Together We Will Go E-Book

J. Michael Straczynski

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 451

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Nick Hornby meets Chuck Palahniuk in this powerful, provocative, and heartfelt epistolary novel from New York Times bestselling and award-winning author J. Michael Straczynski. Mark Antonelli, a failed young writer looking down the barrel at thirty, is planning a cross-country road trip. He buys a beat-up old tour bus. He hires a young army vet to drive it. He puts out an ad for others to join him along the way. But this will be a road trip like no other: His passengers are all fellow disheartened souls who have decided that this will be their final journey—upon arrival in San Francisco, they will find a cliff with an amazing view of the ocean at sunset, hit the gas, and drive out of this world. The unlikely companions include a young woman with a chronic pain sensory disorder and another who was relentlessly bullied at school for her size; a bipolar, party-loving neo-hippie; a gentle coder with a literal hole in his heart and blue skin; and a poet dreaming of a better world beyond this one. We get to know them through access to their texts, emails, voicemails, and the daily journal entries they write as the price of admission for this trip. By turns tragic, funny, quirky, charming, and deeply moving, Together We Will Go explores the decisions that brings these characters together, and the relationships that grow between them, with some discovering love and affection for the first time. But as they cross state lines and complications to the initial plan arise, it becomes clear that this is a novel as much about the will to live as the choice to end it. The final, unforgettable moments as they hurtle toward the decisions awaiting them will be remembered for a lifetime.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

Together We Will Go

Acknowledgments

About the Author

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Together We Will Go

Print edition ISBN: 9781789097474

E-book edition ISBN: 9781789097481

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First Titan edition July 2021

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Copyright © 2021 Synthetic Worlds, Ltd. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

To absent friends, deeply missed and profoundly mourned . . .a love letter written in the hope of understanding whathappened, and why, the day the road ahead suddenlybecame inestimably shorter than the road behind.

Introduction

At 10:23 p.m. on 14 April 2019, a text file was uploaded to several commercial websites located within the United States. Because of its length and lack of publicity or provenance, the file went virtually unnoticed for several days, lost in the flood tide that is the internet, before being abruptly removed when the websites received court-ordered takedown notices at the prompting of the Utah State Attorney General.

The AG’s office justified their actions by claiming that the document was necessary for an inquest into several deaths, and as evidence in any criminal proceedings that might come out the other side of that investigation. The filing also suggested that the document contained “dangerous ideas” that were a threat to the public well-being.

Both claims were met with skepticism by the online community, especially since the Utah AG’s office figures prominently in the document, leading some to speculate that the takedown order was motivated by a desire to conceal their actions from public scrutiny. Nonetheless, the court order had a chilling effect on other sites that might have been willing to repost the material, and as of this writing it remains unavailable online.

In the belief that the public interest is best served by transparency, even—and sometimes especially—in the face of official pressure, steps were taken to ensure the document’s release. Its publication in this volume is not intended to condone or condemn the actions described herein, but rather to encourage debate and discussion in the public sphere. It contains journal entries, emails, texts, voicemails, and real-time transcripts that deal with issues of controversy that some may find disturbing.

Discretion is advised.

Everyone says first-person narratives are bullshit, that there’s no suspense because you know that whoever’s talking can’t die by the end of the story, otherwise who’s writing it? Well, by the time you read this I’ll be dead, along with maybe a dozen others, so I guess the joke’s on you.

That’s called the narrative hook, like when Alfred Hitchcock talks about putting a bomb under a coffee table so the audience knows it’s there but nobody on-screen does, and they’re talking about golf or who’s screwing who or some other shit that would normally bore the life out of you but you’re going nuts because you know that thing’s gonna go off any second and then it’s blood and guts and brains as far as the eye can see . . . or that Stephen King story that starts with a woman shoving a gun in her purse and she walks around with it while she’s shopping and getting coffee but you know sooner or later she’s going to use it on somebody so you keep reading because you want to know when and where and how but mainly who and why. Grab ’em by the nuts and run like hell.

Difference is: this is real death, and lots of it.

Can’t wait.

*   *   *

From: Mark Antonelli [email protected]

To: Rick Lee [email protected]

Subject: Re: Bus pickup

Rick:

The mileage thing will not be a problem, thanks. Just need to get it and go. Will follow up via text.

Rick Lee [email protected] wrote:

Hey, Mark—

I’m still cleaning it up a bit—the last owners weren’t exactly gentle. As tour buses go, this one’s a bit old and frankly she needs a lot more work than I can get done in the time required. The four bunks are as clean as they’re going to get, ditto the toilet in back. Biggest worry would be the bearings. Mileage wise they’ll need to be replaced at about 10K or you’re going to have problems.

*   *   *

The latest rejection:

Dear Mark Antonelli:

Thank you for submitting your novel to Eagle Publishing. Unfortunately, it does not meet our editorial needs at this time, and we are returning the manuscript. We wish you the best of luck in placing the book with another publisher, and thank you again for thinking of us.

Sincerely,Tim DunnEditorial Assistant to Donna Lyons

I should rephrase: not the latest rejection. The last rejection.

*   *   *

*   *   *

Draft three of the release form. Part of me wants to keep tinkering with it, but I’m out of time. It’ll have to do. Art is never finished, only abandoned.

