Grimes sat back in his chair and made a slight grunt. “That’s the heart of it.”
“Pardon?”
“All the endless hours. You ignore your wife, your children, and yet all you have to show for it are your books. Your life will never merit an autobiography. You’re jealous of your subjects.”
"I've interviewed serial killers."
"Yes."
"You think I'm jealous of serial killers? Mr. Grimes, I think you have the wrong idea. For one, killing isn't glamorous. Most killers live in their own private hell. Fame doesn't solve anything."
"You're famous."
"What’s your point? The work gives me satisfaction, not the fame. I finish a book and move on to the next. Your story is next, Everett. You’re the work. You matter. The House of Cabal is a fascinating mystery. If you have some of the answers, that’s huge. But right now it’s not about the House of Cabal; it’s about you. My goal is to know the real Everett Grimes, inside and out. That’s how I write bestsellers. But if you don't want to do this, if you want to play games and talk around in circles, I can tell someone else's story. A lot of people out there would love to be the subject of my next book. Should I give one of them a call?"
Chuck saw something out of the corner of his eye. There was no one down the hall, yet he still had the unsettling feeling of being secretly watched.
Grimes took a drink of water. “You really are perfect for this.”
“Are we alone?”
“Not in this house.”
Chuck smoothed his tie against his belly, irritated by the mysterious answer. “Would you like me to start the tape now?”
"Not just yet." Grimes snapped his fingers.
Chuck’s world went black for what seemed like only a moment. Maybe the lights had flickered.
"Mr. Grimes…"
The crook of Chuck’s arm stung, and he rolled up his sleeve to see if a bug had bit him. The pain dissipated and there was a dry speck of blood at a prominent vein, as if someone had drawn his blood. He scraped off the speck and found that there wasn’t a puncture wound underneath like he expected.
"Trust me. You'll get what you need and more. Your readers, they need to know what I thought fifteen years ago, not what I think now, not what I tell myself. Too much consistency bias."
"You know about consistency bias?"
"I’m sure you’ve encountered it in your work.”
“Yes. The mind has a natural tendency to edit memory so that our identity seems consistent over time. Unless we monitor the change, we tend to believe we have always held the same opinions and beliefs as we do now. It was a problem in my first book. I said as much in an interview. Being so honest only caused me grief. People don’t want to know how much fiction we take as fact.”
“To maintain the reliability of the self, we lie to ourselves.”
“If we realized how much our identity changed from one moment to the next, we couldn’t function. So what are you saying? You have journals I can see or something?"
“You’re funny. You still think this is just another interview. I would like you to listen to my voice. It has a certain symphonious quality I think you’ll recognize.”
Chuck wasn’t sure what Grimes was getting at.
“Time to cross the first threshold. Let my voice take you back, back to the night everything changed.” Grimes’s hand hovered above the table, as if floating underwater.
Déjà vu struck hard, a sort of gut punch that stole Chuck’s breath. A hand had moved like that before: the hypnotist’s hand at Chuck’s birthday party.
His whole world was now the graceful hand that danced like a cobra in front of his face.
Words traveled down a long tunnel; “I’m ready.” The words had come out of Chuck’s mouth.
In the back of his mind, he knew he was being rehypnotized. He could stop any time, but he wanted to see what was behind the next bend and so instead, gave himself over completely.
“We go back in time and into my head. Your body weighs nothing. Your soul weighs nothing, and as you are pulled back through yesterday, back through last week, through last month, last year, time dissolves. Breathe. Slow. In. Out. Good. Now let yourself float downward, ever downward toward a gray pool far below. That pool is Everett—his memory and soul—and it grows bright as you drift down toward it. Let it envelop you like warm water. You could wait here in this tranquility forever. When I snap my fingers, I will join you at the end of three, two, one.”
Grimes snapped his fingers, and both he and Chuck fell into a deep state of hypnosis, forming two-thirds of the Trinity Link.
