CONFIDENTIAL [UNDISCLOSED LOCATION] 192157
DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/I
SUBJECT: ASSET INTERVIEW
REF: A. [UNDISCLOSED LOCATION] 0427
Classified By: CDA Officer J. Pylyshyn for reasons: 7.2 (a)–(b).
ASSET ID: “COURTESY” [Legal name Leonard Downey, aka Ramen]
December 9, 2022 — 06:35 GMT
277 days after Operation Fear and Trembling
—Good morning, Mr. Downey. My name is [Redacted]. I’m the director of Asset Management at [Redacted]. The Board of Directors requested that I come have a chat. I understand you’ve expressed some concerns about your placement here at the [Redacted] facility. I would just like to assure you that —
—It’s morning?
—Yes, 6:35 a.m.
—Wow. [Respondent laughs.] What day is it?
—Friday.
—The 10th?
—The 9th. Of December.
—Friday, December 9, 6:35 a.m. Okay, wow, cool. Just slightly out of phase. I want a chair.
—I beg your pardon?
—I want a chair. Upon which to sit.
—I’m sorry, you don’t have a chair?
—I invite you to study your surroundings. Do you happen to see a chair?
—How long have you been without a chair?
—What day is it again?
—Friday, December 9.
—Right. Why did I ask. I have no idea. What do I know anymore?
—I apologize, Mr. Downey. I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t be provided a chair. This is a lapse in Company protocol. [Redacted], bring Mr. Downey a chair immediately. Thank you. I’m afraid I’ve just arrived on the island, I haven’t had a chance yet to orient fully. But as I was saying, I was told by your case manager that you had expressed some concerns about your placement here.
—My case manager. You mean Mona?
—Mona, sure, yes.
—So she knows? About all of this? About your “enhanced interrogation techniques”?
—I’m afraid I’m unfamiliar with that term. I’m here only to have a conversation. About the grievance that your case manager filed on your behalf. Per protocol. To allow you to air your concerns to an independent third party. I am pleased to assure you that the Company takes seriously all feedback from its contractors and will do everything in its power to see that this issue is resolved in a mutually satisfying manner.
—You’re a woman.
—Is that a problem?
—What are you, number five? One, two, three, four … yeah, you’re five. I can’t remember my name anymore, but I can still count to five. Is this a change in tactic? What do you think you can do that the other four didn’t? Some psychosexual shit? Ridicule my manhood? Number three did that already. I’m curious, genuinely. Ram a white-hot dildo up my butthole? Because that’s just about the only thing they haven’t done.
—The treatment that you’re describing, if accurate, is ghastly, Mr. Downey, and I’m astonished to hear of it. I can’t answer for my associates. As I say, I’ve only just landed. But I’m surprised that this has been your experience so far. The Company has a 95 percent positive rating on Indeed.
—Oh yes, I can see it in your eyes. The surprise. You are appalled by your co-workers’ behaviour. And you are very different, I can see it, I can see it. And you will float this upstream, and your inquiries will be taken seriously at the very highest levels of the Company. Of course.
—Mr. Downey.
—Ms. [Redacted].
—This needn’t be an adversarial relationship. We can work together to resolve the situation. Will you work with me on this?
—Certainly, if it means I get a chair.
—Well, that’s a start. I’ll take it. So as you must be aware, this conversation is being filmed.
—It is? Oh, right. The camera. Midway through the second waterboarding, you forget the camera is there.
—So if you could, I’m sure you’ve done this several times before, but please bear with me, if you could state your name for the record.
—Edward Snowden.
—Please, Mr. Downey. This needn’t —
—Where’s my chair?
—A chair is on the way. If you could please state your name.
—I’m not doing shit for you till I’m seated.
—I assure you a chair is coming. So please, if you could, state your name in full.
—My name is Chelsea Manning. Now bring me a chair. And a cigarette. See how I did that? The more you hold out, the more I cost.
—This isn’t a negotiation, Mr. Downey.
—I beg to differ. This is most obviously a negotiation, and I am most certainly in a position to negotiate. Having nothing left to lose confers significant bargaining power. The man on his back has all the leverage, don’t you watch UFC? Combat sports?
—It’s important that you understand, whoever you were dealing with before, I’m not them. The slate has been wiped clean. I’d like to think of myself as your colleague in this, not your competitor.
—Mmm, I can see how different you are. And I’d love to help you out, I really would.
—Please, then. State your name. In full.
—My name is Julian Assange.
—Mr. Downey.
—I want a chair and a cigarette. And some clothes. Failing that, a blanket.
—We can’t give you anything that you might use to harm yourself. Why do you need a blanket?
—Um, you haven’t noticed?
—Noticed what?
—That I’m naked? That it’s cold in here? I mean, I’m no adult movie star, but surely you’ve noticed. Surely you’ve noticed. That I am unclothed, that I am, in fact, completely nude.
—You look thin. Are you hungry?
—I don’t even know anymore.
—It says here that you’re vegan.
—Well, I was, until you entered me into whatever this “program” is. Now I will happily eat your grandmother’s face.
—If we work together, if we help each other out, I believe we could get all of your material needs dealt with.
—Uh-huh, and I help you by …
—Simply stating your name, in full, and we can move forward in good faith, with a chair, a cigarette, a vegan meal, and some clothing.
—My name is Leonard Donna Downey. Are you happy?
—Great. I … I’m sorry, did you say Donna?
—Yes, yes, I know. It’s an old family name.
—Really?
—That’s what my mom told me.
—Wow. Okay. Great. I’m going to check on the status of that chair. [Redacted], please speak to the kitchen. [Redacted], please locate Mr. Downey’s clothing. Let’s take a short break and reconvene in ten.
◆◆◆
—All right, then. The time is … 7:07 a.m., Friday, December 9th. After an interruption of approximately fifteen minutes, we have resumed the interview with Mr. Leonard Donna Downey. My name is [Redacted]. Mr. Downey, do you agree with the summation I have provided?
—Sure.
—And do you agree that, per your request, we have provided you with a chair?
—Yes, yes. I agree that you brought me a chair, I agree that I’m sitting on it.
—Do you agree that we provided you with your clothing?
—Yes. And my clothing.
—Do you similarly agree that we have provided you with a meal of your choosing?
—I agree that you brought me something called a “meatless option” from your cafeteria, and that I choked down said option, which I would describe as some sort of false chicken cutlet on a bed of wilted arugula, and that now I feel a rising of dyspepsia in my lower abdomen.
—For my records, could you please state your name once again, and your date of birth.
—My name is Leonard Donna Downey. My date of birth is July 15, 1985.
—Born and raised in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, North America, Western Hemisphere, Earth. You know all this.
—And your co-workers call you Ramen.
—Everyone calls me Ramen.
—And why is that?
—One time at dinner I ate a bunch of ramen. It was at this house where I lived in my early twenties, the other people there started calling me Ramen.
—I see. And you agree that it’s just you and me in the interview room?
—Yes, I agree that there’s no other person in the interview room. Fuck, dude.
—And you’re talking to me of your own volition.
—Yes, yes, yes. I’m happy to proceed with this interrogation, I mean interview. What is it with you people?
