House of Cabal Volume One: Eden (8 page)

Chuck wasn’t sure what Grimes was getting
at.

“Time to cross the first threshold. Let my
voice take you back, back to the night everything changed.”
Grimes’s hand hovered above the table, as if floating
underwater.

Déjà vu struck hard, a sort of gut punch that
stole Chuck’s breath. A hand had moved like that before: the
hypnotist’s hand at Chuck’s birthday party.

His whole world was now the graceful hand
that danced like a cobra in front of his face.

Words traveled down a long tunnel; “I’m
ready.” The words had come out of Chuck’s mouth.

In the back of his mind, he knew he was being
rehypnotized. He could stop any time, but he wanted to see what was
behind the next bend and so instead, gave himself over
completely.

“We go back in time and into my head. Your
body weighs nothing. Your soul weighs nothing, and as you are
pulled back through yesterday, back through last week, through last
month, last year, time dissolves. Breathe. Slow. In. Out. Good. Now
let yourself float downward, ever downward toward a gray pool far
below. That pool is Everett—his memory and soul—and it grows bright
as you drift down toward it. Let it envelop you like warm water.
You could wait here in this tranquility forever. When I snap my
fingers, I will join you at the end of three, two, one.”

Grimes snapped his fingers, and both he and
Chuck fell into a deep state of hypnosis, forming two-thirds of the
Trinity Link.

Chapter 5

Cassette Tape One:

Dark Stormy Night

You look down at yourself. There is no self
to look down at, just gray void. The void is above and below. It is
everywhere and everything. An existential dread takes over your
awareness and a heaviness forms in your chest.

Something alien lives out in the abyss.

You want to turn way, to protect yourself
somehow. You feel its eyes on you, like the eyes of God are judging
you at the end of time.

Relax, Chuck. The end of the world will wait.
Y2K was proof of that.

The gray is steam. A form emerges from the
steam, not some malevolent being, just my athletic male form,
sitting on a bench, a towel wrapped at the waist. It is me sitting
here after a workout.

Listen to the water spray.

That sound is from the showers of a locker
room. Lockers and benches and tiles materialize out of the steam,
along with the smell of sweat and bleach, but still everything
blurs together. Unknown men dress or undress, and you hear banter
but can’t distinguish words.

A well-built man named Rod sits beside me,
his face vague like in a dream. I pull up my boxers under my towel
so as not to expose myself. I have light red, almost blond, chest
hair. Body hair trails down my defined abs. Freckles dust my
muscled shoulders. You can’t take in more than one detail at a
time.

I pull on my jeans, pull down the bunched
legs of my boxer shorts, and button my fly. As I dress, the
paranoia I felt earlier during my workout distracts me.

While I performed my chin-ups and bench
press, while I tried to focus on proper form, the whole time I felt
someone secretly watching me. People check me out all the time.
This was different. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on
end.

Even now I get a chill.

Should I mention it to Rod? Or am I being
crazy?

“Same time?” I say.

“Yep.”

I’ve known Rod for a few years. We spot each
other when we lift. I like that we rarely talk. He’s not dressed
yet, and I leave him behind, per usual.

As I turn the corner to exit the locker room,
a bodybuilder knocks into me hard. His skin is a shade darker than
Caucasian, with full lips and a clean-shaven jaw. His hair is cut
close to the scalp. His dark, intense eyes cruise me. Or is that
anger? Instead of saying anything, he pulls off his shirt. One
nipple is pierced with a silver ring.

Heat comes to my face, and I keep walking.
“Sorry.”

As you and I come out of the locker room, the
workout area overwhelms your senses with its complexity. Everything
blurs gray again.

Stay close.

You follow my instructions, staying close
enough to smell my deodorant. If you lose me, I’m worried you’ll be
lost in the void. Focus on me. Focus on my thoughts. My thoughts
create your reality.

I take the MAX: Portland’s light rail public
transit system.

Intense body odor invades your nostrils. You
still can’t see the complete scene, only small details: A ratty
scarf knitted in a million dirty colors. A patch on an elbow or a
knee. Empty cans rattling in plastic shopping bags. You can’t seem
to fill in the gaps, to piece the homeless passenger together in
your mind.

