Oliver found Danny’s puppy dog admiration amusing, and he supposed it was. His bunkroom was just one door down from Oliver’s in what the resort owners called the boys bunkhouse. In reality, it was just a long cabin with multiple small bedrooms. Each night, he tried to stay awake listening for the start of rhythmic breathing by Oliver next door. He liked to imagine finding the bravery to sneak into the room so he could see the man sleeping in the moonlight. Oliver always bragged that he slept in the nude. On hot, sticky summer nights, when even a top sheet felt unbearable, Danny could imagine how Oliver’s muscular torso and legs must sprawl across the unused blankets. But he wouldn’t let himself think too much. It made him hard and crazy.
That summer was Oliver’s second season at the resort. For some reason, he decided to befriend Danny, or so Danny perceived it. As an adult, Danny now realized it was probably Oliver’s job to make sure Danny could do what he was hired to do. Of all the mundane tasks, his favorite was their lunchtime runs to the dumping ground. Together, the two tossed bags of trash and kitchen scraps into the back of an old green Ford pickup until its bed was nearly overflowing with the odorous junk. Then they took off, driving out the resort’s back road, and down a mile or so of shaded lane, all still on the resort’s land. Finally they reached the place’s small landfill. Such open dumps were probably illegal now, but back then they were almost part of the place’s attraction. At night, guests would drive out the road, park, and wait until they saw black bears emerge to scavenge the grounds. The particularly adventuresome would roll down their windows and toss out marshmallows.
Each day the two of them worked together to load the truck, drive down the sun-dappled route, and toss the resort’s waste into the dump. Each day under the shining sun Oliver followed another routine. He would strip off his t-shirt, claiming he didn’t want his clothes to get dirty or smelly. That was fine with Danny because it allowed him to sit next to Oliver’s bare and tanned torso on the entire drive to the dump, work beside his hero to throw out the cans and bags of rotting food, and then return. It didn’t matter what dead raccoon carcass or pile of bad grease was thrown into the mess, because Danny could ignore it all as long as he could see the arm muscles of Oliver at work and as long as he could catch the scent of Oliver. Others might have found Oliver’s sweat rank, but to Danny it was the finest of colognes.
All too soon, the truck would be empty. But then Oliver relaxed. He would sprawl across the sun-warmed metal of the Ford’s hood, pull out a pack of cigarettes and smoke one cigarette before returning to the resort. He claimed the owners owed them a break, since they gave the two of them the worst job in the whole place. But it wasn’t the worst job. Danny could still remember Oliver’s darkened skin against the green paint job of that old Ford. In those initial days, he considered Oliver a prince and would have done anything he asked.
“There’s more,” Cynthia said. “Our accountants just discovered there’s a million dollars missing. And it looks like Chip took it.”
Danny waited. The hallway of the old red brick building on the college campus felt all too familiar. More than once as a student he sat on this uncomfortable fiberglass molded chair just outside Lopez’s office. Anxiously, he would await the exit of another student so that he could have his audience with the famous writer. Today was different. Lopez wasn’t the master dispensing guidance; he was the enemy that needed interrogation. Danny intended to remain focused.
Danny was still perturbed with Josh. The night before, his partner took in everything Cynthia told them and claimed not to find one element surprising.
“Surely you don’t think it’s possible that Chip embezzled money from his own company?” Danny demanded incredulously. They had just ended the call with Cynthia, and Josh had poured another glass of wine.
Josh shrugged. “It explains a lot. He took some money and ran. You think you know someone, Danny, but maybe Chip has his own secrets tucked away. You never know what lies beneath the surface. Life is like that frozen lake beside our camp. It looks bright and clean, but there’s muck hiding in the cold below.”
“You don’t really believe that nonsense. Why do you always have to be so dramatic?”
Josh took another sip of his expensive Bordeaux blend. Danny recalled that it cost seventy dollars a bottle, and he found it outrageous that Josh preferred to casually drink such a wine even as the world around them fell apart. Josh, seeing Danny staring angrily at his glass, defended his actions, “The wine’s already opened. Why shouldn’t we drink it?”