—I apologize, Mr. Downey. This is protocol. Do you agree that you became an independent contractor for the Company on June 29, 2010?
—I agree that I was recruited by the Company on June whatever, 2010, yes.
—And do you agree that on March 7, 2022, you participated in an operation organized by the Company at the King William Hotel, which at that time was your official place of employment?
—I can confirm that I took part in an operation on the afternoon of March 7, 2022, and that I executed my duties exactly as directed and to the best of my abilities. I did not deviate in any way from executing the plan as specified by my telephone contact.
—I should mention that sarcasm is not in your best interests, Mr. Downey.
—Why do you think I’m being sarcastic?
—There is a sarcastic lilt to your vocal intonations.
—Well, if you can’t read my intonations, I don’t know how to help you.
—And also, you might find that an attitude of defiance is in no way productive or helpful to me in re-evaluating your placement.
—Defiant? Me? [Respondent breaks into laughter.] That’s not in my nature.
—All right, well, if you could describe your experience of the day of the operation.
—What do you want to know? It was a day like any other, despite the weird breakfast messages you guys sent. I’m a bellman, was a bellman, was pretending to be a bellman, so I did what a bellman does. I fetched luggage like a dog, piled bags onto carts like a chimp. I smiled unctuously, grovelling for tip money. I pushed buttons, escorted guests up the escalators. I restrained myself from slapping their shitty, self-satisfied faces. I smiled and lit cigars and feigned enthusiasm about the local amenities and tourist attractions. There was a convention that day in the Windsor Ballroom — a leftist who was running for leadership of a country in the global south was pitching his country to a bunch of Bay Street vermin, energy and banking people — so the douchebag energy was amped. I swallowed the bile rising up the back of my throat and palmed their loonies and toonies. How I hated them. How I hated myself. It’s all I have, this purifying hatred. At 10:30 I went out back for a smoke. At 12:30, I ate my lunch in front of the Front Office staff room. At 2:00 I had another smoke break. Somewhere in the middle of this, I took your phone call, and you told me what it was that I had to do. “At two forty-five,” you said, “be standing at the elevators. A man will make himself obvious to you.” So I was and he did. A man in a pinstripe suit, I don’t remember his face.
“If you marry,” he said, “you will regret it. If you don’t marry, you will also regret it.”
“Welcome to the King William,” I said. He wasn’t carrying any bags. I gestured him into the elevator and, before any other guests could enter, I pulled out my UTC key and put old Otis into service mode.
What I remember is his eyes. They were like … like stars, like collapsed stars, that’s what his eyes were like. Superheated dwarf stars, I don’t know.
We immediately began to undress. Pinstripe man took off his jacket, unnoosed his tie, dropped his trousers. I did the same. He was my height exactly, my exact build; when I stepped into his suit it fit exactly.
He nodded. I unlocked Otis and hit the button for the seventh floor, per my instructions. He turned from me to face the doors. In my memory it was an interminable trip upward, but it could really only have taken a few seconds. When the floor indicator hit 7, the doors slid open. At first there was nothing, just a generic corporate hotel hallway, but in a moment a service cart appeared, as though self-motivated, an automaton — and then, behind it, a woman.
A woman that I recognized.
It was my friend, my buddy, the only one at the hotel I gave a shit about, it was fucking Kathy. She’s an older lady, works in Catering. How the hell did she get herself into this insanity? She regarded me as if I were an apparition. She looked ghastly herself, ashen and frantic and drop-jawed, her hair as tangled as a root ball, Jesus, what a sight. I was no better, I’m certain. She had a catering cart in front of her. Pinstripe man, dressed as me, grabbed the cart and pulled it into the elevator, and as the doors slid shut, the last thing I saw was her astonished eyes.
I pressed the button for the eighteenth floor. Neither of us said a word. The man’s scent had permeated the suit that I now wore. It was an unsettling sensation, like I was wearing someone else’s skin. When the doors opened on the eighteenth floor, pinstripe man pushed the cart into the corridor wordlessly, without looking back.
Per instructions, I locked the elevator and waited. I pressed my ear to the doors. I heard the cart clattering down the hallway. I heard a door open. A moment later, a fire alarm went off, I wasn’t sure what to do, and then voices, shouting. This wasn’t what I, no one told me to expect this. A few seconds after that, there was a volley of gunshots, impossibly loud, like popcorn exploding in my ear canals.
I panicked, I did, but I caught myself, per training, and thought through the Guidelines. It seemed to me Protocol 7.1 would apply in this situation, at least close enough. I don’t know. I had to think on the fly. I don’t know if I was right. Anyway, that’s what I did, I aborted my involvement in the operation. I unlocked the elevator and plunged down to the main floor lobby, made my way through the mayhem, conventioneers and business assholes, oily smilers and hand shakers, out through the front door, despite protocol, because why the fuck not. My co-worker Donny, he didn’t even recognize me; he opened the door and smiled joylessly and wished me a wonderful afternoon. Because now I was the pinstripe man. I walked down the front steps like a pharaoh, never to enter again. Cabbies and Ubers smiled at me, I was no longer a despicable thing; I was a dollar sign. I dug around in the pockets of my suit. I found a twenty-dollar bill, a subway token, a stick of Dentyne. Not enough for an Uber. So I popped the Dentyne and made my way to the airport.
—And, just going through the notes now, according to my colleague [Redacted], you took the subway.
—Yes. Why?
—Well, it’s just curious. Given your proximity to Union Station, you could have taken the airport train.
—Dude, I spent years as a crust punk. That shit does not leave you easily. I still get the urge to Dumpster dive. The food that grocery stores throw out, man, you could feed a family.
—Is that why you were an hour and a half late to Pearson Airport?
—Mechanical issues on board a train.
—Excuse me?
—Clearly you’ve never taken Toronto transit. You’re always an hour and a half late for everything.
—Okay, well, we can come back to that. Right now I’m just hoping you can fill in a few holes. At 10:30, according to your own account, you went for a smoke break. Could you expand on that?
—Okay, right. At 10:30, I went out for a smoke. And what?
—Out back of the hotel?
—You’re supposed to go out to the designated smoking area, past Receiving. It’s just a couple of picnic tables with a view of a brick wall. A little slice of Shangri-la right there in downtown T.O. Everyone calls it the Peach Pit, but no one knows why. There are a couple of picnic tables set up under an awning. We get two fifteen-minute breaks a day. Got two breaks. Got.
—Beverly Hills 90210.
—I beg your pardon?
—The TV show. It was the diner where the kids hung out. The Peach Pit.
—All right.
—Sorry, go on.
—I smoked two du Maurier Distinct king-size cigarettes, and ashed and butted them in a metal bucket filled with sand. Is this enough detail? I took a swig of tap water from my PVC-free bottle and went back in to kiss some more asses.
—Mm-hmm. And were any of your co-workers out there at that time?
—Maybe? It was nine months ago, a lot has happened since then. Yes, wait, yes, there were. A guy from I think Engineering, Edwin, he was twitchy and talkative, chewing the ear off another guy, who was from the kitchen. The kitchen guys are always out there. They like to smoke.
—Do you recall what they were talking about?
