Maze: The Waking of Grey Grimm

by Tony Bertauski

  Grey didn’t know where he went, but he had an idea of what he did. It was that peculiar smell described by those that experienced immersion reality. Obviously his dad didn’t go into the Maze, but he’d been awareness leaping. He had dropped into a tank and left his flesh behind, returning to the glow of happiness, the kiss of an angel, the breath of God in his lungs.

  That’s what I want.

  His dad stood up slowly. His leathery smell filled the room, no longer tainted with the putrid tang of a few weeks ago. He sucked on a breath mint.

  “You must have an idea.”

  “I just want to hang with you.”

  He half-turned, aiming a squinty eye. “Try again.”

  Grey kicked at the floor. He didn’t want to tip his hand. Vagueness was the best way to approach his dad, let him feel like he had the upper hand, all the power. Besides, he learned everything from snooping through his dad’s shit. He’d give himself up if he said too much.

  “I don’t know. It just looked like you had fun. You seemed... happier, I guess.”

  “You guess.”

  It was the truth. Work it right and the truth could manipulate as well as a lie. Or better.

  “So you have no idea what I’m doing or where I’m going?”

  “I’m just asking, that’s all. If it’s fun or something I can learn, then I’d like to do it. I don’t want to sit around your apartment another weekend. Boring as hell.”

  “Smoking my weed is boring?”

  Grey looked at the floor. Best to fall on that grenade. “Sorry.”

  “You go through my drawers, my closet; you destroy my privacy with one hand and ask for a favor with the other?”

  “No, I just... I knew you kept the weed somewhere. That’s all, I swear.”

  “You didn’t water down the whiskey?”

  Grey was stepping on landmines now. His dad was lighting them up. Now was the time to shut up.

  His dad looked in the fish tank. The goldfish stared back with one bloated eye. Hands on his hips, he spoke to the ceiling.

  “You want to tell your mom I have weed, go ahead. She’s no angel. You want to tell her I’m leaving you at the apartment with a refrigerator of food and neighbors complaining about music, be my guest. Because if you have any ideas of blackmailing me, son, you best know I don’t lean that way.” A darting look came his way. “Understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You sure?”

  “Look, I’m eighteen. Leaving me alone in your apartment is a bad idea, you know that. I’m just saying that you’re doing something cool and I want to do it with you. I’m your son. We should be doing things together.”

  The sarcastic laughter returned, this time more of a soft slap than a knee-breaker. He crossed the office with long, slow steps. He was slightly shorter, but he felt bigger than Grey. His soft, clean hands pressed against his cheeks, the smell of lotion and antiseptic. Hands that spent decades in peoples’ mouths gently slapped him.

  “You’re clever. But you don’t know shit.”

  Hands dropping to his shoulders, his dad bored a stare through his head, a spotlight seeking the truth. Grey didn’t know what he was doing that weekend, he just wanted to be part of it. Now that Rach wasn’t part of his life, there was nothing else to do.

  Why not risk it all?

  “It’s expensive, what I’m doing.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’ll have to pay your own way.”

  “I can get a job.”

  “No. You can’t mow a couple lawns. This ain’t that kind of money.”

  “I’ve got a college fund.”

  Bingo. Grey pulled victory from the jaws of defeat. He had a college fund. His mother didn’t know it was gone. Grey wasn’t supposed to know, either.

  His dad, the brilliant dentist on the Upper West Side, had left the mail on the desk one afternoon. Grey had rifled through it, as was his habit, and saw the massive withdrawals that turned his college fund to ashes. He assumed he was paying off gambling debts or boning the secretary on lavish cruises. Turned out he’d used it to take a month-long vacation on something called the Sessions.

  Grey never found out what the Sessions were.

  “It’s my money,” Grey said. “If mom asks where it went, I’ll tell her I spent it.”

  The tone in his voice hinted at the truth. It wasn’t an outright threat, but enough to make his dad pause and reflect. His mom might not give a shit about weed and whiskey, but she’d want to know where her son’s future went.

