Louse (18 page)

“On to Mr. Beeles,” Ms. Lonesome says as we make our way down a corridor beyond the waiting area and Mr. Artaud's studio.

As we walk I occasionally look over at Ms. Lonesome, to the small flip of hair that bounces above her neck. And I can't help wonder why, if this dream that I have in my mind is a memory. What were we all doing there? Where were we? The more that I think of the other faces, the more I can tell they are nervous, as though they have been waiting for someone to arrive. I want to ask Ms. Lonesome if she shares these memories or dreams, but I'm afraid of how she might react.

The corridor ends. We come to a large metal door marked “Film and TV.”

“Why don't you try your new card, Mr. Louse,” Ms. Lonesome says.

I pull the identification from my pants pocket and swipe it through the electronic eye.

“Very good,” Ms. Lonesome says.

As she watches me do this, I notice from the corner of my eye that she is looking at me with great pity, almost as though she sees something within me that I can't see; maybe it's that she knows something about me that I don't know.

I turn and look her in the eye as the door clicks open. But that look I thought I saw a moment before has disappeared.

She smiles.

“After you, Mr. Louse,” she says.

We walk into a large room with rows and rows of televisions mounted on the wall and rows and rows of Film and TV staff wearing head phones, and who appear to be monitoring the screens, jotting down notes, programming. The images are mostly of scenes in
the casinos, brought in by the closed circuit network. However, there are some films being viewed, including some of Dr. Barnum's old footage.

It is uncomfortably quiet.

A small, rail-thin man wearing glasses, a thick mustache, and a large pompadour approaches us. He carries a folder with large letters across the front: HERBERT HORATIO BLACKWELL: THE UNTOLD STORY.

“Hello, Ms. Lonesome,” he says.

I recognize the voice.

“Hello, Mr. Beeles. This is Herman Q. Louse.”

Mr. Beeles smiles.

“Mr. Louse, Mr. Beeles.”

I smile.

“Yes, Mr. Louse,” Mr. Beeles says. “Nice to finally meet face to face.”

“Yes,” I say, looking more closely at his folder. “It's a pleasure.”

We shake hands.

“Just making preparations for the inevitable,” he says, holding up his folder. “The inevitable's inevitable. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Mr. Beeles lets out the laugh of a showman.

“Mr. Louse is our newest trustee,” Ms. Lonesome says. “Coming directly from the wings.”

“A new trustee? Well, nice to have you aboard, Mr. Louse. It's an exciting time for us trustees.”

“That's what I understand,” I say.

“If you'll just follow me, Mr. Louse.”

I turn to Ms. Lonesome.

“I'll be returning to my duties now, Mr. Louse. I trust you can find your way back.”

“Yes, of course,” I say, feeling an emptiness at the thought of her leaving me.

“Well then,” Ms. Lonesome says.

“Well then,” I say. “Good evening.”

“Good evening,” she says. “Good evening, Mr. Beeles.”

“Good evening, Ms. Lonesome.”

Ms. Lonesome looks at me for a moment. She blinks her eyes, then exits through the door we just entered.

“If you'll just come this way, Mr. Louse, I'll show you to your screening room.”

Mr. Beeles walks us by all the glowing monitors into a wide corridor that leads past a number of doors. He takes me to the very last one on the left.

“This is an indoctrination room,” he says as he opens the door and turns on the light.

The room isn't exactly a room, but rather a booth with a television monitor and a chair with a bucket seat and wide armrests. A pair of headphones hang from the ceiling.

I step in and sit down in the deep seat.

“What you're about to see, Mr. Louse,” Mr. Beeles continues as he leans against the door, “is a video especially designed for new trustees. It is meant to be a learning tool to help guide you through the rules and regulations that govern a trustee. You will find that, by virtue of the fact that you have become a trustee, you will be granted certain liberties at specific times in specific places, all of which are much too complicated to explain in a brief sitting. This screening will be the first of thirty-six thirty-minute installments.
Tomorrow, and for the thirty-four days following, you will come to us every morning to view the subsequent segments of the tape. Is that clear, Mr. Louse?”

“Yes, Mr. Beeles,” I say.

“In that case, I'll let you alone. The headphones are above. You can adjust the sound and the resolution of the screen with the remote control on the armrest there.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“Very well then,” Mr. Beeles says as he shuts the door. “Good viewing.”

The door clicks closed.

The television monitor turns from black to blue. As I place my headphones over my ears the logo of G. appears on the screen, the silhouette of the skyscraper eclipsing the setting sun.

Mr. Bender steps out from behind a burgundy velvet curtain into a spotlight.

Mr. Bender's voice is monotonous and begins to lull me to sleep. As hard as I search for some small bit of information to keep me stimulated, I can't. All of sudden, as if a bird has silently swept down from the sky and flown just inches from my face, I can see in my mind the man who visited Poppy's chambers earlier, the intruder I have been ordered to disregard, sitting in front of a wall of monitors just like those in Film and TV. He observes all the various floors of G.,
including Mr. Sherwood's and Dr. Barnum's offices, Dr. Barnum's sound stage, Poppy's chambers. On other monitors I can see images of the desert, where men and tractors break ground and where cranes sit in pieces waiting to be assembled. However, this is all I can remember of this scene. The images fade and I can't see any more and am left to wonder if I'm making it all up from bits and pieces of things I've learned. The essence of my memory materializes and dematerializes as quickly as I'm sure that what I am seeing is real.

