Brief Pose

by Wesley McCraw

  “You never reimbursed me.”

  “Sorry?” He has no idea what I’m talking about.

  “Nothing.”

  As I wait for some final questions, the initial shock of finding Adam fades. “I need to get to Brief Pose,” I say. My landlord nods as if he understands. “Clara is expecting me to be there.” But I can’t leave until the police say I can go. We stand around as people finish up their work, all the time I’m about to burst into tears. Victor texts me. I text back, “Be there as soon as I can.” I don’t have the luxury to break down. And then I remember Adam flirting with the girls, horsing around with the guys, and how happy he looked when I said I’d join his stupid rugby team. Tears well up. My nose gets snotty. I cry. My landlord puts a hand on my back, then leaves me for a minute, and returns with a box of Kleenex. I blow my nose and feel a bit better. I need to be strong for everyone. They’re counting on me.

  If we don’t figure out a solution, this is going to happen again and again until there’s no one left.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Final Part One

  I’m an hour late. Marshall stands near the entrance of the packed store and gives me a nod. The number of people is overwhelming. They stand against the shelves and desert posters so that others can get through. Strangers are everywhere: Johan Montoya, Jennifer Lu, Austin Chu, Ivy Nguyen, and Angeline Wu. I recognize some of them as protestors. Eduardo Gonzalez from the garden supply store is here, and there’s Anthony, JuanCarlos’s friend that I fooled around with. I don’t see Tara and JuanCarlos, but I’m confident they’re further inside.

  Walking here felt okay, but when I turned the corner and saw Brief Pose, my legs became weak and shaky. I wanted to hide. I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday. That’s probably why I feel so faint.

  Adam’s death wasn’t my fault. Brief Pose killed him because they wanted to sell clothing, because they had a responsibility to their shareholders. God, I could fucking kill someone for this! And if a person has to die, shouldn’t it be the BP founder? He’s coming here tomorrow. Should that be the plan, murder Matthew Weber in cold blood?

  My anger drains away. I’m not a killer. I just want Adam to be alive

  If anyone was full of life, it was Adam Kline. Was he even twenty-one yet? He went drinking, but I think he had a fake ID. Do his parents know he’s dead?

  Near the arch to the women’s section, Abigail talks to Juliet on a bench, though Juliet is trying to study and not listening. Has anyone told her what happened to Adam or does that responsibility fall on me?

  “I didn't even buy the clothes,” Abigail says, twisting the edge of her black tee around her finger. “I just bought the catalogs. Then they came for me in the night in their spacecraft. They promised me—”

  Juliet, out of patience, interrupts. “Do you know anything about sine and cosine? I’m not getting the right answer for some reason.”

  “Well, yeah. I studied a lot of that stuff on my own when I got into hacking and computer programming and stuff.”

  I walk by them as they scoot together, and Abigail looks over Juliet’s homework.

  Juliet, Fiona, and Adam were all dating each other. Or was that another part of Adam’s delusion? He hung himself with the extension cord that I tied. If I’d untied it, coiled it up, and put it back in a drawer or thrown it in the dumpster any time in the last three months, Adam would still be alive.

  Further inside, Riley is confessing to Hunter. “I can't tell what's real anymore. I’m afraid I might do something. Three of my buddies offed themselves not long after they got back. It’s happening again. I thought I was doing good, that I’d be okay, but…”

  Riley breaks down and cries on Hunter’s shoulder. Seeing Adam hanging from my fire escape isn’t doing the big guy any favors.

  “I ran over a boy in Afghanistan with my Humvee,” he says. “He keeps asking for his foot back.”

  Victor leans against a poster in the checkout section, watching the sea of crazy. He gives me a worried look through the crowd.

  I nod back. Victor’s sanity is the only respite I have in this place. I go to him.

  “Did everything go okay? Did you tell the police about the catalog?”

  “No. This is up to us. Weber is coming here to make sure everything is perfect for the new season.”

  “Are you sure that’s the real reason?”

  “I’m not sure of anything anymore. That’s why you’re here.”

