Ray spent most of the time thereafter on his back, counting the ballroom’s ornately scalloped rib beams overhead. From the twentieth hung a punched tin chandelier, retrofitted with sockets and flame-shaped bulbs. He continued to ask after his family, as he’d begun to call them, and the staff assured him it was being taken care of. The next day, they asked him if he could walk and when he said yes he was led down two spiral staircases—the first lustrous blond wood, the second stone. Gates of latticed iron clanked behind them, summoning high school Poe—crypts and catacombs. The stone walls slouched, tunnels narrowed then turned white, and it got, somehow, very very cool.
—
Before it became another venue of the evac clusterfuck, the place called Limbo Mine had offered talc for pulping the world’s paper, for fire-retarding her plastics, stiffening her ceramics, matting her house paint, drying the palms of her nervy athletes, powdering the clammy bottoms of her babies. The place called Limbo Mine was in fact not one mine but a daisy chain of smaller mines—Colfax Mine, Jericho, Buena Vista, Hazen Pit, Coyote Springs, Lone Pine Pit, Dot’s Ledge, Hole in the Ground, though no one knew these names anymore. The individual mines had been bored out, linked together in a three-hundred-mile maze and hastily retrofitted for security by the Army Corps of Engineers, who then ingeniously joined them to the labyrinth of tunnels beneath Clay Castle, William Randolph Hearst’s uncompleted winter villa hidden high on the clay preamble to the eastern Sierras, and transformed into Impermanent Retention Facility Nine, the place called Limbo Mine.
Their courses having been expertly schemed by prospectors long dead, the tunnels in Limbo Mine ached to give up their talc, so that the ground beneath the detainees’ feet was green-white and silky soft enough to gouge with a fingernail, puffs rising underfoot to bleach their bottom halves, giving each the appearance of an apparition disappearing. Overhead, ventilation shafts had been garlanded from crimped iron buttresses, and from the buttresses hung lanterns illuminated by industrial glow sticks, letting off a pale jade radiance. Despite the paper masks provided them, detainees and guards alike hacked up warm chartreuse phlegm balls.
It was here that Ray was deposited when he was well enough to walk, when he gave them a fake name and said he was trying to get to family in Wisconsin. They took him underground, via Poe stairs and bored-out tunnels and freight elevators and a tiny train, hundreds of green-glowing eyes above paper masks peering at him along the way. They deposited him finally in a cool-walled cell. Processing, they called it, a holding facility until they could locate his sponsors, which they never would because the aunt and uncle whose names he’d given did not exist in Milwaukee nor anywhere else.
Down in Limbo Mine, mostly Spanish softly echoed through the chalky caverns. Ray recalled one of Lonnie’s conspiracy theories: busloads of Mojavs arriving in the evac camps whiter than when they’d set out—immigrants and anyone who looked like an immigrant siphoned off before crossing certain state lines, the illegals deported and the legals held until their papers expired, or until nativist legislation could make them illegal. When Amnesty International confirmed the evac camps contained “thirty-one percent fewer people of Mexican and Central American descent than the population of pre-evacuation California,” the governor’s office issued a statement. A simple explanation, the press secretary said, migrant farm workers went home when drought hit, a victimless ebb in a lagging job market, simple depression arithmetic. Ray saw now how many had in fact been deposited here, in Limbo Mine, and in its innumerable sibling facilities. Los detenidos fantasmas—the ghost detainees.
Ray learned there was a women’s ward, and though he could never make his way to it, he spent meals and workouts describing Luz and Ig to anyone who would listen. “She’s skinny and brown, but doesn’t speak Spanish,” he said, as a means of distinction, “and the baby is very blond.” This often got a laugh.
In the mess cavern, detainees were served the ration colas and crackers Ray was accustomed to, but also a cold porridge he was not. The porridge was concocted to supply all the water and nutrients one needed, apparently with minimal waste. “Astronauts eat it,” said Ray’s cellmate, Sal, though this perfect food of astronauts looked a lot like creamed corn from a can and produced, in Ray’s case at least, considerable waste.
