Adam Johnson - Fortune Smiles - Stories

“Wait here,” I tell them. Outside, I make my way to the back of the complex, squeezing between the trash bins and dryer vents as I traverse the apartment’s rear wall. Here, I cup my hands to the glass and peer inside, observing the girls the way a pervert would. When the Cub looks in my direction, she screams and then the Tiger screams and then they realize it’s only me.

I move to inspect the bedroom window. Below the window frame, the grass is trampled and someone has ejaculated many times onto the pink stucco. Nearing the glass, I gaze into the mother’s bedroom. Here is the mattress where the Tiger’s Mom sleeps off her hangovers, where — out cold, sheets balled, robe flopped open — she spends her days.

Inside, I tell the girls that some guy probably just looked in the wrong window. Still, we hang towels over both panes. The girls are happy to have a visitor. The Tiger shows me her tiger dance. She cages her eyes and moves seriously through a drill, like it is the fourth quarter and the home crowd is depending on her to spark a rally.

The Cub, too, performs for me. She begins to move about the apartment like a dolphin. Her elbows become fins. She puffs her cheeks and holds her breath. When she lifts her head, she’s breaching the surface, and when her neck lowers, she’s diving deep, and she is not running through soiled clothes, she is swimming in the open ocean. In this faraway sea, alcohol doesn’t exist and neither do North Hollywood one-bedrooms. Here, men don’t fuck groupies or masturbate while your mother dreams. I watch the Cub swim laps around me, her limber young body silently circling, wholly unaware of the designs the world has drafted for her.

When her eyes lift to mine, seeking my approval, I call a halt to this swimming and dancing business. I go to their fridge, papered with nightclub flyers. Inside, I find nothing, not even milk.

“You hungry, Mr. Roses?” the Cub asks.

The freezer, too, is empty. “What happened to the money I gave you for the painting?”

The Tiger says, “We had to pay a bill.”

“What bill was this?”

The Tiger says, “A guy came by. He knows our mom, and it turns out there was a bill she forgot to pay.”

“Wait here,” I tell them, and then head to the 7-Eleven on the corner, where I buy whole-grain cereal, bananas, a gallon of milk and some dodgy-looking taquitos, but at least they are warm.

Behind the checkout counter are racks of dirty magazines. I turn from them. I feel like a good guy, a normal guy who has normal interactions with others. The Cub is a powerful force. She activates . But I feel strong and good. I deliver the groceries, and when I take leave of the girls, I stand on the front step and tell them to close the door and lock it.

“I want to hear it lock,” I say.

They close the door on me, but instead of locking it, they say, “What are we going to do?”

“Read a book,” I say through the wood. “Better yet, go to bed. Now lock the door.”

They are quiet a moment. Then the deadbolt locks.

—

At home, I hang the boat painting where I can see it from my bed. I lie atop my covers, thinking about the guy who is sailing alone. All the lights in my apartment are off, but there’s enough glow through the window to see the weight and size of the ocean rollers, to note how the rigging strains in the wind. The sailor is looking toward a dark horizon, so the viewer can’t see his face, but it’s easy to tell his story is an old one: a sailor has lost something far out at sea. Now he’s heading back to claim it.

It’s just a cheap painting, but for hours I wonder if the sailor can get the thing back, if he can find the place where he lost it. To do that, he has to sail back in time, to before . The journey is impossible, but he has his boat rigged right, and the rope is in his hands. The wind is up and he’s bowfronting the waves. Most important, the sailor has made the decision. He has embarked.

I decide to text Officer Hernandez. It’s the middle of the night. Using software to alias my SIM card data, I send him this message: 5c2758ba7d4f4dd90c5525b5aa6a09cb4305452c121e5a5961c1f4fc451223fee2982285274b6e2ca36d2587f848b72517236ca950bf8934a6afada07976aaac098aeaf54e83b70c4a00442bf548d7e307c5e1f93abfc0ef1d4777b69d9d9eaaa685947050483d8907f9516eb7f6870edbf52d7e7153e737a80a60f2b5366eaf.

—

In the morning, I get a text for a computer consultation in Sun Valley. Shittier even than Pacoima, Chatsworth, Reseda and my own North Hollywood is Sun Valley. I take Tujunga north to La Tuna. I pull up in front of a defunct dog kennel sandwiched between a cement plant and a maintenance yard. There’s a chain across the lot, so I park in the street.

I double-check the address. Then I text the number back: “Dog kennel?”

Right away, I get my answer: “Yes, DM14097. Just knock, we’re home.”

No one in the world has connected the real me with DM14097. I’m no longer that person. I no longer use screen names. I don’t surf forums, chat rooms or P2P directories. I stopped using Tor, eDonkey and Fetch. I don’t swap, barter, buy in or burn-request. I gave up the entire Internet. I have only my little library, and I’m chipping away at that.

I check my phone, but this person also knows how to alias his SIM data.

Just then he texts back: “btw, this is Dodger6636.”

In the world I no longer inhabit, where people exist only online, fantasy and deed are indistinguishable. Yet there was one man known by his deeds. And that was Dodger6636, a legend in the realm. He must have outlasted them all.

I look at the abandoned dog kennel, taking note of the improvised satellite dishes on the roof and the aluminum foil covering the storefront windows. I get that feel, that kinetic conk inside when I’d receive a delivery from Dodger in my Fetch Dropbox: a puppy avatar would alert me by dancing across my computer window and then laying the bone in his mouth at the foot of my screen. When you got a delivery from Dodger, you knew it was special, it was some long-lost tidbit you’d never laid eyes on.

I step over the chain. Glass and gravel crunch as I cross the lot.

Dodger opens the door before I raise my hand to knock.

“Dark Meadow,” he says, taking a good look at me. “You made it.”

“Looks like you made it, too,” I say.

He’s older than me, a bit potbellied. He’s had what were maybe some small skin cancers removed from his forehead and scalp. We’ve never met — I’ve never met anyone from that world — but he says, “I remember you well. You’re different than I imagined, but tastes never change. Pictures only, if I recall. And you’re a vintage guy, right, you like the classic stuff?”

One look into Dodger’s eyes, and you can tell what kind he is: the kind that is born.

“Actually, I’ve embarked on a new life,” I tell him.

“Certainly,” he says. “I understand completely.” He removes a thumb drive from his pocket. “You won’t be needing this, then. But I’ll give it to you for old times’ sake. It’s custom-loaded for you.”

He holds out the thumb drive, and I take it, warm from his pants.

“You know how hard it is to find new vintage material?” he asks me. “What was it Wordsworth said, ‘A springtime loss is autumn’s gain’? Just remember that I made the effort, I walked the mile for you. It’s encrypted, but the key is ‘Dark Meadow.’ ”

When I close my fingers around the drive, Dodger beckons me in.

“You weren’t easy to find,” he tells me. “But we need you.”

I follow Dodger through the empty waiting room into a hallway stacked with blinking server arrays; several box fans hum full speed to keep them cool. We enter what might have once been a dog-grooming area — there are stainless-steel counters and tables and sinks. The sinks are deep. One is filled with dirty coffee cups, and the other is ringed with beauty supplies. At one metal table, a man is editing video. He’s got a couple of cinema screens and a mixing board.