  We look out over the chaos.

  These people are sharing their war stories, their symptoms, and their struggles to stay sane. They’re bonding over a shared nightmare. Many seem almost thrilled to be here, as if they have finally found their tribe.

  Bram films the proceedings. That’s one person being productive. What should the rest of us do? I also have my camera, but filming now would be redundant. I don’t want to waste the battery. On the other hand, maybe it would be good to get more coverage.

  If the catalog has a similar effect on everyone, it’s likely many of us are in a fragile psychological state associated with our insecurities and past traumas. Processing the deaths of my loved ones helped me get better, but each of us needs something different. How does an army vet deal with the horrors of war? How can we help an overweight girl who wants to leave the planet? Adam feared shadow people enough to kill himself. What trauma did shadow people spring from? Even though I made it through, I’m backsliding. Will Loo come back and counsel me when I lose my sanity again?

  Fiona talks with some BP employees I don’t know well. A few of them work here part time for their modeling careers. I haven’t seen Clara yet, though it seems her fellow protesters are all here.

  People all talk at once and keep getting louder. Maybe we’re too far gone to discuss an action plan. Whose great idea was it to get a bunch of crazy people into the same confined space at ground zero? Oh right, that would be me. I’m going to get all these people killed.

  Clara is hidden in a corner, talking privately with a man in red flannel.

  “My son is seeing the models too,” she says. “I had to tie him to his bed. The babysitter is getting paid overtime while I’m here, I just hope…” She trails off.

  I thought Clara would be taking a leadership role. Someone needs to tell these people what to do. She organized the protests. But now it seems she expects someone else to step up. Panic constricts my chest. Clara is talking to Dirty Santa. They’re in cahoots. What if the subway train tears through Brief Pose, smashing through all these people?

  “Everyone, quiet!” Tara says to the group.

  The room quiets and Dirty Santa disappears. Bram points the camera at Tara.

  She sees me and Victor and motions us over to the checkout counter. She’s relieved I’m finally here. People crowd in. Am I expected to say something?

  She dials the store phone and presses “speaker.” The phone RINGS.

  The first shot of the Brief Pose Exposed documentary takes place at the Brief Pose meeting, the day before Matthew Weber’s arrival, with the now infamous phone message played for a room full of BP’s victims. That scream is enough to chill anyone’s blood and makes for a dramatic medias res opening not easily forgotten. But even this iconic moment gains more meaning when given context pulled from the “The Archive.”

  As in the film, the phone rings in the relative silence of the hushed crowd. The voice mail picks up, playing a pleasant female voice: “We have all gone to the sea.”

  Someone in the background of the message screams in anguish as if being tortured. The beep cuts off the horrifying sound.

  Tara looks shocked. She ends the call.

  Someone off screen, presumably Eric, asks, “How many BP stores are there?”

  The camera pivots to Eric a bit too late to capture him talking and then pivots back to Tara.

  “Three hundred and fifty-four,” she says. “I’ve called twenty of them, many around the city. A few don’t answer. Others had prerecorded messages from corporate. I g
ot an actual person though, a woman. A BP on the West Coast. She was out of her mind. Like she was on drugs or something. It’s happening everywhere.”

  In the documentary, the scene abruptly cuts here. The title comes up. But in “The Archive,” Tara asks, “What are we going to do?” The shot pans to show the group as they panic, everyone again talking at once. People cry. One man, enraged, shreds BP clothing. Others join him. The shot then points to the floor and records Bram’s feet. (Sartain, 153-154)

  Bram lowers his camera. I almost tell him to keep filming, but he puts his arm around Abigail, who is crying and needs his support.

  I raise my camera, taking over.

  Fiona brushes invisible things off her arms as she backs into a corner. She’s horrified and screams. I film her to show what they’ve done to us. It hurts to stay removed from my friend, especially after what happened with Adam. Juliet runs to Fiona and holds her by the upper arms. “You’re okay! Fiona! There’s nothing on you!”

  Fiona quickly stops fighting but continues to tremble.