Congratulations! You’re one of the few to decipher the invitation hidden in the Personals section of HomepageAds. com and show up on time. You have officially joined the weirdest cross-country party ever. Our destination is San Francisco. Upon arrival, we will ditch the driver, find an appropriate seaside cliff with an amazing view of the ocean, then just as the sun kisses the horizon, we hit the gas and drive out of this world.

In return, you agree to the following terms:

1.) You are serious about killing yourself. No tourists or last-minute backsies.

2.) As the price of admission, you will write your story, upload it to the Wi-Fi hotspot on the bus, and periodically update it. It should include your name, age, background, your reasons for wanting to check out early, and any other salient information. The name of the portable server is getmeoutofherenow, and the password is boom427. Once you log in and create a username, you will have the option of linking the system to your email and text accounts to provide a real-time record of your thoughts and messages leading up to the Big Day. The system uses an app called RightWrite, which is great at fixing grammar and intuiting punctuation and conversations, and automatically backs up the files to an off-site cloud server. There are iPads on board for those with small cell phones and big fingers. You can choose to keep your entries private or share them with others on the bus. And no, I won’t peek without permission.

3.) In order to ensure that nobody’s relatives try to block distribution of the material, you agree to relinquish all claims to everything described in Section 2, which will be uploaded to the internet at the end of our journey. Consider it the world’s longest suicide note, a collective Last Will and Go Fuck Yourself. Nobody ever tells the truth because they’re afraid of what people will think of them, but since we’ll literally be speaking from the grave, you can finally tell everybody in your life what you really feel, no holding back.

4.) If at any point we get pulled over by the police, you will not discuss the purpose of our trip, and you acknowledge that any drugs or other contraband found on your person belong to you and are not the property of anyone else on the bus.

5.) You absolve myself and everyone else on the bus of any liability, civil or criminal, that might be incurred during our trip. This includes accidents or a decision on your part to check out prior to finishing the journey. You alone bear legal responsibility for whatever you do to yourself while you’re on the bus.

If you agree to these terms, please sign below and use the fingerprint scanner on your phone (or one of the bus iPads) to confirm your ID. Then take a screenshot of the agreement and upload it to the bus server.

If you do not agree to these terms, get the fuck off the bus.

*   *   *

*   *   *

From: Mark Antonelli [email protected]

To: Dylan Mack [email protected]

Subject: Re: Job Inquiry

Hey, Dylan—

Not a problem, totally understand. Meet me tomorrow morning at 11:30 at Retail Transit Sales, 21327 Via Capri Road, Miami. I’ll be coming in from Kendall, so if I’m running late with traffic, check in with the owner, Rick Lee. He’ll walk you through anything you need to know about the bus. Would love to be on the road by noon-thirty latest. Will have the letter in hand, signed, sealed, and notarized. See you then.

Dylan Mack [email protected] wrote:

I have to be honest, Mark, while I need the money, this job is a bit more complicated than I bargained for when I answered your Help Wanted ad. I did some research and the laws about assisted suicide vary a lot by state, and we’ll be passing through some of the riskier ones. I take your point that we won’t be doing anything while we’re in those states, and that I’ll be getting off before the end, but for my protection I’d like a notarized letter saying that I’m only working for you as a driver, that anybody who gets on the bus is doing so at your invitation, not mine, and that I’m not involved in any way with what happens later. I’m just there to drive the bus, period, end of discussion. If you can do that, I’m in.

*   *   *

Username: AdminMark

Five Miles North of Miami.

I was still switching over the last of my files to the cloud server, creating the admin account and getting the hotspot online as we pulled out of the parking lot. Hard to believe we’re actually on our way.

We’ve got about three hours before our first stop, so I may as well get the confession-ball rolling.

My name is Mark Antonelli. Twenty-nine. B.A. in Creative Writing from Eastern Florida State College, which means I have zero qualifications for any job that pays actual money. My mom works as a paralegal and my dad used to be a security guard until a few years ago, when he got a job at an insurance company and his boss was also the pastor of an evangelical church and next thing you know Dad goes full-tilt Born Again and holy fuck has that been a shitstorm.

I was an only child, so my folks piled all their expectations and unrealized hopes onto me. I had to get A’s in every course or face the consequences. Nothing physical, they weren’t violent, but I would’ve preferred a punch in the mouth to Your mother and I are very disappointed or You hurt us when all we wanted was the best for you. Anger, yelling, anything would have been better than that soft-walled death sentence. Nothing I did was good enough. At twelve, I started showing signs of depression, so they put me on Prozac, then Zoloft. I hated what the meds did to me, so I learned how to hide what I was feeling. Smile and the world smiles with you. Frown and they stick needles in your arms. No thanks.

I first started having suicidal thoughts in high school, and spent most of my junior year researching ways to kill myself without it looking like I killed myself, because when that happens, everybody makes it about them and what they said and what they did or didn’t do and ohmygod if only we’d read the signs, we could’ve prevented this. When I die, I want it to be about me, okay? That’s how I found out that a lethal dose of potassium is both hard to trace and slow-acting, which would give me time to ditch the evidence. Took a while, but I finally got my hands on enough to do the job, and held on to it for months, waiting for the right moment.

To kill time (so to speak), I started writing a journal, just for myself, so I could express what I was feeling. The more I wrote, the more I discovered that I liked it, so I began writing poems and short stories that were good enough to impress my teachers and they told me to keep going.