—Probably nonsense, knowing the parties involved.
—And how long were you out there in the Peach Pit?
—Fifteen minutes, give or take.
—Are you certain? Would you like to rethink that?
—No. What do you mean?
—I guess I’m wondering if your memory of the smoke break might be less than optimally exact.
—I’m telling you what you want to know.
—According to your file here, you skipped your morning cigarette. You exited to the Peach Pit, but sat down at a picnic table for just a moment before getting up and returning to the hotel. At 10:32 a.m., we have you outside of the women’s facilities on the main floor, and for the next eight minutes you’re loitering next to a decorative potted palm in a manner described as “agitated.” Can you confirm this?
—Bullshit. What file? Who says they saw me? They’re lying.
—We have CCTV footage of the exterior Receiving area.
—Let’s see it, then. I was out in the Pit twice a day for how many years? And I never saw a camera. Were they … wait. Those little domes? I thought they were speakers. If you’ve got footage, I want to see it.
—I’m afraid that would be a breach of Company policy.
—I don’t care about your so-called footage, your so-called evidence, I was there, I should know. And keep in mind, okay, this was what, nine months ago? How am I supposed to remember all the tiny details of every moment of the —
And so you have this footage, and you just let me talk? For what reason? Just to, to incriminate myself?
Sure, okay, now that I think about it, maybe that wasn’t the time I, maybe I didn’t go out for a, maybe that was, actually, you know what? It was the day before that I saw the talkative engineer. I remember what I did now. I was intending to go out for a smoke, and worried I might run into him, and was en route to the Pit when I came across this woman who looked almost exactly like someone I knew. From the before times, I mean, before my servitude at the hotel. It gave me a jolt. She didn’t see me, or she pretended not to see me, she just went on walking. She wore a hotel blazer, some sort of admin job. Different haircut, no more mohawk, her hair was its natural colour. I couldn’t be sure it was her, but I was sure it was her. She was from one of the other community houses, Garrison Creek Collective, over at Harbord and Palmerston. She looked different now. Straight-edge, clear-eyed, showered. I proceeded to the Pit and sat down, but this sighting of Eeyore had left me rattled. So I ran back into the building, found her, and followed her to her office. If you have footage of me outside the women’s washrooms, that’s why; her office was right beside them. It was unnerving, if I’m honest, seeing her there. She’d been in the protest. I wondered if maybe you’d recruited her, too.
—I’m sorry, what was this person’s name? For the file.
—I never knew her real name.
—By what name did you know her, then?
—Everyone called her Eeyore.
—And the protest you’re referring to. This is the protest of the G20 summit in Toronto, Canada, in June 2010?
—Yes.
—Could you tell me about your involvement in the riots?
—Protests. What do you want to know?
—You were involved in certain incidents of note?
—The group I belonged to took part in a legal and peaceful protest in downtown Toronto on June 27, 2010, a date that coincided with a meeting of the G20 nations. This should all be in your records.
—Peaceful? This is your characterization of the event?
—Largely peaceful, yes. The group I was involved with had no designs or intention to cause unrest.
—There is some evidence to suggest that certain groups exploited the protests to advance a less noble agenda.
—Believe what you want.
—Where were you within the hierarchy of the group? A captain? Is that the right term? A foot soldier?
—Dude, there was no leadership structure. We were loose, an association of like-minded people, anarchists. There was no larger organizing principle, nothing that could in any fucking way threaten the oligarchies.
—This group, did it have a name? A guiding ethos?
—We did have a name, but that doesn’t mean we were a cohesive group. Get real, dude. We were known by others as Augusta House. You’re asking if we were black bloc. We were not, although this is not a claim of moral superiority. We lived together and shared theory and strategies and hosted punk shows in the basement, and on June 27, 2010, we exercised our democratic right to protest at the G20 summit, which was mostly peaceful and actually really fucking beautiful. To be part of one thought, one mind working together for one goal, all these disparate groups, Indigenous and anarchist and LGBTQ2, even the Maoists, you get it? The chanting, the chanting, the impotent cops. The feeling of transcendence, moving down Bay Street, taking it over, making it ours. It didn’t belong to fucking Scotiabank anymore, it didn’t belong to Ernst & Young or some cunty law firm, we were taking it back into the collective, it was no one’s and everyone’s. This one girl, I remember, in a black-and-white polka-dot dress, eighteen-hole Doc Martens, I smiled at her and she ran up and kissed me, with tongue, right there on the street, that’s how it was that day. But then, of course, inevitably, the match was struck, the action started, and things became what they were always meant to be. Garrison Creek ran defense, barricading the riot cops, making a bunch of noise. A Montreal house, Outremont Something-Something, they ran first-string offence, boots through windows, crowbars rammed in ATMs. Augusta backed them up, we shit-bombed and spray-painted, we set off flares. The civilian protesters panicked and ran, it was chaos, pebbles of glass raining down, the screams, the orange smoke from the flares, this gorgeous violence, acrid and blooming, the squall of sirens, the aerosol stink, the skyscrapers falling down, man, international finance collapsing under the weight of its own oppression. We moved on, block by block, making the will of the people known to those who would keep us quiet, until we reached Queen Street, where the mood changed. The cops were different up there, more belligerent, and the crowd was bovine, they were amateurs. We smashed in the window of the Gap store and some hippie chicks actually booed us, if you can believe it. It was depressing, dude, the indifference, they were there just to take photos of themselves. And so it was in this atmosphere that we came across the car. Toronto Police cruiser 3367. Some cop had just left it there, in the middle of Queen Street. On purpose, it turned out. A false-flag provocation to make us look bad. Some friends from Augusta jumped up on the hood, smashed in the windows. And then a guy from Garrison Creek gave me a lighter and a rolled-up Globe and Mail.
—Which you then used.
—Yep. I’m the guy who torched the cruiser. One of the guys. One of the cruisers. Je ne regrette rien.
—So whether or not you characterize yourself as black bloc, your purpose was to foment chaos.
—No. Principled resistance. You wouldn’t understand about that.
—Then please, educate me.
—It’s called conviction. It’s called bold action. It’s called backing up your ideas with legitimate force. This is why your people recruited me. Or so I thought, until it sank in that all they gave me to do was to push a button in an elevator. I was capable of so much more than that, but that’s what they chose for me to do. It’s a fucking insult, dude.
—All right. Well, we’ve gone off topic a bit. That’s my fault. If we could get back to the day in question.
—Fuck’s sake. I’ve already gone over it. I keep going over it. For what’s turning into a multitude of you people. A murder of asset managers. I don’t know what you think you know, what you assume you’re going to discover.
—I’m a blank slate, Leonard. I’ve come into this with no assumptions. I’m just enjoying our conversation.
—I want another cigarette. You promised me a cigarette.
—You just had one.
—I want a cigarette.
—Absolutely, as soon as we fill in some —
—First a cigarette.
—Very well. [Redacted], let’s stop the tape and come back in ten. Mr. Downey would like another cigarette.
◆◆◆
—Okay, Mr. Downey. Do you agree that you are seated comfortably?
—Whatever.
—Mr. Downey, I urge you to co-operate.
