Jonathan Lethem - The Fortress of Solitude

“There aren’t any dead women. There wasn’t a big legal showdown or anything. Eventually he was just old and they stopped picking on him, I guess.”

“How old?”

I’d wondered when this might come up. “He might even still be alive,” I said. At the time of Colin Escott’s liner note, nine years ago, Johnny Bragg was still alive and giving interviews. His anecdotes were the source for half my pitch. For years I’d been planning a visit to Memphis to try and interview him myself. That visit waited, with so many other speculative projects, for an entity like Dreamworks to bankroll. Anyway, that was my excuse.

“ Alive? ”

“It’s possible.”

“ Possible? ”

Yes! Alive! Possible! I wanted to scream. “He’d be in his seventies.”

“You don’t know?”

“I’ll find out.”

“This is a serious problem, Dylan.” Jared raked his hand through his hair and frowned, under stress I couldn’t possibly understand. “Can I have my desk back, please?”

“What do you want me to do?” I asked as we swapped places.

Scowling, he settled back, crossed his legs, and with two fingers kneaded the bridge of his nose and then the periphery of his jaw. He appeared to be recovering from a sort of bender, coming down as after an orgasm or a hit of crack. I wondered how often he indulged.

“You just came in here and pitched me someone’s life story, a living person,” he said, not angrily, but with deep regret. “Well, we’d have to option life rights. That can get really sticky.”

“He’d want it told,” I suggested.

“Yeah, yeah, of course. I don’t know about the ending, though, Dylan. I’m not happy about that ending.”

He spoke as though The Prisonaires was already filmed and edited and he’d just screened it and been disappointed. Now we were left with the sorry task of mopping up, cutting our losses. “It’s so vague, he gets out, he goes back, the band never reunites. And I kept expecting something to happen with that woman, the one in the audience, you know? The crying one.”

Inescapably, absurdly, I fell to the same tone. “I guess we could end it sooner. After the first parole.”

“Oh, I doubt that would work.”

“Okay,” I said, helpless.

“Listen, I don’t want to-I don’t want to tell anyone about this thing until we pull it together. It should be perfect . A slam dunk. You and I should both think really hard about the third-act problems and do nothing until we’ve cracked them. If I bring this upstairs I want it to be airtight, you know?”

“That makes sense.”

“Did you talk to your agent?”

“He, uh, feels the same way, actually.”

“Of course he does. He knows how these things work.”

“So-” I was baffled. “What happens next?”

“The question is what you do next. This is all in your hands.”

“Uh, okay.”

“I’m not easily discouraged, you know. I believe in you, mister.”

“Thanks.”

“There’s nothing wrong with taking some time, by the way. This isn’t going anywhere. It’ll happen when it’s meant to happen.”

“Okay.”

“So, do you have a driver? Because I need to have you out of my office now.”

“I can call-”

“Yes, but use Mike’s phone.”

In the middle chamber I handed Nicholas Brawley’s card to Mike and asked him to call.

“Jared was really knocked out,” Mike whispered, eyes wide at what I’d accomplished inside.

“I think he’ll recover,” I said.

I waited with my overnight bag in the shady lot for a long fifteen minutes before Nicholas Brawley’s cab pulled up again at the gate. The man with the Oscar never came back. Brawley’s radio was still tuned to MEGA 100, and the station was broadcasting my old nemesis of a theme song, Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music.” Of course, the thirty-five-year-old rock critic knew what the thirteen-year-old scrap of prey on the sidewalks outside Intermediate School 293 never did: Wild Cherry was a bunch of white guys . The tune which had been enlisted as an indictment of my teenage existence was in fact a Midwestern rock band’s rueful self-parody. I’d wondered many times since then whether knowing would have helped. Probably not. Anyway, it struck me now in a different light, as being yet another bit of personal meaning which had been taken from me, stripped off like clothes I’d only borrowed or stolen. I had maybe the least persuasive case for self-pity of any human soul on the planet. Or anyway, the most hilarious.

Abraham and Francesca stood together in the lobby of the Anaheim Marriott, still as sculpture. All around them the lobby boiled with arrivals, misshapen travelers clad in black and purple, peering nervously side to side as though concerned with the impression they made as they wheeled suitcases in agitated confusion to the check-in desk. Others lurched or darted through the vast open space of the lobby, gathering briefly in groups of four or five to hug and talk, to crinkle brochures with circled program items, or present one another with buttons or ribbons to affix to suspenders or knapsack straps. Some wolfed sandwiches, licking gummy fingers unselfconsciously. Many wore plastic-frame eyeglasses or floppy hats or molded jewelry, others T-shirts with proud enigmas emblazoned: MORE THAN HUMAN, DONATE YOUR BODY TO SCIENCE FICTION, I USED TO BE A MILLIONAIRE THEN MY MOTHER THREW OUT MY COMIC BOOK COLLECTION. Photocopied signs, taped inelegantly to corridors and glass doors, offered suite numbers for hotel parties, advertised special events, and directed attendees to the registration table or the art show or the first aid station. Certain laminated name badges were labeled PRO or VOLUNTEER. Voices rose and were lost in a babble of others-monotonous harangues, kooky laughter, anxious questions, hysterical reunions. ForbiddenCon 7 was under way in all its glory. I only had to figure out what it was, or else not bother. I didn’t sense it needed me to know.

Francesca saw me first. “There you are!” she cried out. Abraham nodded and they surged toward me as I came through the revolving door. I hurried forward, trying to save them the trouble. “You’re late!” said Francesca. “We’re practically going to miss Abe’s panel .”

I’d promised to meet them in the lobby at three-it was almost four. Nicholas Brawley had laughed and shaken his head when I gave him the destination. “You should have rented a car,” he said, and by the time we’d crossed the ocean of suburb between Hollywood and Anaheim I saw his point. The fare was $114.00. Now, however, stepping into the lobby of the convention hotel, I considered the even greater conceptual distance I’d covered, moving from Jared Orthman’s office to ForbiddenCon. Brawley’s fare was a bargain.

“Dylan,” said my father. We embraced, and I felt him sigh against my body. Then I turned and dipped to Francesca, just in time to be enveloped in her swarming attack, not soon enough to plan where on my exposed surface the lipstick would be delivered. It landed north-northwest of my mouth, a misaligned mustache in beet purple. I swabbed it with my thumb and said, “Sorry I’m late.”

Francesca’s badge was unadorned, while Abraham’s bore a special purple ribbon, reading GUEST OF HONOR.

“They need Abraham in the greenroom,” she said gravely.

“Lead the way,” I said.

“That’s all you have?” said Abraham, looking at my bag. He seemed disappointed. “You’re staying the night?”

“Of course.”

“You’re registered already,” said Francesca. “Zelmo took care of everything.” She scrabbled in her purse as we moved through the lobby. “Here’s for your room. It works like a credit card-you swipe . The key’s for the minibar.”