I don’t think they had any idea what keep going actually meant at that point of my life, but it was enough to make me ditch the potassium, which to be honest wasn’t as big a gesture as it sounds since I knew I could always get it again. I just needed to see myself tossing it down the toilet as a symbol of I’ve got this, you know?

By the time I graduated high school, I’d pretty much convinced myself that I was going to be okay.

Then my dad said, If you expect somebody to give you a job as a writer, you have to get a degree.

And that’s when it all went to shit.

I wanted to say, Nobody just gives you a job as a writer the day you walk out of college like some kind of goddamned Cracker Jack prize and they don’t even give those out anymore because some stupid kid choked on a plastic toy soldier thirty years ago . . . wanted to say, I’d be better off spending those years hitchhiking across the country or building shelters in South America than sitting in a room for the next four years listening to some guy who’s never sold a thing in his life tell me how to write.

But I didn’t say any of those things. I nodded and smiled and deferred and agreed and enrolled and took notes and tests and Adderall and wound up right back on the Potassium Highway. Because like everybody else in my demographic, I fell for the Big Lie.

If you’re over thirty and reading this, you don’t understand that the road between Get a Degree Avenue and Here’s Your Job Boulevard broke down a long time ago. But that’s not your fault. You don’t understand because you can’t understand, because that’s not the world you lived in.

The Civil War was stupid lethal because the generals weren’t living inside the war they were fighting; they were living in the last one. During the Revolutionary War, muskets were shit. You had to get up close, closelikethis if you wanted to hit anything. So when the Civil War came along, the generals used the same tactics they’d used in the Revolutionary War: they ordered their soldiers to line up in rows, elbow to fucking elbow, so close to the enemy they could see each other’s teeth before opening fire with weapons that were a hell of a lot more accurate than muskets. They fought the next war using the strategies of the last one, and six hundred thousand soldiers died because of it.

So when our parents said, Go to college and get your degree so you can get a job, we did it even though we know it doesn’t work that way anymore because we wanted to make you happy, because we wanted to believe what you believed, that the rules still applied, that you walked out of college with a degree in one hand as a recruiter shook the other, offering a job and a salary and a desk and maybe a pension plan that they’ll take away before you get to actually use the goddamn thing but hey, it’s the thought that counts, right? But that’s not true anymore. We will never, ever have the same opportunities you did. Full-time jobs are fading fast, replaced by part-time jobs where you get paid shit money to work long hours that are constantly being shifted around so there’s no stability, no benefits, and no backtalk or you’re fired, and there’s nothing you can do about it. And the American Dream of owning a home someday? How? With what? Everyone I know who graduated college came out $50–80K in the hole for student loans they’ll never pay off, which by the way also shoots down their credit rating, so there’s no savings, no loans, nothing to invest, nothing to buy a home with, and the planet is frying and in thirty years most of us will end up climate refugees, so yeah, there’s that to look forward to. And in return we get shit upon from On High for living at home or not having ambition or putting experience ahead of owning stuff because in case you weren’t paying attention we can’t fucking afford anything.

And that’s why you don’t understand. Not your fault. Not your paradigm. It’s just what it is.

So when I graduated with a degree in writing, my parents expected me to start making a living as a writer rightdamnitnow. What followed instead was seven years of part-time work and full-time rage, sending out short stories and novels and This doesn’t suit our needs and Come back another time and Sorry we can’t help you and Get the hell out.

After a while I stopped kidding myself that the writing thing was ever going to work out. So what was left? Spending the next thirty years of my life flipping burgers for minimum wage and making up the rest with food stamps and welfare? Going back to school so I could come out with another useless degree, crushed by more loans that I’ll never repay and a credit score that’ll keep me from renting anything bigger than a litter box for life? No.

Looking down the barrel at thirty, I finally accepted once and for all that there was nothing I could do and nothing I could write that would change things, so I said fuck it, I’m outta here.

That’s why I’m doing this. That’s why I used the last bit of cash I socked away after college, my I-can-live-on-this-for-a-while-if-everything-else-goes-to-shit emergency fund, to buy an old, beat-up tour bus off a government surplus website.

Because the only good writer is a dead writer, right?

*   *   *

This is the notice I uploaded last week to the Personals section of HomepageAds.com:

If you can’t carry this weight anymore . . . if you want it to stop, REALLY stop . . . then you’ll understand what this ad is about. I’m not here to talk you out of anything. That’s BS and we both know it. So let’s do this right. One big party, one last drive, flat-out, right to the edge and no coming back. Looking for 10–12 people who GET what this ad means and can commit to seeing it through. If that’s you, respond with a text number. Burner preferred. Don’t want or need to know details. Will get back to you ASAP with a pickup address.

The notice went live two days ago in every big city between here and San Francisco. Once I had enough convincing responses, I pulled down the ad so the police couldn’t find it or, if they knew about it, trace it back. Everything after that will be done in texts, the language vague enough to be safe, but clear to anybody who’s ready to check out. It’s funny how we can dog-whistle this stuff with each other when we decide it’s over.

First stop is Orlando, because fuck Disney.

*   *   *

Dylan keeps circling the pickup location, worried that this is a setup, that the cops are waiting for us. I tell him it’ll be okay. Not sure I trust this myself. But there’s only one way to find out.

