In a network of lines that intersect
One must wonder: how long has the sun looked like this? Was the sky this pale in the Mesozoic? I imagine it redder, fuller, like a peeled blister. Was the atmosphere more humid, conductive? I see frequent lightning storms. Were the clouds so high? Perhaps they were as shallow as the tree tops; we don't know. They could have hovered just above sea level like they do in the arctic circle, a crumpled tin sheet nearly skimming the surface of the water. Did it snow back then? It must have, but for some reason snow seems incongruous with dinosaurs.
A guy in the lab upstairs studies snowflakes. He sits all day modeling them on his computer, dividing them into categories, phyla. It's awesome. They really do look like little machines. All of nature does when you look closely enough, but snow crystals, with their ornate scythe-like detailing, their intricate lace, seem suspiciously well-crafted.
Across the hall from the snowflake guy is Susan Luka, the prim, androgynous lady I mentioned earlier. She is not unattractive, this wizardly chemist, just slightly mutantlike, with exaggerated slopes and slippery, weather-treated flesh. Hygiene is not her greatest asset, nor is fashion, but she is known far and wide for her meticulous precision ― her papers are said to read like Mozart minuettes: spotless, exact, with a confidence bordering on complacency.
I slipped into her lab. Christ, is she well-funded. Everyone has their own computer, their own workstation replete with all the amenities one would require and more, which is almost unheard of.
"Catherine Bloom," she said. It startled me that she remembed my name, despite having met me only once over a year ago. But of course she remembered, she remembered everyone's name, their birthday, their shoe size.
I don't have that kind of horsepower. You should know this about me. My brain's a regular six-cylinder engine that hiccups and whinnies when pushed too hard. It's dependable, though, and it takes me where I need to go. If I want to understand something, anything, it's there for me. Do the research, look closer, look better, understand it from the inside, get it done. I'm not afraid of off-roading ― there's some pretty rocky territory in these interdisciplinary fields, stretches of bedragoned no-man's-land between the animate and the inanimate, mind and machine, subject and object ― and I can count on the old girl to plow through. I just can't crunch numbers or recite π to the 300th decimal place or solve anagrams or the Sunday crossword puzzle or any of that crap. I'm a straight shooter.
"What brings you up here?"
"I need your help," I said, and removed the tea bag from my purse. She looked quizzically as I slid the Rovinj from the container and placed it on the desk in front of her.
"This is not a tea bag," I said, and gave a slight nod to indicate there was humor there. Nothing. Luka didn't crack a smile, but in a way more oblivious than rude. "I don't know what it is, actually. I picked it up at the trade fair and, um."
She took it in her hand, squinted as she ran a finger along the seam. I looked around. So silent, this lab. So clean! There were maybe twelve other techs. They looked like business executives, diligently working. No radio, no clamoring around in the sink area.
"It's heavy," she said. "What would you like me to do, exactly?"
"I was told there were some kind of silicon structures laced into the leaves. I want to understand how they work. The whole thing strikes me as. . . I don't know, precarious?"
Susan stood up and brought the tea bag to a table. She held herself in a way that suggested imminent collapse, something improperly aligned in her frame, a crossbeam about to snap. A crooked stud in the foundation.
"I just, you know. I'm concerned about all these new-fangled whatevers."
She opened a drawer and removed an X-Acto blade. Smoothly, she glided the razor across the stitch and peeled back the fold.
"I'm really sorry to interrupt your work," I said.
The contents looked like regular tea leaf silt, a tight clump of mulchy burlap.
"Come back Wednesday," she said. "I should have something for you."
"That would be lovely ― thanks so much." I smiled, backstepped towards the door.
"Is it still snowing?" she said.
"What?"
"They said on the forecast. . ."
"Oh. Um."
"I wonder if they'll cancel the game. Probably." I then remembered that she was also known for her inability to end conversations, another symptom of her Asperger's. "I need a new pair of galoshes."
