Passport stamped, I’m frisked and asked through into the scanner. My body is projected in green on the black glass—the travelers can see, but I wonder if anyone bothers to look.
Acid jazz over electronica—an unrecognized ringtone. Check profile: Colvin Quinn, Nirvana Modeling, editor. Add to address book? Yes—and Colvin’s profile fills my vision as I sit on a bench to put my shoes back on. He’s texted: Gavril’s friend? You’re the one looking for a model?
Cao-Xing Lee. Gavril said you know her?
Yeah, Gavril’s question—that’s Kelly, he writes. Real name’s Cao-Xing, but she goes by Kelly. She’s one of mine, yeah. Are you booking her, or what? You can book her through the agency.
I need to talk to her.
What do you have in mind? She’s an actor, does some print work. Terrible at celebrity impersonations, but she’ll work private functions if you’re paying her.
I just need to talk to her.
If you book her, it goes through the agency. No freelance bullshit. But I can set up a meeting, as a favor to Gavril. She has a shoot on the first. You can visit her on set. Sound good?
Perfect—
I’ll send you details—
Leaving the airport, I’m warned I’m leaving a secure green zone and have to “accept” before the warnings will blink out. Yellow cabs line the curb—BayCrawler displays user reviews of the drivers, the drivers standing curbside shouting at us, trying to convince us the one-star reviews are false, were posted by bitter, jet-lagged people, that they’d cut rates for a fare. Criminal record pop-ups halo most of them. The driverless AutoCabs are parked together, but BayCrawler flashes a scare piece about drug cartels tracking tourists in driverless cabs, forcing them off the road and murdering them for their luggage and cash. Too many warnings of pricing scams. I queue for the commuter train, downloading SF.net’s top free travel apps and augs while I’m waiting. The commuter train’s a maglev bullet cutting through suburban slums, empty station to empty station—storefronts blur, abandoned strip malls, cars stalled out and feathered in tickets, whole sections of outer communities burned, the wood char left to rot in the paradisiacal sun. I lose Wi-Fi until we’re closer to the city center, office towers and skyscrapers coming into crystalline view. An autoconnection to City.SF.gov—a ping from a Nirvana Modeling intern waiting in my in-box, the subject line: Kelly. I download a press packet and scan through publicity shots along with tomorrow’s shooting schedule. Unmistakably Zhou. Video clips from Our Town, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Gem of the Ocean. She’s not a bad actress, but most of her credits are from liquor commercials—a nude Kelly dripping with red syrup for Absolut Strawberry, in a minikilt for Dewar’s. A fashion shoot tomorrow—the Nirvana Modeling intern gives the address and mentions that Kelly’s been told to expect me.
We skirt the city center and enter Hunters Point. Retinal scans for fares, the station scrawled with Meech-HAM graffiti and swastikas—a graphic Meecham death’s-head with hair like a corona of blonde fire. The neighborhood’s shit, but the Holiday Inn looks passable and I check in through the kiosk, gathering the key cards that pop from the slots. I reset the dead bolts once I’m in my room—the economy-size little more than a closet with a sofa and toilet. Jet lag’s catching up with me—but I wander out to find a grocer on the next block for a few apples and Greek yogurt, a two-liter of Pepsi and a box of Ho Hos. Men loiter on the corners here, in oversize T-shirts and baggy jeans. Someone shouts out to me, asking for money. “A quick loan,” he says. I keep my head down. I lock myself into my room. Ho Ho after Ho Ho, watching the flat screen bolted to the wall—I’ve tried the streams, but the Holiday Inn router is spotty, blinking in and out. I try to visit the City, to visit the empty spaces, but the connection’s lost.
Paying for a few minutes of sat-connect, I call Simka.
“Dominic, where are you? Are you okay?”
I open my room curtains and look out over the third-floor view of Hunters Point so that he can see what I’m seeing, an empty apartment tenement slashed with graffiti and lewd tags meant to implant viruses in unprotected Adware. There are fires somewhere distant—three columns of dark smoke mar the horizon.
“Where are you?” he asks.
“Paradise,” I tell him. “I’m all right—”
“Your call says San Francisco. Dominic, are you really in San Francisco?”
“I landed a little while ago,” I tell him. “I’m feeling ill, Simka. I’m feeling so bad right now. I don’t know what to do—”
“You’ll be fine, Dominic. Remember to breathe. In and out, in and out—”
“I’ve gotten mixed up in something,” I tell him, not sure how much to say.
“I’m worried about you,” he tells me. “What’s going on? I haven’t heard from you since we talked about Timothy. I can call the police if you’re in trouble, Dominic. Tell me—”
Hearing his voice is like a balm on wounds I didn’t quite realize I have—lonely, I realize. “I’m realizing how fucked up I’ve been,” I tell him. “After Pittsburgh, once winter came, they used to run these PSAs about radioactive snow, do you remember? Those commercials used to stick in my mind—I’d dream about them—that person walking through snowfall. Everything serene, snow piling on trees, over lawns, on houses, before we realize that all the snow is poisoned with radiation. They’d list these symptoms. Tell us about Caesium-137. That’s what my depression’s like, Simka—I can’t really quite explain it, I guess. When the depression settles over me, it’s like I’m walking through that radioactive snow, that no matter how fast I run or try to cover myself, the snow will keep falling until I’m buried under—”
“I remember those commercials,” he says.
“I’ll forward my hotel information, in case something comes up, some emergency—”
“Of course,” says Simka. “Dominic? You’re not alone, do you understand that? Whatever you’re going through, I’m here for you, I’m with you. If you’re in trouble, come here. You have a home with me—”
My sat-connect runs out and I decline approval for another session. Cramped, here, in this cheap hotel—claustrophobic. I crack open the window, I want to take a walk, clear my head—just like Simka always suggested, that exercise might lift my spirits—but I can hear the braying of dogs outside and people shouting nearby. I read a paperback I brought with me, Ed Steck’s The Necro-luminosity of Pink Mist, drinking Pepsi with hotel ice until my eyes droop closed and I sleep, dreaming of greenish drifts of ice, poisoned snow. I sleep through until morning.
3, 1—
Adverts scroll the bathroom mirror, shimmering through shower steam: Popeyes Fried Chicken, Grand China Buffet, accept the ten-dollar surcharge to book a cab through the mirror, using the touch screen as I brush my teeth—these things never work and I have to push twice, wondering if I’ve paid twice. Wharf Central, Bay Company, Anchorage coupons grid the ceiling and walls, skewing into pixelated distortion whenever the Wi-Fi hiccups. Local streams: cop killer guts four, VoyeurTube catches spy vids in J.Crew changing rooms. Gavril’s lent me a Caraceni suit for my meetings—he told me I wouldn’t be taken seriously if I showed up anywhere dressed like I usually dress and told me to know the brand in case anyone asks. Caraceni. I feel fake, wearing this thing—but the fit’s nice, it feels nice. He told me to leave the top buttons of my shirt unbuttoned, but I can’t pull off that look, exposing the upper triangle of my pasty chest, the scrawls of hair, so I button up to my neck. The coupon grids shift: Redwood National Park bike tours, lodging, collagen ass implants turn your sag bag into a beautiful bubble. Coffee at the House of Bagels vending kiosk in the hotel lobby. I wait for my cab outside—the weather’s gorgeous.