She was waiting on the corner when we pulled up. Five two, thin, pale, with light brown hair. She was pulling a pink suitcase and when she got in she said her name was Karen and I gave her the release form. She read it over several times, like she was buying a car, then signed and uploaded it. As we took off, I peeked at the server long enough to see a last name—Ortiz—then logged out until and unless she says it’s okay to look. Since then she’s been sitting in the front seat without saying a word. As far as I can tell, she hasn’t started writing her story or anything else—she’s just staring out the windshield, purse wrapped around one arm, the other resting on her suitcase. When I offered her a beer from the locker, she just shook her head, eyes locked onto the view outside.

So far, not exactly a party.

*   *   *

When we stopped to get something to eat, Karen went ahead of us, still silent, still pulling her suitcase.

“I think we ought to ditch her,” I told Dylan.

I figured he’d be all over the idea. Instead he shook his head and said, “No.”

Since meeting him for the first time back in Miami, I’ve come to the conclusion that Dylan’s one of those guys who always seems to know more than you think. He’s a big guy, about six four and stocky, with a sandy-colored buzz cut, the kind of guy you’d expect to be big and loud and trying to dominate every conversation, but most of the time he just lies back real quiet, until you’ve pretty much forgotten he’s there, then he drops in the most unexpected comments. That’s how I found out he did two tours of duty in Afghanistan, which explains his The Army Made Me Build Up All These Muscles So I Could Destroy Things But Now That I’m Home I Don’t Know What to Do With Them So I’ll Let Them Go a Little Soft Around the Edges But Keep the Rest Around Just in Case There’sTrouble body type. After his discharge, he came back to Florida to do odd jobs and spend two weekends a month playing poker in the casinos. He thinks he can make a living at it someday. He’s probably right.

So when he vetoed the idea of ditching Karen, I asked him why.

“Mark, look at us. We’re two guys picking up people who don’t want to live anymore and nobody would miss, driving a beat-up old bus that looks like a goddamn rape/murder van. She’s probably scared shitless. Yeah, she says she wants to die, and maybe that’s true, but you can bet your ass she doesn’t want to get tortured on the way.”

“So why’d she get on the bus?”

Dylan glanced ahead to the restaurant, where Karen was talking to the hostess. “I don’t know, Mark. Maybe she wants to believe this is really what you said it was, and maybe she doesn’t have anywhere else to go. All is know is what I saw in the mirror when she was staring out the window. She’s lost. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody that lost. I think we’re her last chance to get out clean. But she’s scared.”

“So what do you want me to do about it? Tell her I’m safe? Like that’ll work. It’s just what a serial killer would say.”

“Then let’s be honest about it and tell her we can see she’s uncomfortable, like maybe she’s having second thoughts or she’s not sure about us, which is understandable. Before she got on the bus this was just an idea, but now it’s real and that’s a big jump and we want her to feel safe, so after dinner we’ll leave on our own, drive around for a while, then circle back. That way we won’t be able to see where she goes if she decides to split, and she’ll know we’re not trying to control her or force her into anything. If she wants to come with us, she’ll be here when we come back. If not, not.”

“Okay,” I said, “but if this was a casino, I wouldn’t bet on her sticking around.”

Update: Two hours later.

Now I understand why Dylan bets smarter than I do at the casinos.

*   *   *

Username: Karen_Ortiz

My name is Karen Ortiz. I’m 26. Mark said I should feel free to write about my family, but there’s not really much to say. We were pretty ordinary. Craziest thing I ever did was get on this bus, so I guess it’s never too late to lose your mind lol. We lived in Jacksonville, Florida, before moving to Orlando a few years ago. I went to an okay high school, got asked to a couple of dances, tried out for cheer and debate. First kiss at sixteen. That’s also when the pain started.

At first I thought it was just a really rough period but the pain didn’t go away, it just got worse. I could feel it in my stomach, arms and legs, then all the way into my feet and fingers. I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t find a position where I didn’t hurt. I cried all the time. When our doctor couldn’t find anything wrong, he said I was faking it to get attention.

Finally my dad took me to a specialist who did an MRI and a bunch of other tests and said I had pain amplification syndrome related to arachnoiditis. It means there’s a short circuit between my brain/spinal cord and the rest of my body that creates a feedback loop of constant agony. The pain signal bounces back and forth like two mirrors facing each other, getting stronger each time it’s reflected back. If I don’t move at all the pain is bearable, but if I shift position in a chair or touch something or someone touches me, it’s just awful. Screaming-level awful. If you ever got a charley horse, or pulled a muscle so bad you couldn’t move, that’s what it feels like but instead of staying in one place it spreads out into the rest of your body until you’re one huge ball of pain and it goes on and on for hours or days.

Rather than calling it arachnoiditis, I started calling it the Spider, because at night when I’m trying to sleep it’s like I can feel it laying eggs in my spine, chewing on the nerves in my body and eating me alive from the inside out. My periods became blackout painful and kept me in bed for days at a time, constantly crying. It got so bad that my parents agreed to let me get a partial hysterectomy, which helped with the pain and I could never survive having a kid anyway.

One of the hardest parts—other than everything—is that once we figured out what the problem was, nobody knew how to deal with it, or me. When somebody at school gets sick, people can say Oh, I’m so sorry or Hope you feel better soon because sooner or later you will. But when they know it’s never going to change, they can’t keep saying I’m sorry or Tomorrow you’ll be better because they know it’s not true, so after a while they say nothing at all. Nobody comes to sit with you at lunch, or invites you to parties (which I couldn’t go to anyway) . . . you can feel everyone looking at you, but they never come close.