Normally, one waits for the senior to wrap things up ― the social cue is so ingrained we take it for granted ― but in this case the junior had to signal that it was time to stop.
"But I shouldn't take up anymore of your time," I said, and sort of curtseyed ― curtseyed! ― to make sure she understood I was leaving. "So. Thanks again."
Without turning to face me: "Yup."
I liked this woman.
The Dyslexic Ambidexter
Belated confession: Theo didn't use a condom. I know, I know, very bad.
So today I saw the vagina doctor.
Waited for an hour in the office reading Highlights. Depressing potted plants lined the yellow, sponge-dabbed walls, their leaves limp and blackening at the tips. I turned to the "What's Wrong?" page, which is the same image as the cover ― a cartoon of kids playing on a swingset ― only someone had pencilled in oversized erections craning out from their shorts. The little boy next to me looked quizzically at the picture.
On the wall-mounted television was some daytime talk show featuring a guy who was both dyslexic and ambidextrous. He demonstrated this weird talent in which he was able to write the same sentence backwards and forwards simultaneously. The host said, "Show me." So the guy got up, walked to a chalkboard and wrote his name backwards with his left hand while writing it forward with his right, like this:
It was kind of touching, this completely useless gift. (I'm all about useless gifts.) Also interesting, because the ailment ― the dyslexia ― was precisely what allowed the "talent" to arise. In fact, he had difficulty reading and writing unless the two hemispheres of his brain were occupied in reciprocal tasks.
Anyway, the gyno lady gave me the "morning after" pill, which is surprisingly normal-looking. For some reason I expected some bright orange elephant tranquilizer. But it was just a regular white pill. I emailed Theo and he IM-ed me moments later. Here is the transcript of our on-line dialogue:
jesushole84: hey
synaptic_gap: whats shakin
jesushole84: why were you at the doctor
synaptic_gap: don't be afraid
jesushole84: you okay?
synaptic_gap: sure, kid, sure
jesushole84: i had fun on sat
synaptic_gap: good times were had by all
jesushole84: i dont usually do that kind of thing
synaptic_gap: right, player
jesushole84: haha
synaptic_gap: please tell me "84" doesn npt refer to your birthdate
jesushole84: well...
synaptic_gap: o my god it does
jesushole84: whatever your too smart for me anyway
synaptic_gap: pish-posh
jesushole84: what is pish-posh
synaptic_gap: exactly what it sounds like
jesushole84: LOL sorry i ran out the other nite
synaptic_gap: no worries.
but i dont thinik we should follow up
jesushole84: really?
synaptic_gap: really. It's totally wrong not to mention
jesushole84: happens all the time
synaptic_gap: a lot of things happen all the time but
jesushole84: can i come to your office
synaptic_gap: NO
jesushole84: im coming to your office
synaptic_gap: i'm not in my office ― we'll talk later, k?
synaptic_gap left the chat.
Meanwhile, I haven't made friends with my new room yet, room 220. The East side of the building is harsh to strangers. Last night I was kept up by a horrible ringing sound. It was like somebody running their finger along the rim of a wine glass, only amplified 20x. Another burglar? A poltergeist, more likely. A restless spirit fed by the congealed secrets of pedophiles and prostitutes and adulterers who've occupied this very room.
These were my thoughts at 4 AM.
I kept getting up and walking around, trying to isolate the source of the mysterious baying. Did no one else in the hotel hear it? Maybe something was coming through the pipes in the bathroom. Maybe a weird electrical signal from the cable box? I peered through the shades and saw nothing but the parking lot, the dumpsters, the row of egg-white satellite dishes that seemed to glow in the moonlight.
Could it have been the dishes? Currents of wind whirlpooling inside their inverted domes in unison? I should have studied Acoustical Physics.
America!
