Fiona Maazel - Woke Up Lonely

“A ransom tape,” Grant said. “So excellent. It’ll go viral in two minutes, so we have to be prepared.”

“Exactly so,” Norman said. “And with it, we will get our message out worldwide.” He flung his arms as if to compass worldwide but stopped quick. “Which is the point, right?” And here he looked at Thurlow, whose eyes closed immediately. Norman’s will to believe was profound. He had to believe; what else did he have? “We were stagnating,” Norman said. “Of course. I can see that now. I slept on it, and now I can see it plain. So we’ll use the tape to raise awareness. To let everyone know how dire the situation is out there by having these people perform what it feels like to be alone. To be severed from the world. So really, this isn’t a kidnapping so much as social art. Is that right?”

“Correct,” Thurlow said, though the word seemed to drop from his lips like a brick. “Now get going.”

Meeting adjourned. But Thurlow didn’t move. And when he checked in with his will to move, all evidence suggested this torpor would be ongoing. Brave new world? Gear and training? He’d had one night to indulge the romance of what he’d done before the logistics rained out the wedding.

The four hostages worked for the Department of the Interior, which was odd, to say the least. Who would send these people? They didn’t seem to know themselves.

Thurlow got changed and went to the den. The hostages were sitting on the floor in burlap hoods, with hands cuffed behind their backs. One of them had been unable to coerce his gams into the lotus position, so he’d taken to flapping them like butterfly wings. Another was davening, less in prayer than distress, like one of the nuts you see in the ward or someone who needed a bathroom. The girl was unmoved, and the Indian — it was like his body hair was about to ignite for the tinder of being here and for the way he hated the Helix. Thurlow could feel this, though the man hadn’t said a word. But it didn’t matter. In a few hours, Thurlow would be in a director’s chair. In the room: four hostages who had no burden except to hold up the day’s newspaper and appear not dead. In his head: his wife and child and the bliss of their return, for which he’d ransom the four alongside the faith of every person who believed in him. Starting with Norman.

Thurlow adjusted his chair. Turned on the desk lamp. Turned it off. This was all wrong. The angle, the shot, the lighting. He felt like an anchorman for the nightly news. No affect for the relay of trauma, no stake in its outcome. This would not do for broadcast into every home in America. After all, it wasn’t like he didn’t know what happened to a cult leader’s footage in the aftermath of a siege. Especially if people died. Especially if the cult leader died.

He looked at the camera again. He went: Roll tape, and said, “Now, look: I am not a crazy.”

But it was impossible to maintain the pretense of dignity with his earpiece vibrating every two seconds. It had been vibrating for hours. It was vibrating now. The Helix was in the news, and everyone wanted to know, What the hell. What the hell, Thurlow? What have you done? He took every fifth call. This time it was Norman, bearing word: The hoods were a bust. They didn’t breathe or wick, and one of the artists — he was calling them artists — the Indian, was getting a rash.

In the meantime, three calls had been forwarded to his voicemail. The messages were brief. They said: What the hell. Also: Close the blinds. It was hard to know what forces would mass out there against him, but he expected the usual: special ops, trained to kill.

But don’t worry, Dean said. Message four. The house could take it.

He looked back at the camera. He felt a little sick.

01:41:11:09: What else should I say for starters? Nobody wants to hurt this much. Even people who court the hurt, who need the hurt by way of self-recrimination and penance — they do not want this much of it.

And not for this long. Because after this long, it’s hard to acknowledge that hurt— this hurt — resolves into years of poor judgment.

On his computer: If my wife comes here with Ida jubhjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj. He lifted his head and felt where the keyboard had imprinted his cheek. He was in his study. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that receded into the wall. He had planned this room down to the grain of its boards, and yet its blessing was owed to chance. The lights were energy conscious and would turn off for lack of movement after five minutes. This meant that whenever he got to self-immolating about the past, the overheads would go dark and he would come round. Only this time, he’d fallen asleep.

Norman was at the door. He said, “Working on your speech? Great,” and he marched in to have a look. Thurlow hid the screen.

“Sorry. It’s just that the crew is here and we’re ready to go. Everyone’s waiting.”

Thurlow clapped his PC shut. “Look, we only have one shot at this. And I want to get it right. You of all people should appreciate that.”

“I do, of course, but I also — okay, just look at this”—and he waved a DVD in the air.

It was a video taken by a Helix Head who’d been emailing them views of Covington, on the Kentucky side of the river. It was a quaint spot, minus the National Guard, stationed in the farmers’ market.

Norman rolled back on his heels. “So this is exactly as you planned, right? International coverage. Because, just to reconfirm, that is the point, right?”

“It’s going to be fine, Norm. Don’t worry.”

Thurlow leaned in close to the computer screen, trying to count heads. Plus the Guard, there were probably one hundred special ops in the market, and more en route.

“In any case, the artists are ready to go,” Norman said. “I assume, once the tape’s out, we’ll let them go, right? Send them off and, what, pay a fine or something?”

They paused in this exchange until Norman said, “Oh, you know what I mean. Half of D.C. is Helix. You’ve got friends. I predict you spend one night away from home, tops.”

Thurlow sat back in his chair. Breathing in, letting out. But it was no good. His body had taken over the discharge of what Norman had roused in him, which was anxiety. Fibrillations of heart and eyelid, a throbbing wen on his forearm that had not been there minutes ago. Water coming down the ducts but stopping short of notice.

“Certainly no more than a week,” Norman said. “And in the meantime! Anyone skeptical about what we’re doing here is going to change his mind.” Norman freed a sheet of notebook paper from his back pocket. “Not to be presumptuous, but I’ve been pushing some words around and wonder if maybe you’ll consider including some of them in your address.”

Thurlow pressed the wen with his fist. “What address?”

“On the ransom tape? Maybe something about how there’s thirty million single people in the country. Or ninety million. How the system is designed to keep us apart. The class divide. The housing gap. Work ninety hours a week in a cubicle at a soul-sapping job whose chief enterprise is to proliferate dialogue about last night’s TV fare, and what are the odds you find someone to hold your hand under the covers at night? Something like that, maybe?”

The wen seemed like it might erupt. Or migrate up his arm and into his brain.

“Norman, get out. I don’t need your help.”

“Okay, but just in case it wasn’t clear, the United States government has sent the army for your artists.”

“Hostages, Norm. They are hostages. But they aren’t mine. I did this for the Helix.”

“Right-o,” he said, and he lifted his palms, which exposed his cuffs, his cuff links, and with them a suspicion Thurlow had been trying to repress since the moment Norman walked in. Cuff links? Really? Because even a conscientious, exemplary worker among men does not wear cuff links in the day-to-day. He told Norman to leave them on the table, which Norman did with vigor, so that they fell to the floor and to a hollow between the baseboard and parquet. Thurlow waited for Norman to leave and shut the door behind him before going after the links. The link- microphones. But they were gone. He took stock of the room. He’d always liked this room. But never mind. He would pack up his computer and papers of import and seal off his study forever.