by Evan Dara
—Oh Yeah.
—Sure.
—So it’s all there. The thieving, the instability, the geographical mobility, the detachment, the anhedonia, the conscience – the conscienceless-ness. All the paraconsumption indices.
— … I don’t know. I don’t believe too much of that warp. I just think he’s a dick.
—A Section 18B dick.
—Yeah. Maybe.
—So we got him.
—Yeah.
—We got him.
—Yeah. All we got to do is wait. Almost automatic. Bum’ll come to us.
—Yeah. The guy wants to get caught.
… A half-moon hangs over Westerpark, smeared by passing clouds. The traffic from the docklands, headlighting through the adjacent underpass, is scant at this hour. At the park’s entrance by the Haarlemmerport, at 11:15, Lincoln is there. It’s high summer, and cold. He folds up a coat lapel, and sees Berry walking forth, same jacket, same boots as in the Bimhuis. Berry shakes Lincoln’s hand and introduces him to Ruud, who had walked from the park’s shadowlands when Berry approached. Close-cropped white hair, earring, denim jacket over blunt build. Knows her more directly, Berry says …
… They walk into the park, down the slim entrance path, over the odd, brief pavement grille. No one comes here at this hour, Lincoln thinks. They pass gathering hedges, deeper trees. Civilization falling away. Don’t ask, Lincoln thinks. Just get and get out. You bring for her?, Berry says …
… Nice lady, Ruud says. But she has this leg. Not so good. She happy to see you …
… They walk further into the park, approach the vast esplanade of dense, brick, abandoned Victorian buildings once used for power. They pass the massive circular building of the Westergasfabriek, now a night-glint of ruins. Built, the whole structure held fuel gas, forced into distribution pipes by the weight of its round roof, floating upon the chemical load. Pressure from up top providing energy …
… Quietness. Moon-hoary. You know the farmhouse?, Berry says …
… They walk into the park. A large lake, man-made and straight-edged, amplifies the moon, ships its brightness to new ports. The underside of trees’ leaves. An inner seam on Ruud’s thick, pendulum leg …
… They turn with the walk-path, pass through the tunnel leading under the quiet railway. Inside, lights, booms, camera equipment. A tall, flow-haired, ravishing woman is being made into a movie. Cut, calls one of four men standing behind the legged equipment …
… They turn left, they walk past the wooded mortuary and up the slight hill that leads to the farmhouse. An oddity in Amsterdam. They kept sheep here, once. Bees, too. On the path, wrapped in dark green, Lincoln listens for sheep …
… His upper lip is touching the tarry pavement when the first kick comes. There’s gravel, bump-stones, scraping textures as his lip travels across the walkway. Still, the blood-taste may be coming from his teeth, from his teeth snipping the inside of his lip. Regardless, the outside of his lip, actually his facial skin, all the way up to beside his nose, is burning with abrasions from the rasping road …
… The top of his back, his shin, those are now receiving kicks. Boot-kicks, thudding thumps of heavy leather, their rounded forms made sharp-feeling by force, by weight. Without exception, the kicks are true. All the kicks fall true. Berry and Ruud grunt when they kick him, and their other feet, their balancing feet, hiss the pavement. Beyond that, no sound …
… They are kicking harder now, delivering kniving blasts to his back, his upper side, and he incoils, he squirms. Now one of them, he thinks it’s Berry, with the bigger boots, the harder kicker, is kicking his leg, and when Lincoln squirms Berry is kicking his pocket. The wallet inside Lincoln’s pocket protects him, shields the blows. Lincoln turns, is now being kicked in the middle of his back …
… Berry and Ruud walk off, lightly out of breath. Lincoln remains on the path. Ruud tosses Lincoln’s wallet back to him, continues walking. Wonderful. Don’t want the cards. Sukkel didn’t even fight back, Berry says …
… Tubes of salves in his hotel room. Plasters and gauzes in his hotel …
… On the screen, he reads ING instructions. Step by step he follows, step by step he complies. He places the note in the envelope, he seals it, he feels its bend-resistance and weight. He slips the envelope, now housing 50 euros, into the warm machine’s in wheeling slot. The slot clanks. He puts his hand on the now-shut slot …