Long walk through the park today. A pack of nuns ambled around the frozen pond in full habitry like giant penguins, snow-flecked and stone-faced. They really do this, the whole lifestyle; they do it. A part of me can see the appeal, the cold convent floor in the morning, the canonical hours rolling in rhythmic procession. Family meals. Sense of belonging. Or am I kidding myself.
A helicopter thumped invisibly overhead, lost in the melted sugar of the clouds.
It was my turn to make the run to The Home Depot, which I secretly love to do ― those huge weird orange ceilings, the rows of ambiguous powertools, the men with beer guts and backbraces. I like having chores to do, tasks. The sense of propulsion, of duty, the greater good. Karmic pendula set in motion.
I picked up oil, vacuum bags, extension cords, surge protectors, two phone jacks, a splitter, a box of gloves, steel wool, and a thing of Soft Scrub. Split hairs with a bearded saleslady, saved the receipt for the lab.
And here is where I come to the creepy intrigue part ― are you ready?
As I was driving back to the lab with my Home Depot bags shuffling and clanking around in my trunk, I noticed a black Lincoln Town Car in my rear view mirror. I noticed it because you would notice any car you'd seen three times that same day. I didn't mention it the first two times because you're not consciously aware you're being followed until the third. Then it hits you ― he changes lanes when you change lanes, he speeds up when you speed up ― you're being tailed.
Let me ask you something: how long has it been since you drove really really fast? Evolution did not prepare us for speeds above fifteen or twenty miles per hour, and you remember this when you punch past ninety. There's a whole new sonic element at work, or rather, a dynamic cluster of several ― the purring piccolo beltgrind, the baritone rub of concrete, the wind thwapping as though against a stormswept mainsail, quick glissandos of passing cars ― which lubricates the air and sucks you through.
You also don't expect the high. The oldest part of the brain, tried and true, works the best. Fight or flight. The rush is surreally self-perpetuating ― it augments in response to its very attendance, like being frightened by the sound of your own scream.
But I didn't like it. I was ill-equipped for danger. And so was my car. A choked bleating from its fragile diaphragm told me so.
Every time I looked back and saw the Lincoln, it was as though my digestive system was momentarily set to "reverse." I was on the verge of having an out-of-stomach experience. I veered off Route 2 and rounded the exit ramp. At the intersection of the post road I backed into an old Mobile station, which was partially obscured by frost speckled shrubs and a swaying chain link fence. I cut the engine and waited there. Falling snugly into my trap, the Lincoln appeared, sun shimmering off its black windows. Click, said my eyes as they focused on the license plate ― XTO-413. The car eased into the road like a cautious ballplayer stealing second, and finally gunned its way back up the on-ramp. I took the scenic route back ― bucolic vistas of tire stores and carpet outlets ― repeating the numbers to myself out loud the entire way.
I called the police on my cell.
"I wanna report a hit and run," I said to the operator, or officer, or whatever he was. "Just a nick on my fender, but I got the guy's tags before he peeled off."
He asked for the number, I gave it.
"Car's registered to a Pablo Pascal in Reno, Nevada," he said with a voice like a clogged sink drain. "You oughtta come by the station and file a report."
"I'm on my way," I said, and hung up. It felt good to lie to a cop.
I went to the library, headed up to the third floor with all the computers and sat down at a kiosk that smelled like roll-on glue.
At first the mouse wouldn't respond and I was startled by the deep sense of helplessness it provoked. By peri-personal association, the cursor is a virtual extension of the body, and I was not responding to my own commands. After a beat, it staggered back into consciousness, all choppy and dazed, and I immediately went fishing on the white pages. Pablo Pascal ― Unlisted. Asshole. So I went to Government Listings and got the number for the DMV in Reno.
"Yeah, hi. I just had an accident."
"Uh-huh."
"Yeah, and I exchanged information with the guy but I can't read the driver's license number he put down. The ink, it smudged."
"Name of the vehicle operator?"
This I bequeathed. Several minutes passed with intermittent typings dotting the silence.
