Fiona Maazel - Woke Up Lonely

“I’ll do anything,” he said. “Just ask.”

And then he commanded all the readiness and solicitude in his heart to show in his eyes, so she would know he was in earnest. After all, he had gone to North Korea for her and botched it entirely. And now North Korea wanted something in return for its investment that he was not willing or even equipped to give. What was he supposed to do? The Helix was not the Confederate Army. It was single dads, divorcées and widows, lawyers and dermatologists. It was average Americans. People with migraines and high blood pressure. People who watched a lot of TV. Who tested poorly on the UCLA Loneliness Scale and, if asked, would sooner trade the invisible companionship of God for someone to share with in this life until such time as they had to meet God on the other side.

“I might come,” she said, but she frowned saying it.

He felt a trembling down his legs but hid it as best he could.

“But listen,” she said. “Whatever you’re thinking about North Korea, it’s not too late to change your mind. To think if it’s worth it.” And she reached over and touched his sleeve. Then she zipped up her coat in a hurry.

Thurlow didn’t say a word. He was faint with hope and fear, which countenanced each other, but warily. She was up and walking out the door.

“Don’t leave,” he said, and he grabbed her arm.

“I have to. Unlike some people, I actually have a job.”

“Don’t leave! You can’t imagine the strain I’m under.”

“Whose fault is that? Just think about what I said. And if that doesn’t work, then okay, think about Ida.”

He squeezed her arm even tighter. “I think about her all day long. Promise you’ll come over later. Just to talk.”

She freed herself. He tried to follow her out, but the Laundromat owner, who’d been leaning against a dryer and watching them the whole time, put out his hand, saying, “Hello, I recognize you. My name is Max Chen. I haven’t paid my taxes in three years. I have a wife who doesn’t love me and a girlfriend who doesn’t love me, either, now that I stopped paying for her English classes.” Thurlow nodded and called out for Esme, except a woman folding Incredible Hulk Underoos said, “Oh my God, Thurlow Dan in a Laundromat? You really are like the rest of us. Hey, see how big these Underoos are, my boy’s going on thirteen but he’s still got some issues since his father died and God knows I’m scared to raise a boy on my own and it’s not like I have anyone to confide in about it.” Again, he watched Esme trudge through the snow, away from him, only this time, he thought there was a chance she’d be back.

“That’s good,” he said to the woman. “I feel like I’m closer to you already. No wait, I am closer to you”—and he smiled because sometimes for preaching the same thing over and over you forget you also believe what you’re preaching. He patted her shoulder. “There’s an event later, not far from here.”

“Oh, I know,” she said, and pointed at the double helix tattoo inched across her wrist.

By now the Laundromat was clotted with people. Taking photos, sharing their stories. He told them all to come to the event; he was headed there himself. At last, his SUV pulled up outside, and in came the driver with such purpose of stride, everyone got out of his way without being asked. He took Thurlow by the elbow and led him out.

Dean was waiting for him in the backseat, with a coat across his knees. “Did something go wrong this morning?” he said, and sent the driver an angry look, which meant he’d chewed him out already.

“Do you really have to carry that thing around?” Thurlow said, and he nodded at what appeared to be a rifle nosed out from under Dean’s coat. “It’s stuff like that that’s giving people the wrong idea about us.”

“Sorry,” Dean said. “I can put it away, just stick with the Glock,” and he felt for the holster strapped under his arm. He unzipped a gear bag in the trunk and, from the sound of it, stashed the rifle among several of its kind.

Dean was head of security. Part bodyguard, part bureaucrat, and, as of late, part freedom fighter. He’d come into the Helix after his wife died, and had ascended the ranks with the hooks of his faith. But now, in his fourth year, he’d gotten overzealous in the prosecution of his work. Sometimes, in a panic, Thurlow imagined him and the thousands like him just miles away from the Helix House in Cincinnati, closing in like zombies but still under his command.

He gripped his forehead. He was sweating. He’d had a Twix for dinner last night and nothing since.

Dean leaned over to retrieve a hunting knife strapped to his calf. He cut an apple in four slices and put the plate on the seat between them. The soft sell: sometimes it worked.

“Any news?” Thurlow asked.

“We’re frisking the staff every day now. No cell phones, nothing. Chances of infiltration are nil.”

“Good. But I want you to do it twice a day. Morning and night.”

“Check,” and Dean jotted it down in a spiral notebook. He seemed glad for the orders. He scratched his neck, which was collared in green from a double helix bijou at the end of a gold chain.

They were headed to a warehouse by the airport. “We’re expecting five thousand,” Dean said. “Give or take. The whole country will be Helix in no time.”

“Nice work,” Thurlow said. “But get me a new driver.”

Dean nodded.

“And buy me a new suit. And have some flowers delivered to the hotel. Roses. And get to a toy store. No, a clothing store. Ask them what all the girls are wearing these days and buy every color.”

Dean wrote it all down.

“Make that two dozen roses,” Thurlow said. “Red and white”—because he wanted a bouquet for Ida, too. In the vestry of his dreams was always one in which he reunited with his child, bearing roses.

He looked out the window and tried, for the rest of the drive, to reinstate the paralysis that had overtaken him on the bus. A terrifying moment — to be so helpless — but also transcendent, because how often does love overrun your experience of life so thoroughly that it lays waste to everything else?

They arrived at the warehouse, which could probably fit five thousand, but, just in case: a Jumbotron outside for spillage and stragglers. It was twenty degrees out, but no one would care.

Thurlow sat in a small office. His nerves were like the third rail, like if he thought too much about what had just happened with Esme, he’d electrocute himself. He took a few deep breaths and focused on his speech instead. He thought of the audience, which calmed him down. Five thousand people who’d come to plead their needs. Bodies packed like spices in the rack. Faces upturned, hope ascendant. Tell us something great, Thurlow. Charge the heart of solitude and get us the hell out.

He stayed in the back for half an hour, then marched onstage. In the room: eyes pooled with light, skins pale as soap. He leaned into the mic and began.

“Here is something you should know: we are living in an age of pandemic. Of pandemic and paradox. To be more interconnected than ever and yet lonelier than ever. To be almost immortal with what science is doing for us and yet plagued with feelings that are actually revising how we operate on a biological level. Want to know what that means?”

Decor in the warehouse was bare-bones. Just a couple of spotlights trained on him and the dais, and a screen that lit up just then with a double helix. The sound from the speakers wasn’t reverbed, but it was gritty. The upshot was to make this gathering lowbrow and intimate, despite how many people were there.

“It means,” he said, “that loneliness is changing our DNA. Wrecking our hormones and making us ill. Mentally, physically, spiritually. When I was a young man, I felt like if I didn’t connect with another human being in the next three seconds, I would die. Or that I was already dead and my body just didn’t know it. Sound extreme? I bet not. I was lonely by myself; I was lonely in a group. So let me ask you: how many of you feel disassociated from the people you love and who love you most?”