The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik

by David Arnold

  “Yeah,” I say. Considering the fever pitch of Dad’s Cubbie-love, it was a fandom near impossible to avoid.

  “You know what happened in ’45, then?”

  “Sure. Curse of the Billy Goat.”

  OMG chooses a bottle, tilts a generous pour into a glass, and hands it to me. “Hadn’t won it since 1908, figured the wait was over.” After pouring himself one, he shuffles back into his easy chair, its cushiony form enveloping him, appropriately, like a well-worn baseball mitt. “If I’d known then what I know now, just how far from the truth that was—how many years I’d have to wait . . .”

  I take a labored sip, study a framed baseball card of a youngish kid in a jersey with NY embroidered on the front. The card looks about a hundred years old, and as far as I can tell, it’s the only piece of baseball memorabilia that isn’t Cubs-related. The name on the bottom reads Merkle.

  “People think the curse started with that damn goat,” says OMG. “But I know the truth.” He sips his whiskey, savors it, and seems to lose himself in something. When he looks up, it’s like he forgot I was in the room. “Kind of a weird kid, aren’t you?”

  “I mean . . . I don’t think so.”

  “Follow a lot of strangers home, do you?”

  If you only knew, I think. Actually, that was the last time I had liquor, the night I followed Circuit home. Probably not the healthiest habit.

  “Never heard of anyone living in a B-and-B,” I say.

  “Probably a lot of things you’ve never heard of.”

  I raise my glass. “Like bourbon before breakfast?”

  He downs the rest of his, heads back to the bar. “You can wait till breakfast if you want.”

  I choke down a sip and notice a small urn on the mantel with a gold-plated plaque reading RIP HERMAN, ONE HELL OF A CAT.

  “You a cat person, Mr. George?”

  “It’s Elam.”

  “Sorry?”

  He tips a bottle over his glass, this pour lasting a little longer than the first. “My name,” he says. “I prefer Mr. Elam. And I don’t know what that means, Am I a cat person. I used to have a cat. Now I don’t.”

  “Okay.”

  “You doing a report or something?” he asks. “For school?”

  “No.”

  He points to his goiter. “It’s this, then, yeah? You noticed it, got curious, maybe even Internetted it. Ultimately, you figured you’d go”—he makes a little clicking noise out of the side of his mouth—“straight to the source.”

  “I’m not—I didn’t—”

  “You are,” he says. “And you did. How you like the bourbon?”

  “It’s good,” I say, and then, “Listen,” but how to explain that for the past six months I’ve concocted a hundred stories of his life, rearranged my own schedule to catch a glimpse of him walking his route, every day, same time, without fail? He’s right: I’m curious. But it’s not the goiter. It’s him. I would like to know who he is: at most, to figure out why he, as a Strange Fascination, hasn’t changed; at least, to go back to breathing properly between Mill Grove and Ashbrook. “Mr. Elam, I’d like to hear your story. That’s the long and short of it. I don’t want anything from you, I just want to hear your story.” As an afterthought, I add: “If that’s okay.”

  He opens his mouth and for a second I think it’s over, he’s kicking me out and that’s that, but then he starts talking, and like Penny’s wormhole illustration I am an ant on a folded napkin, transported through time and space into a whole other world, one emerging not as a beautiful and glorious place, but as an honest place, a place where wives die young, where wars are hard fought, where life plays out in ways you never imagined. And it’s more fantastic than anything I could have concocted not because of what happens, but because it happened, because it is Mr. Elam’s story.

  George Elam moved into Ambrosia’s Bed & Breakfast after his wife of forty-two years, Barbara, died of cancer. The cancer came as cancer does: out of the blue, leaving a black hole in its wake. George and Barbara Elam had long been friends with the owner of Ambrosia’s, and what started as temporary lodging (“I couldn’t sleep in that house after she died”) ended up a permanent arrangement. The goiter came along shortly after that. His doctor showed concern, expressed interest in various treatments, all of which Mr. Elam declined. “When it’s my time, it’s my time,” he says on more than one occasion, which leads me to wonder, Does this man hasten his time?