  I see over her shoulder Marshall looking at me. He’s thinking the same thing I am. This is bad. Thousands of people could become homicidal. Some of those people might be in this very room.

  No one is stepping up to control the chaos. I shout at the crowd, “Shut up!” The room quiets again. I point my camera at Tara and say, “Tell them about Matthew Weber. He’s coming tomorrow.”

  “I got an email,” she says. “Everyone who works here is supposed to meet Weber at four o'clock, tomorrow, for a debriefing.”

  “What kind of debriefing?” Clara asks from the corner.

  “Why is this happening to us?” Fiona says, on the edge of breaking down again.

  “We'll be okay,” Tara tells her. “I promise.” Tara then says to the crowd, “We will be okay. We have to depend on each other. I think stress and loneliness make the symptoms worse. We need to stay calm. We need to stay connected to one another. If we stick together--”

  “But what cures it?” Clara interrupts. “I need to help my son.”

  “Do we even know what’s causing it,” an older gentleman says from the back.

  “It’s the catalog,” Tara says. “You experience the catalog, you see it, you smell it, and there’s this longing for BP products, but for more than that.”

  “The catalog aggravates existing insecurities,” I say. “That longing everyone feels, it takes on a life of its own, beyond buying BP products, beyond reason. Some fly off with aliens, some enter the catalog to live with the models, some are soothed by Buddha, but the fantasies break down. They leave a hole.”

  “BP is a just a clothing company,” Hunter says. “My problems with my dad started long before the catalog.”

  “I lost people close to me a few years ago,” I say. “It tapped into that insecurity. It made my grief even worse. It preyed upon it.”

  “Eric is right,” Abigail says. “I could've stayed. I could've been loved by the aliens.” I’m not sure I want her on my side. “I know it’s crazy. They aren’t real. Bram helped me. He showed me that I don’t need to leave with them.” She takes Bram’s hand. “It’s not as bad as before. The hallucinations have mostly stopped.”

  “I’m sure a lot of you have experienced them too. The reality breaks. The hallucinations.” I get nods of agreement from the crowd. “They happen when you get upset. Abigail, did something happen? Something that might have caused you to see the aliens for the first time, in addition to the catalog?”

  “Emily, a bitch at my school.”

  “What happened?”

  “She sent a picture of me licking a pig vagina to all her friends. The whole school saw it. That night I saw the alien outside my window. I wanted to leave with them. I think I almost killed myself.”

  “And Bram made you feel like you had something to stay for.”

  She nods, tears running down her plump cheeks.

  “We have to destroy the rest of the catalogs,” I say, tearing up. “We can’t let them do this to us.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  There is Always a Before

  23.1

  We don’t talk about loading the catalogs into Victor’s van, we just do what has to be done. We grab clothing, papers, and old posters from the stockroom. We try to be thorough, but we’re an irrational mob at this point, so a few shirts and things get left behind.

  We don’t drive far. Maybe it’s because Marshall rides up front, but we turn down Harlow and then pull into his old alley.

  “The poison is the cure,” Marshall says. I’m not sure if he’s being insightful or spouting off nonsense.

  The men throw the catalogs and the BP clothing from the back of the van onto Marshall's old refrigerator box. I capture it all on film. The women watch from the sidelines. I’m not sure how this division of labor happened, but no one seems to mind.

  “I need to get to the hospital,” Fiona says. “I can’t get them off me! Adam? Where’s Adam!” She hasn’t even found out about Adam’s suicide, and she’s already having a meltdown.

  Juliet tries to calm her down again.

  We all gather around the pile of catalogs, clothing, and cardboard.

  Bonfire time!

  Riley puts his arms around Fiona and Juliet, and the Fiona cries into his chest. Victor pours gas onto the pile from a mostly empty can he had in the back of his van. The distinct gasoline smell permeates the air; Marshall throws a lit matchbook onto the pile, and the whole thing IGNITES.

  Tara whispers into my ear, “I want to jump into the flames.”

  Marshall says to me from the other side, “I'll make sure the fire doesn't spread.”

