On the desk, a remote control for the stereo.
That wasn’t there a moment ago!
He squeezed his eyes shut, keeping them closed until a spray of bright, blue-white stars exploded upon his mind’s eye. But when he opened them, the stereo was still there along with its wall-mounted speakers and its remote control for adjusting volume and track selection. The archaic record player and its collection of old vinyls were gone—gone as if he had simply imagined them.
“You’re losing it, Jack,” he said through clenched teeth, each word spoken slowly and clearly, as if somehow hoping to press the message home by sheer force of will, a spell he was ill-equipped to cast. None of this was here before. You didn’t just imagine the old record player. You looked up at the walls at least three times, and never saw any speakers. None.
But they are there now. Along with the CD’s. And on his desk, a—
He stopped himself, realizing he was already thinking of the place as his. It went beyond passing familiarity or a sense of squatter’s rights, the way a bum owns the alley where he sleeps. He was already accepting the idea that this was the place he was supposed to be, that he was the caretaker per the Writer’s directive, and that this place—impossibly, improbably, unbelievably—was his. Shouldn’t he sign something: paperwork, release forms, something?
And even if he did, how would that explain what was happening. He was a caretaker—nothing more—for a quirky, abandoned saloon. That was all.
Right?
Things don’t just happen because you want them to.
Or do they?
He hated the silence of a moment ago, silence eerily filled with desert wind and strange, imagined words like telepathic sendings. He wanted to hear voices, or the clatter of neglected shutters on squeaking hinges, car tires on hot blacktop … or music. Hating the silence that seemed only to feed his unease, he wanted more than anything else to hear music, some distant radio or the jukebox from downstairs. Something. But the only thing to listen to up here was a ridiculous antique with a scratchy collection of vinyl records, all older than he was. It would have only made him feel worse.
But now he had a stereo and several CDs … just like he wanted.
This is nuts, Jack. You know that. This is nuts, and so are you if you think for one minute that anything you’re thinking actually happened. There has to be an explanation.
He threw the CD player a wary look then started down the spiral stair. Maybe the beer was making him light-headed. Maybe he’d suffered a mild concussion from the train. Or maybe it was heat exhaustion. Anything was possible. Maybe he had simply overlooked things; things he was now seeing for the first time.
Or maybe you’re going insane.
And that was when he heard it, the distinct and entirely unexpected sound of a ringing telephone. He didn’t remember seeing a phone when he arrived. Not anywhere.
Nor did he recall speakers and a CD player with a remote control…
Rinnnnng.
He hurried down the steps, knowing the call was for him. He didn’t know why he knew this, but the same way he found the Corona and lime in the refrigerator, he knew the phone was someone trying to reach him, and he had to hurry.
Rinnnnng.
Wherever the phone was, when he found it, the person on the other end would be asking for him. Forget that he didn’t even know where he was, much less how anyone else should know to reach him here, the phone would be for him.
Rinnnnng
He rounded the iron stairs, listened to the distant ring, then charged out into the hall and down to the first floor.
Rinnnnng
He scanned about the saloon quickly, searching for anything that might explain the presence of a sound where there shouldn’t be one. And there, affixed to the wall beside the bat-wing doors, as big as life, as clear as day, was a payphone that definitely had not been there before. He had walked through those doors twice, and would certainly have remembered that. A means of contacting the outside world was not something you overlooked when you were lost.
Rinnnnng
But it couldn’t have been there before! It couldn’t!
Jack crossed the room and yanked up the receiver before it could ring again. “Hello?”
The reply came back, tinny and distant as though from the bottom of a mine shaft, the ocean floor, the sunless depths of the Mariana Trench; words whispered through a thirty foot length of pipe: “Hello, Jack. How are you getting along so far?”
It was the Writer!
* * *
“What the hell’s going on?” he shrieked.
“I missed the train,” the Writer said. “I’m sorry.”