  Mr. Elam fought in World War II, landed on Omaha Beach, pushed through the hedgerows into France, “endured and survived the Battle of the Bulge,” and advanced into Germany, where “we woulda shot the little chicken shit had he not done the deed himself,” and I imagine Mr. Elam the soldier, blood on his hands and friends, blood on his thoughts and actions, and I am forced to confront that burning question I can only assume all young men of ensuing generations face when presented with an honest-to-God World War II story: How would you have fared?

  Ten years after Barbara died, Mr. Elam fulfilled a lifelong dream of qualifying for Wheel of Fortune. He did well, was up the whole game until the puzzle turned to pop culture, and the before and after phrase incorporated a current movie star, and Mr. Elam hasn’t “seen a single movie since 1990,” because that’s when The Godfather Part III came out, which put him off movies for the rest of his life.

  He lost tens of thousands on that puzzle.

  Mr. Elam refills my empty glass, and his own. “Used to go to church,” he says, “until they stopped singing the good songs. Still believe in God, even though I don’t understand one damn thing He does,” and now he’s not speaking so much as regurgitating memories, as if his brain is spilling over and the only outlet is his mouth, his words. “My wife loved numbers, but that was a long time ago,” he spills, mostly fragments now, “just a baby,” and then something about daily walks and a family motto, but I can barely hear. “‘One plus one plus one equals one,’ she used to say.”

  It’s dead silent for the first time in a while.

  One plus one plus one equals one. The family motto.

  “So . . . you have a kid, then?” I ask.

  Mr. Elam takes a deep breath—it reminds me of the moment my head breaks the surface of water, that very first inhale—and then: “I’m done now.”

  “Okay,” I say, “thank you,” and I mean it, and suddenly I feel very foolish to have ever referred to this man as anything other than Mr. Elam. He opens the door, and it’s not forceful or rude, but it is final, and now I’m in the hallway lacing up my boots, echoes of other lives ringing in my head, so many silly stories I’d concocted floating away, forever replaced by the true Mr. Elam.

  I can’t help but smile a little as I walk downstairs, a whiff of Boston brownstone unfolding the napkin, restoring the present timeline, and like an ant confronted with the sudden and daunting distance between corners, I walk out the front door of Ambrosia’s Bed & Breakfast, feeling the weight of possibility on my shoulders, the burden of knowledge that comes from having listened to the story of a life well lived.

  And in my head, Mr. Elam’s voice on a loop . . .

  Well, kid, don’t just stand there.

  49 → productivity begets productivity

  Today’s visit with Mr. Elam ran long, and by the time I arrive at school, I’ve already missed first block and most of second. I wait it out in the car, then head to third block where I zone to Herr Weingarten’s titillating lecture on verb conjugation, instead channeling the commanding baritone of Mr. Elam: Ultimately, you figured you’d go . . . straight to the source.

  I’ve posted a comment directly on the Fading Girl’s YouTube channel. I’ve walked right up to Mr. Elam. I’ve scoured the bonus materials of This Is Not a Memoir. But instead of directly investigating a local musician, I’ve been hyperfocused on the identity of some rando guy in a photograph that musician left behind.

  A quick
Google search under my desk and I have Pontius Pilot’s event schedule, which includes a standing gig at a bar in Lincoln Park called the Windy City Limits. He’s there every Tuesday night at eleven thirty.

  Tomorrow night.

  I make a clicking noise out of the side of my mouth. “Straight to the source.”

  “Ja, Norbert?” says Herr Weingarten.

  I look up to find the entire class looking at me. “What?”

  “Hast du etwas gesagt?” he asks.

  Shit. “Um, nein. Ich habe . . . nichte . . . sagte . . . um, nichte.”

  The class chuckles, and Danny Dingledine raises his hand, which ramps up the chuckling, and then Danny asks for permission to “use the facilities for a big-time Nummer zwei,” and the class becomes one chuckle united. Even Klaus—who’s proven as big a competent turd as we feared—gets in on the action, and Herr Weingarten rubs his temples, and I’d feel bad for the guy, but all this productivity has me feeling a little drunk at the moment.

