If we start to blink, close our eyes, and allow our minds to wander into the back alleys of our imaginations, the world grows. It feels infinite with black space and distant planets and buzzing stars. At first, this feels amazing. But then the world’s size soon shakes us until we lose our grip on who we are. It delivers us confusion and shows us that while this green-and-blue ball spins in orbit, there is nothing for us to control. Our lives merely spool out no matter what. No authority over fate. The things that make us good or bad are already written in script.
But what if control was only a matter of view? What if the world was just the two inches in front of our eyes at any given time? The sight of the ceiling as we wake up in the morning. Our phone’s screen as we text our mom back. The view over our steering wheel. What if the reason everything instantly feels delicate the second our windshield gets pelted with raindrops is because, deep down, we know how capable we are of causing effect? We stop zoning out while driving and start caring about what we see immediately in front of us. Everything that feels so near. The rain makes a slippery mess of the windshield and our view of the world blurs. But at this moment, our sense of who we are somehow becomes clear again. We flick on the wipers. Watch them push the blur away. The world—yellow street lines, crosswalks, any pedestrian that might walk into harm’s way—flashes in and out with each oscillation of the rubber blades. We lean forward on the steering wheel. Grip it tighter and never let go. We affirm that the two inches in front of our eyes are about knowing that the universe is gigantic, but everything here and now, in our view, is up to us to save. And when we remind ourselves of that—whenever our sense of self starts to blur—and we try to save what we can, however we can, doesn’t that confirm our best selves? Doesn’t that mean that anyone is capable of being good?
* * *
I’m back in Dr. Jekyll mode, finally at work after spending the morning at the hospital. Rather, sitting in my car staring at the building, fighting against every urge to never work again. A little scrub jay flutters its wings until it lands softly on a branch hanging above the hood of my car. My grandfather used to take me to the wetlands to bird-watch. As boring as it was, I had to identify every bird that he pointed out. With his never-graying blond mop top, he would hold an encyclopedia of West Coast birds in his hands, flipping through pages to check my answers. If I was right, we’d get Burger King on the way home. If I was wrong, I’d have to mow his lawn.
Scrub jays are cousins to blue jays—exotic birds with blueberry markings on their wings and necks. Scrub jays look far more serious than their cousins. Eyes arched in their little heads and surveying their surroundings because danger is always imminent to them. The scrub jay before me now is no different, shooting its head left to right, right to left, always anticipating the threat.
Cal drove me home from the hospital in his old Honda Civic. It’s the kind from the nineties that has run up three hundred thousand miles but shows no signs of breaking down. Before these Hondas, it was the late eighties Volvo station wagons. It’s like the machine equivalent to the angel of death somehow forgets about one type of car per generation. Forever they run.
The scrub jay freezes. Sinks its head lower and remains on high alert. It caws once and then hops around on the branch. It is weary of a predator. It takes flight before anything bad can happen. Maybe I can learn something from this bird.
About predators.
Cal hung around my apartment for a bit. Emily and Veronica walked past us on the way in—a look of shock and borderline disappointment as they registered my resurrection. I closed the door, and Cal took a seat on my sofa. “Remember the Coast Killer?” he asked. I shook my head. He told me that in the late 2000s, several people went missing in and around Monterey. The only commonality they shared prior to their abduction was that their behavior was totally out of character. People who knew them reported they became erratic. Unreliable at work. Very flaky and antisocial. Some of them were never found. But on eight separate occasions, bodies were discovered along the coastline—their tormented and shredded flesh arranged in disturbing poses on the sand dunes. Cal handed me his phone. “I can’t believe you don’t remember this.” The image on the screen showed a young man, completely naked, with deep lacerations across his chest and thighs, the skin curling back and away from the wound, limbs hog-tied with black ligatures. His mouth forced open with a red ball gag. His body suspended a few feet off the ground, probably swaying a few inches here and there with the ocean wind, hanging by a rope fixed to a tree branch at the base of the dunes, waiting for the authorities to find it.
“That’s awful. But what makes you think it’s related to last night?”