Chapter 5
Cassette Tape One:
Dark Stormy Night
You look down at yourself. There is no self to look down at, just gray void. The void is above and below. It is everywhere and everything. An existential dread takes over your awareness and a heaviness forms in your chest.
Something alien lives out in the abyss.
You want to turn way, to protect yourself somehow. You feel its eyes on you, like the eyes of God are judging you at the end of time.
Relax, Chuck. The end of the world will wait. Y2K was proof of that.
The gray is steam. A form emerges from the steam, not some malevolent being, just my athletic male form, sitting on a bench, a towel wrapped at the waist. It is me sitting here after a workout.
Listen to the water spray.
That sound is from the showers of a locker room. Lockers and benches and tiles materialize out of the steam, along with the smell of sweat and bleach, but still everything blurs together. Unknown men dress or undress, and you hear banter but can’t distinguish words.
A well-built man named Rod sits beside me, his face vague like in a dream. I pull up my boxers under my towel so as not to expose myself. I have light red, almost blond, chest hair. Body hair trails down my defined abs. Freckles dust my muscled shoulders. You can’t take in more than one detail at a time.
I pull on my jeans, pull down the bunched legs of my boxer shorts, and button my fly. As I dress, the paranoia I felt earlier during my workout distracts me.
While I performed my chin-ups and bench press, while I tried to focus on proper form, the whole time I felt someone secretly watching me. People check me out all the time. This was different. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
Even now I get a chill.
Should I mention it to Rod? Or am I being crazy?
“Same time?” I say.
“Yep.”
I’ve known Rod for a few years. We spot each other when we lift. I like that we rarely talk. He’s not dressed yet, and I leave him behind, per usual.
As I turn the corner to exit the locker room, a bodybuilder knocks into me hard. His skin is a shade darker than Caucasian, with full lips and a clean-shaven jaw. His hair is cut close to the scalp. His dark, intense eyes cruise me. Or is that anger? Instead of saying anything, he pulls off his shirt. One nipple is pierced with a silver ring.
Heat comes to my face, and I keep walking. “Sorry.”
As you and I come out of the locker room, the workout area overwhelms your senses with its complexity. Everything blurs gray again.
Stay close.
You follow my instructions, staying close enough to smell my deodorant. If you lose me, I’m worried you’ll be lost in the void. Focus on me. Focus on my thoughts. My thoughts create your reality.
I take the MAX: Portland’s light rail public transit system.
Intense body odor invades your nostrils. You still can’t see the complete scene, only small details: A ratty scarf knitted in a million dirty colors. A patch on an elbow or a knee. Empty cans rattling in plastic shopping bags. You can’t seem to fill in the gaps, to piece the homeless passenger together in your mind.
The ever-present gray looms outside the window. If you look directly at the abyss, you fear you’ll glimpse the alien presence you sensed before in the locker room. You imagine it floating out there, a dark wraith or a large blo
odshot eyeball with tentacles coming out the back.
It’s just boring Portland outside as far I can tell. Hold tight.
Normally I don’t take the MAX, but it’s been raining hard lately. I don’t mind a sprinkle, but I don’t like getting drenched.
I step off, and it’s dark and pouring. I jog, my legs weak and heavy from the workout, and the blur of sidewalk rushes underneath you. It’s like being underwater, and as I move, a current pulls you along with me. You surrender to the pull. What choice do you have?
Once home, the current around you calms and you once again move of your own accord. I change into my plaid pajamas. You feel like a ghost haunting me. This can’t be real.
I sit in my Laz-E-Boy. It’s okay, Chuck. I’m right here: a twenty-seven-year-old in green and blue plaid pajamas relaxing after an exhausting day of normality.
You stand behind my chair, fixing your tie, not really looking at me. You want the real world back: your wife, your children, your work.
But, Chuck, I am your work.
You collect your composure. In your breast pocket the tape recorder spins its gears. Your other pockets are stuffed with cassette tapes. You ask what year this is.
