by A. R. Moxon
He’d climbed about an hour upward and the strip of woods had widened out into forest when he happened upon the gorilla. Startled, Gordy froze. The ape sat with his back against a huge tree in contemplative posture. After long minutes, it swung its immense conical wedge of a head toward Gordy and fixed its tiny eyes upon him. They remained still for a long silent time, Gordy afraid to move, the gorilla watchful but unconcerned, inert, breaking his pose only occasionally to rub his giant back against the tree. At last, Wembly snorted his derision, turned, and crashed away through the brush, heading lower down. Gordy heard him going for a long time after he’d lost sight of him in the trees. He went more cautiously then, aware of every woodland sound, at once frightened of, and sympathetic toward, the displaced ape, another creature caught up in events beyond his understanding, wandering from nowhere toward nothing.
In time, the woods thinned again to a narrow band and finally attenuated entirely, and Gordy again found himself wading through grass. Guided by his ears, he found a waterfall feeding a pool. He drank deeply, then stripped and bathed and laid himself out to dry. Rested, he followed the water upstream until at last he came to a level field, from which he realized Pigeon Forge could be seen. As good a place as any to watch the end of the world.
So: Gordy sat in the field, but the world failed to end. It would be better if I were dead, Gordy thought again. Night came, and with it the cold, and still he could see the lights of Pigeon Forge below: spangle and flash and ditz of light, never to be extinguished. There’s the world for you, Gordy decided; the mean get meaner, the cruel old show will go on and on. After a while, without lying down, he slept, and dreamed he was the gorilla, and that his back itched. He went to scratch it against the tree, but there was no respite; either there was no tree there behind him, or else his back was somewhere else, somewhere beneath the roof of his mouth. He was awake for a long time before he realized he wasn’t a gorilla, and the realization did not improve his mood. The sun came on and the sky grew bright and dazzling blue—not a cloud in it from end to end. This is what I needed, Gordy thought. Something uncomplicated. Something perfect. He looked out into the sky.
Beautiful day, Julius said.
“If you say so,” Gordy muttered, annoyed to be returned from monochrome reverie and blue oblivion.
Look around you. You wouldn’t say lovely?
“What’s the point, though?”
There rarely is one. Only one, I mean.
“You sound like that crackpot. Landrude.”
Oh, yes, Julius said, sounding merry—I remember him. He took himself even more seriously than he expected us to. I wouldn’t worry about him. He’s somewhere safe.
“Who’s worried about him? Morris has all the power he ever wanted.”
Morris is only partially his name. He’s also named—
“I don’t care about his name. He’s alive and my dad isn’t. Thousands of others aren’t. Who knows what he’s done to the rest of them, and who could count all the years he stole from them? It all goes on like before. He goes on like before—but now with total control—doesn’t he?”
Well…why not just…you know…ask him? Julius said.
“What?”
See for yourself.
Gordy looked up; Morris stood some distance away, holding something in his hand. It was…Gordy squinted…a book. They eyed each other in silence, and Gordy was reminded powerfully of his encounter with the gorilla the day before.
Finally, Morris called out: “Can I join you?”
“Do I have a choice?”
Morris started saying something, but stopped. Finally he said, “Yes, of course you have a choice. You always have a choice. So?”
“Free country,” Gordy said. “As they say.”
Morris came up and sat a few feet away. He took a long time; he limped ponderously.
“You missed a spot,” Gordy sneered.
“I don’t follow.” Gordy realized he’d never heard Morris speak in a quiet moment. His voice held a deep and abiding sadness.
“When you were healing everyone up. You’re still limping around.”
“I…” Morris paused. He shook his head. “I decided to keep that one. I came by it a bit more honestly than the others.”
“Oh? Well, I’m real proud of you.”
Morris said nothing.
“What a big man you are. Up on the cross for your sins. Walking around, free and clear. You should be going to one of your prisons.”
“That’s one of the options being considered. I’ll accept whatever they decide.”
“They?”
“All of them. They’re still down there, talking over…everything.”
“Just talking about what to do to you?”