"690-45-0850," said the lady.
"Thank you."
You realize, of course, that in more states than not, driver's license numbers are the same as Social Security numbers, and in all states Social Security numbers are the skeleton keys to credit information. A fabulous word, information. So loaded.
Next, I googled "credit bureau" (11,400,000 links found) and ended up clicking on some service called PinPoint. I fed in all the numbers I'd acquired on Pablo. The website gave me several options ― for $29.99 I could have the names and numbers of every neighbor he ever had, everyone he ever owed money to, the deed numbers for every piece of property he ever bought ― but for two bucks I could get all I needed.
There were several last known addresses and the most recent was in New Sunderland, a town about an hour and a half north with a ghetto aquarium. I called the New Sunderland library and asked for the reference desk.
"Be a dear and look up a name in the public records," I heard myself say. The boy was strangely chipper, strangely eager to comply with my legally questionable skip tracing. That's what this is called, by the way, skip tracing. A great phrase. It's what the pros do ― I learned it from all my detective novel reading, all the true crime smut.
"Got it," he said.
"Excellent. Now go to the corporate payroll index and look up the name, 'Pascal.'" I spelled it for him. I heard the pages flip.
"There," he said. "It's listed under Limited Partnerships. Wait one sec and I'll tell you which one."
"Excellent," I said. More flipping, then typing, then flipping again.
"Okay," he said. "There's two companies he's associated with. One's here in Sunderland, a place called Moonlight Security, but there's no listing for it, which means it's probably defunct."
"And the other?"
"The other's an insurance company called Brewer & Knotts, but they're located in Blackburg. Want the address?"
Sometimes I love this country.
Wither Muzak?
Strange things are afoot, dear reader. Strange things indeed.
I drove to the address listed for Brewer & Knotts on the West End only to find a fish market in its place. That's right, a fully functioning Korean fish market with guffawing butchers in dirty white smocks ― are they still considered butchers if it's just fish? ― and wet buckets full of shrimp and stinking of low tide, the sidewalk aglitter with emptied coolers of ice. No, this was not an insurance company.
So here's what I did: I walked through the market, over the slimy strips of newspaper and collapsed cardboard boxes, through the stuffy, low-ceilinged service hallway and into the courtyard in back. No one cared, noticed. The courtyard was an outdoor cubicle, sun-dappled and tightly enclosed by a high wooden fence. The place seemed weirdly unaffected by the season ― the mossy floor was not runny with blackened slush like the rest of the block, but englossed with real live summertime dew, and you could smell whatever it was doing to the confused soil. Chintzy plastic crates were stacked in piles next to mop tubs and bails of garbage.
I mined the floor until I found the gas meter, which was rusted and gross. I love old machinery, all the dials and tarnished chrome rings, the old fonts. The seal read:
PROPERTY OF
-Union Atlantic Gas Company-
EST. 1899
I think the older meters are called "imperial meters" and I love that they are called that.
I found the serial number and called the company.
"Customer service, please," I said. A long, horrible series of automated voices and touch-tone options followed.
"This call may be monitored for quality assurance pur--"
"--omer service, how may I help you?" said an abrupt female voice, cutting off the recording.
"I didn't receive my last bill," I said.
"And the name on the account?"
I told her.
"And your account number?" A diffuse southern lilt could be heard somewhere in the vowels there.
"I don't know my account number."
"It's on the top left corner of your bill."
"You mean the bill you haven't sent?"
Silence.
"That was the point of this call, remember?"
"Then I need your meter number."
I read off the stenciled copper numbers beneath the seal.
"Hold please."
I held.
I held through four minutes of music that sounded like a Casio keyboard preset circa 1984. Whither Muzak?
"Ma'am," she said, "I'm afraid your company terminated the account last March. That address is now registered to a... Nankye Fish Market?"
