LOST HIGHWAY

by Zac Funstein

“As well as can be expected-we hadn’t met before but I believe this was an honest person that was encountered. The deleted scenes were more interesting than on most main discs, since they were composed from a collection of sketches, animatics and otherwise unfinished pieces of animation.”

  “Deleted scenes Rory!”

  “Explaining the artificial aging-the general effect was Bedlam. Some was cut to give a semblance of cohesion, but fortunately this was included because I found that this cleared the obfuscation more.”

  Newark always like any mention of this chaos since it evoked his elder sister Mary. Bethlem's name gave rise to the word bedlam, coming as it did from a shortened version of St Mary Bethlehem, one of the oldest asylums in the western world. The public could buy tickets to observe the antics of the inmates, much as we would pay to see a circus sideshow just as Mary had taken him as a boy. Dear sweet Mary who had been shot then fatally wounded in the terrible accident.

  “It is true we use the powdered additive that cannot be denied. We found that it gave a softening effect-but that isn’t ours. Come with us if you would Mr.Betancourt. Let us make you a little worse.”

  They go through the racquets-court entrance past an open-plan office full of draughtsman that seem like those that had been milling around waiting for buses/ cabs when Olivers cab had been caught. They were all set before old-fashioned draughts-boards like when magazine illustrations were done manually with rapidograph/pencils rather than with CAD. They are bandying quips with one another seemingly oblivious until Newark’s appearance causes a epicentre of rigidity/ silence to go through them. A pair of men in short tartan trousers/ chequered shirts on the pocket who have stood nearby become even more rigidly to attention as if dictated to by the horizontal lines.

  “As that great deflator of metaphysical questions, philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, taught us, the meaning of a term is fixed by the community that uses it. I believe that makes sense! There is a group who call themselves the Hexagon-one for each side of the regular hexagon that forms their logo who came up with such a softening dust they came up with their own unique mixture which is known as Baskumed.”

  “It is peculiar to them-nobody else but this-what did you call it- collective?”

  “It amused deciding who is the base who the sides in the original logo I believe their names were written in the connecting line. They all shared this faith in Baskumed anyway which I consider unjustified. It does not live up to its claims in my view-maybe I’m biased. It seems to be given an especial reverence beyond what it can actually do.”

  A man standing over a hopper feeds in chunks of a brick, which are pressed through mechanical rollers that look like the sort of clothes wringer you might find in a feminist museum. They watch as the blocks crumble into dust.

  “When we first got here-on one side of the main building there was only a solitary machine plus a couple of wringers, which were driven by a low-power engine placed in the adjoining building. It was probably also a symptom of inexperience, a matter of trying a touch too hard but we couldn’t get the blocks to crumble properly.”

  One of the flunkies with the AXi sub-machine guns comes over then mumbles after examining his watch.

  “Mr. Newark you have an appointment very shortly I must warn you.”

  “I understand Robert we must save educating Mr. Betancourt for another while. I believe had we done so then his disdain would equal our intensity, moreover the Schreiber matter would be solved perhaps a little quicker. What a conceit to believe we can ever educate anyone-now I have my comeuppance! ”

  Several of the succeeding days passed in suspense, for Betancourt could only learn from the henchman that escorted him to the gate that there was a person staying in what was known as the guest apartment, described to him only as Arja, that this was a Frenchwoman, whom had been ‘taken in one of their skirmishes’. This was a very polite way of saying that Arja had once worked for the Hexagon collective as a designer of the ingredients in Baskumed but for a reason that would become clear now had decided to swap allegiance. Her CV was fairly impressive having worked for a domestic perfumer in Nice France as well as similar in Ontario.

  Arja a well-behaved girl continued to be shy even as a child, but as she grew older A began to spend less time in her hometown Vancouver so that by midlife almost never left home. Hardly anyone had been seen apart from her close family plus some neighbourhood children which were visited via a nearby winding path. Eventually this confinement became too much for her family/friends so that Arja was forced to go to university. This was where the Hexagon picked up on her talent.