“There’s a lot to discuss. It seems there was a nearly universal awareness of the coming wave, and what it meant, and of some…other realizations about the nature of reality,” Morris says. “Many are already making themselves forget what they knew in the moment, but many aren’t. People are gathering at specific points of interest—here in Pigeon Forge, back at Loony Island—finally looking to places they’ve long ignored for answers.”
Nothing was said for a long time. That was fine with Gordy. They could sit without talking forever, as far as Gordy was concerned. However long Morris could sit quietly, Gordy decided, that long plus one minute more was how long he, Gordy, could sit quietly. Gordy decided there was nothing he’d like better than to sit here, in this place, and never say another word. He’d listen to the crickets. Gordy listened to the crickets.
“I suppose this is your chance to tell me you’re rehabilitated,” Gordy said. “Tell me how much you’ve learned. How much you’ve grown.”
“I don’t know what I’ve learned,” Morris said. “I’m still not even sure of what I am.”
“You’re still Morris. That’s all I need to know.”
“That’s more than I know,” Morris said. “But it’s the name I’ve decided to keep. It’s the appearance I’ve decided to keep. These people have the right to deal with the face that harmed them, however they see fit.”
“Fun riddle.”
“It hasn’t been much fun so far.”
“Boo-hoo,” Gordy said flatly. “So you’re here to—what? Say ‘I’m sorry’ for all the torture and murder and enslavement and whatnot?”
“There’s nothing I can say or do to answer to all that.”
Gordy stood up and walked a little way away. “What do you want from me, then? What did you hike all the way out here looking for? Absolution? Piss off. You’ve got your power. You’ve got your empire back. You’ve got everything you ever wanted. You change or get destroyed—that was the deal. I guess you changed.”
“I certainly have awareness I didn’t have before. I hope I’m something other than I was.”
“Well. I didn’t want you to change. You don’t deserve to change.”
“I can’t disagree with that,” Morris said. He stared at the grass. Gordy wanted to rush him then, punch him, scratch, gouge, bash, anything to get him to take some sort of posture that could be contended with, fought against, beaten, destroyed. “Well…great. So, if you have something to say, say it. Then, go. Scamper. Bug off. Leave.”
“I came to bring you something, actually. We cut it out of the safe that fell from the sky. It was the only thing we found in there.” Morris held out the book, and Gordy, after a slow suspicious moment, took it, and read the cover:
SUBJECT TO INFINITE CHANGE
A Novel
By JORDAN YUNUS
Morris said: “A few of us read it. We decided you should have it. And…it was decided I was probably the best one to bring it to you, considering.”
With deliberate incuriosity, Gordy tossed the book beside him. “Thanks. Are we done?”
Morris looked at him meaningfully. �
�I wanted you to know,” he said. “That I’ve decided I’m staying.”
“Staying?”
“Yes. I’m not going back.”
“Back?”
“Yes.” Then, sensing more needed to be said, he added: “Back behind the door? I’ve abdicated, I suppose. I’m done trying to craft it. It’s better to let everybody craft this story themselves. I’d rather see what they do with it, to be honest. On the other side, as an author again, I think I’d just make a mess. The group gathering around Pigeon Forge is looking to Jane right now for leadership.” At her name, Morris looks down, remembering a particular shame. “Or…I called her ‘Jane.’ She’s a good choice for leadership—you might say she’s a good draw.”
“You’re making no sense.”
Morris looked at him searchingly, then wide-eyed. At last he whistled and said: “Jane’s right. You really still don’t know, do you?”
“Better still, I don’t even care. Now are we done?”
Morris put his hand on Gordy’s shoulder. No, thought Gordy. Apparently not.
“What I’m saying is, I’m not going back. That’s my choice, you understand—just mine. It doesn’t have to be…anybody else’s. But I’m staying.”
“Sure you’re staying. You with your ticket.”
“What, that? I don’t have it anymore.” Morris laughed. “Happier to be rid of it. I gave it to a nice lady with whom I believe you are well acquainted. She’s sharing it with Jane for now, but I think she’ll be using it soon enough. She said she had some exploring to do. ‘Other Attics to discover,’ is how I think she put it. But look—” he raised his feet, each in turn. “She gave me this nifty pair of sandals. They’re how I found you.” As he said this, for the first time, Morris seemed free of the sadness. Gordy tried, without success, to say something. After a while, Morris said, awkwardly: “That’s it, then. I’ll leave you to it.” He walked away and Gordy was alone again.