"That's what I'm trying to tell you," I spat, trying to butter my bluff with impatience. "The Koreans leased the space from us last year and--look, you obviously haven't calibrated your meters for a long time and you're, you know. Whatever, it's fine. If you don't mind losing all that gas. I'm just saying. Let's just--what's the Tax ID Number you have listed for my account, for Brewer & Knotts?"
"You want me to tell you your own Tax ID?"
"Right, read it back to me. I need to make sure you're not double-billing the fishermen."
And she did. She gave me the number.
"You've reached the Internal Revenue Service," said the humorless recording. "Please listen carefully to the following options. For English, press one."
I pressed zero. Cut to the chase.
"How may I direct your call?"
"Human resources." It sounded right, though I've never really been clear on what human resources actually is. What's a human resource? Water? Coal?
"One moment, please."
With surprising expediency I was patched to a voice which could only have belonged to an obese Jamaican woman.
"Hi, this is Cindy in accounting at Brewer & Knotts Insurance," I said in my best PR voice.
"What can I do for you today, Cindy?"
"Well, this is more of a courtesy call. You see, one of our partners is leaving the firm and we need to change signers? So I was told to call you and give you the new name."
"Okay, we can set that right up. Do you have the Federal Tax ID Number?"
"Of course." I trembled as I read it, almost breaking character. This really was pushing it. Totally illegal. "Just to make sure ― the signer you have on there now is...?"
"Now? The name we have listed is Wilder Knotts."
"Um, yes, right, that's the one."
I played out the call, faking names, faking pleasant chuckles. I hung up, still shaking a bit. I'm a virgin at this detective stuff, haven't quite found my groove. A real sleuth would be writing down everything, every lead, every name. I took out my notebook and wrote down the following questions:
what's the exact relationship of pascal to knotts?
was pascal hired by b & k to spy on me?
if so, why?
is there a connection between benchley and pascal?
between benchley and knotts?
what's up with this insurance company? if they are an official corporation, why do they not have an office?
I needed to clear my head.
When I got home I took a nightwalk. Haven't had one in too long. My neighborhood is not the most conducive to lonely ladies meandering around at midnight, but whatever. I have fists of fury.
The sky was richly black, almost palpable, velveteen. What does it mean to be alive, to be living, walking, absorbing the great world and decoding its secret geometries? The human brain weighs three-and-a-half pounds. Wet and pulpy, it's the first organ to decompose after the host has expired. Left on a table with no support from a skull or cartilage, the liquid will drain and both hemispheres will deflate like a punctured soccer ball; in only hours it will be nothing more than a desiccated crumple of tissue, dry and brittle as the wings of a moth. It's with this bald, fragile object we compass the infinite...
The air was abrasively cold, little whaps of sharp powder brushing my bare cheeks. Disconnected harmonies enlaced and slipped away. The bray and howl of advancing dreams.
Know what I was thinking about? Guess.
You.
I was thinking about you, cowboy, the void on the other end. Silent and unjudging, you're there for me every night. All the time, you're there. Some people have ghost writers ― I have a ghost reader. Maybe every diarist has a ghost reader, but I've kept journals in the past and this feels different. That it's on a computer, that it's online there, even though no one's reading it, these words, this secret page. It's part of a great kicking organism out there in the digisphere...
It's really been nice these few weeks, having you around. I feel like I have a companion. I never had siblings, you know. Always wanted one ― brother, sister, I just wanted the company. And I feel connected to you that way now. It's just so nice, this presence like some unheard melody in counterpoint.
Don't go.
Information Retrieval
Went to Luka's lab first thing but she was nowhere to be found. I asked her grad students where she might be and they said she hadn't been in all morning. What the hell. Doesn't she know I'm desperate to figure all this out?
The convention is over and it's like a hurricane swept through town. Or a battle. Refuse everywhere. A sudden quiet. The city's ears are ringing.