Two thousand. It still feels weird, doesn’t it? Two thousand. The new millennium. Oh, it’s May 15, 2000, if you need something more exact. You’re a biographer, right? Sorry. I’m starting to forget. Why write about me? I’m nothing special.
A widescreen TV materializes, and because I’m watching normal television, vertical black bars on the sides of the screen make the picture square again. A news program reports that a Dutch firework factory explosion killed twenty-three and injured nine hundred fifty in the town of Enschede. In all, 1,250 people were left homeless. Just numbers. I'm numb to it all. Commercials flip by as I channel surf. My breath isn’t fresh enough. I’m not sexy because I don’t have the right pair of jeans. My life is drudgery; alcohol will make it bliss. Then the news comes back on to inform me of my fears: everyone and everything, especially black men and the occasional Hispanic.
You tell me in the future it will be Muslims. You poke at a little screen in your hand and Google, "May 15, 2000 Enschede." The results come up. A firework disaster happened on this date in Enschede, Netherlands. A YouTube video shows the explosion. This is all happening somehow, but why come back to this moment in history?
I ask if I can see your phone. Can you actually get the Internet on that thing? And what is YouTube?
You say it's best to focus on the here and now. You believe an inciting event will soon change everything in my life. Before that happens, my ordinary world must be established. Time to get to work.
You creep around me. My face, seeing it straight on for the first time, reminds you of the halo effect. What’s the halo effect? I ask you. And you explain that my attractiveness causes people to assume positive traits: that I’m intelligent, kind, trustworthy, a natural leader, successful in relationships, a skilled lover. Because of my looks, people create a positive narrative. They assume I’m happy.
It hurts you to remember my future self. In fifteen years, I won’t look so handsome. In just fifteen years, my youth will be gone forever. It strikes you that this projected self-image might be fictional. Maybe this is only how I’d like to remember myself.
Think whatever you want, Chuck. I don’t have to prove myself to you. I’m not the one not really here.
I click off the TV. The flashing images have dulled my senses. I should go back to the media deprivation of my childhood. I was happier back then.
My mostly dark apartment clarifies. Near an empty fireplace, a lamp illuminates a maze, ornately framed and professionally hung over the mantle. The maze brims with intricate art, like an ancient map created when the world was flat. In the corner is my signature, the two Ts of Everett ending inside the G of Grimes.
You think it's impressive but also mannered and overwhelming, as if made by someone with OCD and too much free time.
As a child, all I did was draw mazes and solve puzzles and mind teasers. I couldn’t get enough. Now it’s barely a hobby.
Photos of my family and friends line the mantle. Among boring studio photos, a stand-out candid one shows my girlfriend Carrie and me on an Oregon beach near Seaside. She’s salon beautiful, while my red hair is frizzed out from the wind. This was before we had sex, probably a year into our relationship. Now I have my wavy hair cut short to make it easier to care for. Carrie says it makes me look more GQ; she thinks the more GQ you look, the better person you are. I have to get it cut every three weeks or she complains. I secretly judge her and never say anything critical to her face. Everyone says we’re in love.
I want the TV back on, so I don’t have to be alone with my thoughts. Instead I pull off my pajama bottoms and grab a syringe from the end table. I pull the plunger out to the 1 cc mark, stab the syringe into a vial, and press out the air. I hold the vial close to my face and suction out one ML of liquid. After giving the syringe a tap, I stab it into my leg and slowly push the contents into my thigh.
I've never given myself a shot in front of someone before. I trust you. Being vulnerable with you isn't a risk.
You read the vial: a prescription of cyanocobalmin.
I have a B12 deficiency, so I take a B12 shot twice a week. I get moody and tired if I don’t take them.
You ask me why I'm uncomfortable injecting myself in front of Carrie.
It's embarrassing. It makes me look weak. Don't get me wrong. I like the idea of being in love, of trusting someone enough to let down my guard. Keeping up appearances is exhausting. But vulnerability isn’t an option.