After graduating high school, everyone I knew went on to college but I hardly ever left home. I spent most of my time in my room, half-asleep from antidepressants and painkillers, trying to take online classes, sleeping or watching television and trying not to move. The doctors kept saying, You have to hold on, there are some new treatments coming. But they never showed up.

When I turned twenty-one and a bunch of my former friends graduated college, I decided to do the same, but different. See, there’s a distinction between suicidal ideation and suicidal attempts, SI versus SA, as doctors like to say. Suicidal ideation was when I’d think about how much easier it would be for me and everyone else if I was dead, but I wasn’t ready to actually do it until the day I was in bed watching online as everyone I knew from high school walked onto the stage and picked up their diplomas, jumping around and yelling and throwing their caps in the air and I said that’s enough, you know, it’s just enough and I graduated from SI to SA by chowing down on sleeping pills, except I didn’t do it right and ended up getting my stomach pumped, then spent six months getting out-patient psychiatric treatment. They put me on more meds. I slept a lot. Watched more TV. After a while I couldn’t tell if I was sleeping, dreaming, watching TV, or dreaming about watching TV.

Nothing made the pain go away. So a year later I tried to kill myself again. I just flat-out attacked the Spider. I could feel it crawling through my arms and legs and I snapped and grabbed a knife and started tearing into my skin but the amplified pain was more than I could handle and I passed out. Woke up in the hospital, my arms tied to the bed, leading to more observation, more treatment, more meds, and more depression.

After that, I kind of shut down. I don’t remember much of the last few years. I’ve never traveled. Never had a boyfriend because I creep out the boys; they don’t know how to talk to me and they’re worried they’ll hurt me if they kiss too hard, so whatever mental boner is required for more than that goes limp. I’ve never had sex, never even had an orgasm until I realized I can’t climax from outside stimulation alone. It took a dozen tries before I could get a vibrator deep enough inside to fix the problem. At first I was afraid of passing out from the pain and having my folks walk in to find me sprawled over the bed with a buzzer in my bush, but eventually we became good friends.

The rest of the time, it’s just me and the Spider, waiting for the right moment to walk off the earth together.

When I saw the notice on homepageads.com, I thought this might be a good way to see some of the world before I leave it. I like the idea of being with people who’ve made the same decision I have, who understand that when I say I want to kill myself I’m not acting out or being dramatic, that I’m not saying something bad, just something inevitable, and won’t try to talk me out of it. There’s something nice about being just one more rider on a bus that’s taking us all to the same place.

I was a little nervous when I got on because Dylan’s a big guy, and Mark looks like somebody’s twitchy, resentful ex-boyfriend, short and skinny with a pinched face under a big tangle of curly black hair. Whenever I glanced over at him, he looked like he was thinking about something very serious and I couldn’t tell if he was having some deep writer thoughts (at least he said he’s a writer) or working out where to hide my body once they were done with it, but so far they seem safe, so I think I made the right choice.

To be honest: I’m scared. But I’m also more alive than I’ve been in ages, which is kind of ironic considering why I’m here. So I guess we’ll see what happens.

I don’t mind dying. I want to get it over with so I can finally kill the fucking Spider. But like Dylan said at dinner, I just don’t want to be murdered.

Different things, you know?

*   *   *

AdminMark

When I first came up with the idea for this road trip, I knew the only way it could work was by keeping a low profile. Just stick to the map, pick up whoever’s waiting to be picked up, then get the hell out of town. Nobody makes a scene, no trouble, no police.

I don’t think Dylan got the memo.

By the time we crossed into Brunswick, Georgia, we’d been driving for almost nine hours. I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, worrying if the bus would be ready in time, so I was tapped out and we decided to call it a day. Simplest thing would’ve been to sleep in the bus, but if everything goes the way it’s supposed to, pretty soon there’ll be too many of us to crash out at motels without drawing attention. Since there’s only three of us for now, I told Dylan to pull over at a Motel 6.

Karen went in first while Dylan and I locked down the bus. We’d just finished up and were heading for the motel when we passed this fat guy in an old denim jacket and a Metallica ball cap standing by his car in the parking lot, yelling at his girlfriend. He was right up in her face, drunk out of his mind, saying she was stupid and a whore and he ought to punch her face in. She was crying, tears and snot running down her face, saying she was sorry for whatever the hell she’d done to piss him off, but that only made him madder. Then he slapped her, hard. Backhanded the shit out of her, whap!

And Dylan stopped. Stared at the guy. Eye-fucking him.

The guy felt it. Shit, he’d have felt a look like that on the other side of the planet.

“What’re you staring at, asshole?”

“A coward,” Dylan said. “Only a coward hits a woman.”

Shit, I thought, we don’t need this. “C’mon, man, let it go.”

The guy pushed his woman back against the car and started toward Dylan. “You mouthing off at me, you prick? You saying I’m a coward?”

“Hey, if the yellow fits, right?”

“I’ll kick your ass, faggot!”

He swung at Dylan, but D leaned out of it, smacked his arm from behind as it went past, then shoved the guy back against the car like he wasn’t even trying, like he didn’t have to try.

But now the guy’s even more batshit angry and he came back at Dylan all out of control, fists swinging like a big fat pinwheel, but Dylan got under the swing and hit him in the stomach so hard so fast the only way I knew he hit him twice was by the sound the fat guy’s gut made when he got hit, all floppy and slappy as the air got knocked out of him.