—Okay, fuck. Yes, I agree that I’m seated comfortably. Yes, I agree that you provided me with a cigarette and that I smoked the cigarette and that I’m sated for the next five minutes.
—And do you agree that it’s just the two of us, that there is no one else present to coerce, intimidate, or otherwise influence your account?
—Yes, I agree that we are the only two people in the room. Can we get on with this, please? I’m a busy man. I have to get back to my cell to jerk off. It’s been so long. Since I had sex. Nine months at least, it’s the longest dry spell I’ve had since the pandemic. Last person I touched with intent was a week before the operation. This dude I met online, I went to his place. We played video games, then got busy on his sofa. The memory sustains me to this day. He looked like that actor, who is he, played Charles Manson in a movie. And by the way, Charles Manson, did you know he was a CIA asset? The intelligence services prey upon losers and lunatics, they use them for their own ends. The Las Vegas shooter, right-wing nutjob, he was being run by an intelligence operative, that’s why we still know nothing about him.
The rooms here, none of us can see each other. We speak, we have conversations, voices float out of the cinderblocks. They tell me about their wives, their girlfriends, I pleasure myself to their voices. It’s amazing how our brains adjust to their context, how an empty cell can turn into a palace. But here’s the situation. I like women, too, a lot, and here you are, my dude, with that little crease between your eyebrows and that businesslike ponytail, your eyebrows perfectly threaded, and that’s going to be material for me for many weeks to come.
—Perhaps we could rewind. I’m not sure I have a full picture of the day. Could you start again from the beginning with as much detail as possible?
—Excellent change of subject. Okay, fine, from what point? From, okay. As much detail as possible? I woke up just after 5:30. I set my alarm for 5:30, but I always snoozed it. So ten minutes after that, I sat up, stared into the darkness. Outside, the street lights were still on, they bled through the curtains. I got up and walked to the fridge, which is about five steps from my sofa bed. I opened the fridge, pulled out some grapefruit juice and a thing of 2 percent milk. My room smelled like dust, like old people’s bookshelves. I only ever noticed it first thing in the morning, the sweet, nauseating stink of it. I placed the juice and the milk on the kitchen counter, which was two steps away from the fridge. I grabbed a cup and a bowl from the dish drainer and set them on the … Your face — hilarious. Less detail? All right. I woke up in my shitty high-rise junior bachelor, ate breakfast, picked up my phone, doomscrolled Twitter, no bullshit, all business, saw the trigger phrase from @unfavorablesemicircle, blammo. Dug out my laptop. YouTube, OpenPuff, subway, burner rings at work. What did I feel? Nothing. I suppose I felt relief. That this half life was over, this ghost life you forced upon me. Opening doors, muling luggage, like a revenant, invisible to everyone. At 10:30, I went for a smoke, no, I didn’t, I saw my old friend Eeyore and followed her to her office near the women’s washrooms. I did not talk to her, I simply followed, and when that was done, I went back to my elevator. At 12:30, I ate lunch in the staff lunch room. At one o’clock I went back to work, and at 2:45 I carried out my orders, after which I went straight to the station, got on the subway, and —
—Can we stop there for a second? You say you ate lunch in the staff lunch room at 12:30, approximately. But according to your file, it appears you withdrew a large amount of money from your bank at 12:24 p.m. that very day. Two thousand dollars, according to your account. I’m wondering how you might account for this discrepancy.
—Two thousand? Yes, shit, yes, of course I did. Thank you for pointing that out. In fact, now that I think about it, I ran down to the bank at lunch hour, withdrew some money, two thousand, as you say, and then had a quick bite in the staff room, a low-effort peanut-butter-and-relish sandwich, paired with a baggie of carrot sticks and a peach Snapple. I don’t recall giving you access to my bank account.
—I’m curious why you withdrew such a large sum of money on the day of the operation.
—Well, it’s because I didn’t know what was going to happen. I thought I might need some walking-around money in my new home. If you’d given me some warning, I might have withdrawn it the day before.
—Completely understandable. I’m sure I would have done the same in your position. And I’m certain I don’t have to point out that material misrepresentation is a breach of contract. The consequences of which I know you’re aware.
—Ah yes, here it is. The threat. Couched in the blandest of corporate doublespeak. You think I’m lying.
—I regret that you feel this way, Mr. Downey, truly. It reflects a failure on my part to communicate my empathy, and also my deep concern that you understand the implications of the contract that you have signed. If you feel in any way threatened by our conversation, I encourage you to have your case manager file a complaint. I am in no way above Company protocol. Would you like to stop this interview right now?
—Yes.
—Very well. [Redacted], please stop the recording, if you will. Perhaps Mr. Downey might have a better rapport with my colleague [Redacted]. Have you met him yet, Mr. Downey?
—I don’t think so. Was he one of the others ? Was he number four? Number four was an asshole.
—No, that was [Redacted].
—So I guess I haven’t met him.
—I think you’ll find him quite businesslike. The things he’s been involved in … most of it I can’t talk about, but you’d be amazed. Have you heard of Effacer le tableau?
—Is that a movie?
—It was a genocide. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the autumn of 2002. Some sixty thousand Bambuti pygmies were massacred. [Redacted] served as logistical support for the MLC. It was a train and equip mission. I should be quick to note that he was there as a contractor; he’d yet to work for the Company. Employment by the Company does not imply an endorsement of any previous or future contracts.
—Whatever that means. Why the fuck would any right-thinking person engage in a genocide?
—I wish I could say that he needed the money, but he didn’t. He enjoys the work.
—So this is the sort of gang you want to associate with. This junta, this Einsatzgruppen, this jolly band of psychopaths. You’re happy to have co-workers like these?
—Mr. Downey, I will concede to you that I dislike what goes on here at times and am doing my best to protect all of my assets, you included, from some of the less desirable outcomes.
—Well, you sure sound like you’re endorsing it. That smug, sly smile on your face. You’re attractive enough, in a mainstream, corporate way, you’re good for LinkedIn headshots, but the smugness makes you ugly.
—Okay, Leonard, it’s clear by your comments that any intervention on my part is unwelcome, so I will back off. I have no authority, mandate, or desire to represent someone who doesn’t want it. And so I would recommend that you do your best to get in contact with your case manager, so that she might —
—Fine, fine, fine, fine. Okay, never mind, Jesus. What is it. What is it that you want?
—I want nothing. I’m simply doing my job. But it would make our morning infinitely less fraught if we were able to agree on a plan going forward.
—And we do that how, how do I, what do I have to do.
—I read your file on the flight over — case manager accounts, local media reports, your previous statements — and I will admit to some confusion. There are gaps in the record that I would very much like to plug so that we can move forward with your placement and get you out of here, into someplace —
—Warm.
—Of course.
—Where should I start.
—Just right at the very beginning again, if you wouldn’t mind.
