by Rex Bolt
“Good.”
“Also . . . Laureplann, the guy in New Mexico . . . that might have been Gram’s side of the family, a couple steps removed, that name. Just goes to show, I should have been more up on this shit.”
Mark said, “Interesting that most of the folks on your list, they live in small towns.”
“I was thinking that too. The other thing, the Bryce Waller, up in Redding? That Jeez, the guy’s my exact age.”
“You’re wondering, should you look him up . . . introduce yourself to your long-lost 4th cousin.”
“Yeah . . . but . . . couldn’t that set that off a can of worms? Meaning the guy asks how I found him, and I say through the genealogy site, and he gets excited and goes back in there to see what other unknown relatives he might look up . . . except he notices he’s not in there anymore. So then he straightens it out. Does the DNA test again, re-inserts himself.”
“Yeah good point,” Mark said. “Don’t look him up.”
They shot the breeze a little more and Mark gave Chris a couple dog biscuits to feed to Mel, and Mark said, “You brought up something kinda obvious there, and honestly I didn’t think of that.”
“Don’t sweat it. You were wrapped up in a significantly bigger task.”
“But . . . the workaround is -- you run these names periodically, the list -- all’s you have to do is make a fake account and you can search the database -- anyone can, it’s public . . . Unlikely the scenario with your Redding cousin is going to happen -- where someone starts all over again with the $99 late night TV DNA test -- but if you ever see it happen, let me know.”
“Fine. Sounds good. Thanks again.”
You could see Mark wasn’t quite good with this though, and he was massaging it, and after a couple minutes he said, “You know what? Don’t you worry about it. How we’ll handle it, I’ll go back in there and code an alert. To myself. So if that ever did happen -- any one of this group ever re-entering themself -- I’ll get an immediate notification.”
“Wow. So . . . visit the guy in Redding, after all, you’re saying?”
“Let’s not go that far, if we don’t have to. But yes, we’d have it covered.”
Chris took a moment. “What I like about you,” he said, “you take on your clients’ problems like they’re weighing on you just as bad. That’s an admirable quality . . . And I’ll sleep a lot better.”
“Well we both will,” Mark said, and they wrapped it up, and Chris wondered how far he could make it tonight, meaning the direction of New York again, and you’d see how that played out -- but it was sure nice to have some piece of mind for a change.
***
The business he’d been talking about recently, with someone or other -- oh yeah, it was Ned, speak of the devil -- but that they had to take a couple seconds every day and be thankful for the mostly-idyllic Manhattan Beach weather . . . that was playing out real true on this particular cross-country trek.
First of all the Sierras were rough, right off the bat, and they told him at his regular Starbucks in Colfax that 80 was screwed up, and there were chains required at the moment, from Baxter, which was 10 miles from here, to Boca, which was beyond Truckee . . . and Chris hated this process, and man, this was April 13th already, shouldn’t we be discussing wildflowers and hiking trails by now?
But apparently not this year, and one of the girls at the counter said her brother could help him, and she called the guy, and asked Chris what make and model his vehicle was, and she got back to the brother and the kid showed up promptly and had the right chains with him and took care of it -- and Chris threw the kid an extra 20 over what he charged him, well worth it to be sipping your Americano while the kid did the dirty work in the parking lot.
You thought of these things too late, but there had been a Subaru in the used lot on Sepulveda and Chris ignored it even though the salesman did mention the convenience-to-Tahoe business . . . but what could you do now, and you’d handled it, so forget it.
Except that it wasn’t quite so easy. There were more spots, eastern Nevada, little bluffs basically is all they felt like, but quite unfortunately they required chains to get up and down those as well, and Chris ended up exactly where he didn’t want to be, which was on his back, side of the road, trying to figure how to the fit the damn things on, and then remove them. Not once but twice, the whole shebang, and what was up with this, something he wasn’t aware of even in the high snow season, you needed chains or 4-wheel drive this part of highway 80 for Gosh sakes? And maybe the doomsdayers really were right about global warming messing with the cold stuff too.
Then three days of rain -- again not your spring showers variety, but hammering, thunderous stuff, the defrost on full blast and your eyes riveted to what little you could sometimes see of the road -- and Utah, Wyoming and Nebraska were pretty forgettable this time, and it wasn’t until Des Moines that it dried out . . . and then you had the reverse, it got hot, and that first night after the rain ended, little pull-off town called Casey, Chris took a walk for a little night air and the mosquitos, or black flies or whatever the heck, ate the shit out of him.
He was finally able to duck back into the motel room for a little relief, and there was air conditioning but it was making an inordinate amount of noise . . . and this was Tuesday night, and with the time change you wouldn’t be disturbing anyone out west, and Chris shut off the AC, and opened the windows and called Finch.
While it was ringing he noticed one of the screens was screwed up, and he could picture a perfect storm of bugs figuring it out pretty quick, but how much more damage could they do really.
“I’m glad you called,” Finch said, “we missed you.”
The was the point here, Chris felt a little funky too having to miss the Friday night session. “How was the assorted student writing this time?” Chris said.
“It was . . . unusual, once again. Including your piece.”
