by Tim Wirkus
“When I got to my mailbox, my mood only improved; I found a letter inside informing me that I had won a short story contest put on by a magazine in Portugal. It was not a great prize but it was a good prize, and what’s more, it was a contest I had forgotten I’d entered. I tucked the notice into my shirt pocket and ran quietly up the stairs. I walked down the hallway, past the door to my neighbor’s still-lit apartment. I paused. I walked back several steps and, on a whim, knocked lightly on my neighbor’s door.
“He answered almost immediately, pulling the door open wide, still dressed for work. Behind him, I could see an elaborate game of solitaire laid out on the battered kitchen table. Jaunty music played quietly in the background—Chico Buarque, maybe, or Caetano Veloso. My neighbor asked me what he could do for me. I told him I had good news, news worth celebrating, and would he like to join me for a drink, or maybe a bite to eat?
“He didn’t respond right away. He waited for what must have been only a few seconds, but it felt to me like minutes, hours even, as I watched him consider my friendly proposal. I hadn’t realized before I spoke how vulnerable I would feel extending this invitation. I’d suffered some personal losses recently and was—in ways that I understand now, but didn’t at the time—aching for a human connection.”
Salgado-MacKenzie paused at this point, lost in his own recollections. When he resumed his story, he spoke directly to me.
“You didn’t even answer,” he said. “Not a word. You just looked at me like I was nothing, and you shut that dark wooden door in my face. We never spoke again after that, until this evening.”
His story over, Salgado-MacKenzie considered me through heavy-lidded eyes, and then shrugged back into the same cringing posture I had found him in, his gaze fixed on the carpet.
Naturally, I was horrified. I consider myself a basically kind person, and to treat someone that way would go against everything I believe in. My first impulse was to apologize, but the problem was, I had absolutely no memory of the incident, or of ever meeting Salgado-MacKenzie. His face remained stubbornly unfamiliar.
Part of me still hoped this was a terrible mistake, but I knew that voicing that possibility would only insult the man further. I had no idea what to say, and so I stood there, dumbstruck.
After a moment, Eduard Salgado-MacKenzie gave a snort of disgust, shoved past me, and left the party.
• • •
Sérgio shook his head. The tiny office had grown hot and stale over the course of his story. He leaned over and pushed the door, already slightly ajar, all the way open, and a soft rush of slightly cooler air drifted in. Sérgio brushed at something on the back of his hand and looked back up at me.
“It’s a terrible feeling, being reviled by a lifelong idol,” he said. “It’s even worse to consider that I might have deserved it.” He gave his beard a melancholy scratch. “More vexing still, though, is the question of why I don’t remember the encounter or even the man’s face. How could I forget someone that I’m supposed to have spoken with frequently?” He shook his head. “One possibility is that I was so wrapped up in myself at the time that the man next door never truly registered on my consciousness. Sad as that may be, it’s very possible. I was young and fascinated by my own potential, and that can blind you to so much.
“I also, as a journalist, talked to a lot of people over the course of any given day, and that can blur conversations together, even make them disappear. So I can see how I might not have remembered him. But still, I can’t imagine what would impel me to slam the door in the face of someone who’d just made such a simple, friendly gesture.”
Sérgio was looking increasingly despondent. I decided to throw in my two cents.
“Maybe he made the whole thing up,” I said. “There’s at least one inconsistency in his story.”
“The mail?” said Sérgio.
“Right,” I said. “If Salgado-MacKenzie had all his editorial mail sent to a post office box, then why was he getting an award notification at home?”
“Exactly,” said Sérgio. “I’ve thought a lot about that. But it doesn’t mean he was lying. It could be a minor misremembered detail, or maybe he sometimes submitted stories via his home address. Really, it’s a small enough inconsistency that, if I’m being honest with myself, I have to admit doesn’t invalidate his story.”
He sighed heavily and stared into an empty corner of the office.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Sérgio nodded, eyes still distant.