—Uh-huh. Okay, I got to work at 7 a.m. I picked up luggage, I set down luggage. I smiled at all the dear old one-percenters who’d devoted their precious lives to the meaningless accumulation of capital. I opened the doors of their limousines and ushered them inside and smiled my automated smile, the simulated smile that was actually a shriek of desperation, and took their discreet little five-dollar bills and thanked them for their generosity, and did this over and over, clock ticking, time beating its drum, one step closer to death. At one point I saw the CEO of Scotiabank, yes, I know who he is, I consider it my business to know, and I smiled extra wide at him, because twelve years earlier I’d shit-bombed the lobby of his head office. Hello, sir, welcome to the King William Hotel. Splat. I saw a famous Silicon Valley fraud, known for his unhinged tweets and his grand plan to abandon the earth and terraform Mars. I spied lanyards from Apple, from Huawei, from ExxonMobil and Monsanto. There was a breakfast event that morning in the ballroom, this constant influx of plutocrats and oligarchs, lawyers and members of Parliament, flaunting their power, apes in their finery. I picked up luggage, I set down luggage. At 10:30 I stalked my old friend Eeyore. Then returned to work, pushing buttons, palming coins. At 12:20, or thereabouts, I went to lunch and ate a peanut butter and relish sandwich and came back at one and worked the lobby, et cetera, et cetera, until 2:37, at which point I crossed the floor and … here’s a new detail for you. I was nearly brained by a maniac running wild with a ladder. One of the janitors; I think it was Edwin. He’d come charging through the lobby as I made for the elevator bank, and if he’d connected, well, there goes your little plan. Luckily it was just a glancing blow. I brushed off this near miss and stood at the lift and waited for the man in the pinstripe suit to arrive. You know what happened in the elevator. There was a problem on the eighteenth floor, as I’ve previously described, at which time I invoked Protocol 7.1, aborted my mission, proceeded to the subway, got on a train, then got off the train at Bathurst Station. I took the —
—Sorry, uh, why did you exit at Bathurst Station?
—Excuse me?
—You said Bathurst Station. But to get to the airport you’d have to exit at … Kipling? Yes, Kipling Station.
—I don’t know. Why would I say that? I got out at Kipling. Kipling Station. From there I took the express bus to the airport, and Bob’s your auntie.
—Is this why you were an hour and a half late to the rendezvous? You got out at Bathurst Station?
—An hour and a half went bye-bye. Who cares? I was a good little soldier. You have me on CCTV. I did what the generals told me to do. I followed my orders.
—It’s just curious, this gap between your departure from the hotel and your arrival at the airport.
—Curious, oh yes. Your curiosity permeates your very essence. The crease between your eyes. You better watch that or it’ll become permanent. Unfortunately, I can’t help you. I have no idea how to … Actually, you know what? I actually can account for it, the ninety minutes. There was a delay on the train. Bathurst Station, smoke at track level. That’s why I said Bathurst.
—Was it smoke at track level? Or was it a passenger assistance alarm?
—What?
—I’m afraid I’m confused, because in a previous statement to my colleague [Redacted], you said there was a passenger assistance alarm.
—No, I didn’t. Anyway, what does it matter? It was either smoke at track level or a passenger assistance alarm. I mean, I’ve been on my feet for how many hours? They wouldn’t let me sit. My brain is Jello salad right now.
—So you’re saying your previous statement is the more accurate one?
—I’m not saying anything. You’re just trying to confuse me. I got out at Bath— I got out at Kipling Station. There was a delay at Bathurst Station, who cares what the delay was about? Maybe it was a signal problem. Maybe it was a jumper. Have you ever been on Toronto transit?
—I’m sorry, something just caught my eye. Can we switch gears for a second? You have a sister, Janet. According to your file.
—Go fuck yourself.
—Janet, that’s right, according to my file here. She’s several years younger than you. Your half sister, I guess I should say. Were you close?
—You leave her out of this.
—I’m sure you’re concerned about how she’s doing, given her condition. Would you like an update?
—You can’t touch her. You’re bluffing.
—I’m just asking if you’d like to hear how she’s doing. You must be desperate for news.
—There’s a ton of security at the facility. You’d never get to her. Not even you and your psycho co-workers. Leave her out of this. This is between you and me. She’s sick, do you understand? She’s had a terrible, her life has not been good, she’s ill, our mother was a drunk, we didn’t get a proper start in, in, my sister is not well, she’s not part of this, and for you to insinuate that, that some, that some harm might … I went to Garrison Creek. Okay? There, now you know. I went to the Garrison Creek Collective. Their house is on Harbord, corner of Harbord and Palmerston. That’s why I got off at Bathurst Station. There was someone at Garrison I wanted to see, and I realized this would be my last chance to see him, and I thought what difference would it make, a few minutes late, and you promise, you promise, to leave my sister alone, yes? You promise.
—Mr. Downey, I’m crestfallen. If I have somehow implied or suggested that your sister might come to some harm, I have misspoken and will need to choose my words far more wisely.
—I’m giving you what you want. I’m co-operating. You leave my sister alone. I wanted to find him, the guy who gave me the newspaper and the lighter. I wanted to talk, I needed to know.
—Know what?
—After I’d torched the cruiser, what followed was something I’d describe as a general chaos. People shouting, scattering, giving me a wide berth, phones out, filming it all. I ran west, to Spadina, but a cordon of riot pigs pushed the crowd back. That’s where the infamous kettling would happen, not long afterward. I was stuck there, cornered, just freaked out and pinned down. I didn’t know where to go, I’d lost my friends, when another bloc guy, he had a Québécois accent, I assumed he was from the Montreal house, grabbed me by the elbow. “Come on,” he says, “come this way.” So I follow him into the Horseshoe Tavern, a woman is there in bloc gear, holding the door open. I couldn’t see her face, just these huge hazel eyes under her balaclava. She pulled up the face covering so I could see her mouth, she smiled. “Comrade,” she said. We exited the Horseshoe through the back door, scrambled down the alley, stripped off our gear, street clothes underneath, and hoofed it back to Augusta House. It was quiet there, no one was back yet. The only other person was Moonrat, this old guy, late forties, long greasy hair, sort of the patron saint of the house. He was on the phone, reconnoitering, finding out where people were. We collapsed onto the couches, me, the Québécois guy, and the woman with the hazel eyes. The woman asked me what the address was, she wanted to let their friends know where they were. The dude pulled out his cellphone, “Allô, Michel? Oui …” Blah blah blah. I lay back, I was fried, and closed my eyes, my hand came to rest on a mound of crusty cat puke. Moonrat was playing an old Swans record on the turntable, this beauteous grinding, it made me sleepy. I think I might even have dozed off for a while, a sweet, wafting peace, long grass blowing in a warm summer breeze, no problems, no cares, until a few minutes later, a swarm of men in Kevlar vests, sidearms drawn, rushed through the front door, screaming. “Down! Down! Down!” I dropped to the floor, my cheek came to rest in more crusty cat puke. And that’s how you people recruited me, seventy-two hours later, sleepless in a cinderblock room. An offer I couldn’t refuse. And I try to resist wondering, though I still do, why me? When all you wanted me to do was operate an elevator. But I know what the answer is, it’s why not me? You just needed a body, it could have been anyone.
So that’s why I got off at Bathurst Station. I needed to find the guy from Garrison, the one who’d handed me the lighter. I needed to know if he was involved with you people, if he’d set me up. I needed to look into his eyes and see if he was lying.
—And were you satisfied in the end?