Danny ignored that deflection. “And why would Chip meet Jesus Lopez and Oliver Meyers? How would he even know them? At the same time? The odds don’t make sense.”
Josh looked at him oddly, “I’ve never heard you mention the name Oliver Meyers.”
Danny knew that was true because it was deliberate. Although Meyers deeply wronged him, he never wanted to tell Josh about the summer at the resort. Danny reluctantly acknowledged it remained a part of his life that he would not share. But he had to say something, so he quickly edited what he wanted Josh to know.
“Oliver was someone I knew when I was sixteen. This probably isn’t even the same person.”
Surely, the breakfast was with a different Oliver. The Oliver Meyers that wronged Danny was from Chicago, and even though their meeting was half a lifetime ago, it was unlikely the man was now in Los Angeles.
“Whatever.”
Danny changed tacks. A part of him sought a fight. He didn’t know why, but he felt wronged. “Why didn’t you support me when I suggested that Cynthia fly out?”
Josh looked at him calmly. “The missing funds. That changes everything. Don’t you see how that makes it more likely that Chip is involved in some kind of scheme? Cynthia should let the police do their job. Flying out here is a waste of her time. And ours.”
“You’re wrong, and I’m going to confront Lopez in the morning and find out what he knows.”
“Really? You want to do that? Given the way you feel about him? Weren’t you just furious when I was meeting him to make us some money? Now you want to be in his horrible presence to ask about some breakfast session?”
Of course, a meeting with Lopez was one thing that Danny would prefer to avoid, but he owed something to Cynthia. The least he could do was to find out what he could about what happened at that breakfast appointment.
So now he was at the university waiting for the man.
The door beside Danny opened. Lopez stepped out with a laughing coed. The writer, noticing Danny in the chair, took a step back, clearly startled, and Danny felt a small bit of satisfaction in showing up unannounced.
“Danny, what a surprise.”
Danny stated his purpose directly, “I need to talk about Chip Grant.”
Lopez gave him a quizzical look, but said goodbye to his student and motioned Danny into the office. The place was so familiar: the precisely ordered books on multiple shelves, the window framing a view of the skyscrapers two miles north in downtown Los Angeles, the thick Oriental rug, and the oak library table Lopez used as a desk. A laptop computer sat on that oak surface, next to a stack of books. They all displayed the same cover and spine, suggesting that Lopez had just unpacked a shipment of books from his publisher.
“Why were you having breakfast with Chip Grant and Oliver Meyers.”
Lopez leaned back in his chair and chuckled. “Being back in my office seems to make you a bit abrupt and testy,” he observed. “Are you afraid I will grade you?”
“Just answer my question.”
Lopez shrugged. “Chip invited me to breakfast. We started talking at your house party that night he arrived, and he knew I worked with Premios. He said he wanted to understand the company better. I guess he was looking for an independent perspective.”
“So who’s Oliver Meyers?” Danny almost didn’t ask the question. He feared it was the same person of his summertime nightmare, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to face that.
The question clearly surprised
Lopez. “What do you mean? Oliver Meyer is your investor. He’s the other half of Endicott-Meyers. Surely you know that.”
Everything seemed both clear and murky, as though it were possible to be two things at once. Danny knew he needed to ask more questions, but so many conflicting ideas bounced about. Why didn’t Josh tell him that fact last night? And hadn’t Josh claimed Colby didn’t even have a partner named Meyers? Could Josh not know about Meyers? But then how did Chip know to ask him to the breakfast?
Lopez continued talking. “I suggested inviting Oliver. In fact, I mentioned it at your party. I met Oliver years ago when he was a student and I was a guest lecturer at the University of Chicago. In those days, he seemed such an attractive and interesting fellow. I always felt we were a lot alike. In fact, you can thank me for making him an investor in Premios. I introduced Colby and Oliver when Colby was starting his investment firm. I knew that Oliver has deep ties to many funding sources, and I thought they might help each other out.”