“A few things,” Cal said. He then told me about Laura Poole. The only person to survive the killer. His last attempted victim. “Her account is all we have in knowing more about this maniac.” He went into the similarities between what she relayed to the cops and media afterward and what I said back at the hospital. That she was abducted by a man who used a flashlight to blind her. That while in captivity, the man repeatedly used lights—strobes, flashlights, whatever—to keep her disoriented and frightened. That he addressed her as “a thing” or “it.” The experience lasted days until she was freed. The news stories don’t go into details as to how she made it out.
“Did she ever give a description of the guy?”
“Also an extremely odd coincidence,” he said. He then explained that Laura, despite a series of psychotherapists trying to salvage the memories from her experience, could only remember one detail about the man’s appearance. His pants. “Supposedly, they tried to put a composite sketch together. But she was totally blank. All she had was his pants. I’m pretty sure they were always described as military or cargo pants, never sweatpants. But she was clear. They were green.”
“And she was taken from Monterey?”
“Yes, but even more relevant than that, she was nabbed off the bike path. Very close to where you saw the guy at the dealership.”
Another scrub jay lands on my hood, looks around, and launches back into orbit, breaking my daze. I check the clock on my dashboard. I’m running late for a meeting. I have no idea if Cal’s instincts are right, but I have to pause my contemplation of nocturnal predators so that the workday versions can have their way with me. I grab my keys and head in.
The Coast News building is a modern, asymmetrical adobe structure with solar panels on the roof. A series of long windows along the sides for natural light. Inside, every hallway is marked with mounted art and potted plants. Too many plants. The reporters get the ground-level offices and cubicles. Advertising and legal are upstairs. As I walk through the doors, I try not to make eye contact with Raymond, our five foot five security guard working the front entrance, or with any other reporters near my desk. I grab my notebook and keep my eyes to the floor. Head for the Edward R. Murrow Conference Room, where our editorial meeting is scheduled. Some change-management firm once recommended the meeting rooms be named after famous journalists. It’s supposed to inspire current staff. The walls are decorated with award plaques. Runner-Up: Best Newspaper in Monterey. There are only two newspapers.
I take a seat at the oval board table, shoulder to shoulder with other reporters and editors. We all assume the same spots every Monday. Every editorial meeting. Routine is the twin partner of mundanity. The room is filling up quickly. Cal sits across from me, tapping his pen. His glasses do their best to hide the uneasiness in his eyes. The same uneasiness that can be found within everyone in the room, now ten people seated stiffly, as we await Terry, who will only exacerbate that discomfort.
My eyelids slink down lower and lower within the intervals between blinks. While at my apartment, I thought about giving myself an Adderall boost. Stared at the amber bottle. Twirled it. Only a couple of pills banged around the insides. The more tired you are, the sooner the effects of those pills wear off. Your sense of composure boils. Any irritant magnifies. At a certain point, it’s best to hold off and allow your body’s tolerance to diminish. These are lessons you learn after a few months of pushing the limits on these kinds of pills. It’s been about five months for me. Each successive week, I ask how much more I can take.
Terry shoots through the open doors without looking at any of us and takes his seat at the head of the table. Tugs on his plaid blazer with patches stitched onto the elbows. He looks up at us. His pupils narrow like a sex addict admiring a new partner.
I’m so tired I can feel the bile bubbling in my gut. I figure I was asleep in that street for an hour or two, at best. That’s more concentrated sleep than I’ve allowed in months. Lack of sleep will do many things to the body. All of it bad. Including damaging regions of the brain responsible for retaining memories.
“Look at all of you,” Terry says in his nasal twang. He rubs his salt-and-pepper pirate mustache and chin scruff with his thumb. Licks his lips. “This meeting isn’t going to take a full hour—you know why?” He waits a couple of seconds. Takes a quick bath in our silence. In our submission. “Because if I don’t hear one fucking golden idea, I’m going to give myself an early Christmas present and permanently free myself from having to see one of you. As in, someone is getting fired. And that doesn’t take very long, understand?” Some heads nod. Others stare down at their tablets or notepads.
