theMystery.doc

by Matt McIntosh

  JD: ’Cause I’m gonna win! I’m gonna win one year!

  M: So how much did you lose so far?

  JD: Well, we’ve been doing it for—let’s see…about five years, on an average of at least four hundred dollars a year…Two grand!

  M: [laughs]

  JD: And the joke—his wife makes the joke like, Hey, did JD pay you yet? Can we make our vacation plans? And I’m like, Yeah, that’s a funny one isn’t it! [laughs]

  M: [laughs]

  JD: But it’s cool……No, it’s uh…I gave him a cleaver for Christmas [laughing] and like, he goes to try it out Christmas Day, right? And he just takes a clove of garlic up and puts it up there and…WHAP! BAM! He blows it apart—he’s like, That’s cool, it’s sharp! So he’s like, Well, maybe I just hit it too much. So he gets a clove—he does something stupid, I don’t know—he gets it stuck like halfway, puts his middle finger underneath the cleaver, the garlic, and the board and for whatever reason he pressed down. It almost cuts the tip of his finger off, right? So he’s like in the emergency room on Christmas Day—

  M: This Christmas?

  JD: Yeah! On Monday! So he [laughing] calls me up on Tuesday and says, I wanted to call and say thank you for the gift, you know, and like—Yeah! I actually wanted to say fuck you for the Christmas gift! I’m like, What do you mean, dude? [laughing] And he explains it and shit and I’m like, well, What? No, no, what’d you do? No, it was my fault, but— Do you still like the gift? Yeah, it’s awesome! After I got out of the hospital, I went back and started chopping shit back up! OK, it’s cool! As long as you like it! His wife’s like, I don’t think I’m gonna use that knife. [laughs] It’s a full-on—it’s a mini cleaver—it’s like, a full-on blade—it’s probably like seven inches.

  M: Where’d you get it?

  JD: I got it at a a kitchen store up north. It was on sale. It’s a Henckels fucking knife. Cuts his fucking finger off.

  M: A nice gift.

  [TV: If you don’t get first downs—if you are continuing to go down back, get sacked, something like that, negative plays—you’re gonna be punting from your end zone—you gotta ask your defense to go out above and beyond the call of duty…]

  JD: You should come over and see that Bodies exhibit.

  M: What bodies exhibit?

  JD: They got actually human bodies that like, they put in um, acetone, container, and then they pump them full of like silicone, something, so they’re like rubber, and then they like dissect them up, like this prestigious surgeon will come and like, do a—do something on them to show like, heart disease, show lung cancer, show all this stuff and all this shit—and so like, when a guy’s throwing a football, what muscles are involved and stuff. I mean, it’s like—I hear it’s intense; some people at my boss’s Christmas party had just came from it.

  M: Where is it?

  JD: Downtown somewhere. I don’t know if it’s at the Science Center or the SAM. It’s in town. They’ll show like, when you eat something—maybe have a guy that’s got his esophagus and all the shit cut up, and it’s all defleshed and shit—and it’s like, Inside I’m rubbish—like the guy in that movie who’s like, We’re! Not! Supposed! To die! That’s the shit that’s—I’m fucking rubble—I’m like, Oh, man! I don’t want to know this! But then again I’m like, I kinda wanna see it……… They got billboards throughout town. And they show these defleshed humans, and it says { }

  M: They’ve been advertising?

  JD: Yeah.

  M: And what was the advertisement?

  JD: Underneath on the billboard is where I saw this, and it said:

  REAL

  HUMANS—

  REAL

  HUMAN—

  REAL

  HUMAN

  BODIES

  [TV: She’s not my mother, dammit!]

  JD: And at that party I met some people who had just gone, and I was like, No way… ’Cause when I heard that they dip someone in acetone and, inject them with silicone, I was—I can’t be hearing this right. He kept talking and talking about it—

  M: Are they cadavers or—

  JD: He said, No, they’re donated to science, cadavers, or something, and…Aw…Supposed to be pretty gnarly.

  M: Sounds like a bad thing to do, doesn’t it?

  JD: I don’t know, it’s—they said they show like—they cut open the chest of a human and they had like, so all the intestines were showing and shit, you know?—just sitting there, you know like—and the rest was all—I don’t know if—sometimes the flesh was covered or what, or the bones covered, so like, there’s a contrast, you know, you’ve got someone up there all red— Here’s your……They got obese…

  M: It sounds like a freak show.

  JD: Kind of…

  M: I mean that’s the appeal, isn’t it?

  JD: I guess, man!…But I mean, you can learn a lot!

  M: Oh, you can learn a lot from a freak show.

  JD: To all of the people who are performing—it’s a regular display—it’s affecting real—it’s a 3D model, like, you know…The dude was telling me he got to, hold a brain in his hand…..Full on, like, yeah.

  M: You give them five bucks and they put the brain in your hand or something?

  JD: Yeah, you give them, I don’t know. You can hold a brain in your hand, yeah…..

  [TV: You can’t just change your mind!]

  —WHAT DID YOU TAKE?

