Fiona Maazel - Woke Up Lonely

The guy in charge handed out envelopes. He said, “In each you’ll find a key to one of four lockers at the Greyhound bus station. In those lockers, you’ll find coveralls, badges, and clipboards. Anne-Janet, in your locker you will also find keys to the van, which will be parked on Court Street. Now, are you okay to drive the van, or do you want someone else to do it?”

Anne-Janet was startled. She’d been staring at Ned’s shoes under the table. Brown lace-up gum shoes that were popular among the preppies at her school circa 1993. Did that mean he’d been a preppy and was hanging on to the glory days via his shoes? Or did he just shop secondhand?

One of the fluorescents overhead began to strobe. The effect was to slow time in the room and to repulse its occupants even further into themselves.

“I can drive,” Olgo said, and he nearly stood up. Would have stood up, if not for his reflection in the mirror, which showed a man without purpose. Yes, he was working the Indian land claims, but no, he really wasn’t. So maybe he’d started moping around the house. Maybe, for feeling so aimless, he’d stopped managing his looks, such as they were. For instance, his shirt, muddied with raspberry ganache from his birthday cake. But was that any reason to leave your husband? Not that Kay had left. She was just out to graze. Kay Panjabi was grazing. “I can drive us from here, if you want. Right now. Anyone object to leaving right now?”

“That won’t be necessary,” said the man. “But your enthusiasm is noted.”

Bruce lifted his arm in the way kids do when they want to look like they’ve volunteered but don’t want to be called on. Today was payday. If he did as told and allotted his income responsibly, he’d have enough money left to buy his wife and unborn a six-pack of Jell-O pudding snacks for dinner.

“You have a question, Bruce?”

“Yes. Can I keep whatever footage I shoot at the Helix House? Can I get the rights and use it for whatever I want?”

The man touched the hearing device lodged in his ear and said, “After it’s been cleared.”

“I’m ready to leave now,” Olgo said. “Drive right to that man’s door and blow the place up if I have to.”

“What?” Ned said. “When are we going?”

“Whenever you’re going,” Anne-Janet said.

Esme stood. She’d been watching them through the two-way, but she’d seen enough. She patched in to Martin and told him to wrap it up.

She slung her purse over her shoulder but stopped at the door to answer her phone, and then not to answer, because it was Jim Bach. He’d want to know about her progress. He’d ask to meet the team. She let it go to voicemail, and when she listened two minutes later, it was as she suspected.

He said: Esme, the stakes have never been so high. Imperialist pretensions abroad are kid stuff in comparison. Are you sure you know what this means? She stopped listening there. Of course she was sure. And here was why: Some people hear voices and the voices are bad. They say: You’re going to die alone. And: You suck. Sometimes, when these voices come to you via satellite because it is your job to listen, it is your career as a sleuthing mercenary, sometimes they say the last thing you want to hear: Thurlow Dan accepting money from North Korea. Thurlow Dan giving presents to a hooker. Thurlow Dan weeping into his pillow at five in the afternoon, knowing that if his muscles have failed to rouse him from bed, it is because they are instruments of depressing notice that he does not want to live. She had heard it all, and so when Jim asked, for the millionth time, if she understood what was at stake, the answer was easy: Yes, I understand, I understand better than you. Though if he asked for more, she wouldn’t tell him. She could barely tell herself. Time heals all wounds? Ha, ha-ha, ha-ha, ha-ha.

THURLOW GOT THOUSANDS OF EMAILS A DAY, which Dean reduced to the few that seemed pressing or of interest. Among today’s crop was one was from a girl petitioning him to visit her weekly meeting, it being the most popular in her district — hundreds aggregating to lament the darkness of 2000; the squandered surplus; WMDs; etc. He wrote: Dear Crystal, I’m glad your meeting has attracted so many people, except I encourage you to reacquaint yourself with the Helix charter and core principles because they don’t have too much to do with what you’re talking about. But then instead of sending it, he just shook his head. To another follower, who’d promised his mom the Helix would make him a better son, though he wasn’t sure it had, Thurlow wrote: The only promise that’s been despoiled is the one I made you. But then he deleted that, too. Turned off his computer and looked at the video camera aimed his way. There was one in every room of the house, programmed to record in his presence and to send this footage to his PC for compiling. He had modeled the system on Nixon’s White House, only he never forgot it was on. Often, he’d look into the cameras and talk to himself. His work proceeded from the unhappiness of a deserted man — who else did he have to talk to? Plenty of people, it turned out. As of today, the whole world. Now that he was about to obliterate the trust so many had put in him, it was better to address them all in one go. He cleared his throat. And began.

00:58:12:12: Greetings from my home in Cincinnati. You all know my name, and by the time you see this tape, you will also know what I’ve done. So I want to use this as an opportunity to explain. But first, a few caveats, chiefly that I am not a crazy. The press will be calling me a crazy, but I’m not. Sun Myung Moon is crazy. Victor Paul Wierwille. Jim Jones and Chuck Dederich. But I am not them. What I am is heartbroken. Which will, yes, lead some men to do crazy things.

I think, too, that the press will want to sensationalize what’s going on here, but I prefer the facts and a list of my doings: The seeding and growth of a therapeutic movement whose recruits are legion. A snatching from the Frenchies of philosophy the whys of bereavement and isolation. A crusade for the idea that if companionship makes you feel twice as lonely as you were before, it’s because you’re not doing it right. Disclosing, sharing. Principles! They’re in the charter book, no need to labor them here.

Other behaviors that might warrant the crazy moniker if taken out of context: a blossomed rapport with North Korea; an intent taken up by some of my people to declare sovereign multiple counties nationwide; and, yesterday, the detaining of four federal employees, for which I bear full load.

And so this video, to be distributed in the event this doesn’t work out as planned. Because there are other facts you can’t know unless I tell you directly. For instance: Two weeks ago, I saw my wife and daughter for the first time in nearly ten years. After, I spoke to my wife for about ten minutes, during which conversation she promised or at least strongly implied she would be in touch. But she has not. Not in person, not at all. And I have not been able to locate her or my daughter since. Another problem? I cannot carry on this way without them. And so: I consider these desperate times. Why wouldn’t they call for desperate measures?

The four people imprisoned in my den — I found them snooping across my lawn. In coveralls and work boots. They’d come in a repair truck, which idled by the curb. It bore the Cinergy logo and tag, The Power of Change, which claimed for the gas and electric company more esteem than it was due. I took down the license plate and had my head of security check it out. Then I waited. I sat on a couch, which felt like plywood.