Sleep is inevitable for everyone, no matter how hard you fight it off. I’ve come to a compromise with it. I only allow myself short, intermittent naps. Ten to twenty minutes. Set my alarm, close my eyes, and let the intense drift into unconsciousness power wash the crud off my brain. After a week or two, you get used to it. The intermittent bouts of sleep keep me functioning without the brain receiving the same benefits it would with a full night’s rest.
“I’m looking at a room of lazy journalists. Garbage writers.” Terry allows his gaze to pause on me. “How nice of you to show up to work. Interesting morning?” I give Terry an agreeable smile. His eyes remain predatorial. “You can end this meeting right here and now. Have an idea that might impress me? What about that lead you were following up on? The Jonestown–Heaven’s Gate rumor?”
Shit.
This is how it started. About two months ago. An anonymous tip came in through our website. Some guy ranting about large gatherings in the middle of the night. Something about shipping containers. I phoned a contact at the police department. Checked the local records. Nothing. Terry ordered me to stay on it. Told me that the crime section needed something juicy. Unfortunately for Terry, what I found wasn’t for him or the paper. It was for me.
“Not yet, Terry. I’m not sure there’s anything there.”
I have trouble with the truth.
“Uh huh.” He points at me—hand shaped like a gun. Puts me in the crosshairs. “Garbage. Lazy.” He drops me for the next person, Ibrahim, a deputy editor who wears suspenders every other day. Squares the turret between Ibrahim’s squinting eyes. “Garbage. Lazy.” Terry closes his left eye and squints with his right, taking better aim. He directs his focus to the other side of the table, clicking his tongue with each face he lines up with the finger gun.
Click—click.
“Garbage. Lazy.”
Terry targets three more reporters with the turret. His insults are high-caliber bullets, his ammunition never running out.
Click.
He turns to Cal, moves the finger his way, and shifts the verbal evisceration. “What was the last story of his that delivered eyeballs?” Terry looks over at Cynthia, the paper’s business manager. She’s Terry’s right-hand man and a ginger-haired devil who sticks decision variables up every writer’s ass, ensuring we know our limitations for becoming the next Woodward or Bernstein.
Both of those conference rooms are found upstairs.
“His pieces are trending below the conversion line for advertising,” Cynthia says with a tone that could only seduce an android.
Cal sits frozen. Tries to put on a noncombative face. But I know him. Right now, he’s weighing his next three career moves against being fired.
Terry leans back in his chair. “This is the deal. Someone here is going to give me that golden story idea, and they’re going to do it right now.” His finger is now a wand for his authoritarian symphony. He points it upward by the side of his head. Hitting high notes of fear. Demanding triads of complicity. “I’m talking about a story idea that makes Cynthia smile ear to ear and drives traffic like Pornhub. And if I don’t hear that idea, I’m firing Cal. It’s up to one of you if you want him around here.”
Cal’s lips unclasp, his jaw falling. A few other people look down at their notebooks, pretend to scribble an idea down and keep their eyes locked onto the page.
When I first started working at the Coast News, I was stringing paychecks together to cover credit card debt and student loans. Everything felt like it was in jeopardy. No apartment of my own. No car. Skipping lunch, sometimes even dinner. Cal never asked if I needed help. I lived with him for several months. He bought food. Drove me around. Put up with the burden that comes with having a constant guest. And above all else, he never made me feel like I owed him anything. So as I look at Cal now, doom scrolling across his eyes, I weigh the dos and don’ts of different scenarios. The right and wrong of the here and now.
“I have something,” I say. Fake confidence banging through my tone.
“Oh, you suddenly have something?” Terry mocks. “Better be legit, or Cal will soon be serving lattes at Starbucks. I do hear they offer excellent benefits.”
Take a deep breath in. Let it out.
The lies we shape become our truths in the end.
“It’s a legit story—very big,” I tease.
Cal sends me a look that silently asks, What are you doing, man?
Trying to be good.
“You?” Terry says with disdain. “You are the one that has the big story reveal now?” He indicates the floor is all mine. “Well, let’s hear it.”
“I can’t.”
