And there, at the very bottom of my bag, resting and pulsing with menace like unexploded ordnance, is the book.
The Prisoner.
Forged material. A piece of Not So. The air dissonant around it.
I turn it over in my hands. Take it away with me, back upstairs, back upstairs to the kitchen. And there, in the kitchen, in the silence of my house, it occurs to me for the first time that it might have been the book and not the missing days that caught the attention of Aysa Paige’s remarkable discernment in Mose Crane’s own empty home. The book and the missing days. Regardless, neither aberration caught me.
I put the book on the kitchen table and look at it. The day, my day, is over. It’s on the Record. There is darkness at every window. But here I am, awake and alive in the nighttime silence, contemplating this strange novel.
Still wrapped in its pretend jacket, the Everyday Citizens Dictionary. I wish to read it. I want to. I want to know what Mose Crane was doing with this otherworldly artifact, and aside from that—more than that—I am overcome with a desire to do what we don’t do, what the world will not allow, what is prevented by the Basic Law and common sense and conscience, which is to immerse myself in an alternate reality and luxuriate in it, feel it rise up and over me and bear me away.
The book wants me to read it, but I don’t. I put it away in my bureau, its true face hidden behind the pretend jacket and I go to bed.
11.
I rise with effort from my bed and dress with deliberate movements, force my body to move. I feel like a creature of the forest, draggled, wild-eyed, and sullen. I did not sleep well. I suspect that I dreamt, a suspicion I do not like. I piss and I brush my teeth while in the corners of my eyes I see unknown faces, alien landscapes, splintered pieces of foreign facts.
When I’m dressed I give myself a warning glare in the mirror, turn on my heel, and face the dresser, where, in the top drawer, I have deposited Mose Crane’s quote-unquote novel like a dead bird among my socks and underwear.
“You can fuck off,” I tell The Prisoner by Benjamin Wish through the thin wood face of the drawer. “Fuck off and leave me alone.”
I wrestle my body into the civilizing structure of my suit. Push my hair down flat, rake through the tangles of my beard. Get in the car, hiss at my reflection in the rearview, and drive to work.
There’s a cluster of activity on the thirtieth floor this morning, everybody gathered around my desk and murmuring, like my day decided to get started without me, like I’ve shown up late for my own life. Aysa is at my desk already, and so is Arlo and also a woman—middle-aged, thick-haired, looking agitated and restless, and I know her right away. Damn it. I stop just beyond the elevator door, with the wide vista of the city glimmering through the glass walls all around me, and I wish the elevator would come back and take me down again.
“You,” says the lady, pointing at me, leaping up from my chair, where Arlo has sat her. “You.”
“Ms. Tarjin.” From the diner. With the boys. The liar and the thief. Great. This is great. “There are twenty-four hours in the day.”
“Please help me,” she says, blowing past the truth I’ve handed her, tears standing in her eyes, tears staining her cheeks. “You have to help.”
The son Eddie, the younger one—the one who is not in jail—is standing just behind her, looking miserable, embarrassed, a reluctant second on her fool’s errand. “And seven days in the week,” he mumbles, completing the circuit on her behalf, and Arlo nods at him approvingly.
“Good man,” he murmurs. “Good man.” Eddie studies us both for a second and looks back down.
I sit down heavily in my chair, set down my sad man’s breakfast. “Ms. Tarjin, look—”
“No, please, just listen,” she says, and wipes at her eyes with the back of her wrist. Her son, the one who stole the drugs, shifts on his feet behind her, digs a ratty tissue out of the pocket of his jeans and pressing it on his mother. “Let me talk,” she says, “because they’re saying Todd could go to jail for ten years.”
“Ten?” That doesn’t sound right. The coffee I am holding, a medium with two sugars from the Donut Star that feels like the only thing tethering me to civilization, is growing cold before my very eyes.
“Yes, ten, because he told the same lie, they say, they said he told the same lie twice, to two different people. To me and then to you.”
Of course. The same false utterance made to multiple parties means multiple counts. But I don’t know why this lady is here—I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it.
Arlo gives Eddie a sympathetic smile and shuffles over to his desk. Aysa hangs on the outskirts of the conversation, making the moment a part of her training, studying the way I handle this particular law-enforcement situation: the human refuse of a successful arrest, washed up miserable on my shore. She stands against the side wall, beneath portraits of famous dead Speculators, including Charlie, of course, Charlie captured in his customary pose: smiling cocky, chin jutted out, arms confidently crossed.
“The rules are the rules,” I tell Ms. Tarjin.
“Yeah, well, and what if the rules are wrong?” she says, looking back at me defiantly. “What if they’re not fair?”
“You are very much entitled to that opinion,” is my answer. “That is an expression of opinion, and opinions are subjective, and as long as your expressed opinion reflects your honest interior position…” I trail off. I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a prick, so I just go ahead and sound like a prick. “Then it doesn’t matter what you think. Your son lied. He broke the law. And he has to face punishment, and the punishment is prescribed by the State. You should understand that the punishment could be worse.”
“He’s right, ma’am. He knows.”
Aysa speaks gently, all the “Yes, sir,” “No, sir” sharpness replaced by a gentle reassurance. Ms. Tarjin turns her pained eyes toward her. “What do you mean?”
“Well—it just—” Aysa clears her throat. “It could really have been a lot worse.” She’s too kind to make it explicit, what she knows, what we all know: liars are subject to exile. Had Todd Tarjin’s misrepresentations been judged inflammatory, or intended to disrupt the business of the State, or in any way outrageous to the common good, he could have been sent away entirely. Forget about Folsom, San Quentin, or Pelican Bay, forget about ten years. There is a version of this story that ends with Todd in the desert—beyond the desert. Beyond whatever is beyond that.
It happens. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.
Eddie, meanwhile, stands diffident, trying to figure out how to feel. This is all because of him, and he is bearing the weight of that knowledge while still glad not to be facing the terror of prison. Guilt, relief, and anger—a welter of emotion moves crosswise on his face.
“Okay, but—I mean.” Ms. Tarjin crouches before me, her voice ragged with need. “There has to be something you can do. Anything.”
She is looking at me with tearful eyes, sadness and need coming off her in waves, her hands pushing into her hair. Eddie is behind her, twisting a torn tissue, miserable with helplessness. Aysa is watching too, and old Arlo, and Charlie from the wall, from behind the shield of his crossed arms, from the distant past.