by Joel Pierson
“So do I, Mysterio. It’s known as caller ID.”
“I mean without looking at the caller ID, ass-basket.”
“Such language from a delicate young lady. Okay, psychic girl, dazzle me with your powers of mind-reading ability.”
She considers what would be a good demonstration. “All right, think of a card from an ordinary deck of cards. Picture it in your mind. Have you got it?”
“Yes,” I say.
“I will tell you what your card is, simply by reading your thoughts. Let me concentrate.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see her concentrating. It borders on adorable. She scrunches up her face and closes her eyes tightly. From the intense expression on her features, she is either concentrating or defecating. I sincerely hope it is the former and not the latter.
“Is your card … the three of spades?”
A look of wonder visits my face. “Yes … yes, it is.”
She looks amazed and delighted. “It is? I got it on the first try?!”
I can’t do it to her. “No. Actually, it wasn’t really the three of spades.”
She smacks my arm, harder—I think—than the infraction deserves. “Then why did you tell me it was?”
“I wanted you to feel like you were doing well. Didn’t it feel good when you thought you got it right?”
“Come on, be serious. Tell me the truth. Is it the jack of diamonds?”
“No.”
“Six of hearts?”
“No.”
“Ace of clubs?”
“Nope.”
“Ten of diamonds?”
“Sorry.”
“You’re not using a tarot deck or something, are you? I won’t give up after thirty guesses and you’ll tell me your card was the five of tentacles, will you?”
“It’s pentacles, and no. Regular card. I know the rules.”
“Two of hearts?”
“No.”
“King of spades?”
“Nope.”
“Well, fine. Maybe I’m not psychic then. What was the card?”
“Pernell Roberts.”
“That’s so not funny. Really, what was it?”
“Five of diamonds.”
“Shit.”
“But, ironically enough, the diamond looks a little like a pentacle, so your tarot card guess was very close to my card.”
She looks terribly disappointed.
“What’s so wrong with not being psychic?” I ask her.
“Nothing,” she says quietly. “It would just be … interesting. Like you.”
“You can’t tell me that you think you’re uninteresting.”
“If I tell you what my biggest fear is, do you promise you won’t make fun of me?”
I’m almost offended that she has to even ask such a thing, but I’m simultaneously flattered that she’s willing to share this with me, so I answer, “Of course.”
It takes her a few moments to find the words. They are spoken with the tone of a confession. “I’m so afraid of dying without ever making a difference.”
And there it is. The fear that so many millions have felt throughout human history, but so often feels unique to the person feeling it. A fear I myself have felt many times in my life, times when I was sure that I would never make a difference, never mean anything to anyone. Now, here is someone who shares that fear—probably never realizing that she has the potential to make a great deal of difference.
“I understand, Rebecca. Better than you may realize.”
“But look at you. This journey you’re on. Every day, you’re saving a human life. God, what does that feel like?”
“I don’t know if I could put it into words,” I tell her honestly. “But you’re right. Every time someone listens to the message I deliver, I feel like I’ve changed a very small part of history.”
“I want to feel that in my life,” she says.
“You’re forgetting one important thing.” She looks at me quizzically. “One of those people I saved was you. I don’t fully understand this mission I’m on, but I have to believe that means you’re meant for something important.”
She brightens at the prospect. “You really think so?”
“It makes sense. Otherwise, why send me all over creation to warn people?”
“Well,” she says, “there are those who believe that every human life is valuable, no matter what the individual is doing with it.”
I shoot her an incredulous look. “Oh, come on.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t say I believe it.”
“Thank you,” I say. “Yes, it would be lovely to think that there’s value in every human life. But look at the world. Six billion plus. I’m willing to accept that there’s potential in every human life, but when you choose to throw away that potential, all bets are off. Do you know why you have that worst fear of yours? That fear that so many people everywhere feel every day?” She shakes her head. “It’s because dying without making a difference is the default situation.”
“Explain?”
“We go through our lives every single day, searching for Meaning with a capital M. What is the meaning of life? We shout this to the heavens, to a God who may or may not be picking up his voicemail messages. And in the meantime, most of us scurry about, to our jobs, to our homes, to our TV sets and our karaoke bars and our Internet porn, and we miss the bigger picture. There’s meaning everywhere, and 99.999 percent of the time, we’re not even looking at it.” And then it hits me. “Holy shit.”
“What?” she asks, apparently fascinated at my diatribe.
“I think I know why I was chosen.”
“You do? Why?”
“I wasn’t psychic or anything like that before this whole thing started. I couldn’t tell you that your card was the two of clubs if you were holding it up in front of my face. But then, from out of nowhere, I get these messages, and I realize that I’ve been picked to deliver them. And I realize now, just this minute as I’m talking to you, that it started right about the same time I truly understood the things I was just telling you about. Don’t you see? I wasn’t picked because I had some special gift. I was picked because I saw through the bullshit and realized a truth that I would need in order to do the job.”