He backed up for another swing, but D punched him in the face and he went down like the house that pancaked the witch in The Wizard of Oz.

And of course now the girlfriend gets all up in D’s face, yelling at him and telling him to mind his own business and now it’s just going to be worse and who the hell does he think he is, anyway?

Then she helped Shamu into the passenger seat, climbed in behind the wheel, and drove off, tires spitting gravel.

Once the taillights had blinked out around the corner I looked over at Dylan. “You know we’re gonna have to get another motel now, right? Because he’s either gonna call the cops or come back with some friends.”

He nodded. Shrugged. It’s what he does when he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Why the fuck did you do that?” I asked.

“Had to,” he said, and that was that.

We turned as Karen came up behind us. “Good thing I checked to see where you were before I put down my credit card.” It was the most she’d said at one time since getting on the bus. “You’re right, we should go.”

Twenty minutes later we checked into an Embassy Suites up by Dock Junction. As he headed off to his room, Dylan promised it wouldn’t happen again.

But I’d seen his eyes when it all went down. Whatever’s in there, wrapped around his brain like a snake, it’s not going away tomorrow or the next day, and it doesn’t give a shit about promises.

*   *   *

Karen_Ortiz

From: Mom [email protected]

To: Me [email protected]

Subject: You okay?

Karen, I just got a call from Sheryl who said she went by your apartment but you weren’t there and nobody’s seen or heard from you in a couple of days. She said there was mail and a package on your porch that looked like it had been there for a while. I tried calling but it kept going to voicemail so I wanted to leave word here in case you were out of cell reach or you’d lost your phone (again). I don’t need to know what you’re up to or where you are, I just want to make sure you’re all right, so if you get this or any of my messages, give me a call so I know you’re okay. You know how I worry. Love you. Mom

*   *   *

AdminMark

When I was in junior high, too old for a babysitter but bound to get into trouble if I was left alone, my folks took me with them on a trip to New York. As my dad and I checked in at the front desk, my mom waited outside by the car, watching the porters to make sure nobody stole anything, because apparently she thought that was a thing. As my father signed us in, the desk clerk said, “Do you have any baggage?”

“Yeah,” he said, and nodded toward the entrance. “She’s outside with the luggage.”

Yeah, my dad turned into kind of a jerk, but he could be funny when he wanted to.

Also, persistent. Viz:

 PHONE    8:27 AM

MY NUMBERS DAD

Missed Call and Voicemail

 PHONE    10:13 AM

MY NUMBERS DAD

Missed Call and Voicemail

 PPHONE    1:23 PM

MY NUMBERS DAD

Missed Call

*   *   *

Karen_Ortiz

To: Dr. Tom [email protected]

From: Me [email protected]

Subject: Checking In

Hey, Dr. Tom! Long time no email!

I wanted to touch base because I thought of you earlier today and realized that I never thanked you, or at least never thanked you enough, for what you did for me. You were the first doctor who ever treated me like I was an adult who could understand what you were saying, and that I didn’t need you to make the truth soft. You didn’t lie to me. I hated it but I needed it.

You worked so hard to try and help me. I hope you won’t think this is silly, but sometimes I thought of you as Samwise Gamgee climbing up the side of a mountain with your bare hands to kill the giant spider and save me. (Obviously I was playing the role of Frodo for purposes of this story, and yes, I’ve seen the movies a lot.) Of course I knew you wouldn’t be able to kill it no matter how hard you tried, but I never blamed you because this isn’t a movie, and not everything works out in the end.

But that’s not why I’m writing.

I wanted to tell you that I appreciate everything you did for me, every battle you fought, every truth you told, every time you let me cry in your office and never tried to stop me or look at your watch like you had somewhere else to be. You loaned me your courage when I didn’t have any, like training wheels that kept me going until I could find some of my own. That meant so much to me. You have no idea. I’m proud to say that a little piece of your courage is still with me. Guiding me.

No matter where I go, or what happens in the future, I want you to know that I know you did everything you could. Thank you.

Be well.

K.

*   *   *

AdminMark

Savannah, Georgia, was a no-show, so we kept going north. By the time we rolled through Hardeeville, in Jasper County, South Carolina (and seriously, Hardeeville? Were all the good names taken? Twenty bucks says any kid who went to Har-Har-Hardeeville High School spent the rest of his life saying he went somewhere else because that’s the only way he would ever get laid), Karen had become more loquacious, which is Creative Writing 101 speak for She pulled the pink suitcase out of her ass. I think she finally accepted that we weren’t going to kill her, or that if we were going to kill her we’d at least wait until we found someplace with a nice view, and Hardeeville definitely wasn’t it, so she could afford to open up a bit.

At first it was just casual chatter—the weather (sunny but not too hot), how long I thought it might take us to reach San Francisco (ten days mas o menos) and where I got the bus—but eventually we started talking about what brought us here. She said it was chronic pain, but didn’t go too deep. She was surprised to find out Dylan wasn’t there for the same reasons as us, and asked why.

“Think about it,” he said. “If you’re trying to get from Point A to Point Z, the last thing you want is somebody at the wheel who might decide ‘fuck it’ and drive into oncoming traffic at Point C.”

She laughed and said it was a fair point. It was the first time she’d laughed since she got on the bus, and I got the sense she doesn’t do it easily or a lot. Then, like she realized she’d shown more of herself than she intended, she went back to her laptop.