  A

  Ange leaning

  Matt: How’d you get that cut above your eye?

  Helen: My asshole dad.

  Matt: What do you mean?

  Helen: He whipped me with the telephone antenna!

  Matt: Well, what did you do?

  Helen: What do you mean what did I do?

  Matt: What did you do to make him so mad?

  I made her feel stupid. I made her feel like an idiot. I’d laugh at the things she’d say when she was trying to sound deep. She wrote me a poem, very proud of it, and I said, Well, maybe I can fix it somehow. When she’d call I’d pretend not to be around. I ignored her at school. I’d whisper about her and laugh. She’d come over to my house and I’d hide in my room while she talked on the front porch to my sister. My sister would come in when Helen drove away and tell me what she’d said.

  —Why doesn’t he want to see me anymore? Why doesn’t he want to talk to me? Why doesn’t he ever call me?

  Walk out on the pier, and look out at the water. Lean over the rail, press yourself up to her. Load some weed into your modified asthma inhaler. Blow the smoke into her mouth. Down to the lighthouse where we were the first time I kissed her. A cold wind was blowing. We held hands. We sat down on a log that had washed up from the lumber mills. We sat close. My heart was racing. I could barely breathe. I leaned into her and she into me.

  Continuity: Alice Tripp is wearing different shoes when she starts walking home from the movie with George Eastman than she is when they are close to where she lives.

  She did cartwheels in her underwear across my neighbor’s living room floor. I sat on the couch, watching. The sun was rising.

  —Can you believe I actually used to be a cheerleader?

  She moved my hand away when it was time to stop.

  6/7/96 Dear family, ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ they are expecting a huge thunderstorm ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

  Angie,

  This is my last night in Munich, somewhere between six and seven, white walls, white doors, white ceiling, white closet … Having trouble writing. I think also that the drinking has messed me up. I’m not going out tonight like I didn’t go out last night to save money for Amsterdam, but my stomach is twisting and setting my mind a little crazy. Every breath feels incomplete — difficult to explain but alcohol would set me right again. A bit frightening. The headache is also oppressive and these
reasons might be why it is so difficult to write. Tried to yesterday but got nowhere.

  —And the more his head hurts, the more the world outside falls apart; in other words the more chaos in his brain, the more chaos outside of it. They both spin out of control. His apartment building burns down. His wife has a miscarriage and she blames him, and the girl he falls in love with is kidnapped by the leader of the alien cult. And he finds the woman he’s supposed to kill running a bird sanctuary, and everywhere he goes birds attack him. And he finds himself running for his life from the man who hired him, who calls himself Brubaker—who just may be ‌ —coming to kill Ashe—and his head hurts more and more and the more it hurts the more the world comes crashing down, the more everything spins out of control—with the Orange Men burning buildings and raping girls—and Brubaker carries Ashe to the top of the hospital, and shoots him six times and throws him down the elevator shaft—but still Ashe doesn’t die—and there’s another scene where Brubaker drags him to his office and shoots him there—Ashe can’t really remember which way it happened—and the world keeps spinning more and more out of control and his head keeps getting worse and worse and he can’t sleep or think, and now every time he’s indoors someplace, it doesn’t matter where, poison gas will seep through the air vents and he’ll start crying and laughing and crawling along the floor, until he gets outside; but every time he goes outside, he’s either stabbed or beaten or shot, but he never dies, and he doesn’t know why, but he sees ghosts and demons and dragons, doing battle in the sky, and sitting in chairs reading magazines in the waiting room, and some of them are dressed in suits and ties and carrying briefcases, and some of them look like vampires and some of them like beautiful women, and millions of rats come out of the poisoned sewers and run through the streets, and into the churches and hospitals. And there are all sorts of car crashes! Everywhere he looks! And planes fall from the sky! And flocks of birds! And towers fall! And buildings collapse! And there are earthquakes! And there are rainstorms, and deluges and typhoons and tsunamis! Ships sink! And the rain turns to ice and blocks of ice fall from the sky! And the satellites come screaming from space like missiles and bring down tall buildings! And the towers come crashing down! And the houses and the people in the houses are crushed! And it’ll keep going like this until at the end you’ll see Ashe! lying on the floor! in a burning building! paralyzed with pain! but unable to even feel it anymore! unable to move or walk or talk anymore! he can’t do anything! he can’t do anything! all he can do is lie there! on the floor! while the city goes up in flames! like a lone twig on a dry forest floor! the whole world is going up in flames! His body is still alive! but his mind is resigned! and barely a spark left inside! only a single dim spark! and when that spark goes out, that’s IT for him, Curtains! his mind will leave him for good! and he’ll die! And it’s about to happen! he’s shutting down! It’s like a countdown! He’s at the end! 5…4…3…2…the curtain’s coming down! But right as the curtain is about to touch the stage floor—suddenly it stops!

  The curtain flies up again!

  Because there’s a knock at the door!

  Thanks for reading to the end (this is a test to see if you did!). I don’t know you really well, Matt, but you are a special person to me. I see God’s hand on you, and hope I can be used to encourage you.

