Life in a Fishbowl

by Len Vlahos

  And that’s as far as he could get. He knew what he wanted to say, or at least he thought he did, but couldn’t figure out how to get it down on paper. He wasn’t even sure what the first word of the next sentence might be.

  A friend in the legislature, a coauthor of the expansion to the Death with Dignity Act, offered to finish the editorial for Jared, but that somehow didn’t seem right. Jared just needed a bit more time with his mind sharp; if he could have more time he could put the editorial to bed. Unfortunately, the moments of true clarity were coming in shorter and less frequent bursts.

  Jared gave up on the editorial and lay back down on the floor. His mind kept making more interesting and unusual anagrams. His favorite was “life and death”—inflated head—something poetic that he hoped to remember to tell the producer for the next day’s interview segment of the show.

  He knew he should be turning his attention to more serious matters—his family, his future, his legacy—but he couldn’t seem to muster the interest. His brain was growing so devoid of memories that it was lacking context. For example, he knew his daughter Jackie was upset, but he wasn’t sure he knew what that really meant. He wasn’t even sure what he was supposed to feel.

  Jared lay for a long moment thinking about Jackie, when he had what he thought was an epiphany, if that was the right word. He propped himself up on one elbow and spoke to the dog in the dark. “Hey, Trey. I think I really fucked up.”

  Jared put his head back down, closed his eyes, and slept. The memory of that moment would be gone before he woke.

  ***

  Bobby the Hood had done his job. Sherman Kingsborough was utterly alone as he skulked around the rosebushes outside the Stone house. His entire body, other than his eyes, was clothed in black Lycra. His $6,300 digital watch—which was good to water depths of one hundred meters, showed all twenty-four time zones, and responded to a voice command with its own preprogrammed, New Zealand–accented woman telling you the correct time—was flashing 3:33 a.m., the same time it had been displaying for at least ten minutes. In a pique of frustration, Sherman took the watch off and ground it into the sod outside Jared’s kitchen. A muffled and lilting 3:33 a.m. seeped from the grass.

  Sherman crept on until he found the back door, the one that matched the entrance on the map Bobby provided. As promised, it was unlocked and unguarded.

  The house was completely dark. The only light came from a clock on the kitchen stove, which was, correctly, displaying the time as 3:51. Sherman took out his waterproof, plastic map of the house’s interior and studied it under the glow of his red penlight. The drawing had been done by a member of the Life and Death security staff, who was—at that very moment—en route back home to Juárez, Mexico, the $10,000 he had been paid tucked neatly into a money belt he wore beneath his new leather jacket. The same person provided Bobby with the information that Jared almost always spent the night in his office, which was circled on the map.

  Sherman moved forward on his belly, slithering out of the kitchen and up the stairs like a snake. He had practiced this so many times on his own stairs he could now move as if he had no bones in his body. When he reached the top, he checked the map again and realized he was right in front of the door to Jared’s office. He was so close his forehead almost touched the wood.

  He removed a twelve-inch hunting knife from the sheath that hung from his belt. Sherman clutched the knife in his hands and thought of the hours he practiced plunging the blade into the life-size dummy he had purchased. The dummy was meant for training guard dogs, but it had served his purpose. Sherman had done everything he could to mentally and physically prepare for this moment. The entirety of his brief life, he believed, had led to this place and time, had put him on the precipice of the ultimate human experience: the act of playing God.

  And then he paused.

  Who am I, he thought, to decide who should live or die? He lay there for a long moment, unable to move forward or move back. For a while, Sherman thought he might just stay there until the sun came up, letting the Stone family find him. Maybe, he thought, they can help me. But the feeling passed.

  “Who am I to decide who should live or die?” he asked again, this time whispering it aloud. “I am Sherman motherfucking Kingsborough, bi-otch, that’s who.” Proving once and for all that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

  With all the stealth he could muster, Sherman reached up and turned the knob of the door, nudging it open gently. His constant attention to his physical being, his trials on Everest and in sailboats and on hang gliders and bungee cords, and his hours of practice specifically for this night had paid off. Sherman Kingsborough entered Jared Stone’s private lair as if he were a ghost. He closed the door behind him. His moment had come.