  A final swat to the cheek. “I’ll see what I can do. No guarantees.”

  “Understood.”

  Grey hiked the book bag on his shoulders and left the office. Candace locked the front door behind him and turned the closed sign.

  9

  Grey

  Before the Punch

  MOM WAS ASLEEP ON THE couch.

  The vanilla candle burned. She rarely made it to her bedroom. Her bag—the one she slung over her shoulder, the one that could hold a week’s worth of food—was crumpled under her arm. A big bowl on the floor, the remains of unpopped kernels were at the bottom. She often fell on the couch after third shift, sawing off several hours before getting up.

  He carefully packed a duffle bag.

  If she woke up and asked where he was going, he’d say it was Dad’s weekend. She’d remember and ask why he was packing so much. He rarely took more than a toothbrush.

  You were right, he would say. I need more clean underwear.

  That wouldn’t explain why he was packing computer gear. He didn’t know where his dad was taking him or what he might need. Luckily, she never moved, not a thin eyebrow or a lip smack. Not even when he dropped a cup in the sink.

  He left the laptop in his room and wiped the history this time. She might snoop this time and there were too many breadcrumbs about the Maze and something called the Sessions. The Maze led in plenty of directions. The Sessions search went nowhere, unless his dad was interested in channeling a new age spirit that lived under an oceanic volcano.

  Her teeth were grinding a hard plastic plate, jaws flexing. This was the kind of pressure that could chew through braided cable. Had her dad not fit her with a bite guard, she would’ve already ground her molars down to nubs.

  There was a bagel with cream cheese and orange juice on the counter and a flyer for a local homeless shelter where she sometimes volunteered. It was civic duty, helping those less fortunate than her. She had made the breakfast for him before crashing. He chugged the juice and snatched the bagel so she’d know he ate before leaving.

  She would want him to wake her up, tell her he was going. But he hated doing that. Sleep was the best part of her day. She deserved to rest, earned that little reprieve. Sometimes life is like that, she would say.

  That wasn’t Grey’s philosophy. If you don’t like it, then get out. He could change things, not end up like his parents or anyone in his family. There were ways to change the brain, ways to control destiny.

  A new universe awaits.

  Maybe this weekend was one of those ways. He’d figure out a way to bring his mother with him. She deserved to glow. Not the dentist. If he could write all that in a note, she would understand. He went back to the kitchen and scribbled on a scrap of paper.

  Gone to Dad’s. Love you.

  “WHAT?” GREY DROPPED his bag and followed his dad into the bedroom. “You promised.”

  “I said I’d look into it.”

  “I’ll pay whatever I have to, I already said that.” He tried to keep the whine from his words and failed. “Mom doesn’t know about it, either.”

  His dad continued packing.

  “I thought this was something we were going to do?”

  “We’ll do something else. How about fishing?”

  Grey’s voice rose. “Look, I’m good at computers, I know virtual reality environments. I brought all my gear. I know more than you. I can help.”

  His dad stared at a ball of black socks. “
I thought you didn’t know what I was doing?”

  “I don’t.”

  “You been on my computer, son?”

  “No, Dad... I was guessing. I was researching and, you know, hoping you were... but I don’t know.”

  “I let you stay here, feed you and everything a dad is supposed to do. Have some respect, that’s all I’m asking?” He paused, then pointed. “All right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Now this isn’t kid shit, you know. I’m not letting you go for your own good. Life ain’t a video game, Grey. You don’t hit restart; you don’t respawn all fresh and new.”

  Liar. If he was awareness leaping, that was exactly what you do. You go into a false reality, you make mistakes, you die, and then do it again!

  His dad threw socks and underwear into a suitcase along with pants and shirts. His movements were stiff and jerky, a far cry from the glowing angel that came home the last time. Either he was having withdrawal or someone got to him. Maybe he asked about Grey coming and pissed someone off. Adults sometimes shit their pants like children when they got slapped.