Sal was young and undeniably stupid, though his stupidity was of the rare variety that provoked envy in the more intelligent, rather than contempt, for it would surely leave the boy content for all his days. Sal, a baby-faced homebody who wore a rolled felt cowboy hat and seemed to mean it, had had the cell to himself for some time. Their bunks were anchored into the soft wall, and above each Sal had carved little crannies into the soapstone. He’d also sculpted a pedestal for his chamber pot, of which he generously offered Ray the use, with a magnanimity at first lost on Ray but soon found, thanks to the elucidation provided by the space-age corn porridge. On the wall opposite their bunks Sal had carved an entertainment center where he kept a crank-powered television he’d been given for good behavior, and a collection of curios also carved from talc. Talc was a bitch medium, Sal said, as delicate as it was beautiful. Like a gorgeous woman. Sal’s specialty was chess sets, and one of the first questions he asked was whether Ray knew how to play. Ray didn’t. “Me neither,” Sal admitted, and indeed closer examination of the shelves would reveal that what he called chess sets were simply talc statues of the entire casts of popular television shows like The Blobs and Star Cruiser and The Tabernacle Choir Sing-Along. “I intend to sell these as souvenirs,” Sal said, without stipulating when or where or to whom.
It had been a long time since Ray had watched TV—since the shaky satellite feed of the Super Bowl beamed into the barracks. TV was audacious now, he discovered, and it was hard to tell what was a joke and what was not. Pretty much nothing was, assured Sal, mentoring Ray through his TV routine. Together they binged with the volume down low, so as not to disturb their neighbors: first was Wake Up USA, then The Dish, and Your Body with Dr. Jax. Next came Sal’s soaps, The Ties That Bind and Thicker Than Water, during which Sal sneered and hissed and gasped, debriefing Ray with essential backstory only during commercials: “Ignacio is not a real priest”; “Hugo and Chrissy were engaged but then Francesca revealed that they were brother and sister. Of course, they’ll always love each other”; “Angela cannot be trusted.” Next came the game show Name That Brand, followed by America’s Funniest Car Crashes. After a lunchtime check-in with CrimeTV—currently offering nonstop coverage of the retrial of the Eugene Aqueduct Bombers—came Custody Battle!, Extreme Land Development: Mojav Edition, Spy in the Subdivision and after all that exhausting deceit and reinvention came the cool pool of Sasha, who was wide and wise and segued lovingly into the cold hard truth with her signature catch phrases, “Get set for real talk” and “Sasha gotcha!” Next was either Embalming with the Stars or its spinoff, Real Undertakers of Savannah, and then on to a few episodes of a widely syndicated sitcom called Friends of Bill W., about a group of regulars at an A.A. meeting. Then came Sixteen with HIV, Murder Bride, Midgets in Middle Management, and Shaker Heights, which profiled a team of spry elderly Shaker mountaineers. Next they watched the same six-minute episode of SportScrap three times in a row, killing time before the gritty meta-documentary series Where Are They Now? their favorite episodes of which were, in order, Birthed into a Toilet: Real Stories of Babies Whose Mothers Didn’t Know They Were Pregnant, Purrfect Fit: Real Stories of Jaguar-People on the Job Market and Shotgun Wedding: I Married an Inanimate Object.
There was the triumphant medical-inspirational dating show Leper Love Boat, whose life-affirmation was rivaled only by the brave men and one woman who risked their lives every day on Grain Bin Divers. Then came the news, which they skipped for dinner, and after dinner more reruns of Friends of Bill W., though this time on a different channel running a later season, which was like stepping out of the flow of time and hopping back in downstream, where sweet Katie H. was hiding her pregnancy from
Kyle R., where Al-Anon made Hilda G. smug and Timmy S. and Nadine T. had to bring her back down to earth, where sassy Hannah L. married her sponsor and started popping pills, where fat Johnny V. worked his Overeaters Anonymous program and got skinny, where skinny Gene F. worked his Narcotics Anonymous program and got fat. Cigarettes were smoked, instant coffee was drunk, store-bought cake was cut, chips were collected, newcomers appeared, disappeared, then reappeared, people fell off the wagon then clawed their way back on. Oh, so many ups and downs on Friends of Bill W., where someone was always hitting rock bottom and pretty much everyone had been molested. A lot of triumph and a lot of tears—even during those bright early years on the morning block on the other channel, for Sal and Ray knew what dark days lay ahead. And yet, somehow, it all worked out, and at the end Ray believed the chant he and Sal whispered along with the gang: “It works if you work it, so work it, you’re worth it!”