… Like a proud sentinel, Lincoln sits in Easy Times, an Internet coffeeshop on Prinsengracht. They give him a deal. Four euros an hour, forty for a full day of sixteen. Centrally located, near trams. Pay in advance. His shin makes it best. A dark, stuffy, smoke-drubbed place, chattery and clangor-lit with music. The best. The best way for him to …
… To house, to Korn, the screen is on. To spliff-giggles, to tales of Spanish Galicia, to the unzip-zip of money belts, to shoved chair-leg ruffs, to calls for postcard fodder for parents, the screen stays on …
… He need not move his leg. People leave him be. A few exchanges, inevitably. Matches, URL’s, leads on the pisser, quips of keyboard gumminess. People leave him be …
… He breaks for food, of course. Quick excursions to Leidseplein tourist-bleeders. Thai, Indian, Tibetan, pizza. First step from his computer station, his shin wails …
… He returns to his hotel, to shower, to sleep …
… He returns, he sits, in Easy Times, staring for silicontact. Manali smoke infuses his clothes, his hair, in time, his skin …
… He sits on the monolithic slab-and-brick bench low by the side of Leidsegracht, most manicured of the city’s canals, just before it spills into Keizersgracht. The water purls. Sunplay lightnings its surface. Passing bike-chassis wheeze and clink. He has been watching the screen. He has been watching the screen for six consecutive days …
… Never before. Never has there been more than four days between withdrawals …
… Four …
… Six! …
… Had she found out? Had she somehow seen? …
… Had she resented? …
… Resented his note, fed into a slot …
… He rubs the bandage below his jeans, makes it sting. But the sting is lifting, is dissipating …
… 80 …
… He looks at the line of rhythmically-spaced, custom-tailored trees dwindling down the canal. Riffling, rilling in the North Sea breeze …
… He looks at the lazy trees streaming down the sides of Lijnbaansgracht, at the northwestern corner of Bloemgracht, Lincoln’s hotel’s canal. Just there, at the corner, a small branch of the post office is closed for the evening. Outside, punched through the wall, a glowing fixture, dark powderblue. Lincoln approaches the Postbank’s geldautomaat, holds his card by its short side …
… Choose your language, the screen says. Nederlands, Engels, Frans, Duits …
… What would you like to do?, the screen says …
… Deposit? Withdrawal?, the screen says …
… Check your balance? …
… Lincoln touches the buttons beside the smeary screen. They’re plastic, scalloped. He touches the screen itself, rubs it with his fingers, with his palm. Takes the end of his coat sleeve and tries to unsmear the glass. Does nothing more …
… Would you like to try again? …
… Thanks! See you soon! …
… He stands on a slight, single-arch bridge that crosses the canal by his hotel, near an Anton Pieck three-gable house from 1642, restored brick-clean and amber-brown. Such a peaceful spot. Just to his right, the bicycle, chained to the rail, slants anew. Its back wheel has been stolen, making the bicycle’s rear half jut up. And a small plastic waterbottle, uncapped, empty, has been stuffed through the spokes of the remaining wheel. The skewed one, up front …
… Such a magnet!, he thinks …
… His shin grows better …
… He walks the streets of Amsterdam, stopping in kiosks, on house-stoops, by the sides of flowing waters …
… Past Fort van Sjakoo, behind the old Bourse, its great Lambertus Zijl terracotta of man’s evolution from Adam to stockbroker …
… Once a day, he finds a net café. Then once every other …
… He wipes the screen with his coat sleeve. He reads instructions, he wipes his eyes. He presses buttons. He makes the effort. He presses buttons. He takes the fresh, flick-edged, pristine bills, the tender, from the opened bay. With fingertips, he separates, he counts the notes. He stops counting. He aligns the bills, gathers them together …
… He puts the bills, bent once, into his shirt pocket …
… They fit, they press, in his shirt pocket …
… He feels the notes, pressing in his shirt pocket …
… He walks in Amsterdam …
Dear Mr. Carter:
Chicago, perennially The Second City, now has a first-tier story to tell. Lincoln Selwyn was a young Britisher who arrived in town on a full UC scholarship, then left academic life and became the toast of the town, cracking its inmost social circles, bedding some of its most desirable women, and amassing a fortune in real estate and other ventures that is still being calculated. Selwyn set this city ablaze. Then he vanished.