*   *   *

Karen_Ortiz

To: Mom [email protected]

From: Me [email protected]

Subject: From Karen

Hey Mom.

Sorry it’s taken a while to get back to you. I wanted to be sure I understood what I was getting myself into before talking to you about everything. Now I do, so now I am.

I don’t think I need to tell you what this email is about. We both know this has been coming for a long time. We’ve certainly talked about it enough, especially this year with the Spider growing bigger and badder than ever.

Don’t worry about me. I’m with friends, if you can believe that. They actually understand what I’m going through, and why I’ve made this decision. We’re going someplace beautiful, and I think going there together will make things easier.

I left the key to my apartment under the penguin on the front side window. I went through and labeled everything so you’ll know who gets what, and put the smaller bits that might get lost in Tupperware containers with Post-It notes on top.

OCD to the very end, right?

I think you know that this isn’t your fault, that there was nothing you could’ve done to change things or stop me from taking this next step, but it’s important for you to hear me say it one more time, so it’ll stick.

The hard part for you, beyond the obvious, will be Dad. He won’t understand. He never has, really. He always thought he could fix everything, and even though he never said it out loud, I think he felt like he was a failure because he couldn’t fix me, which was why he went down that bad road for a while. I’m glad he came back and I don’t want him to go down that road a second time because of me, so please do what you can to make sure he understands. This is my choice and nobody’s fault.

I love you both so much, and I’m sorry to have been such a burden for so many years. I probably should’ve done this a long time ago. I guess I was just afraid. But I’m not afraid anymore.

Tell Chuck he was the best brother anyone could have asked for, and I love him more than a fat kid loves cake. That may seem weird, but he’ll understand what it means when you say it.

Don’t try to find me. There are no footprints to follow, and I won’t send any more emails until I get where we’re going in case Dad tries to get the police to check the cell tower info or trace my phone. I’ll let you know where to go to take care of things once I’m ready to step off.

I love you, Mom, so very much.

Please be at peace, because I am. Finally.

All my love—

K.

*   *   *

AdminMark

Karen closed her laptop, looked up for the first time in almost an hour, and said, “I want to go to a strip club.”

Dylan almost drove off the road.

The first time she starts a conversation on her own, and that’s what she says? What’s weird is that there was a lightness to her voice, as if a weight she’d been carrying around for a long time had suddenly and for the very first time been lifted off.

“You want to do what?” I said.

“A strip club. I’ve never been to a strip club. It’s on my bucket list, along with getting drunk. Just once.”

“Yeah, but . . . right now?”

She shrugged. “May as well, I mean, I’m almost out of bucket, right? Besides, I’d be too shy to go in with a big group. Better to do it now when it’s only the three of us. Is there a place near here?”

I checked the map. We were about to cross into North Carolina and this part of the world was known more for churches and titty bars than fancy strip clubs. “Might be something in Charlotte, but by the time we get there it’ll be almost ten and they may close early on a weekday.”

“I wasn’t planning on moving in,” she said. “I just want to go long enough to say I did it.”

Half an hour later, we rolled up to Lace Cabaret, an industrial-looking building at the ass end of Pineville Road. The parking lot was full of pickups and older model sedans bearing Confederate flag decals and Fuck Liberals license frames. I told Dylan maybe we should try someplace else, but then he pointed to a car with a bumper sticker that said My Other Vehicle is a TARDIS and I figured we’d probably be okay.

The guy at the cash register was surprised to see a woman with us, but our money was good, so he buzzed us through a heavy fire door covered in photos of dancers and posters announcing upcoming parties. Inside, a long L-shaped bar ran along two walls, with couches, tables, and chairs lined up on the other side. The main runway ran straight down the middle of the place, with a couple of smaller stages tucked into opposite corners. Curtained doors led off to private rooms where the real action took place. A handful of strippers (I wonder if a handful of strippers is like a murder of crows) prowled the club or sat with customers, encouraging them to buy overpriced drinks or step away for lap dances.

Huge speakers painted the same matte black as the walls blasted country hip-hop across the club, and I didn’t even know that was a thing until we walked in the door and heard “Baby Got Back” sung with a twang under steel guitars, which totally weirded me out. I don’t think the dozen or so guys in the club had any idea where that song came from, but they weren’t here to critique the music.

Then again, neither were we.

Dylan headed to the bar to buy the first round while Karen and I tucked into a table near the runway, where a brunette in a red bra and panties was making love to the pole. Most of the tables had one customer each, with the rest sitting on worn sofas or clumped up in Pervert Row at the edge of the stage, which provided the best vantage point for any free-floating labia that might wander into view. Seven one-dollar bills were crumpled up on the runway. Slow night for tips.

“Strip club’s kind of old-school, isn’t it?” I said.

“Like I said: bucket list.”

“What else is on it?”

She ticked them off on her fingers: “Skydiving. Riding in a limo. Riding a camel. Seeing the sun go down in Paris.”

“Not likely to hit many of those on our way to San Fran.”

“That’s why we’re doing this one. Taking what I can get.”

Then, I noticed a guy at another table staring at Karen, his hand down the front of his pants. When he caught me looking at him, he pulled it out like he was just scratching an itch and went back to watching the dancer.

As Dylan returned with the drinks, one of the strippers came out of the dressing room and headed toward us: thirties, blonde, with a set of silicone-enhanced bolt-ons that stood up so straight they looked like they were pissed off at somebody. Angry titties. There’s a band name in there somewhere.