And Jack knew immediately that the Writer was lying; not on the face of what was said, but something behind it. He had no idea how he knew this or why, but he did. The Writer was lying—and not very well—to cover a bigger lie.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m helping you to become a writer. That is what you wanted, isn’t it? I thought we discussed this yesterday morning over raspberry-mocha lattés.”
“Are you crazy?” Jack screamed. “What am I doing here? And where the hell is here?”
“Calm down, Jack,” The Writer said, his voice gentle and firm; it was the same tone Jack’s father used when Jack was just a child and still afraid of the dark. “I know everything must seem very … bewildering, so I’ll do my best to answer your questions, but we don’t have much time. Phones are not actually allowed in the Saloon. In fact, there is no contact at all between the Edge and this world—or any world for that matter. This is an exception due to extenuating circumstances. I’m telling you this because I need to explain a few things, and I need you to not interrupt.”
There was something in his voice so profoundly serious, so absolutely certain, that it calmed some of Jack’s confusion just listening to it. “Can you tell me what happened? Why you missed the train?”
“I did mention to you that you were not the only one interested in the Sanity’s Edge Saloon. Many have killed for possession of this place; some have slaughtered thousands just for the opportunity to try and obtain it. The Saloon passed to you fairly, but that doesn’t mean that the others won’t try to take it from you.”
“What does that mean? What am I supposed to do?”
“Don’t worry, Jack. Four other people will be joining you shortly. As the Caretaker, it will be your duty to protect them and help them back on their way. To do that, you need to write about them. Rather, write them. Their lives will come from your stories. Four people. Four stories. Four return tickets. The fifth and final ticket is yours, of course. The Caretaker has to look after those under his care first before he can take care of himself.”
Jack felt a heavy, sinking feeling in his stomach, copper-coated and sour like cold metal shavings. “Do you realize how crazy that sounds?”
“Yes, Jack, I do,” the Writer said patiently. “But you don’t understand everything. The Sanity’s Edge Saloon is not just some abandoned building in the middle of a big desert. The Edge is a material manifestation of the Nexus, a focal point for all the lines of reality in all the universes. Matter and energy exist in the Nexus in their rawest, most malleable forms; reality at the Edge is created not by rules that exist as universal constants, but by the will of the individual. One individual: the Caretaker. It probably sounds like magic. Who knows, maybe it is. But you have to control it, Jack. You have to shape it to your will, not let it bend or twist out from your grasp. It will if you’re not careful.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Jack wanted to know. “Nothing works right. There’s no one around anywhere. The only food I can find is inside an archaic candy machine that’s on the verge of blowing a fuse, and that food won’t last a week even if, by some slim chance, the machine does.”
“I don’t know anything about a candy machine, Jack,” the Writer confessed. “Nothing works except what you make work. It’s a reflection of you, your desires, wants, and needs. The
Edge provides what you need, and sometimes what you want, but its methods are … capricious. It won’t always do what you expect, and sometimes it will carry things out in a bizarre or indirect fashion. But it will get you what you need, always.”
“I don’t understand,” Jack pleaded, desperately hoping for a simple answer, and knowing at the same time that one would not be forthcoming, was perhaps impossible to give.
“You will in time. All Caretakers come to understand in time. The Edge is your personal servant, your concierge, your very own jinni.”
Jack shook his head despairingly. The Writer was insane. Worse, his madness was contagious, a virus traveling easily upon the rims of latté mugs, and breeding the crazed belief that the diseased was a mad wizard’s apprentice/storyteller overseeing a reality which blended Wonderland with a dark William S. Burroughs novel of insanity and junk addiction to come up with a curious glom of madness and fiction, dream and metaphor.
And it was consuming him whole.
I’ve gone mad, Jack thought. I’ve gone completely mad. This is all a delusion. It has to be. I’m really in a sanitarium chewing Thorazine and explaining my entire fucked-up view of reality to a kindly intern who’s only listening because he’s paid to hold my dick while I pee because my arms are tied up in a straitjacket.