“This will be good,” Terry says. “Why can’t you?”
I tell myself to keep going. Not to give in to the blurriness of confusion. That a resolution is only a matter of pushing the charade farther.
“I want to,” I say. “Actually, I had planned on pitching it in this meeting. But it would be journalistically irresponsible for me to reveal what I’ve been working on until I can verify some details and do a bit more fact-gathering. Just need a little more time to put the final pieces together.”
“How big of a story are we talking about again?” he asks.
“Big. Like very, very big.”
“Really painting a picture. I can tell you deal in words for a living.” Terry looks around the room for anyone else to join his ridicule. Only Cynthia complies with a chuckle. “To recap: I ask if you have a great story. You say no. I then challenge everyone else to give me a great story or Cal gets fired. Nobody pipes up. Suddenly, it turns out that you do have a story after all. See why this sounds like horseshit?”
“How about this,” my tone hardens with more fake confidence. “You give me one week to follow up on a few loose ends, reach out to more sources and cement what I think is a game-changing story, and if I don’t deliver something that meets your definition of ‘big,’ you fire me instead.”
“We got ourselves a superhero now.” He cinches up his fist and rubs his knuckles against his cheek. He does this when he’s mulling something over. In Terry’s ideal situation, he’d reject my proposal. Probably fire Cal as punishment for me even trying something like this. But this isn’t his ideal situation. The paper has been in financial trouble for a while, which is why Cynthia and her job title are even a thing. It’s why he’s looking to lay off staff members but is dressing it up as a game of tyrant boss. So this carrot I dangle out there is one that Terry might have to chase. “Since you’ve made this a juicy little negotiation, allow me to counter. You will pitch this oh-so-convenient story of yours in one week—no more, no less—and if it doesn’t meet the lofty expectation you’ve set, I fire you and Cal.”
I interpret this as rhetorical. That the negotiations have concluded.
“Sounds more than fair,” I answer.
Terry turns his attention back to the group. “The normal story pitches—the ones you all give me that make my eyes deaden with boredom—can be sent to me over email.” He grabs his notebook. Pushes his chair out from underneath him and stands, releasing all of us from the executioner’s glare as he glides out of the room. Cynthia follows right behind Terry.
Cal waits for the last person to exit the room to ask the inevitable question. “What are you doing?”
“Funny way to say ‘thanks.’”
He lets out a nervous laugh. “But do you actually have something?”
“Not yet.”
“So what’s the plan?”
I don’t have a great answer for Cal. I don’t have any answer, as a matter of fact. The reality of the situation causes me to ask myself a question: What the fuck did I just do? I start to stand. Instant dizziness. My eyes begin to roll into the back of their sockets. I feel a warm drizzle of blood snaking out of my right nostril.
This again.
“Sit back down,” Cal says. “Are you okay?”
I fall into my seat. Wipe away the blood. The oxygen enters my lungs, and the temporary episode concludes.
“We definitely need to talk, but you need to call it a day and go home.”
My head throbs at the temples. “I think you’re right.”
“Before you go, I have something for you.” Cal reaches beneath the table and rummages through his messenger bag. He looks toward the door to make sure nobody is watching. He holds up a skinny prescription bottle. For a second I feel a new level of brotherhood with Cal. But then I see the instant stress across his face. This means he is doing something he considers naughty.
He places the bottle in my hand.
“What is it?”
“Ambien,” he nervously hisses.
I withhold my disappointment from appearing across my face.
Cal tells me that he stopped by his girlfriend’s house in between dropping me off and getting to work. They’re her sleeping pills. He took them without her knowledge. Based on the level of guilt in Cal’s voice, I suspect he will be making a sacramental confession later today.
“I thought you really could use that stuff. I mean, look at you, bud. You look like you haven’t slept in years.”
I thank him, and we say our goodbyes. I’m halfway down the hall, passing cubicles decorated with inspirational posters or drawings done by children, when I see Joan standing by my desk waiting for me.
Joan is a superior.
In an org-chart kind of way.
In a top-flight human kind of way.