As I voice this thought, it makes infinite sense to me, and it is a colossal relief. For months, I have been repeating the why me mantra without any sense of an explanation. But here it is, and what it took was someone to tell it to.
“So what will you do, now that you know?” she asks.
“I don’t know. I guess I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing. Knowing why doesn’t change what I have to do. It just gives me some much-needed understanding, and for that, I thank you.”
“Me?” she says, surprised. “What did I do?”
“You gave me someone to tell it to.”
She smiles at this. “Well, you’re welcome.” After several very peaceful seconds, she then asks, “Can we stop somewhere for dinner soon? I’m getting hungry.”
“Reach under your seat,” I tell her.
She reaches down and her hand finds plastic. With a loud crinkle, the object emerges, and she looks at the bag in distaste. “Funyuns? Eww. I wouldn’t give these to an animal.”
“Well, see now, I would, and there’s the fundamental difference between us. Although I’ve learned that deer don’t like them.”
Given the tightness of time, dinner has to be delivered via drive-thru. I have never been a huge cheeseburger fan, either in or out of paradise, but it’s what Rebecca is craving, and since time is tight, we certainly don’t have the luxury of choice. So, fun on a bun it is.
“How much longer until we’re there?” she asks me between french fries.
“Abo
ut two hours, at this rate,” I tell her. “Why, you getting restless?”
“It’s just been awhile since I’ve taken a long car trip. And you have to admit that this has not been the most normal two days I’ve had lately.”
“Well, considering that I just met you yesterday, I can’t say what the baseline level of excitement or normalcy is in your life. You may be like a Bond girl; I don’t know. The life of an exotic dancer is probably very exciting.”
She pauses a moment before deciding, “That bothers you, doesn’t it?”
“What bothers me?”
“My chosen occupation. You get this … thing in your voice when either one of us talks about it. Why does it bother you?”
“It doesn’t bother me. Why would it? I’m not your father; I’m not your brother; I’m not your …” The word doesn’t come easily.
“Boyfriend?” she prompts.
“Right. I’m not that. So, no, it doesn’t bother me.”
“Then why do you get that thing in your voice?”
“What thing?”
“The thing that’s there right now. The high thing with the growly thing.”
I deliberately ease my tone of voice back down to normal conversation—at least normal for being in a convertible at highway speed. “Rebecca, there is no thing. What you do to earn a living is entirely your business. Now you look disappointed. You want it to bother me?”
“A little, yeah.”
“I swear, if I live to be a hundred years old …” or, you know, until tomorrow, “I will never understand women. Okay, I know I’ll regret this, but I’ll ask: Why do you want me to be bothered that you were an exotic dancer?”
“Because we’re friends, and friends care about what the other person does for a living.”
This is getting more unbelievable by the minute. “I cared enough … before I’d even met you, let me add … to drive 1,200 miles and convince you to give up this profession. Doesn’t that say something?”
“Ah, but did you do that because you cared about me or because it was your assignment?”
Well, okay, she’s got me there. Lying won’t work, since she already knows the answer. “Because it was my assignment.”
“There, you see?”
“But once I started to talk to you, I did begin to care. And I wanted you to follow what the message said.”
She looks surprised. “You mean that?”
“Yes.”
“Can I ask you a difficult question?” she says.
“Might as well. It’s how this conversation is going.”
“When you saw me on stage with my clothes off, did you want to fuck me?”
In the hall of fame of difficult questions, currently dominated by such gems as “Does this outfit make me look fat?” and “When will you pay me back the money you owe me?” and of course “Whose lipstick is this on your penis?” this was the crowning gem of all difficult questions. It was the granddaddy of all traps, to boot. Say yes, and I come across as King Perv, reducing her to an object of sexual desire after thirty seconds of our acquaintance. Say no, and I risk making her feel ugly, unwanted, or worse, unsuccessful at her work. And unlike Final Jeopardy, I don’t even have thirty seconds to come up with an answer, because delay reads as weaseling out of it.
“I don’t know. Probably, yes.” I brace myself for the consequences. “Does that make me an asshole? If it does, you can tell me. I’ve been called worse.”
“It doesn’t make you an asshole. It makes you a guy.”
That’s a relief. I stave off further parlay. “In the name of decency, can I please request that you not ask the follow-up question about whether I still want to fuck you? Because you’re a very nice girl and it’s been a very long day and I think that anything I say can and will be used against me, so for the sake of what’s left of my honor, I’m going to plead the Fifth.”
“Objection sustained,” she says politely. “You may step down.”
“Change that to fall down, and I’ll take you up on that.”
“You want me to drive for a while?” she asks.
“Would you mind taking a shift?”
“Sure I will.”