“So you’re telling me,” Chris said, trying to remember it, “you didn’t like the guy having to save the tour guide from Canada? I thought that part worked okay. Resolved a couple of things at least, but left the door open for a sequel.”
“I beg your pardon?” Finch said, and Chris realized that was his first idea, but he didn’t care for it too much, never wrote it down, and what he turned in was something different.
“I’m mixed up maybe,” Chris said. “Who read mine?”
“Holly. In fact she packaged the evening together for you. She made copies of everything. It would be a shame if you dropped out, Chris. I feel some momentum kicking in.”
“Who said anything about dropping out?”
“Ned alluded to it. He said you to had visit your aunt in Boca Raton, that it could take a few weeks, and that you’d in fact mentioned that if it agrees with you there, you might just stay.”
“Hmm,” Chris said. “All true I guess, but my guess is visiting aunts is over-rated . . . Listen, maybe I’ll give Holly a quick call.”
“Splendid. She can forward you the next assignment as well.”
“She . . . what’s the scoop there, anyhow, the phantom yacht broker guy?”
“You’re nosy.”
“I really am. I’m a fan of clarity.”
Finch said, “I’ve been curious myself. So I asked her.”
“Wow.”
“Not so much as a friendly inquiry, as calling her bluff.”
“Did it work?”
“Well, she did produce the gentleman, brought him to the session.”
“You’re kidding. And?”
“He’s a perfectly nice chap, but they’re a mismatch, if they actually are an item.”
“You’re worse than me, with the obnoxious opinions. How would you know?”
“First of all, he loved her piece. He defended it against even the mildest pushback, from Rosie and Ned and myself. Strictly between you and I, her piece was atrocious.”
“Ah. You’re saying though, he may not be floating her boat? Why don’t you step in
then, make a move.”
“I’m considering it. A real one.”
Chris was kidding, but this was amusing, let the old guy go for it. They said goodnight and Chris called Holly.
“Hey there,” she said.
“Not your fault,” he said, “but of all the current expressions out of the millenials’ mouths, that one hits the biggest nerve.”
“Well someone’s on their high horse, apparently,” she said.
“Let’s start over. Anything going on with you and Finch?” Not the question he intended to ask, but it slid out.
“I love Terry, you know that. So yes, there hopefully always will be.”
Chris let it go, don’t stir up more trouble, and he said, “He did say you had a recap? From Friday night?”
“Yes. Where are you?”
What did that have to do with anything? But you’d better keep in line with Ned’s Florida explanation and the route you’d therefore be taking, so Chris said, “Russette, Louisiana. Why?” No idea of course if this was a real town, anywhere in the country, but hopefully it did the trick.
“Because your piece this week,” she said, “it needs more color. Chris, when you visit these places, you have to look around . . . That’s what shapes good writing.”
“Observation, then,” he said.
“Precisely. You have the two men speaking in the bar in Venice, and that’s fine. But how can you expect the reader to connect the ski lift accident in Colorado?”
“It didn’t work?” Chris said.
“Chris, it was laughable. I mean I’m sorry to inject the tough love on you. But everyone was in agreement.”
“Okay then. Maybe I’ll have to re-work it . . . Whose was the best?”
“I’ve made copies for you. You can judge.”
“That’s okay, for now just give me the bottom line.”
“Well, one by one . . . Rosie’s was interesting. She had Carrie, riding in a float down 6th Avenue, the Puerto Rico day parade, and there’s someone in the parade throwing candy to the children in the crowd, and Carrie notices a mini-pack of pop tarts on the ground unaccounted for, and she climbs down off the float and retrieves it, and when she tries to get back on, the float runs over her foot.”
“Hmmph . . . Working in the symbolism then.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Forget that. Who went next?”
“Ned did. His character is on a hippy bus. Don’t forget, it’s 1968. Everyone’s getting high, and the character suggests stopping by a lake . . . and they all skinny dip, except the character, who gets a call, and sits by a tree and takes it. There’s quite a bit more too, Ned applied himself vigorously this week.”
Chris said, “They had cellphones in 1968?”
“They did not, and Rosie mentioned it right away, but I told Ned he could simply be interlacing dimensions, that it’s all about the story, and time and place is largely irrelevant.”
“I see . . . Ned okay with that . . . explanation?”
“Not in the least. He seemed pretty pissed off. He said he was going to have to re-write the whole scene.”
“And your work?” Chris said.
“Well do you have a couple minutes? I feel like this workshop is paying off, that I’m beginning to find my rhythm.”
“You better give me the abridged version. For now, I mean.”
“O-kay . . . Elinor fends off the advances of Claire’s husband. She returns to the cabin. She takes a shower. Claire comes in, carrying an Entemann’s pound cake, and they crack it open.”
Chris waited in case there was more, but there wasn’t.
“Well, sounds decent,” he said. “And the main thing, you’re leaving the door open for the next one.”
“Chris, you keep going there, but what if there isn’t a next one? Our works need to stand on their own.”
“How’d everyone react? To yours.”
“They loved it. Chris this is what I’m saying, we’re feeding off each other. The energy is quite special.”
“There’s a next assignment, then?” he said.