  I nod. The fire is still growing, burning hotter, and reaching higher, and, wow; this can’t be legal.

  I say to the crowd, “The fire department will be here soon. We have to go.”

  As we walk back to BP, we’re like a parade. Bram starts recording again. We make a good team. We’ll use this footage for something; I’m just not sure what.

  “We should all go to the hospital,” someone shouts. We seem split on this idea, and there is arguing in the crowd.

  “They could put you all on sedatives,” JuanCarlos suggests to me. “Make sure you don’t have another breakdown.”

  “What happens when the sedatives wear off?” I say in frustration. “Should we just be drugged for the rest of our lives? Regular doctors can't fix this!”

  Victor steps up beside me and speaks to the crowd, walking backward. “My sister is in the hospital! They think she's crazy! They aren’t doing anything for her except keeping her restrained!”

  “Aren't we?” Juliet says to me. “Aren't we crazy? Fiona thinks bugs are crawling under her skin. She could hurt herself. Adam believes a shadow conspiracy is out to get him. He won’t answer my texts. He’s probably become too paranoid to talk to anyone.”

  “We need to confront Matthew Weber!” I shout to the parade. “He did this to us! We wait it out! We stay together! Isolation makes it worse!”

  “And then what?” JuanCarlos says to me. “What’re we gonna do when Weber gets here?”

  “We're going to make things right!” I shout back to the crowd. “Whatever it takes!” Everyone seems in agreement; I even get a few cheers. It’s not really a plan, but at least it feels less like we’re about to riot. We have almost twenty-four hours to figure out something more actionable.

  JuanCarlos seems unmoved by my cries for justice.

  “What do you want from me?” I say to him. “I’m doing my best.”

  Some of us break off to get supplies for the night. The rest continues to BP. We need to fortify our home base.

  23.2

  We have brought sleeping bags and snacks into the mostly cleared-out BP store. It feels more like preparing for a slumber party than a coming battle. A makeshift community has sprung up. We get further acquainted. Maybe a few more has joined us since the meeting; it’s hard to keep track. It’s good, though. We need all the bel
onging we can muster to combat the effects of the catalog. Some people text or talk quietly on their cell phones, but most try to stay engaged with the people around them.

  Feeling lonely in a crowd is always a high risk.

  We wait for Matthew Weber on my advice. The collective acts like I’m in charge, and for the moment, I’m okay with that.

  Hours pass with nothing much happening except for emptiness expanding in my chest. I wish Loo could see us. She wanted people to rise up and come together to overthrow our oppressors, and now it’s happening. We’re connecting. I patrol and convince those that are off on their own to join in on card games and whatever else is going on around the store. Abigail and Bram make out in a corner. I feel weepy for no reason that I can think of. I’m thankful no tears fall.

  We will take BP down. I just have to figure out how, before this loneliness takes me down first.

  23.3

  The depression and alienation becomes a physical pain, but there’s nothing for it. The people I care about are all in this building. It has to be a catalog side-effect.

  “I need to go check on my sister,” Victor says, touching me on the shoulder. “Will you be okay?”

  My tight chest strangles my words: “We made it this far.” I don’t want him to know I’m in pain.

  He gives me a sad smile. He can see something is wrong, no matter how much I try to hide it. “I’ll be back.” He heads out, passing JuanCarlos as he comes in.

  I sit next to Tara on a sleeping bag. We watch JuanCarlos pass out coffee. Tara rests her head on my shoulder. I ache to be closer to her, but even though she’s right here, it’s like she’s sitting on the other side of the room.

  “I think I killed Loo,” I whisper. Adam killed himself, and I almost killed myself more than once. I could have easily killed Loo and somehow forgotten.

  Tara sits up and looks at me. “No, you didn't.”

  “I keep imagining her standing there in front of traffic. Maybe it’s a memory.”

  “We need you, Eric.”

  “I don't know if it's just in my head, or if—”

  “You didn't kill her!”

  I look at Tara. How can she know for sure? She grabs my hand and pulls me to the stockroom.