  Especially when it’s another adult.

  “I’m doing this for you.” He left the suitcase open and started the shower. “I set up security cameras in the apartment, so don’t be going through my shit. I’ll know about it. You can smoke the weed if you want, I don’t care. I’m a shitty dad, so what’s it matter?”

  You’re not a shitty dad. Just not much of a dad.

  His dad winked, flashed a perfect smile and closed the door. Grey waited until he was in the shower before grabbing his dad’s phone. It asked for a passcode when he swiped.

  0-0-0-0.

  Of course it was. His dad was lazy. When he came out of the shower, Grey was in the kitchen, eating cereal. His phone was exactly where he left it.

  GREY WOKE EARLY.

  He lay in bed, occasionally dozing off. When his dad bumped a chair or dropped his suitcase, he would force his eyes open and listen. Finally, the front door closed.

  Grey snooped around the office for security cameras. His dad was bluffing. It had that tone, the one that told him Santa was real and the Tooth Fairy was broke. He decided to risk it. If he was wrong, he’d catch hell.

  Nothing new.

  Another white card was clipped to the refrigerator. The edges crisp. Today’s date was stamped above a thick, black exclamation point. Suspiciously void of information, there were only random black lines on the back.

  The first invitation was still clipped under it—white and crisp, the date from a few weeks back and an exclamation point. The two creases were flattened out.

  Grey hovered over a bowl of cereal and tapped through his phone. The Find a Phone app was loading a map. Two black icons appeared several miles apart. One was labeled Grey.

  The other Big Daddy Dentist.

  His dad barely knew how to operate his phone. How would he know the GPS was linked to Grey’s phone? Not in a million years.

  Three bowls later, Big Daddy Dentist was on the interstate south of the city. Grey turned his dad’s computer on then went to the bathroom until his legs fell asleep. The car was still moving southbound when he finished. He was off the interstate, travelling on Route 66 toward Lake Mansour.

  The hell is he going?

  The computer was locked. A password had been installed.

  So he knew Grey had been snooping through the emails and thought he’d teach him a lesson. Grey tried the word password and 11111, but neither worked.

  His dad once had a secretary he didn’t trust, an older woman that drank coffee by the barrel. She was also happily married and dressed warmly. He kept his office computer password-protected because she was nosy, he’d said. He wrote them down so he wouldn’t forget. Grey had suggested where his dad could keep it.

  He flipped the keyboard over.

  A few minutes later, he was scrolling through email. There was nothing new as far as he could tell. The inbox was loaded with spam and dating site weirdness such as Sugar Daddy and Just 15 Minutes—invitations from future dental secretaries with bright smiles and promising measurements.

  The previous email from ! was gone. It wasn’t in the trash or filed in a folder. Even a search of the entire computer turned up nothing.

  But there was an invoice for scuba gear.

  Shit.

  His dad was a hundred miles away and heading for Lake Mansour. This was a bad sitcom of double-talk. Grey had it all wrong. He wasn’t doing some sort of underground illegal immersion reality trip. Grey would’ve bet his college fund (if there still was a college fund) that his dad was dabbling in awareness leaping and it turned out he was hiding out at a hedonistic resort on the water.

  His dad wasn’t looking into new ways to explore reality; he wasn’t risking everything to become wealthy or enlightened. He was just a fornicating asshole spending his son’s college fund on water sports and strange.

  He slammed the keyboard. Who’s the bigger asshole?

  The plastic cracked. He pounded the seat and collapsed. This was worse than being left behind. Now there was no hope of awareness leaping. None. Zero. He was stuck in his life.

  Get the grinding plate ready.

  There was only one icon on the GPS. His dad had dropped off. Grey followed the route back to his last location. He’d disappeared sometime in the last ten minutes, about ten miles from the water. It appeared to be a long private drive that led to a sprawling house.

  Either he’d turned off his phone, which was impossible, or he’d figured out he was being tracked. Equally impossible.