He said, “I’ve tried to track him down since then, but with no luck. Salgado-MacKenzie put out a few more short stories during the early nineties, and then nothing. Radio silence.”
Throughout Sérgio’s story, I’d temporarily forgotten my own troubles, but as he wrapped up his account, thoughts of my failed novel came flooding back. I felt claustrophobic and queasy, suddenly desperate to get out of the tiny office.
“I should probably go,” I said.
Sérgio scooted his desk/chair combo back, the legs screeching against the floor.
“Why don’t you open that bottom drawer,” he said, pointing to the filing cabinet. I swiveled around, knocking my shoulder against the front edge of Sérgio’s desk, and opened the drawer. Instead of pharmaceuticals, I found hanging files, binders, and notebooks.
“That manila folder in front,” said Sérgio. “Hand it to me, would you?”
I did, and while he leafed through its contents, I stood up and moved closer to the door, which only entailed taking a half step to my right. If I moved any farther, I’d be out in the hallway.
“Here it is,” said Sérgio.
He pulled a stapled packet from the folder and held it out to me.
“It’s a story by Salgado-MacKenzie,” he said. “Take it. Read it.”
II
I didn’t read the story. Instead I went back to my hotel and slept for eleven hours. Some people, when they’re in trouble, can’t sleep. Their problems rattle around their skulls like rocks in a polishing tumbler, and the noise keeps them up for hours. For me, it’s the opposite. When I’m in a tight spot, it’s like my brain overloads and there’s nothing to do but shut down. Sometimes I don’t even dream; I just lose consciousness for as long as my body can manage to stay asleep. It’s great, until I wake up the next morning and my troubles return, reinvigorated by their own night’s rest.
Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened when I came to at 6:00 a.m. in my hotel room, still fully dressed in the clothes I’d been wearing the day before. I had managed to get my shoes off, so that was something. I sat up in bed, my clothes warm and wrinkled. The worst part was I had jeans on, and the only thing worse than sleeping in jeans is wearing them swimming.
I felt terrible.
This whole trip, Fortescue had been keeping me on a very short leash. Each morning I was required to email him an update on the research I’d done the day before, as well as the research I planned to complete that day.
My emails were vague yet positive, but I’d grown certain that Fortescue could smell the failure through my carefully worded missives and, like a bored tiger, was merely toying with me until he could administer the swift killing blow to my tender neck. I had no idea what I’d tell him in today’s email, but I had to send it soon or I would miss his arbitrarily imposed deadline and incur whatever dire consequences lay in store.
I got out of bed, showered, and walked the half mile to the Biblioteca Anita Garibaldi as quickly as I could. Sitting down at the sleek, mid-century-modern worktable in the library’s computer lab, I set to work on my email. I updated Fortescue on the previous day’s research and then floated a hypothetical past him. Say I couldn’t write this novel—what happens then?
I sent off the email, looked at a couple of news sites, and read an article from SPIN (or maybe it was Rolling Stone) arguing that power pop’s true golden age ran from 1990 to 1997, and
that the era’s—and the genre’s—greatest album, Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend, stands as a monumental testament to that fact. I was on board with the nineties-as-golden-age part of the argument, and I do like Girlfriend, but I certainly wouldn’t rank it as the greatest power pop album of all time, or even of the nineties. (My top five nineties power pop albums? 1. Kon Tiki by Cotton Mather, 2. Fountains of Wayne’s eponymous debut album, 3. Frosting on the Beater by The Posies, 4. Girlfriend by Matthew Sweet, 5. Regretfully Yours by Superdrag.)
I closed the article and was about to log off when I saw a new message in my inbox from Fortescue. His speed alarmed me, and with good reason.
His email started out positive, all rah-rah, halftime, go-fight-win speak. He knew I could do it, blah, blah, blah. In the second paragraph, though, he answered my question. Failure to fulfill the terms of our contract would force the Coalition of Aggrieved Christians to repossess the funds they’d awarded me, pursuing legal action if necessary. Interest would be charged.