  That, plus Mr. Elam’s bourbon.

  * * *

  That evening after dinner, I receive two emails in my twobytwooak@gmail.com inbox: an exclusive offer from Williams-Sonoma (which, WTF), and a message from SquareRootOfBro_6 asking if I would like to buy his football cards.

  Mysteries of the playground abound!

  I climb into bed with the collector’s edition of This Is Not a Memoir, and the magnifying glass I ordered online, which I’ve used to study the photographs in the back of the book. It’s mostly Mila Henry with her dad, and then with her husband, Thomas Huston, and eventually their son, Jonathan.

  Jonathan Henry was an artist and writer primarily known for his very terrible novel, On Wings of Total Chaos & Destruction, which was exactly as sad as its sad title insinuated. While reading, one could almost feel the great shadow of Jonathan’s mother spread across the page, and I had to think, if ever a writer was doomed from the start, it was the son of Mila Henry.

  I stay up late googling Jonathan Henry—his relationship with his mom (a real champion of her son’s visual art, in one early interview even going so far as to say, “The world doesn’t know what to do with Jonathan yet because it’s seen nothing like him before”), his derivative writing, his divisive paintings—and it feels like someone dumped a billion-piece jigsaw puzzle in front of me. I can’t be sure where to start, but I tell myself that breakthrough revelations usually arrive with exhaustion, when one’s brain is focused on something else entirely—that’s when it hits you.

  My phone buzzes with a text from Val: How’d it go with OMG today?

  Unable to keep my head in an upright position, I fall into bed and text her how it went, thank her for the suggestion, ask if she’ll update Alan.

  Val: Maybe tomorrow? He had late practice, just crashed.

  Me: Great. Night Val.

  Val: Night, No

  Me: Hey

  Val: Hey

  Me: Thank you

  And at some point, just before falling asleep, while focused on something else entirely, the breakthrough revelation: within the name Jonathan lies another name.

  YOU GUESSED IT → PART FIVE

  —Excerpt from Chapter 17 of Mila Henry’s Year of Me

  ‘Nathan.’

  Cletus watched his new friend cry. The young man was clearly down on his luck, but there was more to it than that. Truth be told Cletus saw much of himself—much of who he wanted to be, much of who he used to be—in Nathan. For Cletus, the world had stopped letting him down when he’d stopped expecting it not to. But Nathan still felt things & deeply. Nathan still believed in possibility, still believed there was a chance the world was not in fact a smoking shitball of disappointment.

  Which it was, of course. One big stinking, smoking shitball.

  Cletus opened his mouth to break this news to his friend, when suddenly he glimpsed a small burst of color protruding from the inside pocket of Nathan’s blazer. ‘What is that?’ asked Cletus.

  Nathan pulled out a painting about the size of a pocketbook. ‘I thought maybe it would impress someone. At the mixer, I mean. Silly of me.’

  ‘May I?’ asked Cletus, taking the canvas in his hands. He turned it, then again, trying to decide if he loved or hated it. The painting seemed both loud & soft, a little presumptuous of its virtue, until Cletus looked closer & decided no, it had just the right account of its own virtue. And then Cletus began to cry (a thing he rarely did), & he was dumbfounded (a thing he rarely was), for he understood that what he held was rare magic, that Nathan had harnessed that magic, had completed the unspoken commission of artists the world over: Create something new for godsake.

  Cletus looked from the art to the artist, this shell of a man sitting across from him, & in a blinding revelatory blaze, he understood. To complete the commission—to create something truly new—it was not enough for the artist to put themselves into their work; they must also die to it.

  ‘I just want to create,’ said Nathan, as good as dead. ‘Just to create.’

  Cletus reached his hand across the table, placed it on Nathan’s. ‘So did She. And here we are. But you know—I’m not sure Her creation would know what to do with yours.’

  Nathan was overcome with emotion at these words & the two men wept openly onto the Formica tabletop. Nearby patrons whispered, eyes darting furtively at these strange men who would dare cry & hold hands in so public a place. Cletus did not care. For in one hand he held magic & in the other the magician.