Gordy sat in the field. After a while the sandals said: So let me get this straight. You’re angry with how this turned out?
“He doesn’t deserve to end up that way. He deserves what Donk gave him.”
And for that, you’d condemn all those animals—and many people, too?
“It’s the pointlessness of it, Jules. The whole thing was rigged. A big setup. If the story was always on rails heading toward a specific station at a specific time, why not just do it? Why the production? And why me? Why force me to have to be the one?”
You’re not seeing it, the sandals said, because you don’t want to see. Landrude wasn’t completely lying to us, you know—about the doughnuts, the possibilities, the choice. And it wasn’t ever about the ticket, you know. Not really.
“Then what was it about, really?”
Landrude was right about interpretation—and wrong. He only saw them affecting physical manifestations. But we readers, and we creations: We don’t just decide how it looks. We decide what it means.
“But why even make it a choice? Why make me the middle man in some moralizing transfiguring partially visible comic book freak-show nonsense?”
Sandals Julius spoke then, peaceful and quiet.
Don’t you know? they said. They said, Jordan, haven’t you realized it yet?
Feeling himself possessed of some unstoppable momentum, perched on the lip of a precipice, annoyed at the sudden precariousness of his position, Gordy looked up once again into the unvarying simplicity of the sky. He stared up into all that endless blue. He stared until it surrounded him on all sides, until he felt he was falling straight up into it.
A. R. MOXON, THE REVISIONARIES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It couldn’t have happened otherwise, and it couldn’t have happened without these people:
Early readers, who provided the encouragement and perspective every writer desires and needs. You were my rocket fuel: Sue Brooks, Charity Kilbourn, Paul Loukides, Karen Moore, Beth Raese, Peter Sobanski, Scott Taylor, Mary Vanderploeg, Emily Vietor, Martin Vietor, Brad Willis, Walter Wolf, Hal Wyss, the entire WPBT, and most especially the artist and musician Juanito Moore, the most frequent reader, who crafted the comics page featuring cats you’ll find between these covers.
Family: my wonderful wife, Linda, and my three wonderful daughters, who are the reason (along with coffee) that I get up early each morning, and who give me the support and love and joy that makes the writing I do (and everything else I do) worth it; my parents, Ruth and Roger—I love you.
Kind friends; professionals in the publishing world who offered their valuable time to guide and advise me well before there was ever a book deal: Kerry Cullen, Benjamin Dreyer, John Hartness, Brooks Sherman, and Suz Brockmann.
My excellent agent, Sam Morgan, who shepherded a trembly-legged new writer (that’d be me) through a strange and wonderful and occasionally disorienting process. Sam rules. Thank you for ruling, Sam.
All the good people at Melville House who brought their formidable skills to this project, including but by no means limited to: Dennis Johnson and Valerie Merians, who decided to give my book a home; my editor, Michael Barron, who took a first-timer’s ambitious and weirdly shaped sword swing, and gave the blade an edge and a direction even while it was in motion (Michael, you’re a magician and I thank you); Melville’s extraordinarily patient and encouraging production director Susan Rella; also: Stuart Calderwood, Stephanie DeLuca, Marina Drukman, Archie Ferguson, Beste Miray Doğan, Alex Primiani, Michael Seidlinger, Amelia Stymacks, Tim McCall, and Simon Reichley. You made my book real. I’m forever in your debt.
Finally, my very good friend, Ben Colmery, who 20 years ago took a writing prompt I’d given him, about a man who was surprised to learn he was a pair of sandals, and returned a weird little story about a meeting of friends in a grocery that moves to a donut shop—but only after avoiding the interruptions of an annoying fellow who won’t stop talking about all the reasons he will never return to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. For years, we expanded the idea further and further, and made it weirder, and weirder, and weirder, and wondered what it all might mean. Well Ben, it sure has changed since those years, but this is what I think we meant. Hope you like it.