  During this interval, Arja escaped the persecutions of Bertolini/ Verezzi (her understandably miffed partners at Hexagon) by confining herself to her apartment, except that sometimes, in an evening, she ventured to walk in the adjoining corridor.

  Eventually with Newark’s blessing Rory was allowed to speak to her. When it was learnt that Betancourt had come to meet her Arja in her tiny office despite her secret dread that her activities were being scrutinized by ‘secret observers’ rushed to get there.

  The line from her from her favourite poem by Emily Dickinson embroidered in High School in neat stitches was hung as always wherever went.

  I died for beauty but was scarce Adjusted in the tomb,

  When one who died for truth was lain.

  In an adjoining room.

  Now the space designated was empty but by the summer of that year, Arja had the books they stacked in her temporary bedroom neatly arranged here. Her mom who visited regularly under close supervision hired a carpenter to build bookshelves especially.

  She toyed briefly with investigating the attic later after this gentleman caller had gone. During her stint here no one had shown any interest as to what was there which was attributed to disparate reasons-initially that the chateau was new only made to seem ancient, but more importantly that

  they just collected the same junk anyway.

  “You get lonely here?” asked Rory looking around which wasn’t difficult. there were candelabra quaint yet curious, statuary plus vases; the whole making a vista almost in miniature that would have befitted well the house on the Palatine Hill which Cicero bought of Crassus, or that other, yet more famous for lack of extravagance, the Tusculan villa of Scaurus.

  “When I sit in the guest room making notes on my laptop, Mrs. Xalker/Mrs. Delkman call in often, but yes I get lonely sometimes.”

  “Your scars are nasty; you must have had a terrible life!”

  Arja had always done her best to hide them with makeup but leaving in a hurry had neglected to be diligent.

  “I was going over everything just before you arrived how when Hexagon first were suspicious took us to a military camp; it still causes to much distress to relive it.”

  “They suspected you of selling secrets regarding Baskumed?”

  “There were guards reading cheap porn magazines you see them now on newstands they still make us wince. When they saw us coming they begun to laugh-I was sure that I was going to be shot-no one knew I was there.”

  “They took you to a cell Arja.”

  “How did you know Betancourt-you weren’t there?”

  “Our ancestors. They speak to us. They guide us. They teach us. Besides I’m a little older. Continue Arja please.”

  “It was filthy everywhere was covered in grafitti. ‘If you confess then we can take you away from here as if none of this ever happened’ exclaimed my capturers. ‘What do you want us to confess,’ I replied. ‘I’ve done nothing’. ‘Don’t lie,’ was his retort. ‘We know you’ve been fraternizing with the enemy’. They had this way of relating everyone was either the ‘enemy’ or the ‘interlopers’. ‘If you come clean then you will find everything changes-it will be much easier for everyone’.”

  Arja began to weep slightly as if reliving this.

  “I was blindfolded then taken to what must have been a registration office where my name was written in a ledger. My wristwatch,wallet, bi
c, were taken then I was lead to another cell. It had an opening of metal blinds through which objects of pain-infliction could be transferred without going to the bother of going in or out. There was a peephole above the blinds which was covered with a sliding metal-lid. Above this was a fanlight which was opened only from outside which seemed to show an endless corridor going on infinitely into the distance.”

  “Were there other people in this cell or was it purely empty?”

  “It wasn’t so much the personalities as the falatka-which is a device used to hang a person who is then beaten with night sticks. Sometimes they used an electricity machine-the agony was excruciating but I told them nothing-for men it is worse nothing can compare to the pain. My father was a truculent/ feisty character whom you couldn't fail to admire who had been through similar I believe those wartime experiences took a toll on his health but Rodrigo was an inspiration. His experiences when captured as a flight engineer sustained us.”

  “Why is Baskumed so different from what other artificial agers used?”

  “You mean you don’t know-you haven't done your homework-my god! A rogues’ gallery of ridiculous, mostly dislikable characters wrote a manual called ‘Healer of Courage’. It is a deeply dishonest book that takes advantage of the ignorance, gullibility, plus derangement of its target audience. A certain resentment which is described in these ‘encounters with powder’ are erased in later editions.You will not be disappointed however if you are looking for strong direction as well as actors with clear, demonstrable talent.”

