someone who looks a lot like him, sans Ego. Or maybe I’m just imagining things. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  I’m at the Starbucks in West Hollywood across from Hamburger Haven. Outside, white holiday lights adorn the trees on Santa Monica Boulevard while inside, Harry Connick Jr. is wishing everyone a merry little Christmas while the Starbucks elves hand out espresso treats in red postconsumer recycled cups, making the yuletide gay.

  I take my infusion of caffeine and sit down at one of the tables. At the table nearest me, the Queen of Hearts and Marie Antoinette drink peppermint mochas and gingerbread lattes and discuss the challenges of being a female monarch. I’m not interested in either of them, so I pull up today’s edition of the Los Angeles Times on my smartphone and come across an article about the death of David Cook, the executive vice president of EGOS, who died at his Malibu home while hosting an Ego holiday party. It’s believed he died from complications after injecting a black market Elvis Presley Ego.

  The second death of an EGOS executive in less than two weeks, along with the deaths of two members of the Board of Directors, has prompted opponents of the company to call for an investigation into the safety of Big Egos. Protesters have doubled their efforts at Big Egos stores nationwide, picketing in cities and towns across the country, and setting up a twenty-four-hour camp outside the EGOS factory in Los Feliz. In Washington, D.C., protest organizers are calling for a march on Capitol Hill.

  I have my doubts that these increased protests will solve anything or save anyone, let alone something as esoteric as the ego, which could refer to any number of things. Self-esteem, an inflated sense of self-worth, or, in pure philosophical terms, one’s self.

  Freud said the ego is based in reality, governing the id, and that the id has no organization and produces no collective will, but only focuses on innate desires and the observance of pleasure.

  If that’s the case, then a lot of people in the world today are all id.

  I continue reading the Times and come across a human interest story about a married couple in Santa Barbara who purchased Big Egos for The John Steed and The Emma Peel two months ago and who now walk around full-time dressed up like The Avengers and speaking with English accents. Their neighbors and friends are worried about them, but the couple claims they’ve never been happier.

  Maybe they just really enjoy 1960s English fashion.

  Maybe they’re like Method actors, staying in character even when they’re not on camera.

  Or maybe they discovered that their lives are boring in comparison and that they’d rather be British government agents.

  And who can blame them? Most people lead lives of quiet
desperation and spend their days and nights wishing they could be something else while failing to live the lives they’d imagined. Thoreau said that. Or something like that. Or maybe it was this guy I met at an Ego party in the Hollywood Hills who was channeling Thoreau and it just sounded good. Or maybe it was my dad. I seem to recall he said something about taking advantage of opportunities and to act upon them when you have the chance.

  I’m having trouble keeping my thoughts straight.

  The point is, if the opportunity to realize your wildest dreams presented itself, if you had the chance to actually live the life you’d imagined, wouldn’t you jump in headfirst? Or would you just stand aside and watch as the opportunity passed you by?

  Not everyone has their life all figured out.

  Not everyone knows what they were born to do.

  Sometimes you don’t realize who you’re supposed to be until the moment comes.

  But when the lines between reality and fantasy begin to blur and you lose yourself in an identity that’s just a mirage, what happens when the mirage becomes reality? What happens when the dream becomes something from which you can’t wake up?

  It’s only a matter of time before everyone gets lost in a reality that isn’t theirs.

  At the table next to me, the Queen of Hearts clinks her coffee mug with Marie Antoinette and says, “Off with their heads.”

  There’s another story in the Times about two black market Ego dealers who were found dead in an alley just off Hollywood Boulevard last Saturday morning. According to authorities, the dealers appear to have been the victims of a robbery or a deal gone wrong. Police are interviewing witnesses who were in the area at the time, but so far they don’t have any suspects other than a homeless man and a prostitute who both claim to have seen a man in a green suit who looked like James Bond.