  ***

  As Jared slept, Glio was in the midst of consuming what Jared once described as a transcendental memory. He was at Big Sky Resort, sitting on a log in front of the BBQ shack at the top of the quad lift that served the gentler of the resort’s two mountains.

  Snowflakes were drifting lazily by, sticking to his gloves, hat, and eyelashes as he sipped hot chocolate and listened to Marshall Tucker sing “Can’t You See,” the music blaring through speakers outside the shack. It was one of the few times in Jared’s life that he was completely and utterly in the moment. Nothing existed before that time and nothing after it. Jared, and now Glio, was perfectly centered. This, Glio thought, is what it means to be alive.

  Jared had traveled to Montana with two guy friends during a college break. Deirdre, who he had been dating for almost a year, hadn’t come along on the trip. It was the thought of Deirdre that pulled him out of his reverie. And that’s when he knew he was no longer complete without her. He—Jared, Glio, both of them—was going to propose to Deirdre as soon as he got back to New York. Thinking that, knowing that, was one of the happiest moments of his life.

  It was just at that instant, at the very zenith of his emotional contentment, when an eardrum-shattering scream exploded in Glio’s head, or would have if Glio had had a head.

  ***

  While Sherman Kingsborough was slithering into Jared Stone’s home office in Portland, Hazel Huck, two hours later in Central time, was just waking up to get ready for school. Like much of America, she had been watching Life and Death. And like much of America, she’d been transfixed.

  Having spent so much energy trying to raise money to help Jared, Hazel found it jarring to actually see the man and his family. He wasn’t what she had expected, but then she wasn’t really sure what that was.

  Hazel liked Jared, Deirdre, Jackie, Megan, and Trebuchet. They were a nice family. She especially liked Jackie’s act of defiance, painting the camera lenses. She knew she would have done exactly the same thing, because, if she was being honest, something about the show left a bad taste in her mouth. Jared Stone looked like he had comfort, and she presumed he would have wealth, but it seemed to her that he’d sold out, that there had to be a better way to die.

  As she watched the Stone family, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d failed them. That she was supposed to save them. But it didn’t matter. It was all beyond her control.

  Hazel stepped out of her pajama bottoms and trudged into the bathroom, trying to put the Stone family out of her mind, at least until eight p.m. that night.

  ***

  While the door to Jared’s office was clicking shut, Sister Benedict was lying in bed, unable to sleep. In three short hours, her forces would mobilize. With the Cardinal’s blessing, the Sister had organized a small army of the righteous to surround the Stone household in protest of the grotesque television show being filmed there.

  In addition to the Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration, Sister Benedict had pledges of support from three other area convents—the Sisters of Holy Mercy, the Order of His Holy Brides of Repentance, and the plainly named Sisters of the Crucifixion—as well as from dozens of parishioners. If she played her cards right, and if the good Lord blessed her with media covera
ge, Sister Benedict knew that her effort would take on a life of its own, attracting good and devout Catholics from throughout the region.

  Sister Benedict didn’t need sleep. She was infused with the power of God.

  ***

  A thousand miles south, Ethan Overbee sat on his Malibu terrace, staring at the white foam of the dark waves crashing on the beach. He was swirling a glass of translucent Hierbas in his hand. Ethan rarely slept more than three or four hours a night, and he knew that on this night, sleep would be elusive, if it came at all. He was happy to sit in the chill air and think.

  In ten short hours, the ATN board was scheduled to meet. Ethan planned to use the political capital provided to him by the early success of Life and Death to begin his assassination of Thaddeus St. Claire. He would start slow, using this first meeting to call attention to Thad’s skepticism about airing the show. Over the coming months he would paint Thad as being out of touch, a relic of the days of sitcoms and dramedies, someone deserving of a gold watch, a severance package, and maybe a cruise.