“You bet. Write the scene that takes place immediately after your inciting incident.”
“Well . . . I’ll do my best. I have to look up inciting incident first.”
“I’ll email you a definition, with examples . . . You can tell I’m fired up. Finch is amazing.”
“He is . . . he also mentioned, you brought your friend.”
“Ed. Yes I did . . . That veered slightly south, actually.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. On the way home, he expressed an odd, and in my mind, a destructive view -- that the whole evening was total garbage and a waste of time.”
“Is Ed, like a frustrated writer himself? That he’s not admitting to?”
“Chris? I’m so glad to hear you say that. The thought occurred to me as well.”
“So you can dump him and move on. You’re not on the same wavelength, clearly.” Again, meant as nothing more than sticking in the needle for a little fun, but Holly said, “You know something . . . that’s an excellent point. That may have been the final straw, I’m not kidding.”
Another example, Chris was thinking, how things can turn on a dime.
Chapter 13
You had the dip past Iowa City where I-80 dropped down to Davenport, and later the exchange below Chicago, where you jumped on 90 for a while, until you were back on track at Bristol, Indiana.
Chris was eating more than he should, especially in the middle of day, these darn full course meals, but what are you going to do, you walk in and you see stuff right away, on people’s tables, and the waitresses were so friendly and wholesome, one after another -- and you assumed all these people voted for Trump -- which Chris had too, but regretted, starting about a year ago.
But you got at least a feel for these folks’ way of life. You weren’t in the center of it, but you could sympathize to their concern about radical change from the other side.
These individuals in the middle of the country weren’t complicated, didn’t pretend to be, they were straight shooters, and Chris was convinced we need more of that -- and fine, maybe you should pay attention to Holly, try to interact with a purpose, observe and deduce things, use them to embellish your prose, but it seemed too confusing.
The text came from Mark Thursday evening in Ohio, around Grove City, a half hour past Youngstown. It said only: Something else.
That couldn’t be life or death, could it, and Chris was on a good roll today -- try to take advantage of the light and push on at least another hour -- meaning New York would be in reasonable striking distance tomorrow.
That would put it at 7 and a half days coast to coast. Not the quickest he’d done it, not even close, but considering the chains business followed by the ridiculous sky opening up torrentially back there -- and admittedly the extra-long, and increased meal stops -- it was good enough.
He hadn’t landed at any Super 8’s so far, you could typically depend on those in the no-surprises department, but tonight he tried a Hi-Ho Inn, not bad at all, it seemed to be a regional chain, and this one had a spic-n-span fitness room, so you could do your mile on the treadmill and then ease into a quite expansive and perfectly temperatur-ed hot tub -- meaning most of them needed about 6 more degrees but this one didn’t.
He hated it when people yakked on phones in places like hot tubs, but there was no around and he got back to Mark.
“Okay now don’t panic,” Mark said, and of course words like that always made you panic.
Chris said, “You mean am I sitting down?”
“What happened,” Mark said. “I ran the names again, just for the heck of it. You know, the one-week mark, before we close the door on it.”
“Huh.”
“And those were fine, your list. Nobody re-appeared. Fully confirming, that the hack took.”
“But something else,” Chris said.
“Yeah. While I was in there, I figured why not run your profil
e again -- I don’t why, there was no justification for it, we did our job.”
“Come on here. Jeeminy.”
“Another relative showed up. A new one . . . Nothing we did wrong. Just some guy, evidently deciding the last couple days to join the fun, your big happy DNA family. Guy’s name . . . I got it here . . . Marlon Studebakker, 56 years old, Detroit, Michigan.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Chris said, “but what else is new.”
“Here’s the situation,” Mark said. “I tried to hack him out right away. But it didn’t work.”
“Oh . . . so he’s like, entered in there different, somehow?”
“No, exactly the same. But my approach -- and I’m been going with a 32B3 -- didn’t take -- not because we did anything wrong, but I’m worrying now it’s only good once. Our method.”
Chris said, “Even worse then. Didn’t you tell me, you can re-hack any that re-emerge? So don’t worry about it? Such as my guy in Redding?”
“That I’m confident we can do,” Mark said. “employing the standard 32B3. It’s any new issuers, that it apparently doesn’t work for. You see -- not to get too technical -- but the system -- the algorithm -- essentially remembers our technique.”
“And blocks us for Round 2.”
“Not exactly. More involved than that. But the end result currently staring us in the face . . . yes, I’m afraid so, Chris.”
This was not good news, and talk about bursting your bubble. Chris told Mark not his fault, he’d done everything Chris asked him to, and who would anticipate an anomaly like this, and they hung up and Mark said to enjoy the rest of the trip and they’d figure something out, but it was hollow.
Fuck.
After all that -- if the cops ran his DNA tomorrow, it would put them straight to old Marlon in Michigan -- that barrel of laughs -- and now the cops are in the family tree, and it doesn’t matter that only one tree member at the moment has his DNA on file in there, it’s enough to figure out which relatives in California just might be committing crimes, and the inevitable paring it down from there.
Meaning, at the moment -- you’re right back where you started from. Before you did any lab work, before you consulted Mark.
