Fiona Maazel - Woke Up Lonely

Christ fuck bring me my wife and daughter or I will kill myself. Or them. Or someone.

If my wife comes here with Ida.

In exchange for the hostages, Ned, Bruce, Olgo, Anne-Janet, I request. I demand. The Helix requires.

On behalf of the Helix, I demand that for the release of the four detainees, Esme Haas and daughter Ida present themselves at my door for cookies and milk. Tea and cookies. Hot chocolate and pfeffernüsse, because what little girl can resist the spicy, chewy, finger-lickin’ euphoria of the German pepper cookie?

Christ fuck bring me my wife and daughter or I will kill myself. Or them. Or someone.

Thurlow ironed the sheet with his palm. He summoned for calm — Will the calm in me please stand up? — and said, “Norman, why are you sifting through my trash?”

Norman shook his head. “It’s one thing to do this to me, but what about everyone else? They’re expecting something. Something great.”

“I wasn’t going to say all that on the tape, Norm. I was just messing around. You found it in the garbage, right? Where is your head?”

“Yeah? So what are you going to say?”

They gave each other the eye. When two people had been friends that long, the eye was murder. Thurlow decided to murder first and thought him the truth: Nobody wants to play the endgame of his life alone.

Norman leaned against the wall and murdered back: You are the collapse of all the hope I have ever had.

Thurlow said, “So you told the film crew to go home? No crew, no tape? Are we just supposed to walk out of here now, hands up?”

“There’s worse ideas.”

Thurlow didn’t even have to tell him to get out; Norman turned his back on him unbidden.

His study was locked, and his bedroom was the least solacing place on earth. He could get to a meditation parlor via one of the tunnels, but, with the encampment outside and the rigors of what was left to him of this day, he settled on his stepmother. She was not parent enough to reap from his flaws motive to hug him, but she might not curse his name, either.

The halls were quiet as he went to her quarters. He had hoped to find guards outside his parents’ door but was not surprised to find it unmanned. On the bright side, since there was nothing to keep Deborah from leaving, her being there was a gesture. She believed in him and wanted to help. That or, in her deafness and solipsism, she still had no idea what was going on. There were no windows on this side of the house, but there was still the noise of sirens and helicopters, and the special din of so many cameramen struggling for best sight line to the action. All part of what Thurlow imagined was a late stage in the day’s ratcheting into chaos.

He found her at the computer.

“What news?” he said, and by this he meant, What was up with his dad? She was accustomed to Wayne’s seizures, so he was not shocked to find her unruffled by his latest.

“I’m checking my Google,” she said.

Because Deborah did not understand the principle of the Internet, she did not understand how a search engine works. He found this charming but for the part where he’d told Dean to disconnect their cable line. All he needed was for her to be getting word of the siege from some blog or, God knows, IMing with the feds. Did the feds IM? There was something weird about that idea, hard to say what.

“You want to tell me about Dad?” He tried to lure her gaze from the computer screen to the mien of the worried son.

She closed the laptop.

He put his hand on hers. “He’s going to be all right, you know.”

“Of course he is. He’s in the bathroom. Tyrone’s getting a shower.”

Thurlow shook his head. He was beginning to despair of ever knowing again what went on in this house. When did his father get back? How did his father get in? Why wasn’t he told?

He found Wayne misting Tyrone with a bottle of Evian. He had stood the bird on the vanity and turned on the bubble show lights.

Thurlow sat on the lip of the tub and asked after Wayne’s health. His head was wrapped in gauze.

“False alarm,” he said. “Just a cut in the back. I had some stitches. The wrap is to prevent swelling.”

It was tight and layers deep, and more like a turban than cladding swath. But since Thurlow had not sought medical care since the infarction, perhaps the new science preferred a turban.

“You got out of the hospital pretty quick,” he said, because if there was a new science, he hardly thought there was a new efficiency as well. “Did anyone talk to you?”

“Like who? I got in an ambulance. I went to the ER. They checked me out and sent me back. I figured you paid for the ride home.”

“So you only spoke to the doctors? No one else was out there?”

He stopped with the Evian. “Like who, son? My paramedic had a hoop in her nose; she was leaning over me the whole time. Now, can I get on with this?”

He checked to see that Tyrone was wet throughout, then lathered his hands with baby shampoo.

Thurlow had the urge to cry. Sense was in exile from his life. His father was in the dusk of his power as a decently healthy and self-sufficient man, and here he was, lavishing what energies were left him on a bird. Not on his son, but a bird.

Wayne finished rinsing and said, “Hold this open,” meaning a towel monogrammed with the Helix. “Don’t just stand there,” he said. “Wrap him up.”

Thurlow enwombed Tyrone so that only his head was free, and thrust him at his father.

“Easy, son. You don’t have to destroy everything at once.”

“What are you talking about? I thought you said you didn’t talk to anyone out there.”

Wayne patted Tyrone down and inspected his breast and under-wings. “Son, I asked you for a marriage counselor, and you have not produced one. So if my marriage falls apart, I blame you.”

“You asked me not three hours ago. I’m not a magician.”

“Then let us talk to the arbiter. The Indian.”

“Are you kidding? He’s busy.”

“He is not. But if you won’t help, I’ll find him myself.”

Thurlow got between his dad and the door. “You will do no such thing. Just — just stop interfering.”

He made for the door, only in the time he’d been here, Dean had carried out his order to disable the exit. Wonderful. There was no way out except a hatch in the walk-in closet, which his father and Deborah were not supposed to know about, but what choice did he have?

He closed himself in the closet and pulled back the carpet. Located the door in the floor, secured with a padlock and hasp. So far, the only blessing in this day was that he’d had the foresight to wear his key chain of universals.

He gripped the handle and tried to lift from the knees. He had passed on the compression-spring install, but finally the door opened. It had a holding arm that locked in place at ninety degrees. This was a welcome precaution against losing a finger but not ideal for closing the hatch after yourself. He left the hatch open and descended the ladder. The rungs were slippery with condensation from a heating pipe, but he managed just the same. For good measure, when he hit bottom, he turned the ladder on its side. Just in case his father decided to come after him.

The architect’s best contribution to the house was actually the house inside the house. A warren: reticulate, waterproof, and climate controlled. Most of the tunnels were passable upright. Some of them led to underground and illicit facilities open to anyone privileged enough to get access, but this was not Thurlow’s doing. Cincinnati was a strange town.

For his purposes, he’d had electrical lights arrayed throughout the network. Those failing, he’d had flashlights mounted on the wall every few feet. Those failing, he’d had secured to the floor photoluminescent strips. No foresight had been lacking in the preparation of this route to the basement, so why in God’s name was it pitch-black? He was afraid of the dark. He had dermal crises in the dark. As a boy, he’d once woken up in the middle of a blackout and within five minutes was weeping fluid from sores erupted down his spine.