—Nope, didn’t find him. I go there, knock knock knock, someone I don’t recognize answers the door, this crust-punk girl with crucifixes tattooed under her eyes. I ask for the guy, describe him, I don’t remember his name, the crust punk says she thinks she knows who I’m talking about, but he hasn’t lived there in years. She invites me in, I look around, I used to go to parties there, it looks exactly the same, same curbside furniture, same ringworm couches. I half expected all my old friends to stumble down the stairs, coked up and ranting about Deleuzian theory and the films of Alain Robbe-Grillet, but they were all gone, from what she said; everyone had moved out and on. This community that had felt so eternal, it had just broken up and floated down the river. But the bloc had survived, that was the main thing. The bloc is an idea, the bloc survived even though the people had all been replaced. So there’s your answer. I’m sorry I was late. I didn’t think it would matter.
—I see.
—You don’t believe me. Why don’t you believe me?
—Why do you think I don’t believe you?
—Because you’re pulling on your earlobe. Was I not detailed enough? Do you want to know the colour of the crust punk’s hair? It was red, the colour of fresh blood. What more do you need?
—I’m sorry if I appear skeptical, I’m not. I’m just trying to reconcile this new information with what you’ve previously provided to me and my colleagues. It’s all quite befuddling for someone trying to establish an organized narrative. Perhaps if we could —
—Go over it again.
—If you wouldn’t mind.
—Of course, I’d be delighted, but if I don’t pee soon, I’ll soil this lovely freshly laundered jumpsuit.
—Very well. [Redacted], pause the recording. We’ll pick up in five.
◆◆◆
—This is [Redacted], resuming my conversation with Mr. Leonard Donna Downey, after a seven-minute intermission. Mr. Downey, do you agree that it is now 8:59 a.m.?
—Yes, I agree that the time is now whatever in the morning, though I haven’t seen a clock in days and haven’t slept since I last saw a clock, and what is a clock when time is folding in on itself? Anyway, I have no means to dispute this claim.
—And do you agree that you requested and were provided with a receptacle within which to relieve yourself?
—Yes, I agree that you let me piss into a pail before I was forced to piss all over this chair, and yes, I agree that I feel much relieved.
—And are you resuming our conversation of your own volition, without coercion?
—Yes, I agree that I’m happy to continue our rendition, I mean conversation, particularly because I have no options.
—If we could rewind to the beginning of your day, I’d like to hear once more your memory of the operation.
—From waking?
—If you might.
—Not before? You don’t want to hear about my feverish dreams? Because I can still remember them. I was lying in a grassy meadow. Wafting clover, birdsong, the drone of drowsing bees. I felt something tugging at me below my waist. I looked down only to find this Che Guevara–looking dude sucking my dick. I ran my hand through his hair, he looked up and grinned, I climaxed, he burst into a thousand tiny flowers and drifted into the breeze. I jolted into consciousness after that, my brain adrip with beta waves.
—Perhaps we could focus on events relevant to the operation.
—Less detail, sure. Okay. I woke up, made breakfast, doomscrolled Twitter, watched the YouTube thing, ran it through OpenPuff, went to work, opened doors, closed doors, hauled bags, pressed buttons, took my break, came back, went to lunch, came back, executed my orders exactly as specified — I mean, it was hard, but somehow I managed to operate the elevator, years of practice, I make it look easy — heard gunshots, cut bait, got on the subway, you know the rest.
—What did you have for lunch?
—Is this a test? A sandwich, I already told you. Why? A peanut butter and relish sandwich, paired with a bag of carrot sticks and a peach Snapple.
—And you ate your lunch where?
—On a bench in a tiny wedge-shaped parkette down the block.
—Earlier you said you’d eaten your lunch in the staff room.
—Nope. Wedge-shaped parkette.
—I see. You must have misremembered. It was a long time ago, as you’ve noted. This is likely why you’ve forgotten that on the day of the operation you made a purchase at 12:34 p.m. from a store called … just a second … Lil Punkinheads. Am I reading that right?
—That’s in your file, too.
—It is.
—Because, of course, you have access to my credit card.
—Lil Punkinheads is what, a maternity shop? Is that how you’d describe it? A baby store?
—It’s a gift shop. They have all kinds of things, not just, just, not just baby shit. At the last minute, that’s right, I bought a book. I wanted something for the flight, something with literary merit; those airport stores just carry junk. I went into the first place I could find.
—Mm-hmm. What book did you buy?
—What book? What book. The Great Gatsby. I hadn’t read it since high school, but something was drawing me to it again. It’s about a dude from the sticks who just stands around watching his buddy, this nouveau riche racketeer, try to steal away some trust-fund failson’s vacant young wife. He doesn’t do much, this hick, just narrates the story, doesn’t intervene, no advice for his pal, he stands around watching the stupidity unfold, impotent by choice or by nature, nothing but a spectral onlooker. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t have some, some, some, some resonance with my own situation. My involvement with the Company was a tour through living death, it cut me off from everything I’ve ever cared about. I was there still, still in the same city, but I might as well have been in the fucking Gobi Desert. The neighbourhood you moved me to, I knew no one, no one knew me. This generic high-rise in a drab, suffocating suburb out by the Don Valley Parkway. At night I’d stand on the balcony, peer down at the river of traffic, red, white, the headlights, the tail lights. All those organic lifeforms inside their machines. Where were they coming from, where were they going? A person is an entire world. For kicks I read Marxist theory, Althusser, Badiou. For fellowship, it was anonymous online hookups, sometimes a professional. One time, in a violation of code, I messed around with a co-worker. It only happened twice. I’d met her at a staff party, Christmas, we were mildly stoned. Sparrow, her name was, for real. This petite redhead, worked in, I think, Housekeeping. “There are things about me I could never tell you,” I told her, “and you’d never believe me if I did.” “Like what,” she said, betraying no curiosity. There was something in her face, something so resigned, at least that’s how I read it at the time. The sex was just desperate, joyless groping, but I would have continued with it if Mona hadn’t somehow found out. She arranged a special off-schedule meeting by the big pond in High Park. “This will not continue,” she said. It was, what month was it? Fall. The leaves were red and tenuous, they death-rattled on the branches. “You will in future refrain from assignations with your co-workers,” Mona said, “do you understand? You’re putting yourself at risk.” She bit her bottom lip. “You endanger the operations of the Company, you risk a contract violation, and you put yourself in harm’s way.” She stomped off in her little houndstooth peacoat. But she needn’t have worried, because I never saw Sparrow again. Which, you know, thinking about it now, seems kind of improbable. The King Willy is a big place, for sure, hundreds of employees, but just to ghost me like that, she must have been determined. Regrets, I guess, a boyfriend, who knows? I didn’t really care, the sex was a release, nothing more. A reminder that I was still human, full of sweat and piss and sinew. After that episode I stopped interacting with my fellow drones. You can’t even guess, how lonely, how … But sometimes? Against instructions? Here’s a confession. I’d sneak out of my apartment, get on the bus that took me to the other bus that took me to the subway, and down I’d go to Kensington Market. I’d walk around the side streets, Nassau, Baldwin, the cheese smell, the rotting fish, the racks of vintage denim. Then I’d stand in an alley across from Augusta House. Every Saturday there was a party, some earnest ill-starred punk band playing in the basement, I could hear them whenever someone opened the front door. I’d watch my buddies come and go, the party people in their studded leather, I’d listen to their banter while they hung out front having a smoke. Never once did they mention me. Hey, whatever happened to Ramen? Old girlfriends, old boyfriends, they were all there, but nothing. I’d been erased, I’d ceased to exist, except now as a wraith that floated up and down the elevators of the King Willy. All the things that you’ve done to me. The stress positions, the sleep deprivation, Nickelback on a loop. None of it compares to that punishment. Day after day, year after year, you made me lick the bootheels of the worst vermin on earth. Yes sir, absolutely sir, my pleasure ma’am, I’m sorry to hear that ma’am. There’s nothing you can do to me now, you know, no essential part of me you can strip away and mutilate; you’ve already done it. You’ve broken me. Whoever I was, I no longer exist. So that’s why I did that, sneak out at lunch to buy For Whom the Bell Tolls. I wanted to remember that, that, that feeling that, that, that … Did I say For Whom the Bell Tolls? I meant The Great Gatsby. I said The Great Gatsby, didn’t I? I said … okay. Fuck. Okay. I want a window.