“Listen carefully, Jack. This is important. You don’t have a lot of time. You are the only one who can free the others and yourself. The Sanity’s Edge Saloon is the Nexus of power and thought, all of it raw and mutable. There are others where you are who want the Nexus, Jack. Those who have gone before and were found wanting. Rejected, they were exiled to wander the Wasteland forever. But they want to return, to possess the Nexus once more, and they will stop at nothing for a second chance. I made the mistake of underestimating their desperation. They ambushed me on the other side, on your earth. I’m afraid the way to the Nexus is closed to me for good, now.”
“But what should I do?” he asked.
“I can’t advise you anymore, Jack. I’m sorry. Start working as soon as possible. Protect the passengers and avoid distractions. And avoid the Cast Outs at all costs.”
“The Cast Outs?”
“Don’t tangle with them, Jack. Especially not the one who came after me. He’s more powerful than you can imagine. He was a Caretaker once, long ago, but he failed. He couldn’t control the Nexus, and he was cast into the Wasteland to die. Only he’s managed to survive, and has rallied others like himself, as well as any wild creatures of the Wasteland, into his Tribe of Dust. Don’t underestimate them like I did. They have power, Jack. Some have been accruing it for over a century, storing it away quietly for the right opportunity to come along. And I’m afraid I gave it to them.”
“The Tribe of Dust?”
“Just take care of the other passengers, Jack,” the Writer said, sounding tired, his voice fading. “Give them good homes; homes they deserve; homes that fit. Free them. Free yourself. I wish I could explain it more clearly. I thought I would have more time. I was wrong. I know you don’t understand, and I’m sorry about that, but you’ll have to trust me.”
“I guess.”
“Good, Jack. Very good. That’s a relief.”
“Will I ever see you again?”
The Writer let out an awkward sigh, a sound like a ball bearing running down a long, steel pipe. “No, Jack, you won’t. I’m already dead.”
Jack opened his mouth, but nothing came out. What could you possibly say to a statement like that? We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.
“I’m sorry, Jack. That’s all the time we have.”
Then the phone dissolved, liquid running through his fingers and down the wall to form a puddle on the floor. That quickly, it was gone.
There was nothing to do now but wait for the
(madness, madness, madness, madness, madness, madness, madness …)
others to arrive. He desperately wanted another beer, an ice cold Corona with a juicy wedge of lime jammed down into the bottleneck. One would be good. Six would be better. And being dead drunk would be perfect. But for all that he wanted it, he was afraid to turn around, afraid to turn away from the liquefied phone and look at the bar.
Because he knew when he did, those ice-cold beers would be right there waiting for him … just like he wanted them to be!
ONE
Jack crouched in the corner between the Pepsi machine and the Saloon’s batwing doors, gaze alternating between the dried stain of the once-phone and the endless expanse of white desert. The corner spared him the view of the edge, that panorama of blue sky extending as far across and down as the eye could see, apparently without resolution.
He was alone, adrift in a world without another living soul. Maybe on some level he had wanted this. Not exactly this, but a solitary place to write, to escape his problems; a place beyond the expectations and recriminations of others, all of whom believed he was, if not simply wasting his life, not living up to his potential.
But this was different. This was alone taken to the limit of its definition. There was no radio at the saloon because there were no radio stations to receive. There were no phones in the saloon—the exception now a dried stain on the floorboards—because there wasn’t anyone to call. There wasn’t a television because … Well, the reason would always be the same.
He was completely and absolutely alone.