  “This isn’t like homeopathic remedies, beyond the placebo effect not evincing very much?”

  “Not in my opinion but there might be those who disagree. I believe that there is tangible improvement in quality which is why Newark is prepared to sign the dotted line for my talents.”

  The spooky, almost idolatrous worship of Joel Rignall Newark got to others as well no less José Cavalcanti Carvalho social commentator who sensed human unhappiness keenly, who moreover suffered with his fellows. Born near Burlington, Vermont, raised in modest surroundings. José would soothe moderate unhappiness, then surround it with sympathetic banter; Carvalho eschewed drugs, though never judged those who partook or the potential benefits/ impacts they might offer.

  The last Rory Vega Betancourt had come across Carvalho there had been talk of marriage with Ampirita. They had been toying with a beautiful big scale church wedding or something more discreet like her grandparents, great-grandparents when Ampirita had died in an accident when her ZAZ Slavuta crashed.

  “It seems to us that admiration had fanned what had begun for him as a loving curiosity into a veritable idolatry.”

  “It would be better if Arja had not left her usual ranks from the sounds of it.”

  “The spirit of reform had driven those, who so violently felt its influence, into many usages that, to say the least, were quite ungracious.”

  Betancourt gave an account of the ignominies which Arja underwent. The critic who announced that ‘contemporary English was a gallimaufry or hodge-podge of all other speeches’ must surely have considered retracting this when the description was transmitted for the torment was especially well conveyed.

  “Perhaps I am being a little harsh-no matter it is not why you are here.”

  “I don’t know where to begin with the makers of Baskumed, but I am being a little hasty you might not know of its existence even. This is not a simple problem-although some would contend it is not a problem at all.”

  It was as if a shape with finite sides was spinning around like a fairground carousel waiting to arrive at an arbitrary vertices.

  “You found this on the sand used to artificially age denim if I read your e-mail well.”

  “That’s it to a tee-there are a clique of manufacturers that make it solely. Nothing particularly noble just for profit mostly.”

  “I have read ‘Officers Of The Eclipse’ it points out a number of criticisms of Baskumed from when it was first made to recent times, but there is no denying that it was one of the earliest such works in the field, as such has not only influenced a lot of subsequent literature but remains one that you should examine however ‘creaky’ it might be. As a consequence, for a while now, the only students being taught this old style are the retrogrades, the people who are holding out in some way.”

  Even a casual perusal made for interesting garnering. After establishing his court in Prague, Rudolf II gathered about him a glittering entourage of artists, intellectuals, scientists,charlatans-mostly they were time wasters but Rudolf aware that the political climate was changing was anxious to age his clothing temporarily to make them seem like artisan gear-a new-science was born. This might seem primitive now but it was the beginning of making clothing older before natural factors had set in-the foundation of all that was to come. What always seemed to stand out was Vratislav Hrubý the masseur/charlatan who was the author's shadow/ caricature, to which exorcistically was transferred his bizarre traits/fictitious failures, something like Sartre did with the autodidact in La Nausée. Vratislav seemed the personification of this premature aging in ‘Officers Of The Eclipse’ more than Jaroslav Vaněk or Pavel Studený even.

  Carvalho lets out a chuckle then asks forgiveness but a personal remonstrance has just hit him.

  “I used to be buddies with Eduardo Ribeiro Azevedo who was a chemical-industrialist whose ancestors drove steamrollers- used to surface the town's first roads and many in the surrounding district. Eduardo used to get nervous at any kind of creaky noise in the industrial factory that we worked in, and would often be seen nervously pacing around his desk. The early Baskumed always made him especially jumpy.”

  “You made a precursor of this incredible!”

  America is the steamroller of modernity someone had said recently, and its forcing the Europeans to adapt trying to narrow what they make for a purpose perhaps far less than capable of.