Right now the trade people are breaking down their kiosks in the gym. The tents outside are being de-staked and folded into big yellow rental trucks. Everyone seems hung over. The boys are stubbled and red-eyed. The girls are make-upless, except the ones still wearing yesterday's. Miranda was bad. Look at her! It's obvious. The posture, the spring in her step. The way she won't look anyone in the eye.
The strays, though, the leftovers who either missed their flights or for some reason decided to stay an extra day, they look you dead on. They're helpless, lost. Like kids at a birthday party whose parents haven't picked them up yet. They sit on benches rubbing their temples. They feel bonded to you, that they made it this far ― we went through this thing together, you were there, I was there, what a ride! and here we are to tell the tale.
After a brief session of color-coding my cell models I ran a little profile on our Wilder Knotts. There was hardly any information on him in the public records, so I coughed up some ducats and bought the full package background check from PinPoint.
The information was scarce. I got a birthdate ― Jan. 12th 1939 ― and odds and ends of institutional affiliations. A pharmaceutical company, a bank, a hotel. Something called the New Croton Reserve Corporation (?).
Oh, and the CIA.
Was this a joke? Who the hell was this guy? How would I learn more about him? I was tremulous with curiosity, sweaty-palmed.
A naughty thought crossed my mind. Duncan. Perhaps I could coax him into doing a bit of research...
"Are you out of your frickin' mind?"
"Whaddya mean?"
"I can't go hacking into government files ― you nuts?"
We were at the salad bar in the cafeteria. He dolloped blue cheese dressing on his semi-wilted romaine.
"I didn't say hack. Did I say hack? I said retrieve."
"Right, retrieve. Retrieve classified information from a federal database. That's a great idea, Cath."
"It's not technically classified. Not to you."
"Do you understand the distinction, though, between you and me? There's a line there."
"Got that right," I said.
A saucerlike paunch leaned out from under his yellow baseball shirt.
"It's a jailable offense, do you understand?"
"You're not hearing me. All you'd be doing is checking his professional record. When he served. What department he worked for. What kind of stuff he did. It's all internal, see? I'm not asking for his private debts, for chrissake. I'm not after his bar tab."
This was the way in. He couldn't be coddled and flattered into favors. He was the youngest child of three boys. With these hardened, cowering souls you can't pussyfoot, you have to speak their language. You have to prod them, bully them. You feel awful doing it (but not that awful ― they secretly crave the attention).
"If they found out I was--"
"Damn it, Duncan," I scowled. "You know, you have the rest of your life to be a pencil-pushing bureaucrat ― just skip today, wouldya?"
I thought for a second he was going to cry. He tongued his bottom lip and looked into his salad bowl. Twenty minutes later I was in his office as he shuttled around online.
"Turn away," he said.
"Shut up," I said, looking over his shoulder. Push him. Stay on top. A moment's weakness and he'd remember why he shouldn't be doing this.
"Here he is," he said. "Wilder Knotts." The file took a moment to load.
"It says he worked for the defense department as a cryptanalyst during Vietnam," said Duncan. "A codebreaker. Afterwards, he was hired by the CIA to do some sort of biological research, it doesn't say what kind."
"Where?"
"Uh?"
"Where was he stationed?"
He clicked, squinted at the screen. Duncan's office was bare and pungent with the scalpy scent of Boy. Various male accoutrement lined the top shelf above the books. Far Side cartoons were predictably tacked to the bulletin board along with photos of vacation spots and smiling, proud, Asian parents. A poster of Guns n' Roses adorned the wall, the sundry quintet posing homoerotically against a brick wall. The daybed looked like it was doubling as a night bed.
"They moved him around a bit. South Korea, then Turkey, then New Zealand, then Guam--"
"Wait. When was he in New Zealand." I felt my heart beat sideways.
"It says between '81 and '84. Why?"
"Which battalion?"
He scanned the page. "Uh… the 213th AFA. That's significant?"
"I guess not," I said, shrugging.
I was lying, of course.
It was my father's unit.