While Lopez spoke, his rat-like eyes focused on Danny and seemed to strip away any pretense Danny might have to an independent life. Danny withered in that stare. He felt as though a vengeful god was testing him. There was still a chance this wasn’t the same Oliver, although Lopez had just confirmed this person was also from Chicago. Danny remembered how when he first met Lopez he had been reminded of Oliver. Had some part of Oliver seeped into Lopez?
He calmed himself by maintaining that it didn’t matter if this newly discovered partner was in fact the teenage love who later wronged him. He reminded himself he wasn’t here to delve into his own past. He was trying to find Chip.
“What did the three of you discuss?”
Lopez glanced out the window as though he could see all the way to the Pacific Dining Car restaurant miles away. Free of Lopez’s stare, Danny felt his energy become more focused. Lopez spoke slowly and low like a person trying to recall every detail.
“Really, there was nothing out of the ordinary. Chip was trying to understand the financing behind your company, and what role Oliver played in the overall Endicott-Meyers firm. Frankly, Chip had no interest in what I had to say and I found the entire breakfast meeting rather boring. Too early in the morning for me, and because we were seated in a booth near the back, I felt closed in and wanted to leave. In my opinion, that restaurant is too somber, too full of politicians and businessmen. But Chip suggested the spot. I think it was because he could walk to it from the Bonaventure. Not a very good neighborhood for walking. Of course, Chip seems the reckless type.
“But why ask all these questions? Did something happen to Chip?”
Danny’s sense of danger flared. Lopez already knew something had happened, and was attempting to conceal some kind of pleasure. He was certain of it, even though Lopez’s face held no sign of any such emotion. Lopez’s novels dealt with dark themes, and Danny felt chilled thinking of all the possibilities that might amuse this man. Imagining those dreadful alternatives, he didn’t know what to ask next.
Finally, Danny spoke, “Did you leave together?”
“As I recall breakfast ended rather abruptly. Chip had already paid the bill when he received a phone call. He answered, seemed concerned, and motioned to us that we should move along. I had the sense he thought the call would last a while. So Oliver and I both walked out. We handed our respective parking stubs to the valet. That’s the last I saw of Chip.
“So why all these questions? Just ask Chip.”
“He’s missing,” Danny said. “You may have been the last person to see him.”
“Oh, I doubt that.” Lopez didn’t seem surprised or concerned by Danny’s statement. “Sorry, but I need to head toward my next seminar.”
Lopez stood.
Danny remained seated. While Chip’s disappearance was disturbing enough, Danny found this reappearance of Oliver deeply rattling. He needed to talk to Josh and find out what he knew about Oliver Meyers. Maybe it was time to discuss his past. He wasn’t certain what he wanted to do next.
Lopez was trying to hand him something. Danny looked up in confusion. The man was holding out a thin volume.
“My newest novel,” he said.
Danny accepted the book and looked at the cover. It featured a large green pickup truck set among the trash of a country dump. Large, white sans serif letters spelled out The Dumping Ground.
“You might find this revealing,” Lopez said with a strange smile. “I realize you’re not really a fan of my themes or style, but this tale has a different feel. It’s more of a coming of age story, set in the Midwest, about a young gay lad. Actually Oliver gave me the idea. Let me know what you think.”
The book’s physicality frightened Danny. He knew there was no need to confer with Josh about this Oliver Meyers. The book’s existence confirmed what he feared. This Oliver had to be the same person from his youth in Wisconsin. There wasn’t even a need to read the novel. The book jacket alone told the entire story. Oliver had stolen his life and handed it to Lopez to transform into a novel. He recognized immediately that this was his story being told, and like any Lopez novel, it was bound to be a horror.
Clutching the book as though it were a dreaded talisman, Danny fled Lopez’s office. He needed to calm himself, so he sought the one place nearby that would serve that purpose. He walked the campus, crossed Exposition Boulevard, and headed toward the 1913 building that housed the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History.