  And Cletus Foot wondered if perhaps the world was not so giant a shitball after all.

  ‘I’m sorry, Nathan. I’m just so sorry.’

  50 → omen

  It’s Tuesday morning and the gas station parking lot is spotless, not a grease stain to be found.

  Mr. Elam never shows.

  51 → fifty shades of beige

  This morning before class, I meet with Coach Kel for physical fitness drills, and to discuss what I’m missing in practice, and eventually that discussion turns to Coach Stevens and the UM offer. “You make a decision yet?” he asks. “Helluva coach, helluva program. They’d be lucky to have you.”

  Afterward, I see Alan in the hallway. He clearly sees me, sees that I saw him see me, does a ninety-degree turn on a dime, and stares at the blank wall. With his nose mere inches from the beige cement blocks, he tilts his head to one side and scratches his hair like he’s admiring a masterpiece at the Guggenheim.

  Yesterday after Mr. Elam’s, I’d gotten to school so late I hadn’t seen him at all, making this our first encounter since their intervention in my room Sunday night. And as opposed to the many rifts I’ve had with Val, Alan and I have only ever had one real argument before: the night of the Longmire party this summer, and that was resolved through text, so we have no real protocol for in-person friendship realignment.

  “Hey.”

  He looks at me like he’s surprised to see me. “Oh. Hello, Noah Oakman.”

  I turn sideways so our shoulders almost touch, then stare at the wall right next to him. “This is nice. I can see why you chose this spot. The beige is more, I don’t know, beiger than, say, right there.” I point a few feet down the wall. It’s exactly the same, but I shake my head like that particular section of beige has really let itself go. “It just sucks, ’cause none of the other beiges will tell that beige to its face. They’ll just talk about its lackluster beigeness behind its back. I really feel for it, man.” Still nothing. “Okay, movie idea. Fifty Shades of Beige, starring . . . Steve Buscemi. Costarring Dolores Umbridge. Instead of sex, they’re obsessed with a variety of tantalizing board games. Clue. Monopoly. Risk. Tagline . . . Work hard, play hard.”

  “Steve Buscemi’s super-talented though.”

  “Who would you have gone with?”

  “What about one of the villains from Home Alone?”

  “Works for me.”

  Alan sha
kes his head. “This conversation, though.”

  “You know, I just figured—our first post-confrontation in-person talk was bound to be awkward, might as well really go for it.”

  Alan throws an arm around my shoulders. “I’m glad we got that over with.”

  “Same.”

  We part ways for first block, and Alan tells me to text him during the perfect storm to let him know how it went with OMG. I say I will, and on my walk to class I wonder how it’s possible talking such stupid shit can make me feel so good. And then I wonder who I’ll talk stupid shit with next year.

  * * *

  Alan: Dude

  Alan: Yo

  Alan: OK, like

  Alan: Whatever you’re working on better be a masterpiece of the utmost import

  Alan: Because I’m actually learning shit here

  Alan: About American history and whatnot

  Alan: For example, did you know Abraham Lincoln didn’t have a middle name?

  Alan: Ooh, or that he loved chicken casserole? (What even is chicken casserole and can I have some amarite????)

  Alan: HOLY SHIT BOOTH WAS AT LINCOLN’S 2ND INAUGURAL AND THERE IS A PHOTO OF THEM TOGETHER AHHHHHHH

  Alan: Noah the learning is real

  Alan: Okay

  Alan: So what kind of timeline are you thinking? Like today, or . . . ?

  Alan: Should I break out my e-reader?

  Alan: (E-reader, that’s a thing, right?)

  Alan: Do you need another round of revisions before sending?

  Alan: So I’m considering shifting occupational focus from animation to goat farming. Your thoughts

  Alan and I have always referred to B Day, first block as the “perfect storm.” He has American history with Ms. Ray and I have AP psychology with Mr. Armentrout, both of whom are usually too wrapped up in the superiority of their own subjects to notice a little undercover texting. Today, Mr. Armentrout was a little more attentive at first, so Alan had a bit of a head start.