Ray’s least favorite was the trivia show Cerebral Weasel, for he never knew any of the answers. His self-esteem recuperated during Money Dash, and his loins flared throughout prime time, which brought perhaps The Undead Sheriff, The Reluctant Clairvoyant or Torture Trio, a police procedural in which the CIA’s top three interrogators, all single, traveled to exotic rendition locales around the world. Another good one was Mind/Body, the erotic drama set in a mental ward, featuring an endless courtship between a Don Juan albino serial killer and his sultry young psychiatrist. Ray and Sal howled during Laughing Gas, a raunch-com about dentists innovating a myriad of ways to violate their unconscious patients, but only occasionally chuckled through two late-night shows whose topical opening monologues they never quite followed, and whose guests’ patter made them feel like disappointments, for the stars beseeched them to go see movies they never would. Sal grew defensive during these segments, and classified all the stars into three categories: gaylords, major sluts, and Scientologists. Ray often fell asleep during these interview portions, or during the sketch comedy show that followed, soothed to sleep by canned laughter.
Weekend mornings meant cartoons, which were made by computers now and cheapened for it, they agreed. But before those, on Sunday, while many other inmates went to Mass, was Ray’s absolute favorite: Sunday Java, where elderly commentators asked tough questions, like, Whatever happened to vacuum repair shops? And, What exactly are women carrying around in their giant purses? “Planners!” hooted Sal, incredulous. “Water bottles!” But Sunday Java ran solemn segments, too, genuine weepies featuring cancer babies whose lemonade stands outlived them and retarded boys who made Ig sounds shooting the game-winning baskets and mothers who nearly aborted the children who grew up to supply them with precious life-saving marrow or organ or blood. One Sunday Java segment, “On the Lam . . . with Gerald Hopson,” always made Ray hold his breath.
Gerald Hopson told the stories of fugitives—murderers and kidnappers, cult leaders and enemies of the state. He conjectured their whereabouts and encouraged viewers, whom he called citizens, to report any sightings to the proper authorities. In this regard, “On the Lam . . . with Gerald Hopson” was far from unique. But unlike his trench coat–clad counterparts, Gerald Hopson was genuinely fascinated by the moral ambiguity of the alleged crimes. He stressed that his subjects were innocent until proven guilty, and he speculated not only about their motives but also the conditions that might have driven them to thievery, fraud, or murder. Gerald Hopson pondered, with gravelly voice and swaying neck wattle, whether each of us had versions of these criminals inside us. The greatest injustice, Gerald Hopson proffered, was not the crime unsolved but the mind unknown, and it was this stain he begged his fellow citizens to scrub. “Answers to the questions are out there,” his closing monologue insisted, “and will be delivered us when the accused stands before the mantle of justice. Until then, they remain . . . on the lam.” That was a nice idea.
Limbo Mine was full of surprisingly nice ideas. Ray did not know how far down they were but found he did not miss the surface. Here it was always cool and dim, always a gentle lime twilight. The abandoned catacombs of desert sourdoughs had delivered him from the unrelenting sun, finally, left him with his notebook, the starlet’s buttery satchel, and his jug, though he hardly looked at these. Talc statuettes smiled down on him and the forgiving powder walls absorbed most unpleasant sounds. The TV went on and on, quietly, and simple Sal scraped his figurines and everything always worked out in the end.
—
It was somewhere in this cul-de-sac of routine that Sal ran out of characters to carve, and Ray suggested he make a politics set. “I like it,” said Sal. “More serious. Issues and shit.”
And like his work, Sal seemed to turn serious, too. The thing Ray needed to know about Sal was that Sal had a super active mind. He was, he admitted, something of a stimulus junkie. Add that to his ingenuity and he could be hard to keep up with.
“I’m UTW,” Sal would announce in what he called his language, which was not a language but a system of inscrutable acronyms. UTW meant Under the Weather, which meant depressed, which Sal had honestly become lately, but could not or would not say why.
At mealtimes there came “DYWYP?” pronounced dee-weep: Do You Want Your Corn Porridge? Ray always said he did but never seemed to.