The large dioramas of preserved mammals, especially those of North America, always comforted him. The Hall of Mammals was large, high ceilinged, dim, and quiet and it transported Danny to another state of mind. Even with groups of school kids clamoring about on their field trips, the exhibit hall soaked up every bit of their energy, leaving Danny with his needed sense of repose. Perhaps, it was simpler than that. Maybe he found the grace of the animals awe inspiring, which quieted him into an appreciation of the larger world.
He stood in front of the exhibit of white-tailed deer, noting the stately buck and the younger doe beside him. The leaves of the trees in the exhibit were a panoply of fall colors that reminded him of the hardwood forest bordering his father’s farm. He grew up on that farm, leaving it only after his mother’s funeral. But this recreation of a wooded glade was a natural reminder of a time and place when he felt secure, loved by his father and mother, and part of a happy life. It had never been quite so good since.
The North American Mammal hall opened in 1932, in time for the first Los Angeles Olympics. Danny reflected how his mother wasn’t born until the following year. These preserved deer may have stood alert in quiet poses for many decades spanning multiple generations. The diorama promised an inherent stability that Danny desperately wanted. Having people pop in and out of his life was too uncomfortable.
His imagination was too vivid. Maybe at night, when no one was looking, these deer regained life. In some reality where quantum mechanics allowed for a never-ending number of alternate universes, perhaps even these animals existed in a state of being both alive and not alive. In such an unimaginable environment, perhaps neither Jesus Lopez nor Oliver Meyers would exist to torment him. He wanted that world.
A group of nine-year-olds were scrambling for optimal viewing. Surrounded, Danny realized he was standing there too long. One of the school chaperones was staring at him as though to prod him to move along. He did. After all he wasn’t a product of taxidermy, nor was he captured forever in a single moment of time. He looked down at the book he carried. Whatever story Lopez may have woven, in the end it was only a piece of fiction. Whether it was derived or not from Danny’s life did not matter. Only Danny and Oliver knew where the truth lay. Besides whatever story was told, it was a plot floating in a past river. As the old adage went, you could never step into the same river twice. The book didn’t matter. Oliver didn’t matter. Danny tried to convince himself that his logic was sound
Kids rushed forward into a new hall, eager to discover something more interesting. Danny followed. Th
ey were clustered around a display cabinet near the rotunda. As a frequent visitor to this museum, Danny knew what was inside: a giant oarfish. The strange marine creature never seemed natural—too long to be real, too rarely encountered, and too little discussed by people for the casual observer to accept its true existence. More like a serpent or sea dragon, the preserved oarfish floated in its timeless mix of yellowing resin. The display gave the specimen an unearthly aura, and allowed the preserved fish to be subjected to the laughter, stares, and gibes of the children.
Danny felt that gaze of the other again, at the back of his head, the sense that some chaperone was marking him as questionable. Not wanting to be flagged as a child predator, he knew it was time to leave, but he looked around to catch who was making him feel watched.
That’s when he noticed someone across the rotunda walking rapidly into another hall. That person was wearing the same kind of blue fisherman’s hat that Pete Peterson used to wear in Thread. What next? First he was reminded of Oliver, and now of Pete. His past refused to vaporize in the way that all unwanted memories should.
Danny felt chilled. The hat reminded him of a night at the resort that followed a moonlit round of skinny-dipping with Oliver. They rested on a raft floating off the sandy beach. Feeling protected by the stars and warm summer air, Danny told Oliver all about Pete—and what Pete meant to him, and in turn, what he meant to Pete.
What if Oliver had repeated that to Lopez? What if that past was recounted in the book? Danny couldn’t abide such treason.
INTERLUDE
Session Six
I have a theory. Life is just a giant game board. Sort of like chess. Not so structured or unnatural as that game with all its strategies and books on famous moves. Real life is far more challenging. You have to be smarter than a chess grand master to prevail in the real world.
To answer your question before you even ask it . . . yes, I think of myself as one of those more intelligent people. You have to know it’s true. You’ve seen me and talked to me. Don’t you agree that it’s an honest assessment?
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