—I beg your pardon?
—I want a cell with a window, I want to see the sky. I want assurances in writing that you will not harm Janet. In writing. You will not harm Janet physically, mentally, or emotionally. You will let her live out her days unmolested.
—I see. Mr. Downey, it’s perhaps important to note that while my colleagues and I are eager to come to a mutually satisfying resolution to this situation, my advocacy has its limits.
—And I want to be moved someplace that’s warm. Wherever we are, it’s cold here, and damp, and you don’t heat the place properly. I want a cell with a window in a place that’s warm. An island somewhere, one of your black sites. A Pacific atoll. And I want a TV. And two books of my choosing every week and, and, and cigarettes. Two, no, three packs a week, I’m not being unreasonable here.
—All right, well, feel free to jot down your requests. I can forward them to the relevant department. [Redacted], please find Mr. Downey a pad of paper and a pen. Is that all?
—And some porn. Preferably internet porn, with its panoply of subject matters, but I won’t say no to DVDs.
—Okay. We’ll get started on that. [Redacted]? Thank you. So, Mr. Downey, I’m a little confused. Are you telling me that this and all of your previous statements have been fabricated, either in whole or in part?
—In part.
—And your account of the day itself, is it at all factual? If you could just help me to correct our records, I’d be grateful.
—It was almost the way things happened.
—Maybe if we could go through it one more time.
—Yes, yes, yes, but I need a drink first. Just a bit of water. My throat is …
[Respondent is provided water.]
All right, thanks.
So. Yes. After strange, unsettling dreams, I woke up, ate breakfast, made lunch, Twitter, YouTube, OpenPuff, subway. I got to work with five minutes to spare. I picked up luggage, set luggage down. I took my break at 10:30 on the dot. Approximately one minute later, as I was heading to the Pit to have a smoke, I saw Summer on front desk. Summer Johnson, a fellow drone, she works in Reservations. She didn’t look so good.
—So this other woman that you said you saw, Eeyore, from the Garrison Creek Collective, she was a fabrication?
—Eeyore is a real person, but I haven’t seen her in years. Last I heard she’d moved out west and become a doula. It was Summer that I saw.
She looked deeply distressed, seasick almost. It put me off my cigarette. Seriously. I went outside, sat down, and sparked a dart, but the entire ritual had been rendered joyless. So I came back in again, and as I did, caught her rushing toward a staff washroom, tearful and agitated. She didn’t know this, but I was heavily invested in her well-being, and the tears concerned me. There was something going on; I needed to investigate. So I waited till she exited the shitter and returned to front desk and resumed her position.
—Inaccurate or misleading reports are a breach of contract, the consequences of which I know you are aware. Why would you take such a huge risk?
—Because I didn’t want you to know who I really saw, and where I really was.
—Why not?
—Because it had nothing to do with anything. Because they’re my memories, not yours. Because I wanted there to be one little piece of me you didn’t own, you fucks.
I spent the remainder of my smoke break staring into the ether, and when it was time to go back I went back, opened doors, pressed buttons, hailed cabs, hauled luggage. I’m the face of the hotel, you see, the front line, an essential worker. A pansexual anarchist who once set fire to a police cruiser. Without me, the whole thing collapses. At 12:20, I broke for lunch. I snarfed a peanut butter and relish sandwich while rushing to a baby store several blocks away. When I got back to the hotel, I stuffed my new purchase into my locker and resumed my ministrations. Opening, closing, hailing, hauling.
I knew her from another life. Summer Johnson, I mean. She possessed no memory of me. We’d met at a party at Augusta House, a year, maybe more, before the G20. I was not in a good, I was in a bad, I was not well. I was out front of Augusta House, having a smoke, contemplating how I might go about doing it. Subway tracks, a stout rope, my roommate’s Vicodin, a late-night swim in the lake. She came out to escape the sonic assault of whatever band had occupied the basement that night. She was high as fuck, acid, I suspect, but retained a sweet dignity nonetheless. She plonked down beside me in a garden full of dirt and weeds and empty cans of PBR, and asked me if I could see her face. I told her that I could, that it was an excellent face. She asked if I knew much about quantum mechanics. I told her I knew very little, if anything. “It’s like a miracle,” she said. “Science has figured out that a single particle can be in a bunch of different places at once and that two separate particles can be in conversation even if they’re hundreds of miles apart. You rotate a photon in England, a different photon rotates in France. No one knows for sure why this happens. Do you know who David Bowie is?”
I told her I did.
“I heard this somewhere. That sometimes when he’s writing, he’ll take an old song and compose a new song on top of it. Like a pentimento, but with music. Do you know if that’s true? For lyrics he’ll cut up poems and news reports and other, like, ephemera, and mix them up, in parataxis, to generate weird new exchanges. And hold on, there’s a point to this. Have you seen my boyfriend?”
I told her that I hadn’t. As it turned out, he was in the basement bathroom hooking up with the candlemaker/polyamory activist who rented the second biggest bedroom in the house, but we didn’t know that then.
“He just disappears,” she said. She tilted her head and gazed, as if deep in contemplation, upon the crumbling concrete bird bath in the middle of the yard.
“I can see through space and time,” she said.
Whatever my problems had been, by now I’d forgotten them completely. She reached out and snatched my hand and held it up to her face. “I’m reading you,” she said. She traced an index finger along the various creases of my palm. “Your heart line is strong,” she said. “You will have many lovers. But your fate line, is … unusual.” She didn’t elaborate, I didn’t want to know. She placed my hand back onto my thigh, gave it a squeeze, and let it go. “Don’t you worry,” she said. A moment later, she wobbled to a standing position and teetered back toward the house.
“I’m going to see you again someday,” she said, smiling beatifically. “And we’re going to have a party.”
And she was gone. I sat alone in the yard a few minutes longer, vibing off her weird energy. My impulse for self-harm had completely passed. I stood up, full of wonder, and ambled home, the scent of her skin cream still on my hand.