“DYHAGBH?” pronounced dye-hag-buh meant, Do You Have a Girl Back Home?
There was “WYHAH?” pronounced why-ha: Where You Headed After Here?
Ray declined all of these conversational invitations.
Finally, from beneath the considerable shade of his cowboy hat, Sal admitted that he had come to find Ray a lacking roomie. In all the time Sal had been mateless, he had assembled a perfect bunkmate in his mind, built him mostly of TV clichés, and it turned out that Ray fell short of this ideal in nearly every single way.
“For one, you never ask me, ‘What’s your story?’” said Sal, which was true. Ray had drawn that line in his mind, because while he could describe Luz and Ig around Limbo Mine for purposes of finding them, to sit in the cell trading stories with Sal about where they came from and for whom their hearts ached would be to admit something that, despite the comforts of Limbo Mine, Ray was not ready to admit.
Sal said, “And we never talk philosophy, for example.”
Ray the disappointment said, “I’ve never really known what that means, philosophy.”
Sal sighed. “It’s one of those things that’s so all around you that you can’t see it.” He scraped at the talc president’s lapels. “It would help if you had something to tend.”
“To tend?”
“A mouse, say. Or a falcon. Maybe a snake you raised from an egg.”
“I don’t have anything to tend.”
“That’s POP,” said Sal. Part of the Problem. Another POP was that Ray never imparted to Sal any chestnuts of wisdom, nor, more troublingly, did he ever in turn ask Sal to expound upon his outlook on life, despite the fact that Sal was keeper of a vast bureaucracy of insight, much of which came to him on the chamber pot, his thinking throne, and which he punctuated by the tipping up then tipping down of his ten-gallon, like the hero on The Undead Sheriff.
“Are farts pure methane gas or are there poop particles mixed in?”
“Why do I feel ready to burst the second I take my pants down? Could the butthole have an auto-somatic reaction to fresh air?”
“Doesn’t it seem odorless? I think the porridge is engineered that way. Thus, our shit does not stink!”
Detainees awaiting relocation were required to write letters, weekly, to their sponsors. Ray’s were addressed to Aunt Hennie and Uncle Randy in Milwaukee, and while early epistles were generic and stillborn, Ray soon took to writing for the entire mandatory hour rather than risk more of Sal’s wisdom, for Sal seemed for some reason exempt from the weekly letter-writing session. Soon, Aunt Hennie and Uncle Randy metamorphosed in Ray’s mind, the lie of them shuddering silvery gunk from its wings. It was a familiar feeling, and he welco
med the reunion.
Aunt Hennie was of Hungarian stock, devout and stoic, but could turn blubbersome without warning. So emotionally repressed that she cried at commercials for cell phones and fast food but not at the deaths of either of her parents. When Ray came to visit she forced him to scoop big handfuls from a dish filled with M&M’s color-coordinated with the season. Every Christmas Aunt Hennie made a different gingerbread house, each year’s design more ambitious than the last—a Tudor with icing icicles and working lights, a Cape Cod with white chocolate shingles, a ski lodge made from pretzel logs, a Buddhist monastery, the White House, the Taj Mahal, the Sagrada Família. She worried about Uncle Randy, who was hard and like most men of his generation you had to lube with a few brewskis—local only, for he worked at one of the big brick breweries chugging on the waterfront. Only then would he talk at length about the boy he lost, Ray’s cousin Paco (Ray was not good with names), who fell through pond ice playing hockey. Paco had not even liked hockey, that Ray could recall, and even Aunt Hennie had wondered when Paco pulled his musty gear from the basement that bright snap of a morning. No one said suicide, but Uncle Randy said that Paco had always been both here and gone. He wished Aunt Hennie could put him from her mind, though he himself could not. Aunt Hennie and Uncle Randy were not perfect, but Ray envied how contained their problems were, not as diffuse and inoperable as black ink dripped into a glass of water. Ray came to enjoy writing them with all the normal advice he was never asked to give: Talk to her, Uncle Randy, I know you’re better than you think you are. What a salve to heal his beloved aunt and uncle this way, what a relief finally, after years of manning various bellows, to waft away a black cloud! But eventually Aunt Hennie and Uncle Randy’s failure to respond hurt his feelings.
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