  Ethan dozed there on his chair, his dreams of power and avarice blending with the repetitive tones of the ocean, lulling him into a sleeplike trance. He could hear his name over and over again in the folding waves.

  “Ethan … Ethan … Ethan …”

  ***

  Unaware of an intruder in their house, Deirdre, Jackie, and Megan all slept.

  ***

  Sherman Kingsborough lay on the floor of Jared’s office, the knife in his hand. The room was pitch-black, and Sherman was sorry he hadn’t brought a pair of night-vision goggles. He waited for his eyes to adjust, but the darkness was nearly absolute.

  Then he heard breathing.

  Jared Stone.

  Sherman crawled slowly toward the sound, a siren song leading him to his destiny. The anticipation and excitement of the moment were everything he’d hoped they would be. This was Everest all over again.

  He stopped just short of the body; close enough to feel the breath on his forehead. Jared must have been sleeping on his back with his head turned to the side. His breath, Sherman thought, is foul.

  Careful not to touch Jared and wake him up—now that he was this close, he realized he didn’t want a struggle—Sherman raised the knife above his head, estimating where Jared’s chest would be, paused one more time to check his resolve, and brought the blade down with all the strength his muscles could manage.

  The knife found its victim, the flesh and bone giving more resistance than Sherman expected. But Sherman’s well-toned, twenty-three-year-old arms, amped up on speed, had pushed with enough force that the knife went all the way to the floor.

  In that instant, the moment the blade stopped its forward motion and caused Sherman’s arms to recoil, two haunting sounds stunned him into immobility. First was a tremendous, inhuman howl of agony, hurt, surprise, and death. Sherman wasn’t ready for that. Every fiber of his being now rebelled, wanting only to pull the knife out and turn back time. Surely, he thought, I can turn back time. I’m Sherman motherfucking Kingsborough, bi-otch. But the “motherfucking” and the “bi-otch” had lost all their edge. His brain even added an “Aren’t I?”

  The second sound was a very confused “What the fuck?”

  ***

  Nineteen-year-old James Wynn was the first person to reach Jared’s office in the wake of Sherman’s attack. He was a production assistant, which he had quickly learned meant “any freaking job we want you to do,” and had been in the truck with the third-shift director, watching as Sherman Kingsborough slithered into the pitch-black room.

  “Who the hell is that?” said the director, a twenty-five-year-old recent graduate of UCLA who had landed the job through the good graces of an uncle at the network. He was pointing at a monitor showing the view from a camera equipped with a night-vision filter.

  “Does he have a knife?” James asked the question to no one in particular as he peered closer to the screen.

  “Holy shit!” the director screamed. “Get in there!” He grabbed his cell phone and dialed 911. James, who stood five feet seven inches tall and weighed all of 125 pounds, fully clothed and soaking wet, bolted from the control truck without stopping to think about what he might be running into. He was across the lawn, in the front door, and halfway up the flight of stairs when he heard the howl. His blood ran cold, but he still managed to push himself faster. He reached the office door a step ahead of Deirdre and Megan.

  James paused for a second, sucked a breath deep into his chest, and pushed the door open. He reached in and flipped the light switch just inside the room.

  It took him a minute to process the scene, his comprehension quickly aided by Deirdre’s scream, and then Megan’s. He could hear Mrs. Stone usher her daughter away.

  There, in the middle of the office, sitting on the floor were Sherman Kingsborough and Jared Stone, both shielding their eyes from the sudden introduction of light. Just to Sherman’s left, lying in a pool of blood, was Trebuchet, panting his final breaths.

  “What the fuck?” Jared said again. He grabbed his temples and rolled onto his side.

  James, like Sherman, was speechless.

  Trebuchet gave one more whimper and gave up on life. That’s when they heard the sirens.

  PART FOUR

  House (of Stone) Arrest

  Tuesday, October 13

  Maxim Andreevich Vasilcinov liked Jackie Stone. He liked her a lot. In fact, she was his only friend.