The ever-present gray looms outside the
window. If you look directly at the abyss, you fear you’ll glimpse
the alien presence you sensed before in the locker room. You
imagine it floating out there, a dark wraith or a large bloodshot
eyeball with tentacles coming out the back.

It’s just boring Portland outside as far I
can tell. Hold tight.

Normally I don’t take the MAX, but it’s been
raining hard lately. I don’t mind a sprinkle, but I don’t like
getting drenched.

I step off, and it’s dark and pouring. I jog,
my legs weak and heavy from the workout, and the blur of sidewalk
rushes underneath you. It’s like being underwater, and as I move, a
current pulls you along with me. You surrender to the pull. What
choice do you have?

Once home, the current around you calms and
you once again move of your own accord. I change into my plaid
pajamas. You feel like a ghost haunting me. This can’t be real.

I sit in my Laz-E-Boy. It’s okay, Chuck. I’m
right here: a twenty-seven-year-old in green and blue plaid pajamas
relaxing after an exhausting day of normality.

You stand behind my chair, fixing your tie,
not really looking at me. You want the real world back: your wife,
your children, your work.

But, Chuck, I am your work.

You collect your composure. In your breast
pocket the tape recorder spins its gears. Your other pockets are
stuffed with cassette tapes. You ask what year this is.

Two thousand. It still feels weird, doesn’t
it? Two thousand. The new millennium. Oh, it’s May 15, 2000, if you
need something more exact. You’re a biographer, right? Sorry. I’m
starting to forget. Why write about me? I’m nothing special.

A widescreen TV materializes, and because I’m
watching normal television, vertical black bars on the sides of the
screen make the picture square again. A news program reports that a
Dutch firework factory explosion killed twenty-three and injured
nine hundred fifty in the town of Enschede. In all, 1,250 people
were left homeless. Just numbers. I'm numb to it all. Commercials
flip by as I channel surf. My breath isn’t fresh enough. I’m not
sexy because I don’t have the right pair of jeans. My life is
drudgery; alcohol will make it bliss. Then the news comes back on
to inform me of my fears: everyone and everything, especially black
men and the occasional Hispanic.

You tell me in the future it will be Muslims.
You poke at a little screen in your hand and Google, "May 15, 2000
Enschede." The results come up. A firework disaster happened on
this date in Enschede, Netherlands. A YouTube video shows the
explosion. This is all happening somehow, but why come back to this
moment in history?

I ask if I can see your phone. Can you
actually get the Internet on that thing? And what is YouTube?

You say it's best to focus on the here and
now. You believe an inciting event will soon change everything in
my life. Before that happens, my ordinary world must be
established. Time to get to work.

You creep around me. My face, seeing it
straight on for the first time, reminds you of the halo effect.
What’s the halo effect? I ask you. And you explain that my
attractiveness causes people to assume positive traits: that I’m
intelligent, kind, trustworthy, a natural leader, successful in
relationships, a skilled lover. Because of my looks, people create
a positive narrative. They assume I’m happy.

It hurts you to remember my future self. In
fifteen years, I won’t look so handsome. In just fifteen years, my
youth will be gone forever. It strikes you that this projected
self-image might be fictional. Maybe this is only how I’d like to
remember myself.

Think whatever you want, Chuck. I don’t have
to prove myself to you. I’m not the one not really here.

I click off the TV. The flashing images have
dulled my senses. I should go back to the media deprivation of my
childhood. I was happier back then.

My mostly dark apartment clarifies. Near an
empty fireplace, a lamp illuminates a maze, ornately framed and
professionally hung over the mantle. The maze brims with intricate
art, like an ancient map created when the world was flat. In the
corner is my signature, the two Ts of Everett ending inside the G
of Grimes.

You think it's impressive but also mannered
and overwhelming, as if made by someone with OCD and too much free
time.

As a child, all I did was draw mazes and
solve puzzles and mind teasers. I couldn’t get enough. Now it’s
barely a hobby.