“Thank you. If you can get us just shy of the Atlanta metro area, I’ll do the city driving.”
“Cool. Pull into that rest area,” she says. “I could stand to pee.”
“No,” I correct her, “if you could stand to pee, you’d be a guy.”
“Ha ha. Very funny. Don’t quit your day job.”
The rest area is a welcome relief. I can and do stand to pee, literally and figuratively, after which I dispose of the fast-food debris in the trash bin, before it has a chance to fly out of the open car at highway speed. With a little less than two hours to go before we reach Atlanta, I am grateful for the opportunity to let Rebecca drive for a while. I am also painfully aware of how tight our time schedule is. Barring any traffic snarls, we should arrive at our destination with just a few minutes to spare. The forces that have brought me here know it too, and have graciously pointed out to me which route to take into town. They have also very kindly given me a toothache as a reminder of the urgency of this mission—as if I could think of much else at the moment.
Mercifully, she is quick to return from the ladies’ room, and slips behind the wheel swiftly as I take the passenger’s seat. She fires up the Sebring’s engine, backs out of the parking space, and we are back on the road once more. It is early evening now, and there is still some daylight. I’m not sure if there will be any left by the time we get there; I hope there is, as it will make my job easier, although the streets of a major city are usually well lit at night.
“Do we have a plan?” Rebecca asks me, four miles past our rest stop.
“A plan for what?”
“For how things are going to go down tonight. From what you told me, it sounds dicey at best, flat-out dangerous, more like. I just wanted to know if we have a plan of action or if we’re making this up as we go.”
“We’ll switch drivers just outside the city limits. Then, a few blocks from the spot, we’ll switch back, so you can take the car and yourself to safety.”
“That’s silly,” she decides. “Just let me drive us the rest of the way.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want you to drive in city traffic …”
“It’s not a big deal. I’ve done it before, and we’ll get there long after rush hour. It wastes time to switch drivers twice. I’m fine; I’m not tired. This way, you can navigate and I can drop you off once we get there.”
“All right, thank you. And when you do, I want you far away from me, from what I have to do out there.”
“Unh-uh,” she replies. “I need to be able to see you and hear you. If something goes wrong, I want to be able to get you out of there in a hurry.”
I shake my head in disapproval. “I don’t like it. I don’t like putting you in harm’s way.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be far enough away that nothing will happen to me.”
“Rebecca … if the worst happens … I have a small brown notebook in my travel bag. In it is my pertinent information. Contacts, phone numbers, my attorney’s information—”
“Please don’t talk like that. I understand what you’re saying, and I’ll do what has to be done. But I don’t want to think about the worst happening.”
“All right, fair enough. We’ll think positively.”
I hear genuine concern in her voice, and it touches me. I know she is scared, but not for herself. Nothing I say at this point can make it better, since I share that fear. So for many long minutes, we continue up Interstate 75 in silence, each of us very focused on the job ahead.
Through my navigating, she manages the streets of Atlanta with no problem, which is no small feat in a city where you can
turn from Peachtree onto Peachtree, and take it to Peachtree, where you take a right onto Peachtree until it dead ends into Peachtree.
Closer and closer we draw to the destination, and time is very short. There will be no time to spare and no wiggle room if we don’t find exactly who and what we’re looking for.
“Turn right here,” I tell her, and she does.
“How much further?” she asks.
“Less than two blocks. Drive slow, drive slow.”
“What are we looking for?”
“Silver Lexus, four-door.”
“I don’t see it, Tristan.”
“You just drive. I’ll find the car.” My eyes scan every vehicle parked on either side of the street. I know the car I’m looking for will be parked. But where?
Rebecca takes us through an intersection, and then I see it. Silver Lexus four-door, just like the image in my mind.
“Son of a bitch,” I say. “That’s our guy. That’s him. He’s heading for the car now. Stop the car. Stop the car and let me out.”
I get out before she even comes to a complete stop. “Now go!” I warn her. “Be far away from this.”
She pulls over to a parking spot, several hundred yards from the Lexus but not nearly far enough away for my comfort. I sprint as best I can toward the Lexus, hoping to intercept its owner in time. The man is tall, well-dressed, distinguished-looking, and yet conveys an air that he is dangerous and not to be toyed with. He has his keys in his hand, and as I draw close enough to talk with him, he is only ten feet from the Lexus.
“Mr. Casner!” I call. “Mr. Jeffrey Casner!”
He stops in his tracks and turns to look at me, surprised by my haste and my unfamiliar face. “That’s right,” he says. “Who are you?”
I pause a moment to catch my breath. I’m not used to running. “My name is John Diamond. I’m here to give you a message.”
“Is that so?” he says. “Who’s it from?”
“I don’t know. I was just ordered to give a message to Jeffrey Casner at this place and time.”
“And just how did you know that I would be at this place at this time? You following me?”