I read through the email a second time, and then a third. On the one hand, it was a relief to know exactly where I stood. On the other hand—and more important—I owed a shady religious organization seven thousand dollars, plus interest. I don’t know if that sounds like a lot of money to you, but at the time, it was enough to demolish me. I was in bad trouble.
I know you must think I was overlooking the most obvious solution to my problem. Why not just write the novel? The truth is, I’d already been trying to for months by that point, since before I’d applied for the grant even. I’d always believed that writer’s block was a luxury available only to established writers and smarmy, well-funded MFA students. Who else could afford to spend their time not writing, not moving forward on their next project?
And I guess my problem wasn’t writer’s block exactly. I was writing plenty—two thousand words a day, sometimes—but all of it was terrible. I would draft the novel’s first chapter, spend weeks revising it, and then realize I hated it down to its bones and no amount of revision could save it. A few times I tried moving forward anyway, writing a second and a third chapter, but every time I did I despised each successive chapter even more than the one before it. I don’t mean this to sound arrogant, but the problem wasn’t a lack of talent on my part. Over the previous few years I’d developed a hard-won technical proficiency, but unfortunately even the most elegant sentence in the world couldn’t mask the lack of heart in those failed drafts. You could almost hear rats’ feet scurrying through the dry cellar that lay beneath every word I wrote.
I had hoped that my visit to São Paulo would imbue me with some grand sense of purpose. Instead, it had forced me to admit that this project as I’d imagined it—a grandiose Portrait of the Artist as a Young Missionary—was never going to happen. I don’t want to get too much deeper into the details of why the novel didn’t work out; that’s not what this story is about. The short answer, though, is that I’d put too much pressure on the project. I was still stinging from all the grad school rejections. My financial situation was grim. I lacked conviction, artistic and otherwise. And so this novel needed to rescue me. It needed to radiate indisputable genius and it needed to sell a million copies. Instead, not surprisingly, it collapsed in on itself.
I read through Wayne Fortescue’s email again, hoping that this time I’d notice a smiley face or a “J/K!!!” at the end of his paragraph of threats. No such luck. My fear was starting to go septic, and by the time I logged off the computer, I reeked with fury at stupid Wayne Fortescue and his stupid Coalition of stupid Aggrieved Christians, but most of all, at stupid me for signing the stupid contract to write a stupid novel that I now hated the thought of.
I needed to clear my head. I slung my backpack over my shoulder and headed for the nearest exit.
I was almost to the door when Sérgio stepped out from behind a bookcase, head buried in a newspaper. I had to skip to the side to keep from bumping into him.
“Daniel,” he said. “So sorry.”
Today’s T-shirt, partially obscured beneath his buttoned blazer, featured Iron Maiden, a band more beloved in Brazil than maybe anyplace else in the world.
“It’s fine,” I said.
“A dangerous habit,” he said, lifting up the newspaper. “Walking while reading.”
“Really,” I said, “don’t worry about it.”
I took a step toward the door.
“I am glad I caught you, though,” he said, tucking the newspaper under his arm. “What did you think of the story?”
The truth was, I’d completely forgotten about it.
“Right,” I said. “The Salgado-MacKenzie.”
“The very one,” he said.
I hadn’t read it but a lie seemed like the quickest way out the door.
“Yeah,” I said. “It was pretty good.”
“Pretty good?” said Sérgio.
“Yeah,” I said. “Not bad.” Sérgio arched an eyebrow at this. I went on. “And also, I just want to thank you for all your help with the research and everything. I may not be coming back to the library before I fly home, because I’m going to be doing some on-the-ground type stuff for the next few days. You know, getting reacquainted with the city and whatnot. So, thanks.”
Sérgio tapped his folded newspaper against his chin while he considered this, sphinxlike.
“It was my pleasure,” he said finally. “Good luck to you.”