I understand that Vanity Fair is now looking for ways to expand its presence in the Mid-West market, and here is an ideal vehicle for accomplishing just that. I am a Chicago-based journalist specializing in society stories, and have an absolute inside track on the Selwyn phenomenon {the Selwyn myth?} Might we::::
Very truly yours,
TK
Dearest Z—
So happy to hear you’re settling in well. The apartment sounds great (well, livable) and I’m already having erotic dreams about that Vietnamese place two blocks over. But Digideroo: didn’t they tell you it would never be more than 50 hours per week? Sans weekends? Jeepers, is this what you gave up 160 hours per week of glorious unemployment for? How much code do those guys need writ?
Don’t mean to be negative, my dear, but I grieve at the thought that you’ve gone all the way to San Diego and won’t be able to spend a minimum of 80% of your time at the beach. So, yes: work, and work hard. But also work on easing some of the difficulty of this transition.
Wait. Hold on. Phone.
Damn, it wasn’t you.
But as I was saying:
Luscious honeydews on sale today at Bucktown Market, and do you have any idea how much I want to sit in anything that could be considered a chair, just as long as it’s beside you?
Hugs Unlimited,
Tracy
Grandeur of spirit. Grandeur of being.
Exactly what I felt when I met Ted Turner.
—So who ya use?
—Here? Do Process.
—Good. They’re good. We use ’em too, pretty often. So let’s split the billing.
—Deal.
— … OK.
—Good. So do we wanna have the guy outside? Or in the building, in the lobby.
—We can have him slip a fin to the doorman. Get a nod.
—Good.
—If the scummer’s like doin’ anything to duck.
—Yeah. Good. Stan, you set that up?
—You got it.
—Thank you—
—Let’s hope he gets it.
—Yeah—
—Man, I would love to be there to see his face. See it all come crashing down. And if we could like time it right with the bailiffs, just watch him look up from the papers and crumble as they haul off the television, and the Arredo couch, and the fucking car. Strip him down to noth—
—Yeah.
—Which is what this fucker is. Nothing. A parasite, man. A fucking bloodsucking leech. Abuses our openness, abuses our hospitality, let’s get him served and get him evicted and fuck him good and either throw him away or get him the hell out of our country, man, before he fucks anyone else up.
—Archer, I hear—
—We got another sheet on Tuesday! Can you believe that? With more of like those restaurants he goes to, these little Italian or Polish places, but only like top-drawer clothes stores, and keeping MCI going, and keeping the drycleaners on the hook, and like twice a week these thousand-dollar cash advances – how does he get these cards? How the fuck does he—
—Probably doesn’t get them. Probably has ’em already. I seen it before. Guy somehow gets on the wheel and the companies just throw the bleed cards at him. Two, three offers a week. So you know what you’re doing and you just stack ’em up. Put ’em on your shelf for a rainy day.
—Rainy day when you need another thousand bills.
—Yeah.
—Fucking sheister. Man, I can hardly wait to bring this guy down.
—So what you think. You think we have any chance of recovery? I don’t. I think we’re chasing after nothin’.
—Then at least nothin’ will be sitting in prison for a long, long time.
—Stan? Opinions?
— … Not much. I just want to end the guy too.
—And you know that Borah’s on the new sheet. He’s still doing stuff for him.
—So try him again.
—Good luck.
—Yeah. So, Archie, you send copies of that new sheet to Stan ’n me, and I’ll move to finalize with legal—
—And we will officially be on the road to bringing the fucker down.