I’d been working with her boyfriend at an organic grocery in Kensington Market. He was a super-sketchy dude, it seemed to me; he had the demeanour of a synthetic weed dealer. But he could speak with some authority about Midwest American hardcore of the eighties, so we’d talk while stocking shelves. One day, at lunch, in a burst of magnanimity, I’d invited him and his girlfriend, Summer, to an Augusta House party, why not. That was how Summer had come to be there that night. Random, random.
They broke up a few weeks after the party, and she did not fare well in the months that followed, so I heard. I kind of kept tabs on her in a half-assed manner, second-hand gossip and whatnot. The odd story drifted my way, nothing very pretty, a public breakdown, some problematic hookups with guys I sort of knew. I stalked her on MySpace for a couple weeks. But she was never a part of Augusta House, and so months went by, then years, and she receded deeper and deeper into the past, and in time became just another thing that had happened to me.
Until, what was it, six? Seven? Eight years ago? A rainy morning, late July. I’d just started my shift. My co-worker Donny winks at me and says, “At last a good reason to come into work.” He nods at the Reservations desk. And who do I see there but a bespectacled brunette with big, radiant energy, checking in a guest. It was her, Summer Johnson, the woman from Augusta House, whose loopy chit-chat saved my sorry ass one night years before. Over the course of the next few weeks at work it grew clear that she had zero memory of me — I’d offer a test smile as we passed in the hallways, and she’d respond in kind, but there was nothing in her eyes to suggest she had the slightest; she’d been too far gone that night in Kensington. Still, I kept her in my sights. I owed her something, I didn’t know what, it’s not like my life had been worth much, but she’d taken an interest in me, and for that she stood out. If Donny made one of his comments now, I’d smack the back of his head and tell him to shut up. At staff functions, I’d scan and hover like a Bluetooth fool, in case some dude slimed on her and forced me to intervene. At some point over the years I friended a friend of hers on Facebook and that’s how I learned about Summer’s newfound stability, her hard-won level of contentment, a guy named Steve. I kept an eye on Steve, as best I could from a distance. His Facebook was not locked down so he was easy to stalk. He worked at Meals on Wheels, solid job, he was a fan of the Wu-Tang Clan, The Sopranos, Major League Baseball. Normal person stuff. I found no fault with that. He was normal, I approved. He wasn’t some walking STD who worked in an organic grocery. I was happy for her.
Although even saying this to you now, I know it wasn’t really happiness that I felt, but relief that I didn’t have to keep thinking about her after I was gone.
And think about her I did not, really, for some months, until the morning of the operation, when an inadvertent glance in her direction tripped the trap door that hovers always above my head, and a cascade of angst soaked me head to toe. She was on front desk with some guests. Maybe the untrained eye would never have noticed, but to me, her agitation was striking. Her movements had a darting quality to them. She dropped her pen, repeatedly. A lock of her hair had come loose from her bun, it floated gently beside her head, she hadn’t noticed. I tried to put it out of my mind. I had my own shit to worry about.
At 10:30, I left for my smoke break. As I exited the lobby, I turned back to check on her. She was on the phone. She looked nauseated now, as if gripped by some violent gastrointestinal event. I was determined not to let this distract me, however, and, in fact, made it as far as the Peach Pit picnic tables when I realized I would not be able to enjoy my damn cigarette. So I turned myself around and marched back into the hotel — just in time to spot her rushing toward the staff restrooms. So that’s why you saw me on the CCTV. I was following Summer.
A little later, I make a point to bump into Addilyn, a friend of Summer’s, works in Reservations, too. “Oh hey,” I say, as casually as I can. “Is Summer okay? I saw her in the hallway and she didn’t look too good.” Addilyn is failing to suppress a smile. She glances around to see who might be within earshot. Then tells me that Summer wasn’t feeling well this morning. She winks. I tell her I’m not catching her meaning. Addilyn directs her gaze downward, toward her hand, which is rubbing her stomach. “You mean,” I say, “she’s pregnant?” Addilyn shrugs and grins. “It’s exactly how I was with my first,” she says, and presses an index finger to her lips. Shhh.
I was glad for Summer, I was, if that was what she really wanted. Lots of people aspire to destroy their lives with children. I respect their aspirations. I myself have destroyed my life in other ways. To each her own.
But as the morning progressed, it pressed down on me, the thought that once upon a time she had saved my life, however inadvertently, and now this new one would one day be emerging from her flesh, mewling and bloody, like the Xenomorph from Alien. And that I should learn the news on this of all days, the very one in which I’d be passing into my own new life. I could not have known at the time, obviously, that my new life would be at this “facility.” I thought there’d be palm trees and Mai Tais. And so it felt, I don’t know, imperative somehow, to mark the occasion, to finally say thank you. I know this all sounds unhinged. I don’t give a shit, truly. At lunch, I withdrew the last of my money from the bank, I wouldn’t be needing it. Then I hit Lil Punkinheads, bought Summer’s baby a fuzzy yellow duck. And on the way to the airport, after the operation, took a little detour to her apartment. She lived on the first floor of a small red-brick building just west of Harbord and Bathurst. I got out at Bathurst Station, booted it down to her place, and stuffed the money and the duck into her mailbox. A gift from Uncle Ramen. And I hope she has a happy life and dies a shrivelled old crone surrounded by her spawn and grandspawn.
I’ve got you on record. I get a window, somewhere warm. A TV, some porn to keep me company while I wait.
—Is this, excuse me. Please give me a moment. Is this, given that this is such a considerable deviation from past narratives, I’m of course curious if there are any other elements you’d like to revisit.
—Nope, the rest of it was real. Garrison Creek is a real house, Great Gatsby is a real book. The sex workers, the co-worker hookup, that all happened. Eeyore was an actual person. For disinformation to really sing, you also need to tell the truth. I made up the crust punk with the crucifix tattoos, she doesn’t exist. Thought she was a nice touch, though. The peanut butter and relish sandwich, although repulsive, is a real thing; my mom used to pack them in our school lunches, and I developed an affection for them.
—Considering the numerous inconsistencies in this versus previous statements, how can I trust that your current account is accurate?
—Well, you can’t, that’s your burden. And I really don’t care what you believe or don’t believe. I know that in the end I told you the truth, I’ll take it into the ground with me, wherever you dump my remains, and you promised me a window and a TV, but no, no, you can never really know.
—All right, I think we can leave it there for now. Unless there’s anything you’d like to add.
—I’m good.
—Okay, [Redacted], could you please, when we’re done, escort Mr. Downey back to his accommodations? I’m going to end the conversation. Mr. Downey, do you agree that this interview is being concluded at 9:45 a.m.?
—9:45 a.m. Sure, I agree, whatever. I’ll agree to anything you say. Everything is true, nothing is true, who am I to agree or disagree? And anyway, we both know how it works; whatever the truth really is, a nerd in an anonymous department, clip-on tie and pasty complexion, never sees the sun, will redact it and rewrite it, and no one will know that any of this happened, that I ever even existed, that one day a long time ago I sat in a garden on an autumn evening, street light spilling through the trees, while a pretty stranger held my hand and told me not to worry. So what even is the point?