She has a model’s build and a professor’s mind. When she looks at you with her emerald eyes, you tend to stutter and mumble while fading in and out of her unintended seduction. She’s also the paper’s general counsel, which makes having a crush on her a fine line to walk.
Joan stands in place as I approach. Her dress is a perfect fit for her torso. In a matter of hours, she’ll have swapped out the dress for breeches and riding boots, heading out to the barn where she boards her horse and takes dressage lessons. The first time I met her, she made a “walk before you canter” metaphor. After that, I started visiting equestrian websites. Learned the lingo. Sprinkled it in conversations with her.
“Hey, stranger.” She gives a caring smile. Examines my face. Her smile dissipates as she processes my road-worn face. Probably the raccoon eyes. The exaggerated crow’s feet. “You doing okay?”
“I’m fine. A little tired. Exhausted, actually. I think I’m heading home for the day.”
“You definitely don’t look yourself.” She reaches out and rubs the side of my arm.
I wonder if she knows about me and the trip to the hospital. About what I just promised in the meeting. I ask her how she’s doing. About her work. She gives me a quick summary of her life. The boredom of twelve-hour workdays. The mundanity of Monterey nightlife. How she’s fed up with the local Pilates studio and needs to find another one.
“I actually got something for you.” I open up the top drawer of my desk and pull out a pair of riding gloves. I searched “gifts for dressage riders,” and these were the most highly recommended brand. They cost eighty bucks plus shipping and handling. “My friend was going to throw them out because they didn’t fit, but I told them that I knew someone else who would like them. They’re lined to keep your hands warm when it gets colder.”
Joan takes the gloves. Looks them over while thanking me profusely. Tells me what a nice gesture it is and thanks me again. We play out the game of gift and gratitude for a few more exchanges until the natural flow of the conversation reaches its end. She heads off to a meeting, gloves in tow.
* * *
I’m in my car, key in the ignition, hands gripping tight, looking through the windshield as I head home. Cal’s prescription bottle sits on the passenger seat, rolling back and forth with each red and green light. These pills represent the opposite of everything I have sought to achieve. These lovely little narcotics are designed to do one thing with ruthless efficiency: produce restful, beautiful sleep that restores the brain’s vitality and boosts its function, including memory retention.
I arrive at my apartment just as it starts to rain. My front door opens, and a gust of stale boredom and isolation hits me. I leave the door open and keep the screen door closed. Let the cool October air fill the space. I head to my bookcase and pull The Essential Kierkegaard off it. I open it up. Once thick and bountiful with pages and words and wisdom, the book is now only a hollow shell of what was once nothing but complex musings. At some point, I took a box cutter and sliced through it until a deep square hole was all that was left within the hardbound book. I now use it only to store my cocktail. My true prescription.
I do inventory.
They’re all there. Every single amber bottle, the white labels stuck to the side, small type telling me what is what.
Theophylline for emphysema.
Atenolol for hypertension.
Dopamine agonists for Parkinson’s.
Modafinil for narcolepsy.
Atorvastatin for cholesterol levels.
And Adderall and Vyvanse.
All prescription drugs. All prescribed to treat afflictions I don’t have.
The Adderall and the Vyvanse are used for obvious reasons. They deliver the necessary amphetamines into my bloodstream to keep my heart rate elevated beyond the threshold required to feel alert, staving off desires for sleep. The rest of the medications affect different parts of my brain controlling short- or long-term memory retention. Lipids in the brain will soon be depleted, limiting the formation of connections between nerve cells. In other cases, the meds will dampen the flow of signals within the central nervous system. If I’m lucky, some of the medications, beyond the amphetamines, will trigger pathways for dopamine—meaning I’ll get to feel happy and motivated for no particular reason. But I’ll get to feel happy and motivated at the expense of memory loss due to overactive chemical releases. Some people watch those pharmaceutical TV ads and tune out during the “side effects may include” part. Not me.
I leave my cocktail of meds for later. Instead, I head to the breakfast nook. Stare at the chessboard with its war put on pause. Try to remember what move I previously thought was most appropriate. I settle on a rook taking a bishop. That’s enough for now.