A couple years ago, he caught the flu, only just managing to make it through his workday and get home before the worst set in. He stumbled up the stairs to his apartment and went straight to bed, limbs weak, mind foggy, body aching and shivering with cold. He doped up on NyQuil and crawled beneath a mountain of blankets, spiking a fever. Sometime around midnight, he awoke to a rain of puzzle pieces sprinkling from his ceiling, wafting with the gentle ease of snowflakes. Delirious, he tried to collect them, piece them together, fitting colors and edges; he had to, though he had no idea why, assembled pieces crumbling as he moved on to others. In the morning, the fever broken, it seemed like so much nonsense. But the experience made one thing apparent: if something ever happened to him—if he fell in the shower, suffered carbon monoxide poisoning, died of the flu, or just sold his possessions and ran away—no one would ever know. Come Monday morning when he failed to show up for work, they might suspect. Or they might not.
How long before he was missed? Or was it hubris to assume he ever would be?
He’d allowed himself to half-believe that this was just a vivid dream, one he was waiting through, one he knew he would eventually wake up from. But no longer. The Writer had changed everything—again! —and it would never go back. There were things he had to do, people who needed his help, others who looked for him to fail. The Writer was dead. His killer or killers wanted the Saloon—call it the Nexus if you like—and would likely try to kill him as well to get it.
Yesterday had been the strangest day of his life. Until today. Even time was meaningless here, watches and clocks and calendars useless. There would be no Christmas Eve or Halloween or New Year’s Day. There would be no more Friday nights and no more Monday mornings. All the old rules, all the previous assumptions, had been wiped away, the slate brushed clean. Reality at the Sanity’s Edge Saloon was, in a very real sense, starting over…
… or winding down.
In The Gunslinger, Roland searched a vast and growing desert swallowing whole towns and reducing them to dried-up, dying places. According to the gunslinger, the world had “moved on.”
Perhaps that was happening here? Perhaps this world had moved on?
Or you’re simply losing your mind?
Jack climbed unsteadily to his feet, fed some change into the Pepsi machine, and bought a can of Mountain Dew. Then he went inside to the candy machine to get something to eat. He tried not to look around, to consider anything more about the saloon or what his role in all of this might be.
His head was pounding.
Armed with a soda and a cellophane package of peanut butter crackers, he set off
to finish exploring the saloon, determined to know as much about the place as possible. Eventually, someone would come along.
He hoped it wouldn’t be long.
* * *
Jack rummaged cupboards, closets and drawers, hoping to find something amidst the careless bric-a-brac that might answer some of his questions. An old owner’s manual perhaps: So, You’re Insane and the Caretaker of the Nexus of the Universe, or something to that effect.
What he found was more questions.
In some respects, it was exactly as the Writer promised. He had all the time in the world to write, and none of the usual distractions. He didn’t need to worry about the rent or utility bills. All of that was taken care of now. There was food when he was hungry, even if the selection was a little haphazard, and he had a place to plug in his laptop while he listened to music on the CD player. The Saloon might well be everything he had always wanted.
And that fact alone terrified him. No longer could he believe that he might have been a great writer if he’d only had the opportunity. This was his opportunity. If he failed now, it was because he wasn’t any good. He would have to find a new dream … or kill himself. Was it better to live your life having never fulfilled your dream, or see it die outright and know—fucking know! —that there was nothing left to live for?
Jack returned to the room at the top of the Saloon, the one that felt most comfortable, the most like home. He wasn’t surprised to see the typewriter gone. In its place sat a brand new computer, one better than he could afford on his own, especially now that he was unemployed and hiding out on the fringes of reality. A small placard affixed to the PC tower read Jabberwock.
He felt like a new employee on his first day, stepping into an empty office and discovering that the person responsible for his orientation wasn’t there: called in sick, quit, or maybe just went postal and had to be hauled away. And maybe the analogy wasn’t too far from the truth. The Writer was gone. Jack was the Caretaker now. The Sanity’s Edge Saloon was exactly where he was supposed to be, and it was in this topmost room that he was apparently supposed to do whatever it was he was supposed to do.
The Sanity's Edge Saloon (The Sea and the Wasteland Book 1) Page 11
