Craig Clevenger - Dermaphoria

My brain tries to kick-fire itself into working again. Nanostorm lightning burns the memory nest to a cinder, the drones thrown to their backs, legs kicking the air.

“This is the part where we sweat you, tag team good cop, bad cop,” Anslinger says. “Those are the rules, right? Not my style. You’re not in good shape. You rest for a while and we’ll talk again.”

Anslinger grinds out his cigarette.

“I’ve been looking for you, or someone like you, for some time. Beginning to think you were an urban legend. Don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s good to finally meet you.”

two

BLEACHED WHITE SURROUNDS ME, VOID OF SHADOWS. THE WALLS COULD BE three feet from my fingers or thirty. My first instinct says I’m in Hell. My second instinct says the Devil doesn’t like me and my third says he can afford a better suit. He’s talking rapid-fire, like he’s been ranting at me while I’ve been in a coma.

“You will talk to no one about your case without me. Period. Not the cops, not Anslinger, nobody. If any doctors ask you anything not pertaining to your treatment, you keep your mouth shut. Same for any orderlies or nurses. Especially for them. You don’t talk to anyone while you’re in here, and when you’re out, you do likewise. Anyone with whom you speak can be subpoenaed, or worse, they could be a snitch or even undercover. Am I clear? Am I getting through to you?”

He speaks without stopping for breath or my answer.

“You say you can’t remember anything so, if and when you start, the prosecution will accuse you of selective recall and slowly gut you in front of the jury. Did you know they tried to get you to waive your right to counsel?”

“No.” I’m trying to hold his words together but they’re piling up too quickly, old seconds crushed beneath the weight of the new.

“Yes, they did. But you couldn’t sign your own name, let alone remember it. Things could have been worse. So remember, you talk to nobody about your case. Tell me you’ll remember.”

“I will.”

“Say it.”

“I’ll remember.”

“Remember what?”

“I won’t talk to anyone about my case without you.”

My case. I have a case. I’ve run a red light or I’ve been caught with a severed head in a paper bag. I’m scared to ask.

“We pleaded no contest. The judge set your bail at $50,000 for assaulting that state trooper and I’ve got a bondsman taking care of it. He owes me a favor, otherwise you’d be stuck here because you’ve got no credit or collateral. You’ll be released by this afternoon.”

“So, I’ve already been in court.”

“You spent your arraignment in a wheelchair, drooling with your eyes open.”

“And you and I have met.”

“Yes.” He clenches his jaw like he’s about to hit me.

“You and I met, and I told you to keep your mouth shut, and then you promptly forgot. Heard you had a visit with Detective Anslinger.”

“Anslinger, yeah. I thought the cops were robots.” More sound of rushing blood. “He’s a good guy,” I add. “I like him.”

“Stop liking him. And stop interrupting me. Okay, the bad news. The DA is going to try to convince a grand jury that you were the one making the stuff you OD’d on. Some combination of methamphetamine and LSD. The hospital says it nearly killed you and your long-term health is a crapshoot. Your heart stopped and they clocked you dead for eight seconds. You know what a firefly is?”

“It’s a bug that glows in the dark. They shock you when you bite them open.”

“Wrong. I mean the acid that’s been turning up all over Los Angeles and creeping up the coast and inland for the last year. They think it’s yours.”

His last sentence hangs in the air between us. I’m supposed to grab for it, but I can’t. He rolls his eyes and continues.

“They’ve connected you to the lab that blew, and Anslinger’s crew has walked the grid on the burn site at least a hundred times. The DA’s going to have a mountain of evidence for the grand jury, the register for which will be copied to me but not for another four or five days, so I won’t know until then exactly what they’ve got on you. In any case, I can almost guarantee they’ll hand down an indictment, which means you’re back in jail until your trial. Now, what can you tell me?”

“Nothing. I swear, my mind’s a blank.”

“Who’s Desiree?”

Your name numbs me like an animal dart and drops my thoughts in their tracks.

“I don’t know.”

“You keep saying that. You’re not helping. ‘Desiree. Goddamn you, Desiree.’” He reads from a photocopy, his voice monotone. “Ring any bells?”

My pulse races and I feel squirming beneath my bandages like a swarm of larvae is hatching under my grafts. There isn’t a damned thing I can do except wait for them to scar.

“You’ve got a week, then, maybe,” he says, repacking his files. “Your best move is to make an offer of cooperation. I need to hand them as much information as you can give me, who you were working for, your distributors, your suppliers, everything. Otherwise, get used to your surroundings for the next couple of decades. If I can’t make them an offer before your trial, nothing you remember once the trial starts will help.” As he stands up he says, “Snap out of it,” then drops a business card into my lap. “I’ll be in touch.”

“Hang on,” I say, then I’m blank. The thought flutters out, circles the overhead light in a long silence before it flies back into my head.

“Where will I go when I’m out?”

He’s quiet. I stare down at my forearm. The bandages on my back are damp from the seepage through the mesh beneath them. For a moment, I forget I’m not alone in my cell.

“I look like a travel agent to you?” He leans into my face. “You see a name tag on me? There a poster of the Caribbean on the wall?” He’s barking too quickly for me to say anything and it hurts to shake my head so I stare at my forearm again.

“You’ve got a good chunk of cash with your property envelope. I’m sure you’ll get by, just don’t be too frugal. Enjoy your five days of freedom.”

He raps on my cell door and the noise makes me twitch. A buzzer sounds and the door swings open.

“Check my card,” he says, stepping out. “The name is ‘Morell.’ That’s me, since you didn’t ask. In the future, make sure you know who you’re talking to. Call me when you settle in somewhere.”

The guard slams my cell door shut and my heart skips. Morell’s footsteps recede into the din of buzzing doors that sound like the electric flies in my head swarming to the surging lights of my memory. They’re tireless, but if I let them exhaust themselves, they might collapse into a pattern, forming some code in their scattered husks. I stare at my hands for an hour, hoping for a read on my age. If the steel mirror above the toilet is accurate, I’m a human blur. My mug shot is the foggy outline of a nondescript face.

A nightstick thunderclap against my cell door jolts me out of my knuckle and mirror speculation. A paper plate wrapped in cellophane slides through a waist-level opening. Four fish sticks, a biscuit, a plastic fruit cup and a carton of juice, shrink-wrapped at room temperature. The odor slaps me like the ass end of a summer garbage truck when I tear the plastic away. I flush the fish sticks and breathe into the crook of my elbow until my dry heaves stop. The biscuit and warm juice calm my stomach.

I stare at the white walls and try to remember something beyond the preceding seconds spent staring at the infinite white cement in front of me and the cement staring back. I log those seconds into my diary and hope for more.

three

THE SCHNAUZER BET IT ALL ON A BLUFF BUT THE BULLDOG ISN’T FALLING FOR it. The terrier and the Doberman have folded and all four act like they don’t notice me, sitting stock still so I won’t notice them. They come down from the walls, along with the black velvet clowns. I run my fingers over the unfaded patches of wallpaper, feeling for holes and tapping for hollow spots, checking the picture frames, lightbulbs, lamp stand, air vents, bed frame and night table for wires. I square off with the big-eyed, frowning circus hobos, scanning for microphones and microlenses. I plug the lamp in eight times, testing for juice socket by socket. Two come up dead. I unscrew the faceplates with a dime but find nothing.