I have this ideal future pictured. Carrie and I have a family and we’re happy, of course. Raising children is undeniably appealing, especially with someone I respect and admire. I mean who doesn’t want to share joy?
And if I felt joy, that kind of life would be possible. I don't feel much of anything. It's not Carrie's fault I've shut off. I am who I am.
I don't connect with anyone anymore.
You make me nervous. Please, make yourself comfortable; take off your tie or something. You slightly loosen your business noose—you always wear ties and are not about to part with this one. You tell me work makes you feel empowered.
I wear a tie every day and I can’t stand them. Work suffocates me. Like I'm living my whole life in a box.
The newest photo on the mantel is of my co-workers at my twenty-seventh birthday party. If they’d been able to blow out my candles, they would’ve wished to be me. God, I’m such a conceited asshole.
You pick up a portrait of my parents: loving, Seventh Day Adventists that live a state away in Washington. You see where I got my Irish good-looks and say the two of them look perfect, as if the picture came with the frame, and I tell you they are perfect. My dad’s a doctor and my mom volunteers at their church. They don’t drink or smoke. They’re vegetarians. My dad still races triathlons. I should call them more often.
You continue to scan my living room as if it’s a crime scene. What are you looking for?
On my coffee table, spatial puzzles and mind teasers, a few prototypes created by me, litter the oak surface, along with a skin magazine. I’m twenty-seven, and that’s the first porn I’ve ever bought, and damn am I ashamed of buying it.
You ask me why? It’s not even hardcore. If I'm so ashamed, why did I buy it in the first place? Why keep it on my coffee table?
I squirm in my seat. I don't know. Maybe I'm tired of Carrie. I mean, I've only ever had sex with one person.
You wait for a deeper answer. A more honest answer.
When did this become about my sexual insecurities?
You don’t let it go and ask why I’m so ashamed. For most people, softcore porn isn’t a big deal.
Are you here to interview me about my sex life? Stop looking at me like that. I don't know. I don't know why. Because it's easier, I guess.
You ask, Easier than what?
Than real sex. Sex with Carr
ie.
You reassure me that what I'm feeling is a common problem for a lot of men. Sex can be stressful.
It's not normal! You don't understand. I want sex, it’s all I can think about sometimes, but when we do it, I feel like I’m always failing. It's like this performance, and I don’t have the script. She's judging me the whole time, and she doesn't tell me what I'm doing wrong.
I don’t even know if she loves me. She says she does. It doesn’t feel like it when we have sex though. It’s like she’s just putting up with me until it’s over.
I lost my erection once, and she said it was okay. It really wasn't. She wants me to be open, to be vulnerable. What the hell does that mean? My confidence is fragile enough without bringing feelings into it. What does she want me to do, cry while we’re having sex?
Porn can't reject me. I can't fail at porn.
God, I'm such a loser.
A knock startles you. I just sit in my Laz-E-Boy and wonder why you jumped. It takes a second pound for me to recognize the sound as knocks on my front door.
“Be right there!” I slowly get up. It must be Carrie. I unbutton my pajama top and adjust my boxers, centering the fly. She likes it when I answer the door in my underwear. It’s about as sexually adventurous as I’ve been able to push myself.
I grab the skin mag from the coffee table and shove it into a drawer.
I look through the peephole to make sure it’s her.
No one’s there, just a fish-eye view of an empty porch and rain in the glare of the porch light. The hair on the back of my neck prickles.
I don’t want a stranger to see me in my boxers. They’ll escape if I don’t open the door. I’ll miss my chance.
My chance for what? My chance at being assaulted?
Stop analyzing this, I tell myself. Stop thinking.
I fling open the door to the rain and the cold and ask more loudly than I intend, “Who’s there?”
Cassette Tape Two:
Something Different
House of Cabal Volume One: Eden Page 6