—’N we’ll speak again when, when—
Editor, Mine:
Herewith an update on the Selwyn story, with, happily, nothing but Good Stuff to tell. In fact, the fact-gathering has been wonderful, with people very interested and very responsive. I already have a passel of great quotes, a few new anecdotes and several ideas about the Big Mystery.
The most persuasive of them, alas, may be the most mundane: that Selwyn left because he was grieving over the apparent suicide of his lover. Taking distance and time to heal, that sort of thing. No big intrigue, but Selwyn was obviously very close with Auran Beede, and her loss seems to have hit hard.
No leads yet, however, as to where the boy might actually be. No one has anything to say on that, including the police: they maintain that, absent any evidence of foul play, it’s too early to launch an inquiry into someone who was a foreign national. For their part, both the British and the Dutch Embassies say they have taken the matter under advisement (AKA, don’t hold your breath). Still: I’m confident more will be clear by next week.
Hey, while you’re here: we never discussed territorial considerations re: this tale. I’m assuming my agreement with you (i.e., Chicago Magazine) only covers Chicago proper or the immediate region. Is this correct?
Best,
Tracy
Darling, Mine—
Just a quick note to say that a quick note can never say how much I adore you.
xxoo
Even in Atlanta I heard about Lincoln Selwyn. We all did. Hell, you had to! A force like that comes along once a generation. I’d still like to sit down with him some time.
—T. Turner
Hanging.
Buckling.
Rustling.
Shoved by breezes.
Influenced by air.
By all air.
Fluttering. Bending. Susceptible to wrinkling.
Staining. Existing to accept stains. Infinitely stainable.
Thousand island dressing.
Tearable. So often torn.
But holding form. But not too well.
Collared. Cuffed.
Seamed. Seamy.
Buckling.
Absorbing.
Absorbing sweat. Absorbing two kinds of sweat. Eccrine. Apocrine.
And protecting. From cold. Against heat.
I house. I hold. I ensheathe.
I comfortably accept epithelial scurf.
A barrier. I spread over shoulders, big shoulders. I wrap around forearms. Protect from blades.
I am a fortress. A citadel.
I hug in the right places. Give in the right places. My tips can tickle!
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nbsp; I am functional and ornamental. I block all three kinds of UV radiation. Handsomely.
I evoke strong associations. Heads of state. Princes. Nelson Mandela. Impossible without me.
I establish temperature differentials. I determine inners and outers. I make microclimates, OK?
I am the second skin that makes social life possible. I enable all cultural and economic development beyond the most primitive, agrarian. Because I create space. Psychological space. I let the mind turn to other things. Higher callings.
I socialize, I harmonize. I establish kinship, amity, group identity, sense of belonging.
I double as a flag, a standard, a signal for help. I contribute powerfully to scarecrows.
I feature a fine number of arms.
I am made 2.1 billion times per year. I am purchased 1.92 billion times per year.
Despite my variety, my permutations, I remain identifiable. Knowable. Valuable. I protect.
I warm and I cool.
I protect.
I am stocked in an orderly shop in America. Offered for purchase.
I am chosen from a shelf. From a stack on a shelf.
Above all others. As I am.
This time stripes vertical. And stripes horizontal. Tartanlike. In blue. And white. And blend.
Buttons up. Buttons around. And spares. Two sizes of spares.
I am taken.
I am put down, decellophaned, lifted. Cardboard slats, plastic cusps, pins are pulled out, pulled away. Removed.
I am pulled and tugged. Flooded. With flesh.
Bone, muscle, sinews, follicles, tufts. Curves and straights. More. I protect.
I am tucked.
Cash flashes for me.
I protect from chill-treated air. From outside heat.
I protect from sun. From car-exhausts and silts.
From a guardian’s eyes, I protect.
From particulate-flung air. I protect.
I protect from car-seat stickiness, from bumps and chafes. From chill-treated air. From a guardian’s eyes. From dips and swoops.