  “Yeh but it wasn’t up to much.Now that you mention it there is someone from around then that was involved in Baskumed. Leonardo Rodrigues Cavalcanti. His mixture of naiveté, charlatanism, plus singular devotion to a unique vision make him a genuine frontier spirit, a real-life American folk hero a precious natural resource.”

  “You know Cavalcanti personally I mean?”

  “His greatest success, Leonardo’s Creation Museum, underwent a serious decline in attendance recently. ‘Any reviewer who crafts a fanciful narratives characterising us as some sort of hack or charlatan is waving a gun in the air they must expect trouble’ said Leonardo as a warning to his critics. Design consultant Martyn Perks said that blogging encourages a free-for-all where 'everything goes' they hadn’t reckoned how serious Cavalcanti was or that wandering into journo Dalibor Borovička’s office with a loaded Remington Auto-loading Repeating Rifle was mightily on the cards.”

  “I can’t believe you want us to meet this person-loaded Remington indeed,” exclaimed Rory but deep down it was understood that such was probably unavoidable.

  We all often pitted against such adversaries once in a while as we make our path along this sentient existence. They are put in our way by the Gods of Olympus.

  Betancourt knew the house anyway it wasn’t in this particular shape but it was quite distinctive- it was near a roundabout that had no markings sometimes could be a bit of a free-for-all, but everyone was used to it they never heard of any crashes there. Something told him that they would get on fine. They had a combined biorhythm score which was fairly high which usually bode well.

  They seemed to be making an advance but since Davi Souza Rodrigues’s passing

  superstitious belief in progress as a guide was now gone for many. Wise, good, serious, Davi fell ill while still young, then died painfully, not understanding what life was still less why dying was so inevitable. Any reply to questions during her slow/painful dying only met with a blank expression. But these were only rare instances of doubt, Rory Vega Betancourt actually continued to live professing a faith only in progres
s. ‘Everything evolves- I evolve with it so does everyone else: why it is that we evolve with all things will be known some day.’

  This had once been a silver-mining camp in pre-history before the early settlers came; Betancourt tried to picture it then rather than built up as now. Secluded, high, remote; recent as to discovery; believed by its occupants to be rich in tin, copper, zinc— prospecting would decide that matter one way or the other. For inhabitants, the camp had only a few miners, one Norwegian woman with female child, several Chinese pan-handlers with makeshift sieves, a loose conglomerate of squaws, plus a gathering of vagrant Indians in robes made from indeterminate material, battered weathered plug hats, plus galvanized-can necklaces. There are no paper mills as yet; no cathedral, no gambling den of iniquity. The camp has existed but a while; it has made no big strike; the world is ignorant of its name or Google Maps coordinate because as yet there isn’t one.

  Leonardo Rodrigues Cavalcanti had been in a state of melancholy ever since the affair of the Holden XU. His happiness was run over/destroyed by that machine, if moods can be run over eliminated, sometimes Cavalcanti believed they could. Leonardo had known José Araujo Carvalho ever since they were boys together, José was smart enough, but he never quite got through to him the wickedness of the world (or those that inhabited it ) they had been born into. He believed everybody else was as good/honest as himself, finding out this was erroneous came too late, moreover it was too much for him.

  His welcome to Betancourt was genuine enough.

  “You must be tolerant if I seem a little wistful Mr. Betancourt,” said the doyen in a camelet waistcoat that was trimmed/embroidered with a lace cravate casually draped. “But the last Rory that I met was in Pyatigorsk. I can picture now the lodgings at the extreme end of the town, fortunately this was at a higher altitude in a natural amphitheatre, at the base of Mount Mashuk: during a storm the clouds would descend onto the tin-roof of my dwelling.”

  Betancourt asked himself where seen this style of dress was seen before then it dawned-there had been a French engraving dating from before the revolution-but it had been a female wearer not a man which is where the confusion came in. There was a young aristocrat holding a hunting-rifle with a cravat caught through a buttonhole in suitable testosterone fashion this was known as the Calvino. This took its title from the Battle of Calvino which had been earlier historically-it was later to give its name to the tie-knot of the same title-one to even rival the Prince Albert. This earlier attire would have probably been worn with a pointy mask since the plague was prevalent then.