  What did it matter? Let him find out he was being followed. Grey would rather get super stoned and listen to music than scuba dive off a wave runner with a bunch of fake assholes.

  Grey torched up a bowl, turned the music up and ate more cereal. He took a second tour of the bathroom, watching videos until his legs were numb again. He streamed the same ones from the other night, the highlights of Maze competitors, mucus gel dripping off their toes.

  A new universe awaits.

  Mid-afternoon, he took a shower. A respirator was hanging on the showerhead.

  That’s weird.

  Why would a respirator be in the shower? And why didn’t he take it with him? Unless there was equipment at the resort. A rubber disc was next to the soap, the type used to plug the tub. Maybe he was practicing.

  Something’s lining up.

  His dad was too nervous before he left. This was adult stuff, he had said. But not the adult stuff that involved hedonism. He was sort of scared.

  And he was practicing scuba diving in the bathtub.

  Grey rinsed his hair, washed away the pleasant buzz and slowly dried off. Something occurred to him with an edge of hope. With the towel wrapped around his waist, he left a damp trail to the kitchen and tore the white cards off the refrigerator.

  It was the one on the bottom he looked at, the first one. The one with the creases. This was more than an invitation. His dad hadn’t folded the card to put it in his pocket. They were crisply lined up, perfectly parallel.

  Grey folded the card.

  They closed like shutters, the edges falling just short of each other, keeping the exclamation point exposed. The random black lines on the back of the card aligned with the thick exclamation point. He dropped it on the floor. Swallowed hard.

  He’d heard of this.

  He’d heard of people getting invitations in the mail, ivory cards with very little information, nothing that could be tracked. No return address, just the recognition that you had been selected. Hope had returned.

  It was staring up in the form of a symbol.

  10

  The Sessions

  A ROOM WITHOUT WINDOWS.

  There was a door on each wall but no windows. And next to each door was a monitor that pretended to be a window. The images were of a lake. The opposite shore was too far to see. Dr. Henk Grimm assumed it was an ocean, not a lake. Nonetheless, they were not windows, they were images on monit
ors, so they couldn’t be trusted.

  Was there really a man in a boat with his son?

  Henk was sent to the room upon arrival and locked inside. For the privacy of others. That didn’t make sense. They all saw each other the first night of the month-long Sessions retreat. There were no masks, no mystery. No plates of blow, no orgies at the end of the night. They knew why they were there.

  So why lock us in?

  His room had two couches and a coffee table. No matter where he sat, he was looking at a monitor with a lake and a father and a son in a boat. The sun was just off the horizon, early morning. That was another thing, there were no clocks.

  Time is relative, Micah said. Be here, now.

  If Henk wanted a Zen teacher, he would’ve gone to the mountains and saved a fortune. He’d paid for technology magic, not belly-gazing bullshit.

  He sank into a couch with a tepid cup of coffee. The robe fell open, his genitalia running wild. He left it that way. If someone was watching, enjoy.

  The door behind him opened. Henk spilled the coffee, staining the white robe. He quickly stood, wiping his hands on the lapels.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Grimm,” Rema said.

  “Dr. Grimm.”

  “My apologies, Doctor. I did not mean to startle you.”

  Rema was Indian—dot not feather, his father would say. She was also gorgeous. Silky black hair, olive complexion, with a sexy English accent. He had a taste for blondes and blue eyes, but he was willing to explore new pastures. Exploration was why he was there.

  “I expected you earlier,” he said.

  “Are you comfortable?”

  “I’m showered and ready. How about you?”

  “I am always ready, Dr. Grimm.”

  I like it already.

  She sat on the opposite couch. Her clothing was loose and slipped off her shoulder to expose a bra strap. Her teeth were a good color, but the left central incisor was twisted. If he went back to his practice, he could fix that for her. He’d taken the month off for these Sessions. His partner had taken over the client load. He’d told them he was going hiking to clear his head, that sort of thing. He hadn’t told them that if everything went well, he wouldn’t come back.