Before I could get entangled further, I told Sérgio that I had to run and then stepped out the door into the eucalyptus-and-exhaust-scented air of the city. I walked, head down, earbuds plugged in, to the nearest metrô station, swiped my ten-day pass, and boarded the first train that pulled up to the platform.
I must have looked as angry as I felt, because the other passengers kept their distance, eyeing me warily, a toxic blond ogre stinking of huffy failure. As I watched the city pass by through the window—towering skyscrapers, bustling church-side praças, clusters of plywood shanties—I remembered the story that Sérgio had given me. I felt bad about lying to him—he’d been nothing but generous to me, and the story obviously meant a lot to him. I should just read it.
I found the pages, all crumpled, at the bottom of my backpack. I sat down in an open seat, smoothed out the creased paper, and started to read.
III
The story begins with Captain Irena Sertôrian and her crew, dangerously low on provisions, making an emergency supply stop on an unknown planet. They touch down in an abandoned rocket port near a small, picturesque village. The way Salgado-MacKenzie describes it, the village sounds like a painting by Norman Rockwell: broad, tree-lined streets; white picket fences; front-porch rocking chairs—the works. And next to the village is a beautiful blue lake.
As Sertôrian and her crew cautiously approach the village, they’re met by a small welcoming party, all smiles. A man in a three-piece suit introduces himself as the mayor, and a kindly old woman presents them with a strawberry rhubarb pie still warm from the oven. Sertôrian thanks them for their hospitality and explains their predicament. She asks the mayor if the town could spare some fuel and basic provisions. The mayor thinks about this for a second and then says his town would be happy to help, but it will take them a day or so to get the necessary supplies together. In the meantime, Sertôrian and her crew will be the honored guests of the town. Sertôrian thanks him profusely.
The mayor bows and wishes them well, and then the kindly old woman, the one who gave them the pie, leads them to the boardinghouse she runs and tells them to make themselves at home. That evening, they all enjoy a hearty, home-cooked dinner together, the best food they’ve eaten in ages. While they’re polishing off the last of the roast bisonium, the mayor stops by and invites them all to go for a swim with him in the lake the next morning. The lake, he says, is the village’s pride and joy. Sertôrian says they’d be honored to swim in the lake, and the mayor wishes them a good even
ing.
That night, the crew sleeps extremely well, and the next morning, after a hearty breakfast, they meet the mayor down at the edge of the lake. He’s there with two smiling villagers—tall, broad-shouldered men—and they’re dressed in this iridescent dive gear that’s kind of incongruous with the aesthetic of the story so far. They have extra gear for Sertôrian and her crew, and while they all suit up, the mayor tells them about the lake.
He says the lake is deeper than any other on their planet, and that to understand the people of this village, one must plumb the depths of the lake’s dark waters. He says that to do so is an honor rarely extended to foreigners, but that, as they will soon understand, Sertôrian and her crew have earned it.
After that, there’s a pretty tedious passage describing a short hike to a special cliff that they’re all going to jump from. Not much happens, but the story goes on and on about the smooth pristine surface of the lake and the fathomless depths below. Eventually, though, they make it to the cliff and everybody jumps into the water.
That’s where things really start to pick up. Down they all go, dive suits shimmering, and the deeper they sink, the uneasier Sertôrian and her crew become. They were on their guard already, this being an unfamiliar situation on an unknown planet, but now they really start to worry. They’d been anticipating something more recreational, but the mayor swims toward the bottom of the lake with this steely determination. This definitely isn’t play, or unstructured exploration. They’re headed someplace specific.
The other weird thing is that they’re being pulled to the bottom of the lake somehow. Since they’re actively swimming downward, nobody notices it at first, but then Sertôrian stops kicking for a second, and she doesn’t slow down at all. She signals her crewmates and they see her, legs not moving, descending as quickly as the rest of them. This makes them all pretty nervous. One of them tries swimming upward, but it’s no use; they all keep hurtling down toward the bottom of the lake.