“Hi, I’m Nikki,” she said with a slight drawl, could be Texas or Louisiana. “Y’all just get in?”

“Two minutes ago,” Dylan said. By now the other strippers had noticed fresh meat in the place, and seemed annoyed that Nikki got to us first. New arrivals meant we hadn’t spent our money yet, and there’s always a rush to get what’s there to be gotten.

She draped an arm around Karen’s chair. “Hi, sweetie. We don’t get many pretty ladies like you in here. Buy a girl a drink?”

“Sure. How much?”

“Bossman says we’re only supposed to have water, so it’s five plus a tip if you’re so inclined.”

Karen handed over ten bucks and Nikki went off to get the water.

Dylan raised his glass of beer. “To Karen!”

I seconded. Karen smiled like she hadn’t been toasted before. An item for the bucket list she hadn’t even known was there.

Nikki came back with an unopened bottle of water that she kept beside her the whole time, leading me to wonder how many times that bottle had been resold. Dylan and I had already worked out our cover story, so when she asked where we were from and why we were in town we said Chicago and On vacation. Not that I think she was really listening to the answers, just marking time until she could say—

“Anybody want a dance?”

“What’s the fare?” Dylan asked.

“Twenty per song, twenty-five topless, thirty nude. Should have a two-for-one blue-light coming up pretty soon if you want to wait a bit. VIP is one hundred for fifteen minutes, nude.”

I was trying to decide whether or not to go for it—normally it wouldn’t be a problem, but having Karen there made things a little awkward—when she said, “Let’s do a VIP.”

Nikki smiled and brushed Karen’s hair away from her face. “Love a woman who knows what she wants. You good now or you want to finish your beer?”

“Now,” she said, like she might change her mind if she waited.

Nikki led her away by the hand, pausing only to throw back a wink at us. “Don’t you worry about your friend, babes, she’s in good hands. Until then, any of these bitches come poaching my territory, you tell ’em you’re all mine.”

The other strippers must’ve gotten the message, because for the next few minutes nobody else came by our table. While we were waiting, Dylan pulled out a folded piece of paper where he’d written down some of the issues he was having with the bus. “She’s grinding like a sonofabitch on inclines. Might be the bearings.”

“Yeah, Rick said the same thing. Should last long enough to get us where we’re going.”

“You’re the boss,” he said dubiously, and glanced back at his list. “Still pulls to the right. Air conditioner doesn’t travel back very far, so unless you’re planning on just picking up lizards, you’re gonna get complaints about the heat.”

Then he straightened suddenly and looked past me. I swung around in time to see Karen race past in tears, heading for the door.

I started to say what the hell, but D was already in motion, hurrying after her. Soldier reflexes.

I started to follow him out when Nikki came up behind me, pulling her bra back on. “Is your friend all right?”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Everything started okay . . . I do a little air-dance to get things going while I undress . . . I touched her face . . . everything was fine . . . then I turned around and sat on her legs and—”

She shook her head, visibly upset, and for the first time I noticed that she was wearing a blonde wig that had come slightly askew, revealing close-cropped black hair beneath. “I can tell when someone’s enjoying the dance because they relax into me, but she tightened up. I asked if she was okay and she said yeah, so I kept going but it just got worse and when I turned around she was crying. I said, ‘What’s wrong, sweetie?’ but she didn’t say anything, she just got more upset. Then she pushed me off and ran out, cursing a blue streak and yellin’ something about a spider . . . I thought maybe she got bit by something in the booth, or she was mad at me.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong, she’s just had a long day,” I said, and hurried out the door.

I was halfway to the bus when I saw Dylan standing in the parking lot with his arms around Karen. As I got closer I saw that he wasn’t actually touching her, just surrounding her with his arms. She was crying, her face up against his chest.

When he saw me, he shook his head, his eyes saying, It’s okay, I got this.

I nodded and continued on to the bus. They stood out there for a long time. I could see she was talking to him, but I was too far away to hear anything she said.

And he never took his arms away until she was ready to go.

*   *   *

From: Rick Lee [email protected]

To: Mark Antonelli [email protected]

Subject: What the fuck?

Mark—

I don’t know if I should even be writing this, but you seemed like an okay guy, so I hope what just happened is some kind of mistake.

When I came in to open up the shop this morning, two plainclothes cops and a guy who said he was your dad were waiting for me.

They questioned me for about an hour. How did I know you? What was the job I did for you? When was the last time I heard from you? Did I know anything about why you wanted the bus? Were there any special modifications made?

I told them the truth: you brought in the bus to get worked on, put down a deposit on your card (maybe that’s how they found me?), and paid the rest in cash. I said I finished the work, installed the server bay, you picked it up on Friday, and that’s the last time I saw you or heard from you. Which is the truth. I think they believed me but it’s cops, who the fuck knows.

I gave them the VIN for the bus and the license plate, but unless they put out a national alert it probably won’t do them much good without some idea of where you are, so it’s all on you, Mark.

They didn’t tell me what’s going on or why they’re asking about all this, but these are serious guys, so if you’re doing something you shouldn’t, you need to knock it off and call them and straighten it out, tell them I’ve got nothing to do with it. Because we both know that’s the truth.

I don’t want to lose my shop because of whatever you’ve gotten yourself into. So do the right thing.

Rick

*   *   *

AdminMark