Photos of my family and friends line the
mantle. Among boring studio photos, a stand-out candid one shows my
girlfriend Carrie and me on an Oregon beach near Seaside. She’s
salon beautiful, while my red hair is frizzed out from the wind.
This was before we had sex, probably a year into our relationship.
Now I have my wavy hair cut short to make it easier to care for.
Carrie says it makes me look more GQ; she thinks the more GQ you
look, the better person you are. I have to get it cut every three
weeks or she complains. I secretly judge her and never say anything
critical to her face. Everyone says we’re in love.

I want the TV back on, so I don’t have to be
alone with my thoughts. Instead I pull off my pajama bottoms and
grab a syringe from the end table. I pull the plunger out to the 1
cc mark, stab the syringe into a vial, and press out the air. I
hold the vial close to my face and suction out one ML of liquid.
After giving the syringe a tap, I stab it into my leg and slowly
push the contents into my thigh.

I've never given myself a shot in front of
someone before. I trust you. Being vulnerable with you isn't a
risk.

You read the vial: a prescription of
cyanocobalmin.

I have a B12 deficiency, so I take a B12 shot
twice a week. I get moody and tired if I don’t take them.

You ask me why I'm uncomfortable injecting
myself in front of Carrie.

It's embarrassing. It makes me look weak.
Don't get me wrong. I like the idea of being in love, of trusting
someone enough to let down my guard. Keeping up appearances is
exhausting. But vulnerability isn’t an option.

I have this ideal future pictured. Carrie and
I have a family and we’re happy, of course. Raising children is
undeniably appealing, especially with someone I respect and admire.
I mean who doesn’t want to share joy?

And if I felt joy, that kind of life would be
possible. I don't feel much of anything. It's not Carrie's fault
I've shut off. I am who I am.

I don't connect with anyone anymore.

You make me nervous. Please, make yourself
comfortable; take off your tie or something. You slightly loosen
your business noose—you always wear ties and are not about to part
with this one. You tell me work makes you feel empowered.

I wear a tie every day and I can’t stand
them. Work suffocates me. Like I'm living my whole life in a
box.

The newest photo on the mantel is of my
co-workers at my twenty-seventh birthday party. If they’d been able
to blow out my candles, they would’ve wished to be me. God, I’m
such a conceited asshole.

You pick up a portrait of my parents: loving,
Seventh Day Adventists that live a state away in Washington. You
see where I got my Irish good-looks and say the two of them look
perfect, as if the picture came with the frame, and I tell you they
are perfect. My dad’s a doctor and my mom volunteers at their
church. They don’t drink or smoke. They’re vegetarians. My dad
still races triathlons. I should call them more often.

You continue to scan my living room as if
it’s a crime scene. What are you looking for?

On my coffee table, spatial puzzles and mind
teasers, a few prototypes created by me, litter the oak surface,
along with a skin magazine. I’m twenty-seven, and that’s the first
porn I’ve ever bought, and damn am I ashamed of buying it.

You ask me why? It’s not even hardcore. If
I'm so ashamed, why did I buy it in the first place? Why keep it on
my coffee table?

I squirm in my seat. I don't know. Maybe I'm
tired of Carrie. I mean, I've only ever had sex with one
person.

You wait for a deeper answer. A more honest
answer.

When did this become about my sexual
insecurities?

You don’t let it go and ask why I’m so
ashamed. For most people, softcore porn isn’t a big deal.

Are you here to interview me about my sex
life? Stop looking at me like that. I don't know. I don't know why.
Because it's easier, I guess.

You ask,
Easier than what?

Than real sex. Sex with Carrie.

You reassure me that what I'm feeling is a
common problem for a lot of men. Sex can be stressful.

It's not normal! You don't understand. I want
sex, it’s all I can think about sometimes, but when we do it, I
feel like I’m always failing. It's like this performance, and I
don’t have the script. She's judging me the whole time, and she
doesn't tell me what I'm doing wrong.

I don’t even know if she loves me. She says
she does. It doesn’t feel like it when we have sex though. It’s
like she’s just putting up with me until it’s over.