  Andi

  While on the deserted shore of Loon Lake following a freezing cold swim, Angela — wearing a black swimsuit, describes the geography surrounding the two lakes near her parent’s home that are connected by a small channel — it was the location of a recent drowning:

  Angela: It’s in two parts with a little channel in-between. There’s a crumbly old lodge down at the end of the other part, and its crumbly old boats. It’s nice now. At night it’s weird, especially at sundown. I’ve never been able to feel the same about it since the drowning.

  George: What drowning?

  Angela: A man and a girl last summer. Nobody knows exactly what happened. I guess their boat capsized. It was five days before they found the girl’s body.

  George: And the man?

  Angela: They never found him. (The drums begin pounding in George’s head) (A loon makes its distinctive bird call)

  P.S. Piper says “Hi! Hows it going? Hope you have a great trip!”

  I sent Angie a postcard from Prague.

  Drop what you’re doing and come meet me at the main Amsterdam train station at 8 pm on Sunday, the 15th.

  Your friend,

  M

  She requested a few days off from the car lot where she worked answering phones, and when they said no, she quit, bought a plane ticket got a hotel room and flew out to meet me in Amsterdam. She arrived in the afternoon.

  My train arrived later. She wasn’t there. So I found a corner in the terminal and sat down next to my pack and watched the doors for her. Every half hour or so I got up and walked through the station and out into the square outside, looking.

  Eleven o’clock, she still hadn’t arrived; I decided I needed to find a place to sleep, so I got up to look for a park. A dark shape came sprinting toward me. Growing nearer and nearer and then from the shadows sprung up—I caught it in the light of a streetlamp beside me. She was crying, and laughing, and kissing my neck. Where have you been all this time? She’d thought I hadn’t made it. Apparently she’d been outside those doors all night, while I’d been inside. And every time she went inside to look for me I had just gone outside to look for her.

  —You’re so thin, mate! You haven’t been eating!

  We went to the Crown Hotel. The man behind the counter rang his bell and announced to all the potsmokers in the lounge, Ladies and Gentlemen, her prince has arrived! (She was worried about you, friend. She’s been a wreck.)

  We climbed the steep, winding

  staircase—

  —Why’d you put those rubbers in my pack?

  —Hey?

  —The rubbers.

  —You mean the condoms?

  —Yeah, Ange. I mean the condoms. I didn’t even know they were in there until the second night. Why’d you put them in my pack?

  —I thought you might need them.

  —Don’t you think that’s kind of passive-aggressive?

  —I don’t mind what you do, mate. I just don’t want to get a disease.

  —How do I know you don’t have a disease?

  —I know I don’t have anything; I’ve been checked.

  —You haven’t been checked. I know for a fact you haven’t been to a doctor since you left Australia.

  —Well, I haven’t had sex with anyone except you since then.

  —What about your so-called fiancé? Plus you told everyone at the Nobody that you had a one-night stand with a black guy, right before you met me.

  —No—

  We climbed the steep, winding staircase—

  —You have a hard time remembering your lies from one day to the next.

  —But that was—he used a condom, I mean.

  —Who?

  —The black bloke.

  —There wasn’t a black bloke, Ange. I know there wasn’t a black bloke. You were saying all that because everyone was talking about sex and Ruthie had just said she’d screwed a black bloke, and you wanted everyone to listen to you, so you made up a black bloke for yourself. Because you didn’t have anything to say about it, and you can’t ever let anybody talk without adding your part and trying to make it look like you’re more interesting than everyone else.

  We climbed the steep,

  winding staircase—

  —That’s not true, mate! I did have sex with a black bloke! But he used a condom.

  —But the whole point of the story was you said he didn’t use a condom and you’d been worried you were pregnant! You don’t remember saying any of this?

  —You’re saying it wrong. That’s not what I meant.

  —Then what the fuck did you mean?

  —I don’t remember.

  —I bet you don’t.
>
  —Did you use them?

  to a tiny little room with a bed and a sink.

  We ate mushrooms on the edge of a canal and I told her when we got back to London I’d take the empty bed in the room down the hall from hers.

  —There’s a knock at the door?

  —Yeah.

  —Who is it?

  When we got back to London, we didn’t have any money. We had no jobs. We looked for ways to eat and drink. We called about drug trials, but there was always an extensive interview process, and it would have taken too long to get paid. Blood banks didn’t pay. Conventional wisdom said donating bone marrow was too painful. Somehow Ange kept us in cigarettes and alcohol. She found another job answering phones. She came home with bottles of cider. She came home and made ramen noodles and tomato paste. She called it spaghetti. I was tired. I wasn’t sleeping. Sometimes we’d screw in her bedroom and she would be happy; then when it was time to sleep, I’d go back to my room and through the thin wall, I would hear her turning over in the bed.

  She talked my boss into letting me come back—she gave her a sob story about my awful health condition—so I got my job back at the insurance office, typing, typing, typing away. clicketyclicketyclicketyclicketyc

  licketyclicketyclicketyclicketyclick