  Max was the plump, pimply only child of a single mother. The photo he used for his Facebook profile was the result of an Internet search for “cute teen boy.” He didn’t have a girlfriend, he had never even held another girl’s hand, and he wasn’t particularly good at sports; nothing about the persona he presented to Jackie Stone was real.

  When Max first heard about the social media exchange program, he was crestfallen. Now, he thought, I can be reviled by children on two continents. When he told his mother that he didn’t want to participate, she lifted his chin and stared deep into his eyes. “Solnyshko,” she said, “maybe this is a good thing. Maybe this is a chance to wipe the slate clean, to be the person you wish you could be.”

  Hearing that was like clouds parting over Max’s ever so slightly misshapen head. He took the advice to heart.

  He bought a special notebook and wrote pages and pages about the new Maxim Vasilcinov. In his fantasy, he had two parents; his father was a bureaucrat with the ministry of education, and his mother stayed at home to take care of him and his younger sister, Sasha. He had many friends at school, and he was a very fast runner. He was learning to play guitar on an old, used electric that his father had purchased from a secondhand shop. His favorite songs to play were by Green Day and Nirvana. And, so far, he had kissed three different girls.

  Not one word of it was true.

  The deeper Max delved into his imaginary world, the more engrossed he became. He started, on some level, to believe that the fantasy Max was real. The other students at his school didn’t notice that, since the invention of this new Max, the old Max was walking a little taller, with a little more swagger. To them, he would always be “malo mudak,” the little ass. But he didn’t care, or at least he didn’t care as much as he used to.

  When the day finally came that he would meet his new Facebook friend, he was ready. Max had memorized his new life, had practiced different phrases; he would be bold and daring and all the things real life had beaten out of him. His teacher, a Polish immigrant named Miss Loskywitz, didn’t say anything when she saw that Max was using a picture other than his own for his profile. She thought he was a nice boy who needed a break.

  Max presumed Jackie was a boy when they first met. (Jackie’s profile picture was of Trebuchet.) When he realized Jackie was a girl, his heart sank. Not only was his fiction designed specifically for an American boy, he didn’t know how to even begin to talk to girls.

  But it didn’t matter. Jackie made it easy. She made everything easy.

 
Before long, Max was telling her about his fondness for movies, how he had studied all the great filmmakers, going as far back as Russia’s own Eisenstein and his film Battleship Potemkin, and right up to and including the films of David Fincher. His mother even bought him a cheap video camera for his fourteenth birthday, and Max, using a pirated copy of Avid editing software, spent most nights cutting together snippets and vignettes cribbed from video-upload sites. More than anything in the world, Max wanted to emigrate to Los Angeles, New York, or London and make movies. Having a connection to an American teenager seemed like a good first step, especially one as nice as Jackie.

  It was clear to Max that Jackie was as unhappy in her life as he was in his. He almost came clean, telling her the truth about himself, but couldn’t do it. He was too invested in the new Max. And besides, he thought maybe Jackie needed someone like the new Max in her life. She deserved better than the real Max.

  He wasn’t ready to admit it to himself, but Max was falling for his new pen pal … falling hard.

  ***

  Jackie was having a dream about Max when Megan’s scream woke her up. She leaped out of bed and went for the door on pure instinct, but something deep in her gut stopped her. She stood there, hand on the doorknob, panting and afraid.

  No more, Jackie’s brain was telling her, no more.

  She could hear the commotion down the hall, near her father’s office. People were talking loudly and they sounded hysterical.

  No more.

  She sat back down on the edge of her bed, her hands folded in her lap. The trouble, she knew, would eventually come to her.

  Jackie, who was one and a half years older than Trebuchet, thought of herself as the dog’s older sister. Her very first memories were of petting Trebuchet, her fingers plunging deep into his fur and grabbing his skin, the dog staying still and letting her explore, never complaining, never barking, never nipping.