Mr. Bender has moved to the other side of the stage.

. . .

I remember the others more and more. And there were others! There were others in the structure where I touched Ms. Lonesome's face, others in the room, the one with the window, in which I had been seeing my reflection all evening. There, in that space, I can see them standing around talking to one another, more casually, without looking fearful, looking onto the open view of the desert. And now that I think of their faces I know I have seen, here in G., more than just Ms. Lonesome, Ms. Berger, and the administrator of Lounge 18. There are a number of faces in my mind right now that feel like words on the tip of my tongue, but for some reason I can't recall any names or when we met or why we were together. I do recall, however unrelated, riding in an elevator with Mr. Godmeyer, who, paying no attention to me, looked up to the display as the numbers climbed to eighteen, at which floor we exited and were met by three men. For some reason I tried to run from them. But without considering any human formalities—for instance, to allow me the option of force or cooperation—the three of them lifted me off the ground and carried me over their shoulders. They opened a door, walked me into a room, and wouldn't let me down. I screamed at one of the men who was tying me to a chair with straps for my hands, feet, and neck, and a headrest for my head. The chair reclined back so my eyes were several feet from the doors of a large cabinet. Another man placed a contraption on my head that looked like a pair of blinders a jockey would put on his horse. Another man bolted the chair to the floor and opened the cabinet doors to reveal a very big TV. The TV was on, and on the screen was an image of myself, my face. It was me placing bets and losing money and placing bets and losing money. As I watched this, I remember I couldn't see the bets I placed. I could only see my face—the distress and the pleasure from
losing and winning. I remember I sat there for what felt like weeks. They came and went with food and allowed me to wash in the mornings and the evenings. I got so sick of my own image and so sick of looking at the greens and reds of the casino. However, this was only the beginning. Eventually they started playing the same hands and bets for hours at a time, then another and another, day in and day out—blackjack, craps, poker, baccarat, roulette. I couldn't tell how long this went on, because I couldn't see the time and the drapes were drawn and the lights were on. Hundreds of bets were rerun hundreds of times until it made me physically ill. I remember wanting to reach out and kill those who were causing me that pain and suffering. I remember fixing my vision on the pixels of the television screen. One by one they told somewhat cartoonish stories of their own about boys and girls and sex and love. I saw desert sunsets and desert springs and cactus blooms and fields of saguaros and open farmland. There were redwoods and sequoias and mountain switchbacks and panoramas of birds flying in flocks over wetlands. A light-less sky full of the Milky Way blanketed still waters. Shadows of furious eucalyptus caught in a hurricane. Wildfires burned chaparral hills. Bullets pierced sunflower petals. A woman and a young boy tended to a garden of narcissus bulbs and irises and danced as free as the fragrance made them feel. When those attending to me removed my soiled clothes and led me to the bathroom, the disorientation, as excruciatingly dizzy as it was, was filled with the same beautiful imagery. As we walked the vertiginous walk I saw blossoms flowering in the attendants' hairs. Each follicle and bud contained the eyes of spring and breathed the sounds of the casino. Holding onto their shoulders, looking at their heads, each strand of hair mimicked the voices of the patrons, the losers. Everything I could read
from the repetition of events on the television was relived with human contact. When they held me up in the shower, the marble stall filled with eerie silences and feet shuffling, with nervous contained laughter, distant sounds of slots being pulled, wheels spinning, bells of the winners ringing and the groans of the losers losing and the pensive clicking of chips of those pacing themselves for another day. And with all this, the smells of the tables would come to me and suddenly the soap smelled like cigars and alcohol and sweat and perfume. When the henchmen dressed me, their finger nails only reflected the beautiful hands I'd been dreaming of—flushes and straight flushes and royal flushes and four of a kind aces and full houses of kings and queens. When they strapped me back in with the buckles clasping and the big television filled with an image of my hands throwing cards to a dealer with a lisp and an oversized bow tie, I could see more than the formality of the hand I was holding and the fate that accompanied the hand. I could feel the process of each motion in my body and feel the coming illness that accompanied the repetition. Each motion was like a finger crawling into and down my throat to start the entire process over again. That moment when the attendants came and carried me to the bathroom to be cleaned—each time it took what seemed to be longer and longer. They played each of my hands that many more times, and when it finally reached the point of absolute absurdity, I started blacking out, eyes opened wide and rolled into the back of my head, memory lapsing and searching for where I was and why I was there. It was almost like having a concussion but without the blow to cause it. My mind with the absence of beauty collapsed on itself and left blank tape unraveling. It was somewhere at this point that I started waking up to the vision of this awkward-looking man I have now seen
in Poppy's chambers and the same one I've seen sitting before the monitors. I remember finding his face and smile pleasant, and surprisingly, all the images that accompanied my other experiences didn't reflect on his teeth, in his eyes, his hair. He had an aura about him that he was untouchable and pure and I was delighted to find that I could look him in the face and not find part of my wretched self. He was truly beautiful to me, a vision not unlike that of Adam touching the hand of God in the Sistine Chapel. I was elated to find him there every time I came to. Every time I came to, he stood there longer and longer but never said anything. One time when I was in the shower, I asked an attendant who he was, but the attendant denied that the man existed and said I was hallucinating. But the man continued to come and stand before me. Then one day he spoke and said we would be meeting together in the near future when my life would be changed for the better.