I wave the white flag for the day as I plunk down on my couch, sleeping pills in hand. If I take an Ambien, I’ll be out in twenty minutes. I hold the bottle at eye level. Rattle the pills from side to side.
Maybe I earned it?
Maybe today I did right in the world. Maybe today, I saved Cal from something. From pain. From embarrassment. At least for now. Maybe I don’t need Rocket or Enzo or even my cocktail. Maybe all I need is more days like this one. Days that help balance my ledger. Cancel out my sin.
Just maybe.
I pluck one Ambien out of the bottle. Drop it into my mouth. Swallow it down.
Take a deep breath in. Let it out.
Your healing begins in silence.
I bunch up some throw pillows and lay back on my sofa. The cool air fills my apartment. The rain softens, the impact on the earth is lighter.
I close my eyes.
* * *
The farm is desolate and flat and brown with rolling waves of tilled soil out into the horizon that eventually leads to mountains. Out here, there exists one grocery store that sells discounted meat and one gas station, owned and staffed by the town mayor.
“Last chance,” my brother says, grinning with confidence. He tosses the football back into my chest and jogs to the other side of the lawn and readies himself on defense. Behind him are a series of trees with pale trunks stretching out of the earth, spaced five to seven feet apart. Each represents a target for the football.
I take my spot fifteen yards away. He remains the obstacle between me and the trees. I’m annoyed because I’m losing and because he’s winning and because he loves that I’m losing and he’s winning and because it’s Sunday and it’s July and hot and I don’t want to be here. I want to be back on campus, getting ready to enjoy my last semester of college. But I’m visiting my parents’ house out in the middle of San Joaquin, California. The armpit of the state.
“Let’s go!” My brother rubs his hands together.
Earlier in the morning, my mom and dad drove north into San Jose. Where we used to live and where my dad’s longtime doctor still practices medicine. It’s a two-hour drive each way, and as soon as they return I can say goodbye and head back to school.
I spin the football atop my index finger. Hold it low around my knees and simulate a snap. I stare at a tree over my brother’s left shoulder, wait for him to take one step in that direction before quickly firing the ball. It misses.
He laughs.
I grind my teeth.
As he tosses the ball back to me, I hear the faint growl of rubber over dirt. Pebbles spit from underneath car tires. It slowly approaches, wobbling from the uneven, unpaved road, the windshield and their faces hidden from the reflection of overhead branches and sky and sun. They both sit still in the front seat, staring straight ahead, not turning to look at me. The ball remains cradled between my forearm and oblique as I approach, waiting for a door to open, for them to step outside and smile at me for a quick hello and for a quick goodbye. But they remain there. The car’s engine is killed. The sun and speckled clouds and shaded parts of the passenger-side window dissipate as I get closer. The darkened details of my father’s profile start to come into view. I stop a few feet from the door. My father turns his head—his lips closed, the corners of his mouth angled down, eyes wailing in silence. And immediately, I know.
Everything has changed.
* * *
My eyes open to the darkness cast throughout my apartment but for weak moonlight slithering through the screen door. Sweat fastens me to my couch. Chills my body along with the midnight air. The sixth sense of ambush alerts me that I am not alone.
At first, he’s just a black outline looming over me.
“You shouldn’t leave your door open like that,” Enzo says.
Before I can respond, he tells me why he’s here.
“It’s time.”
I ask in a throaty whisper, “For what?”
“The mission.”
I want to refuse. I want to tell him that I’ve changed my mind. That I no longer need Rocket’s help. But within me, the farm’s intense heat signature convinces me otherwise. The pulsating details of everything that happened there lingering within my brain. The grip of that memory never releasing me, no matter how hard I squirm, no matter how much I fight to never remember. All the nights I forced myself deeper and deeper into insomnia, all of the pills I’ve swallowed to forget everything and to become something else. It all gives in eventually, leading me back to the same point in time. My memory never relenting. Always reminding.
That I killed someone.
“Are you ready?” Enzo asks.
I nod.
Out we walk into the night.
The Next Chapter Begins in 3, 2, 1 . . .