He asks, do I really think the police are that stupid?
"Assuming you're not the murderer," the agent asks, "do you know who sent the book? Who might try and set you up to take this fall?"
Maybe. Probably, yes, I do.
The agent's thinking it's someone from an enemy religion, a Catholic, Baptist, Taoist, Jewish, Anglican jealous rival.
It's my brother, I tell him. I have an older brother who might still be alive, and it's easy to picture Adam Branson out murdering survivors in ways the police would think was suicide. The caseworker was doing my job for me. It's easy to imagine her falling into a trap meant to kill me, a bottle of ammonia mked*** with bleach and just waiting under the sink for me to unscrew the cap and drop dead from the smell.
The book drops out of the agent's one hand and lands open on the rug. The agent's other hand goes up to claw through his hair. "Mother of God," he says. He says, "You'd better not be telling me you have a brother still alive."
Maybe, I say. Probably, maybe, yes, I do. I saw him on a bus one time. This was maybe two weeks before the caseworker died.
The agent pins his eyes on me in bed covered with toast crumbs and says, "No, you didn't. You never saw anybody."
His name is Adam Branson.
The agent shakes his head, "No, it isn't."
Adam called me at home and threatened to kill me.
The agent says, "Nobody threatened to kill you."
Yes he did. Adam Branson is roaming the country, killing survivors, to take us all to Heaven, or to show the world Creedish unity, or to seek revenge on whoever blew the whistle on the labor missionary movement, I don't know.
The agent asks, "Do you understand the phrase public backlash?"
The agent asks, "Do you know what your career will be worth if people find out you're not the sole survivor of the legendary evil Creedish Death Cult?"
The agent asks, "What if this brother of yours is arrested and tells the truth about the cult? He'll blast everything the team of writers has been telling the world about your life growing up."
The agent asks, "What then?"
I don't know.
"Then you're nothing," he says.
"Then you're just another famous liar," he says.
"The whole world will hate you," he says.
He's yelling, "Do you know what the prison sentencing guidelines are for conducting a public hoax? For misrepresentation? For false advertising? For libel?"
Then he comes in close enough to whisper, "Do I need to tell you that prison makes Sodom and Gomorrah look like Minneapolis and St. Paul by comparison?"
He'll tell me what I know, the agent says. He picks up the DSM off the floor and wraps it in today's newspaper. He says I don't have a brother. He says I never saw the DSM. I never saw any brother. I regret the death of the caseworker. I miss my all-dead family. I deeply loved the caseworker. I'm forever grateful for her help and guidance, and I pray every minute my dead family isn't burning in Hell. He says I resent the police always attacking me because they're too lazy to go out and find the caseworker's real killer. He says I just want closure on all this tragic sad death stuff. He says I just want to get on with my life.
He says I trust and cherish the guidance I get every day from my wonderful agent. He tells me I'm deeply grateful.
Quick before the maid comes in to clean the room, the agent says, he's taking the DSM straight to the paper shredder.
He says, "Now get your ass out of bed, you lazy sack of shit, and remember what I just told you because someday soon you'll be telling it all to the police."
From the toilet stalls on either side of my stall come moans and breathing. Sex or bowel movements, I can't tell the difference. The stall I'm in has a hole in the partitions on each side of me, but I can't look.
If Fertility is here yet, I don't know.
If Fertility is here and sitting next to me, quiet until we're alone, I'll beg for my big miracle.
Next to the hole on my right is written, Here I sit all downhearted, tried to shit and only farted.
Next to that is written, Story of my life.
Next to the hole on my left is written, Show hard for hand job.
Next to that is written, Kiss my ass.
Next to that is written, With pleasure.
This is in the New Orleans airport, which is the airport closest to the Superdome, where tomorrow there's the Super Bowl, where at halftime I'm getting married.
And time is running out.
Outside in the hallway, my entourage and my new bride have been waiting more than two hours for me, while I've been sitting here so long my insides are ready to drop out of my ass. My pants are crushed around my ankles. The paper toilet seat liner is wick-ing water up from the toilet bowl to wet my bare skin. The smell of people's business is thick in every breath I take.
Toilet after toilet flushes, but every time the last man leaves another arrives.
On the wall is scratched, You know how both life and porno movies end. The only difference is life starts with the orgasm.
Next to that is scratched, It's getting to the end that's the exciting part.
Next to that is scratched, How tantric.
Next to that is scratched, It smells like shit in here.
The last toilet flushes. The last man washes his hands. The last footsteps go out the door.
Into the hole on my left, I whisper, Fertility? Are you there?
Into the hole on my right, I whisper, Fertility? Is that you?
There's nothing but my fear another man will walk in to read his newspaper and let loose with another spectacular six-course bowel movement.
Then from the hole on my right comes, "I hate that you called me a harlot on television."
I whisper back, I'm sorry. I was only reading the script they gave me.
"I know that."
I know she knows that.
The red mouth inside the hole says, "I called knowing you'd betray me. Free will had nothing to do with it. It was a Jesus/Judas thing. You're pretty much just my pawn."
Thanks, I say.
Footsteps come into the men's room and whoever it is, he settles in the stall on my left.
To the hole on my right, I whisper, We can't talk now. Someone's come in.
"It's okay," the red mouth says. "It's just big brother."
Big brother?
The mouth says, "Your brother, Adam Branson."
And through the hole on my left comes the barrel of a gun.
And a voice, a man's voice, says, "Hello, little brother."
The gun stuck through the hole aims around, blind, pointing at my feet, pointing at my chest, my head, the stall door, the toilet bowl.
Next to the barrel of the gun is scratched, Suck this.
"Don't freak," Fertility says. "He's not going to kill you. I know that much."
"I can't see you," Adam says, "but I have six bullets, and one of them is bound to find you."
"You're not going to kill anybody," the red mouth tells the black gun, the two of them talking back and forth across my bare white lap. "He was at my apartment all last night putting that gun against my head, and all he did was mess up my hair."
"Shut up," the gun says.
The mouth says, "He doesn't have any bullets in it."
The gun says, "Shut up!"
The mouth says, "I had another dream about you last night. I know what they did to you as a child. I know what happened to you was terrible. I understand why you're terrified of having sex."
I whisper, Nothing happened to me.
The gun says, "I tried to stop it, but just the idea of what the elders were doing to you kids made me sick."
I whisper, It wasn't that bad.
"In my dream," the mouth says, "you were crying. You were just a little boy the first time, and you had no idea what was about to happen."